There were four French windows opening to the ground, shaded by outside striped blinds similar to those used in England, but not low enough to hide a most splendid view of hill and dale and far-away mountains, which seemed to surround the city of Valoro, itself seeming to rest on a plateau.

I was standing looking at a case of particularly objectionable yellow snakes when I heard one of the French windows move behind me; turning, I came face to face with the polite lieutenant of the band of robbers who had attacked our train. He had discarded the cowboys' dress and wore the clothes of a gentleman. He at once raised a revolver to the level of my head as I started back, and addressed me in perfectly polite tones.

"Come, come, Mr. Anstruther," he said, "it's no good. I want that packet. If you don't give it to me I shall simply shoot you through the head and take it."

It appeared to me that my journey after all had been in vain; there was the muzzle of the pistol within six inches of my head, and I had to make up my mind about it.

St. Nivel's words came back to me concerning the ill-luck of it, and I could almost hear him saying—

"Let the thing go; it isn't worth risking your life for."

Then I thought of Dolores, and on this thought broke the voice of the robber, cold and hard.

"You must make up your mind, Mr. Anstruther," he said, "while I count ten, otherwise I must fire."

He commenced counting slowly.

"One."

The thought of Dolores grew stronger.

"Two."

I could almost hear St. Nivel's voice urging me to give it up.

"Three."

Then there was my promise to the old lady, murdered, I believed, by these infamous ruffians. I hesitated.

"Four."

"Five."

"Six."

Then came another thought: would the old lady, who had been spoken of as the Baroness d'Altenberg, hold me to my word under the circumstances?

"Seven."

"Eight."

I doubted it.

"Nine."

I had made up my mind to save my life for Dolores.

"Hold," I said; "I will give it to you!"

He smiled.

"I think you are very sensible," he said; "anybody else but an Englishman would have given it up long ago, and then a great deal of trouble and several lives would have been saved."

I put my hand in my pocket despising myself the while for giving way, but still convinced that I should have been a fool to throw my life away under the circumstances.

"Perhaps you will tell me," I asked, as I drew the packet from my pocket, "how it is that you know I am here and that I have the packet with me?"

He laughed.

"I may as well tell you," he said, "that you have never been left unwatched since you left Bath."

"You seem to know my movements pretty well yourself," I said, in an astonished tone.

"Pretty well," he answered, with another smile.

I had no sooner drawn the packet from my pocket than he snatched it unceremoniously from my hands and walked with it towards the window.

"Don't move," he cried to me, "until I tell you or I shall fire. I must verify the contents before I leave you."

He still held the pistol in my direction and I have no doubt would have fired had I made the slightest move towards him, which I could not have done without making some noise, for about six paces divided us.

I stood still and regarded him as he tore off the covering with his teeth.

He was so thoroughly engrossed with the task that he did not hear a slight rustling sound which caused me to turn my head towards the door which led to the long range of what appeared to be glass houses, and which was just open a little. What I saw there made me turn cold from head to foot.

Gliding through the slightly open door, and pushing it farther open as it came with its immense bulk, was a huge black and yellow snake!

It was moving in the direction of the robber, who, entirely engrossed with the packet from which he had torn the wrapper, was totally oblivious of his position. The snake had possibly been attracted by the tearing noise which he had made as he rent the linen envelope with his teeth.

I had almost cried aloud to warn him, when, I checked myself. The man had come to murder me; he must take his chance. He had turned to me, satisfied with his scrutiny of the casket which he now held in his hand, the box which contained it having been thrown on the floor, when I saw the snake draw itself into a great coil and raise its head; then, just as his lips were opening to speak to me, the great reptile made a spring, and in an instant coiled itself tight round him, the tail whipping close like a steel wire. He gave a great cry and dropped the casket and the revolver immediately. Within a second or two I had them in my hands, and at the same moment the door opened and Don Juan d'Alta entered.

He rapped out a great Spanish oath, and a good many more words in the same language; then he turned to me.

"Who is this man?" he asked.

"That is one of the men," I answered at once, "who attacked the train. He entered this room a few minutes after you left me with the intention of robbing or murdering me."

"Then he seems to have got his deserts," replied my host, laughing. He came quite close to me and whispered in my ear, "The snake is quite harmless, but it will give him a fright and maybe break a rib or two if it squeezes hard."

The old man appeared to regard it as a huge joke, but kept a solemn face.

It appeared to be going beyond a joke to break his ribs, and I said so in a whisper.

"He deserves it," was the reply.

Meanwhile, the robber was becoming absolutely livid with fear, and began to supplicate Don Juan in Spanish.

Finding this of no avail, he turned to me.

"Have mercy, Senor," he cried piteously, "and help me to free myself from this reptile. It is crushing me to death."

The horrible thing with wide-open jaws was breathing in his face, and its fetid breath seemed turning him sick.

Don Juan laughed aloud, rather heartlessly it seemed to me, but the Spanish nature is a cruel one to its enemies.

"I know the man," he said, "and I cannot understand what has brought him into this galere. Let us question him?"

* * * * *

I could not quite see that a man enveloped in the embrace of a boa-constrictor, even though the reptile might be tame and harmless, would be a person likely to give either correct or coherent answers to questions, but I acquiesced in Don Juan d'Alta's suggestion that we should try and get some information out of him.

He commenced at once; speaking in English for my benefit.

"What induced you and your band to attack the train yesterday?" was his first question.

"I don't know," was the answer.

"That is a lie," responded Don Juan, speaking quite coolly. "If you wish to get out of the coils of that snake, you must speak the truth.

"Now come, I know of course who you are, I know everybody in Valoro, and especially the members of the Carlotta Society, which is avowedly Royalist and opposed to the present Government like myself. You are a member of that Society; you are one of its leaders. I suggest to you that the so-called band of robbers who attacked the train last night were simply members of the Carlotta Society?"

"I admit," gasped the man, trying with all his force to keep the boa-constrictor's head away from his face, "that I am a leader of the Carlotta Society, but I cannot disclose its secrets even to you."

"You must speak, Lopes," Don Juan said, "or you will not get free. Remember that I am a member of the Carlotta Society myself, though an honorary one on account of my age. You will never get back to your desk in the bank of Valoro if you don't speak."

"It is inhuman!" cried the man desperately, "it is vile torture!"

"It is also inhuman," added Don Juan sententiously, "to raid trains, and to threaten murder as you have done in this room. Your band too was none too scrupulous in hanging Jimenez the half-breed, though he was an informer. Tell me now, why did you hold up the train? why did you try to rob this English gentleman?"

"It was done," answered the man stertorously, for he was becoming weak, "it was done on urgent orders from Europe from our head."

Don Juan started, and going close whispered a name in his ear.

"Yes," replied Lopes faintly, but I heard the words, "from the Duke himself."

As Don Juan turned from him with a perplexed look, his eye caught the casket which I still held in my hand; he lost colour and became very agitated as he saw it.

"Where did you get that from?" he asked abruptly, seizing my hand.

I opened my hand and placed the casket in his.

"From the Baroness d'Altenberg," I replied. "I made the journey from Europe to give it to you. My task is accomplished."

The casket had reached its destination.



CHAPTER XIV

THE CASKET

"Now there are two favours I wish to ask you, Don Juan," I said, as he stood with the precious casket in his hands, "the first is to put that casket in a place of safety; the second to release this poor wretch from the snake."

He awoke from a fit of deep meditation with a start.

"I will grant your two favours immediately," he answered quickly as he put the casket in his breast pocket and buttoned his frock-coat over it; "see one is already done, now I will accomplish the other."

He went to the end of the apartment, and lifting a curtain hanging over the base of a bookcase, took from a shelf there a silver bowl, filled apparently with bread and milk.

With this he went out on to the terrace, through the French windows, and commenced to make a peculiar sibilant noise between his teeth, half whistle half hiss.

It had a most peculiar effect upon the boa-constrictor, who, from the first production of the silver bowl, had shown a lively interest in it by moving its great head up and down excitedly. The noise made by Don Juan, however, decided it; it began to uncoil itself from the would-be assassin and finally dropped on the floor with a "slump" and wriggled out of the window on to the terrace. As the man was released, I covered him with the revolver as I was taking no risks, but it was quite unnecessary, as he fell fainting on a couch to which he had staggered almost immediately he was free.

Don Juan returned from the terrace with a pleased smile.

"My pets are a great source of comfort to me," he remarked as he sank into a chair, after courteously making me take another. "To see that poor dumb thing take its food so healthily compensates me almost for the shock which this villainous fellow has given us."

"Snakes," he continued, "are greatly affected by sound, as no doubt you noticed just now. There is little question that the snake was attracted to Lopes by some sound."

"But still," he continued, placing his hand in his breast, "the sight of the casket which you have brought to me is a greater shock than the desperado's pistol presented at your head was to you."

He passed his hand over his forehead as if the idea bewildered him.

"And you say you got it from the Baroness d'Altenberg?" he asked.

"Yes," I answered, "I took it from the safe at her direction."

"Whatever can it contain?" he muttered to himself; then the figure of Lopes lying on the sofa caught his eye.

"We must have this fellow removed," he said. "What shall we do with him?"

I looked at the recumbent figure for some time, and it only inspired me with pity.

"I think he ought to be sent somewhere," I proposed, "where he would be taken care of and prevented from doing further mischief. Have you a hospital in Valoro?"

The old gentleman looked at me in some surprise.

"I assure you," he answered, "that we have two, as fine as any in Europe."

"Then," I said, "if I may make the suggestion, I would have Lopes sent off to one."

Don Juan rang the bell immediately, and when a servant answered it, he indicated the man on the couch and gave some order in Spanish to him.

"They will take him away," he explained, "and send him down to the hospital in one of my carriages. There we can have him arrested later if it is worth while."

In a very short time two men appeared and carried Lopes out of the room.

Then we sat down facing one another, and Don Juan produced the casket from his pocket and stood contemplating it upon his knee.

"Whatever could have prompted the old Baroness d'Altenberg to send me this," he cogitated half to himself, "after so many years; and what can it contain?"

I made a suggestion.

"Supposing you open it," I said, "while I walk in the garden."

"My dear Mr. Anstruther," he said, quite frightened at giving me so much trouble, "that is not at all necessary. I can go into my little cabinet here."

He indicated a small room, the door of which stood partly open, and revealed a little study with a writing table and a reading lamp.

"If you will excuse me for five minutes," he added, "I will retire into that little room and open the casket!"

"But have you the keys?" I asked.

He nodded with a smile.

"Oh yes," he answered, "those three little locks and the secret of opening them are very familiar to me, but I have not seen it for a great many years."

I did not in the least understand what he was alluding to, but I, of course, urged him to retire into his little room and examine the contents of the casket in peace, while I amused myself in the study itself.

"You will find some marvellous stuffed specimens of the green lizard in those lower cases," he remarked, as he disappeared into his sanctum. "I should advise you to study them closely."

He had no sooner disappeared into the little room, the door of which he left slightly open, when I mentally consigned the green lizards and, in fact, the whole lacertilian family to a place warmer than the plains of Aquazilia in summer even, and sat idly wondering how long it would be before I saw Dolores again.

I distinctly heard the click of a lock as the old gentleman opened the ebony casket, there was a pause and a long silence broken only by the crackling of paper. Then I heard him give a cry of astonishment, and a Spanish exclamation it was—"Madre de Dios!"

An invocation only used on occasions of great excitement.

Then I heard a low muttering as he repeated certain passages, possibly of the letter, to himself, but it was in a foreign language, probably Spanish, and entirely unintelligible to me.

Another pause followed, then the door opened again and Don Juan re-entered the room, but his appearance had entirely changed.

His healthy sunburnt complexion had lost all its colour and was of a leaden hue, his eyes were starting from beneath his bushy eyebrows, and his right hand, as he laid it on the back of a chair, trembled like a leaf in the wind.

"Mr. Anstruther," he said with difficulty, "it will be necessary for me to leave for Europe as soon as possible, for England, for Bath!"

If he had said that he had just made up his mind to go to the moon I could not have been more astonished!

"To England!" I repeated.

"Yes, to England, and that as soon as possible."

The whole thing seemed to me extremely curious.

"Forgive my asking the question," I said, "but do you mind telling me why you want to visit Bath?"

He considered for some moments, passing his hand across his forehead, which was clammy with perspiration.

"Before I answer that question," he said at last, "I should like to ask you another.

"I understand that you have met the lady who entrusted you with the casket which you have given me, at a certain house in a street called Monmouth Street in the town of Bath?"

"Yes, that is so," I answered.

"Are you aware that there was a safe in that house. A steel safe of peculiar workmanship?"

"Yes," I replied, "I have seen it and opened it. I told you so."

"Ah! then you can tell me," he cried excitedly, "what was in the safe?"

"I'm afraid I cannot; I opened the safe at the request of the old lady, who, at that time, was lying sorely wounded on her bed. I opened it hastily, took out what I was directed to take by a note within, then closed the safe again."

"But the safe was not empty?"

"No, I think I can go so far as to say that there appeared, as well as I recollect from the hasty glance I had, to be other documents and parcels behind those which I took away."

"Very good," Don Juan replied; "now tell me something more. In whose charge is that house in the street of Monmouth. Do you happen to know?"

"When I left Bath," I replied, "the house was in charge of a sergeant of police and his wife; they were caretakers."

"Very good, very good indeed," answered the old man, apparently much relieved; "now tell me one thing more. When does the ship by which you came return to England?"

"The Oceana returns in about a fortnight's time."

"Do you think now, if I used my best endeavours to make that fortnight very agreeable to you, and to show you during that time more, perhaps, than you would see of Aquazilia in a month in the ordinary way, that I could induce you to return to England with me by that ship?"

At first I thought that by agreeing with his request I should be leaving Dolores behind, then I remembered that I could induce him perhaps to take her with him.

I hesitated for a time and he pressed me.

"Come, now, Mr. Anstruther," he said, "give me your answer."

"I am perfectly certain," I said hesitatingly, for I was not going to give myself away, "that you will make our stay delightful, but I think, before I answer, I had better let you into a little secret.

"I happen to know that my cousin, Lord St. Nivel, and his sister, Lady Ethel Vanborough, intend asking you and Donna Dolores to spend some time with them in England. Could you not make this visit answer both purposes?"

"That would necessitate my taking my daughter with me," he said rather dubiously; then a light seemed to break in upon him, and a smile hovered about his lips to which the colour was just returning.

"Should my daughter have no objection," he replied guardedly, "I see no reason why she should not accompany us."

I know my face lighted up with pleasure. I could not control it.

"We shall spend Christmas with you," I said cheerfully at last, "at any rate, and Christmas in Valoro will be a great novelty both to my cousins and myself, I have no doubt."

"Christmas and the New Year are the gayest times with us of the whole twelve months," he answered, "and you will be able to be present at them both."

"The prospect," I cried, "is delightful, and I will return with you, Don Juan, with pleasure. I should be most ungrateful to refuse your kind offer. I think I can answer for my cousins too, as they have really only taken this trip to please me."

"Very well, then," he said rising, "that's settled; now we will go and find the ladies. I have no doubt your cousins have arrived by this time. I sent an automobile for them."

As I followed him, I flattered myself that I could persuade Dolores to take that return journey with us to Europe, if any persuasion were indeed necessary, by which it will be seen that I was acquiring a certain amount of confidence in my powers over that young lady.



CHAPTER XV

THE ABBOT OF SAN JUAN

The two weeks which followed constituted, I have no hesitation in saying, the gala fortnight of my existence.

I never could have imagined it possible that so much pleasure could have been crowded into such a short time. But can it not be easily believed that everything then was to me gilded with that supreme fine gold, the glamour of a young love? Yes, I think even the old Don himself saw it, and at any rate did not forbid it.

I went about with Dolores everywhere, even to church, at which she was a regular attendant, and I flatter myself behaved very creditably there, for though I was not a Roman Catholic like herself, yet I had attended the Sunday evening ministrations of the monks of Bath, and knew a good deal about it through the said monks' discourses.

I hope I don't make a mistake in calling them monks—if I do, I ask their pardon. I certainly understood them to say they were monks.

Be that as it may. I did not disgrace Dolores when I went with her to the great cathedral in Valoro.

But our time there was by no means entirely spent in going to church. Day after day the old Don engaged special trains in which we flew about the Republic faring sumptuously everywhere, and on our return there would generally be a dinner-party, followed by the theatre or the opera—a magnificent house and performance—and as likely as not a ball after that. Much more of it would have killed us all.

But the gay life mercifully drew towards a close, and Dolores and I began to contemplate a pleasurable voyage back on that very ship on which we had first met and loved.

Yes, loved; we were plighted lovers now; there was no secret, no hiding anything from one another.

By Dolores' wish I only waited to reach England to tell her father of my love for her and ask him for her.

"And do you think he will give you to me, darling?" I asked one beautiful night, when we were sitting out a waltz at a ball at the house of a grandee at Valoro. "Do you think he will give you to an Englishman?"

"Considering that he gave his sister away to an Englishman I don't see how he can refuse me to you, dearest," she answered. "At any rate I think I can persuade him."

Yes, I believed she could, she looked capable of persuading the angels themselves, in her dress of white silk, cut rather low, with a string of pearls round her neck worth about the value of the winner of the Derby.

Towards the last few days of our stay in Aquazilia, when we were all, even Lady Ethel, surfeited with dancing, and St. Nivel and I began to look askance at banquets, Don Juan came to me one day and took me aside into his garden.

I purposely led him away from the direction of the reptile houses of which I had a holy horror, and we sauntered down a shady avenue of palms.

"There is one place of interest near Valoro, Mr. Anstruther," he said, "which I should much like to show you and Lord St. Nivel if he cares to come, and that is the great Trappist Monastery at San Juan del Monte, about ten miles from here."

"By Jove!" I answered, "that is the very place I should like to see! I'm your man at any time."

"If you can be up by seven to-morrow morning," continued the old man, "we can motor over in the cool of the day. I know it is asking a good deal of you, because we have this evening to attend the reception of your minister, and then go on to the ball at Donna Elvira della Granja's. At the earliest we shall not be in bed till two, I fear."

"Never mind," I answered, "a cold tub usually puts me straight after a late night, and I am particularly anxious to see some real live monks in real cells."

"You will see both there in dozens," replied d'Alta; "there are nearly three hundred monks there."

Despite the dissipation of the night, six o'clock the next morning saw me out of bed, and 7.45 found me dressed for the road and as fresh from my cold bath as if His Britannic Majesty's Minister at Valoro had not given a reception at all, and Donna Elvira della Granja's ball had never taken place, though I certainly put in an appearance at the former, sitting in a corner with Dolores and listening to her description of all the political notabilities present, and at the latter I certainly did my duty as an Englishman, as many a black-eyed donna could testify, albeit I had all the best waltzes with Dolores, and of course took her in to supper.

I think every one in Valoro by this time put us down as an engaged couple; especially as old Don Juan seemed a consenting party or discreetly blind to our proceedings.

St. Nivel told me afterwards of a conversation he overheard between two American attaches at Donna Elvira's.

"I guess," remarked the "Military" to the "Naval," "that Englishman's goin' to walk off with old d'Alta's girl."

"You bet," confirmed the Naval, "he's fairly on the job. What is he?"

"Well, he's the cousin of that young Lord St. Nivel," responded the Military, "and that counts a lot, of course. But his real trade I'm told is book writing."

"Jeehosophat!" commented the Naval. "I guess he'll chuck that when he's Don Juan's son-in-law; the old snake-charmer will never tolerate a mere bookman in his drawing-room. His blue Spanish blood would all turn green, I reckon."

Thus was the humble calling of a novelist despised, even in Valoro!

When, however, I descended from my bedroom at 7.45, after partaking of a delicious petit dejeuner of coffee, milk, bread, and fruit in my apartment, I found Don Juan d'Alta ready for the road, and the motor at the door. In five minutes St. Nivel joined us.

"I didn't like to be left behind, old sportsman," he exclaimed. "Staying in bed on a huntin' mornin' is not exactly my form, even when the quarry is merely a harmless Trappist!"

"Your early habits do you credit, but your language, St. Nivel," I said reprovingly, "is verging on the profane."

"I'm sure I'm very sorry," he answered. "I'd walk ten miles rather than offend any one's feelings. I hope Don Juan didn't hear me."

"Don Juan is a man of the world," I answered, "and it wouldn't matter if he did, but other people might hear you and not like it."

"Righto, Bill," replied my sporting cousin. "I'll keep my eye on you and try and not put my foot in it."

In a few minutes we were rattling through some magnificent mountain scenery, with luxuriant vegetation and lovely wild flowers on every side. On the tops of the trees were parrots of varied colours which, disturbed by the noise of the motor, fluttered in all directions before us.

"Now I particularly want you to notice the abbot," said Don Juan as we approached the monastery, a very ancient-looking pile of buildings situated in a most lonely spot on the side of a mountain, yet surrounded by scenery which would have rivalled any in the world; "he is a most remarkable man, and possesses, as you will see, a most remarkable presence."

Presently we drew up at a very plain front door, and were immediately reconnoitred through a small wicket hole.

"The janitor," observed St. Nivel, "is evidently taking stock of us, and for that reason, Bill, I feel thankful that you have put on that new Norfolk suit; it gives the whole party a classy appearance."

The survey seemed satisfactory. Some bolts were shot back and the door opened, disclosing a monk in a brown habit.

He made some evidently most respectful remarks to Don Juan in Spanish, and then we all entered the monastery and were shown into a guest-room.

Here in a few minutes another lay brother brought a liqueur stand with glasses.

"Veritable Chartreuse," remarked Don Juan, as he laid his hand on the little decanters of green and yellow liquid, "the true stream drunk at the source!"

He filled the little glasses and handed them round as the lay brother stood looking on admiringly.

"You must take some," he said, "or they will be offended."

St. Nivel sipped his glass appreciatively.

"The monk who invented this," he remarked sententiously, "deserved to go to heaven."

"Our abbot will give himself the honour of waiting upon your lordships," were the lay brother's parting words as translated to us by Don Juan.

We possessed our spirits in contentment, and awaited his coming, whilst d'Alta expatiated on the rigours of the Trappists' life, their isolation, their silence, their exactness in the keeping of the Office of the Church.

I fear this discourse, earnest though it was on the part of our host, was lost upon St. Nivel, whom I detected catching flies—and liberating them immediately—in the most solemn part. To him the severest form of penance was represented by a life from which all descriptions of "huntin'" and "shootin'" were excluded. He had been burning to kill something big in the game line ever since he had set foot on shore, and I was quite prepared to hear him ask the abbot when he arrived whether he was "a huntin' man." He had asked that question of almost everybody we had met up to then in Aquazilia.

The abbot, however, came at last, just as Don Juan was concluding an account of St. Bruno, the Founder of the Order, and Jack was sitting with his eyes stolidly fixed upon the liqueur decanter.

Yes, the abbot was all d'Alta had said; he was a man of fifty, tall, spare, straight as a dart, but unlike most of the other monks we saw, fair and fresh coloured.

I stood looking at him for some time, gazing into his fair open face, after he had taken my hand and released it. I wondered who it was he reminded me of, whose face he brought so vividly to my recollection. Yet striking as the likeness was to some one, I could not recall who that some one was.

"You must be hungry after your drive, gentlemen," he said, speaking very fair English, as indeed most educated people did in Aquazilia. "I have ordered dejeuner at once for you. While it is preparing would you like to see the monastery?"

St. Nivel and I at once expressed our pleasure at the prospect, and the abbot preceded us, walking with Don Juan, but stopping occasionally to turn and speak to us and point out some object of interest.

In this way we passed through the wonderful institution and saw the Trappists each in his little abode, a sort of cottage to himself in which he ate and slept, and worked alone. At stated hours all through the day and night, the hundreds of monks met in the church to recite the office.

Don Juan told us as we stood on the steps of the great corridor that he had spent a week there in retreat before his marriage, and kept the "Hours" with the community.

Pointing down the corridor which stretched before us, he said the sight which struck him most was to stand as we did, on a night in winter and hear the great bell ring for Matins.

"Then," said he, "all those doors of the little houses open, and from each comes out a monk with a lantern. They look like hundreds of fireflies all going towards the great Abbey church."

I think the abbot saw with that intuitive knowledge which belongs to a refined nature that St. Nivel was bored; he steered us back to the guest-room, where a most excellent lunch was awaiting us—soup, fish, a dish of cutlets and a sweet omelette, all excellent, and served with red and white wine-like nectar and coffee from the Trappists' estate on the hills.

The abbot did not eat with us, but sat and charmed us with his conversation, for charming it was.

He talked with that fascinating fluency which one would have expected to find in a travelled man of the world rather that in a cloistered monk. He held us during all that meal, giving zest to each dish that came, with anecdotes of every country, and yet he spoke with a refined simplicity and perfect innocence of thought. His clear-cut and healthy face, his bright blue eyes and white teeth, the exceeding sweetness of his face and expression are with me now as I write.

When it was over and we had parted from him and were flying back to Valoro and modernism, I turned to Don Juan and spoke my thoughts.

"And where," I asked, "can the Order of Trappists have gained such a wonderful recruit from?"

The old man's face, which had been smiling, turned very grave; he shook his head and sighed.

"Ah! I wish I could tell you!"

That was his answer.



CHAPTER XVI

THE CONFESSION OF BROOKS

We left Valoro a few days after the great festival of the New Year, which came as a fitting finale to all our gaiety.

Christmas had been a quiet, sedate feast in the nature of a Sunday. We left just as the premonitory signs of the rainy season were making themselves apparent.

St. Nivel's friends, the American attaches, told him that we were well out of it, as the rains were torrential.

Dolores and I commenced the journey with much satisfaction; up to the last we had feared that Don Juan might have altered his mind and left his daughter at home, but I think the old gentleman began to understand, if he thought about it at all, that if he left Dolores behind, he would also have to leave me too.

Our departure was on the morrow of a great banquet, given by Don Juan to many of the notabilities of Valoro in our honour.

It was one of the grandest dinners I was ever present at, and the display of ladies' dresses and jewels would have done credit to a court function at home. But I think the sweet simple beauty of Dolores and my cousin Ethel took the palm. On this occasion I took in to dinner a grave and important donna with a distinct beard and moustache. I was told that she was a model of piety and that all—or nearly all—pious old ladies in Aquazilia had beards and moustaches!

Dolores sat opposite me on this occasion, and the way in which a young military attache of Brazil paid her attention under my very nose, stamped him at once in my estimation, with his curled-up moustache, as a mere puppy!

I am sure Dolores thought so too, although she did listen to his trashy conversation, because when we were saying "good-night"—hastily under one of the big palms on the terrace—oh! if he could have seen us—she told me with her two dear arms round my neck that she only loved me, and I was not to look so jealous another time at a dinner-party, but talk to my partner whether she had a beard and moustache or not. Just as if I could look jealous and of such a man!

And so we left Aquazilia behind with its sunshine and lavish hospitality, and took ship again—the dear old Oceana—for our own foggy island, which I did not much relish returning to in February.

But Dolores was with me and she made sunshine everywhere.

We had been a fortnight on our return voyage, when an incident occurred which filled me with surprise and concern.

It was one of those grey days at sea when the prospect of the mingled ocean and sky is not very attractive.

St. Nivel was in the smoking-room; Dolores and Ethel were in the state-room of the latter, holding one of those long important feminine conferences—most delightful, I understood, to themselves—in which dress was the piece de resistance, with perhaps a little gossip about Ethel's conquests in Aquazilia; they were legion! Mrs. Darbyshire was asleep in her state-room, and as for the dear old man, Don Juan, whom I looked upon now as my future father-in-law, he was studying assiduously a book he had picked up in the ship's library, Reptiles of England, Scotland, and Wales.

Simple soul! He might just as well have studied the snakes of Ireland for all he would see of them in England at that time of the year, unless he went to the Zoo, and then I understand he would not see much.

Our party being thus disposed of, I was sitting alone in a sheltered part of the promenade deck—for there was a bit of a wind—rather depressed at the dreary grey prospect I was contemplating. I was absolutely alone.

Perhaps I had been sitting thus half an hour, wrapped up in a Burberry, when I heard a soft footstep approaching, and my man Brooks stood before me. I noticed that he too looked depressed, and I put his expression down too to the effect of the weather. He stood there for a moment in silence, then preferred a request.

"May I speak to you for a few minutes, sir?" he asked.

I straightened myself up in my deck chair, and took a good look at him; he certainly appeared very solemn, as if he had got something on his mind.

"Certainly, Brooks," I answered, "what's the matter?"

The man had been a most excellent servant, and indeed I considered I owed my life to him, and perhaps Dolores' as well, for had he not handed me my Colt's revolver on that memorable night when the train was attacked, and I was being carried off by the supposed robbers? He availed himself of his permission to speak very slowly; he appeared to be turning something over in his mind, and whatever it was, was apparently not very agreeable. He stood at "attention," the habit of an old soldier, with his forehead puckered; at last his lips opened, and he commenced what he had to say.

"When you engaged me, sir," he began, "you were under the impression that I was a straightforward English servant. Sir," he added, "I was nothing of the sort."

I looked at his bronzed, clean-shaven face, fair hair and soldier's blue eyes, in wonderment.

"What are you talking about, Brooks?" I asked. The man's tone disturbed me. I had grown quite fond of him, and feared he was going to give notice. He was a most perfect valet, the best by far that I had ever come across.

"You thought I was straight, sir," he continued, "and I wasn't. It was like this, sir: when I left the army I was taken as valet by the Dook of Birmingham; his brother had been an officer in my old regiment, and I had been his servant.

"I lived with the Dook over two year, and then when we were staying in a big house near Sandringham there was some jewellery of the Dook's missed, and His Grace told me that, although he made no charge against me, he should get another valet.

"I give you my word, sir, as I stand here, that I knew nothing of the missing jewellery. I was as innocent of stealing it as a babe unborn.

"But I knew perfectly well that the thing would stand against me, and that I should be a marked man; indeed, there was a good deal of talk about it in the housekeeper's room among the other upper servants. About this time the valet of a great foreign duke, who happened to be also staying in the neighbourhood, and himself a foreigner, came to me one day when I was very downhearted, and asked me to come over to the great house where he was staying and drink a bottle of Rhine wine with him. I went, and he showed me your advertisement, and told me he thought it would be a good thing for me.

"I thought so too, but I did not believe that you would be likely to take me if you were told why I was leaving the Dook, as I have no doubt you would have been.

"I mentioned this to the foreign valet, and he said he thought he knew a gentleman who would help me, and perhaps I had better go and see him first. By his direction, sir, I went to see a gentleman at the Langham Hotel in London, a Mr. Saumarez."

"Saumarez?" I exclaimed. "What was he like?"

"He was a dark gentleman, sir, and he had got something the matter with one of his eyes."

"Thank you," I said, "go on. I think I know who the gentleman was."

"He asked me to confide in him, sir, and I told him everything, and the difficulty I feared I should have in finding another situation.

"After some conversation he said he thought I certainly ought to try for your situation, and that if I succeeded to come and let him know, and he would see about the character without troubling the Dook.

"As you know, sir, you were good enough to entertain my application, and I then went straight away to Mr. Saumarez to ask him what I was to do.

"He said that on certain conditions a friend of his would give me a character."

"That was Captain FitzJames, I suppose?" I interrupted.

"Exactly, sir," Brooks replied, "the gentleman who you supposed I had been living with."

"This is pretty bad, Brooks," I said gravely, looking away at the grey horizon. In my heart I was thoroughly sorry for the man. And he was such a good valet, too! No wonder, for he had lived with one of the richest dukes in England.

"Yes, it is pretty bad, sir," he continued, "but not as bad as what's to come. I asked Mr. Saumarez what conditions he required of me, and he told me. First, I was to keep him informed daily of every movement of yours; secondly, I was to be ready to act under his orders in certain 'simple matters.' He explained that these simple matters would consist in 'little acts which would harm no one.'

"At first I was inclined to walk out of the room and leave him, and I think he saw my intention, for he held up his hand and went on further.

"He told me plainly that I was entirely in his power, and that he could prevent me getting a situation at all if he chose. I had told him I had a wife and two children depending on me—although I deceived you, sir, in that matter under his advice. He asked me now whether I wished them to starve. He pointed out that if I accepted his terms he would double my wages, so that I could leave my little family in comfort. I couldn't bear to think they would be in want, sir. I felt certain I had fallen among a bad lot, and believed myself to be powerless. In the end, sir, like a fool, I gave in and agreed to his terms.

"Now just listen, sir, how I betrayed you.

"I wrote every day to Mr. Saumarez and told him of every movement of yours, especially the going to the solicitors; he wanted to know all about that.

"You will remember the last time you went there, just before we went to Euston on our way to Liverpool? Well, that newspaper man running along and knocking me down, and the lady and gentleman coming up and brushing you down, was all a put-up job. I was told to fall down and keep out of the way to give the others time to act. Of course, it was they who cut your coat open.

"I wonder you can listen to me, sir."

"Go on," I said.

"I knew they hadn't got what they wanted, because there was a long telegram waiting for me at Liverpool on board, and I was told to keep up communication with Saumarez by Marconograms. So, I did; I did all they wished until the train was held up, and then, sir, when I saw you stripped by those greasers, and about being carried off, I could stand it no longer. I made my mind up to throw Saumarez over and protect you; it was then that I went and fetched your revolver and put it in your hand. Since then I have kept on giving them information, but it is all false.

"I couldn't bear the worry of it any longer. I laid awake all last night, and this morning I made up my mind to come and tell you everything.

"I know you will discharge me, sir, and I deserve it.

"I only have to humbly ask your pardon for betraying you, and forgetting I was once an English soldier."

He finished, standing before me, white, and with quivering lips. As he ceased speaking, I could not help remembering that, at any rate, he had saved my life in all probability, and that which was far dearer to me than life, the honour of Dolores.

I turned to him.

"For the present," I said, as kindly as I could under the circumstances, "continue to do your duties, and I will consider what I must do."

"If I could only think you would give me another chance, sir——" he said, eagerly taking a step forward.

"I cannot promise," I said. "I must consider."



CHAPTER XVII

THE STEEL SAFE

Don Juan's conduct upon our arrival in London was both a revelation and a surprise to me.

First, following a custom, now long established for diplomatists, he put up at Claridge's.

From that famous hotel I had the pleasure of accompanying him at his request on a series of visits.

The first was an appointment at the Foreign Office, and there he was closeted with the Secretary of State for a solid two hours, while I was kicking my heels in a waiting-room. His last words to me had been exceedingly disappointing.

"You must forgive me for not taking you with me, Anstruther," he said, "but the matter I am engaged upon is of such an exceedingly confidential nature that I dare not disclose it to any one, except the Ministers themselves."

I simply bowed my acquiescence and said nothing.

But being left alone in the waiting-room, which was liberally supplied with writing materials, I industriously filled up my time by writing letters.

First, of course, to Dolores, whom I had left but an hour before at Claridge's, and to whom I yet felt constrained to pour forth my soul on paper.

The feeling, I have no doubt, was a mutual one, as when I returned to my hotel to dress, there was handed to me as usual a letter from Dolores, giving me an account of her morning's proceedings.

Having disposed of my letter to her on this particular morning, I wrote to my cousin St. Nivel.

"As for solving the mystery of the old lady at Bath and her casket," I wrote, "whether she is alive or dead, and why she sent me to Valoro, all, my dear Jack, are to me at the present moment as great a mystery as the reason why His Serene Highness the Duke of Rittersheim should want to shoot me at a battue down in Norfolk!

"I go about with Don Juan d'Alta, and I might just as well be walking about with one of the lions in Trafalgar Square for all the information I get out of him. His is the silence of the old diplomatist."

To Ethel I sent my love; she was pretty well informed of our movements, as she and Dolores had become fast friends, and corresponded twice or thrice a week.

From the Foreign Office Don Juan walked me over to the Home Office, and there he had a lengthy interview with the Home Secretary of fully an hour's duration. Finally, we went to Scotland Yard, and there I thought we should never get away at all; I, of course, being "in waiting" all the time.

But there was one consolation which Dolores and I had had ever since we set foot on board the Oceana on our return, and that was, we did not care how soon Don Juan knew of our betrothal; we only waited for the old gentleman to be rid of his mysterious business to declare ourselves.

For myself, I had but little anxiety as to the result. I had caught him looking at us on board the steamer, when we were together, openly lovemaking, and his expression then had been wistful, but not unkind nor unfavourable. Therefore, I had great hope.

"If he will not give his consent, darling," my little sweetheart had whispered often in my ear, "I shall tell him that I will go and be a nun."

"But you won't, will you, little one?" I always asked anxiously, "you won't go and leave me?"

And then she would generally make the naive confession—

"I would rather marry you, dear, than be a nun."

After ringing the changes between the Foreign Office, the Home Office, and Scotland Yard for a week, Don Juan suddenly expressed his determination to go down to Bath. I was asked to secure rooms for them at the "Magnifique"; it was to be a fairly long stay, and Dolores was going too.

The proceedings at Bath mystified me more than ever. The first thing that happened, when we were installed at the "Magnifique," was, that Inspector Bull accompanied the head of the police on a visit of ceremony and absolutely raised his hat to me on discovering that I was a la suite of Don Juan d'Alta! I was never more thunderstruck in my life, and was hardly able to return such an unexpected act of courtesy, through astonishment.

The next thing was a ceremonious visit to Cruft's Folly in a motor car. There we found the inspector keeping guard over a curious array of articles assembled on a table on the ground floor of the tower; they were a most extraordinary collection. First, there was a lady's handkerchief, and I identified it at once as a fellow one to that which I had found in the still warm bed of the old lady in Monmouth Street.

"Are you quite certain," inquired Don Juan, when I had told him about it in answer to his question. "Are you certain the handkerchief you found was like this?"

"As certain as I stand here," I answered; "if there is any doubt about it I can get the other, for it is only at the hotel."

"Very well," replied the old gentleman with an air of satisfaction, making a note in a book, "that settles that matter. Now for the next. Have you ever seen that silver cigarette box before?"

I took up the article he referred to, which was standing by the handkerchief on the table, and examined it; it might, or might not, have been that case from which I took a cigarette in the old lady's room on the occasion of my first visit. I told them so.

"You cannot swear to it?" asked the old Don.

"No," I answered, "I cannot swear to it; it may be the case, and it may not."

"Now, Inspector," he said, turning to the police officer, "kindly show Mr. Anstruther that."

He pointed to a bundle lying on the table, the last of the articles, and the inspector took it up, and slowly unfolded it. It was a lady's quilted white silk dressing-gown, and the whole of the bosom of it was deeply stained with what was evidently dried blood.

I turned in triumph to the police officer.

"That is the dressing-gown worn by the old lady the last time I saw her lying bleeding on her bed in the basement of 190 Monmouth Street. I told you of it at the time, and you would not believe it."

Don Juan appeared exceedingly interested at this exhibit, and leant over it with his gold pince-nez held to his eyes.

"Ah!" he remarked at last, removing his glasses with a sigh, "then I suppose that is all you have to show Mr. Anstruther, Inspector?"

The inspector gathered up the articles ceremoniously before he answered.

"That is all we 'ave to exhibit to Mr. Anstruther at present," he said.

Mr. Bull was not going to commit himself.

From Cruft's Folly we went straight to 190 Monmouth Street, and there we found the sergeant's wife in her Sunday clothes to do honour to the occasion; the baby as usual dangled easily from her arm.

Descending to the basement, I was astonished to find a well-known gentleman waiting us in the room with so many sad remembrances for me.

This gentleman was a Mr. Fowler, and I knew him to be one of the Crown solicitors. His presence there, however, was accounted for when Don Juan asked me for the key of the steel safe, which I still had in my possession.

Under the circumstances I felt fully justified in giving it to him.

"Now, Anstruther," he said cheerfully, "I will get you to show me and Mr. Fowler the secret of the panel."

The broken glass had been already cleared from the frame over the mantelpiece; therefore, as soon as I touched the carved rose on the left-hand side, the framework moved up. I touched the spring beneath and the door in the wall flew open; there within was the steel safe, exactly as I had seen it last, Don Juan turned to me with a look of solicitude.

"Don't feel offended, Anstruther," he began, "at what I was going to say, but it is essential that I should open this safe in the presence of Mr. Fowler alone."

As he took the key from my hands and inserted it in the lock, I bowed and left them.

For half an hour I paced the passage without or wandered through the back door into the neglected garden, which I found abutted on a disused graveyard—a very common object, met with often in startlingly unlikely places in one's walks in Bath.

It was on my return from one of these little rambles that I found the door of the old lady's sitting-room open, and Don Juan and Mr. Fowler superintending the removal of the safe by two porters; a third gentleman had now joined the party.

"This is Mr. Symonds of the Bank of England," said the old Don ceremoniously. "He has very kindly undertaken the removal of this safe to London."

I was getting now so used to the Don's mysterious movements that even this did not surprise me. I noticed, however, that the safe had been very carefully sealed in addition to being locked. The safe was carried up to the street and placed on the front seat of a large motor car which was waiting.

In this the representative of the Bank of England quickly entered, and two very unmistakable detectives who had been standing by mounted on the front seat, then the motor puffed away.

"They won't stop now," remarked Mr. Fowler, "until they reach Threadneedle Street."

Within a quarter of an hour Don Juan and I were back in his private room at the hotel.

"Thank God!" he exclaimed as we entered, "my mind is now cleared from that terrible anxiety, and I can rest in peace."

I looked very hard at the old gentleman as he sank into an arm-chair, but I did not agree with him.

"Excuse me, Don Juan," I said, "I have another very serious matter to trouble you with."



CHAPTER XVIII

THE OLD GRAVEYARD

"What do you mean?" asked Don Juan.

The old man glanced at me quickly, an anxious look in his eyes.

I looked him straight in the face in return.

"Don Juan," I replied, "Dolores and I love one another."

The anxious look faded into one of softness, and he commenced walking backwards and forwards in the room, without answering me.

Presently he stopped and faced me again, and in his old eyes, which were blue like his daughter's, there were tears.

"I will not conceal from you, Anstruther," he began, "the fact that your affection for Dolores has been apparent to me for some time past, and has given me cause for much thought. Not that I have distrusted you, remember," he added with a kind glance.

"I am not often deceived in a man, and I think I could trust my child to you." I gave a great gasp of pleasure, but he added immediately, "under certain circumstances."

"And those circumstances?" I asked anxiously.

"First," he began as he sank into an arm-chair, "you are of different religions; you are not a Catholic, I understand."

I answered him smiling.

"I don't think we shall disagree over that," I replied, "Dolores and her children shall worship the Almighty as she wishes. My religion is that of a man of the world, I worship with all."

The old man nodded his grey head and smiled.

"I did not expect you to be very bigoted," he answered quietly.

"Now, there is another point, Don Juan," I continued, "upon which I must satisfy you, and that is my ability to keep a wife."

I told him of my little estate in Hampshire with its small manor house on the shores of the Solent, and how I had let it to a yachting man who had taken a fancy to it; it being too large for my modest bachelor wants. I told him proudly of my balance at the bank, swelled by the thousand of the old lady of Monmouth Street, of which he already knew. I told him what my income was from every source, and finally what I succeeded in wringing annually from the publishing body. This last item seemed to amuse him mightily, despite his polite effort to listen to me with becoming solemnity.

"Very good, very good, Anstruther," he said at last encouragingly, "I see you are quite capable of maintaining a wife in a modest way. It is very creditable to you, too, that you have taken to making money by your pen. With regard to Dolores, however, should she become your wife, she is not likely to be a burden to you financially. She will, in the first place, become entitled on her marriage to an income of fifty thousand dollars, which arises from property which I settled upon her mother.

"Then, she is my only child as you know, and I shall make a further settlement upon her. My income has been accumulating for years, I want but little; when I die she and her children will have all."

The amount he mentioned certainly took my breath away, but I raised my hand and asked him to stop.

"Believe me, Don Juan," I said, "I should be a happier man if I could supply her wants by the work of my hands."

"I do believe you," he answered, "and those would be my own sentiments exactly under similar circumstances. You will, however, not find a good income a bar to marital happiness if used judiciously. But enough of financial matters; I wish to come to another more important point. I believe it that Dolores loves you; from my own observations I believe she does, but I must hear it from her own lips.

"Should it prove to be the case, which I do not doubt, then I will give my consent to your marriage."

I rushed forward joyfully to thank him, for I knew what Dolores' answer would be, but he held up his finger to check me.

"I will give my consent under those circumstances," he continued, "on one condition."

"And that?" I asked eagerly.

He did not answer me at once; he sat in his chair, with his hand to his forehead, thinking.

Then he lifted his head.

"Sit down and listen to me, Anstruther," he said; "I want you to follow exactly what I say.

"When you arrived in Valoro six weeks ago, and gave me that casket, you reopened an episode in my life closed many many years ago."

He spoke with great emotion and his lip trembled. I even saw a tear coursing down his sunburnt cheek.

"Since then," he continued, "you have very kindly followed me in the fulfilment of certain duties which devolved upon me upon opening that packet. You have followed me without question, as became a gentleman, taking an old man's word that all was well. In keeping that silence of delicacy, Anstruther, you have unwittingly done me a great service; you have left me unhampered to fulfil that which I had to do."

He paused and placed his fingers together in deep thought.

"I place myself mentally," he continued, "in your position, and I try to think as you think—try to realise your feelings: the appeal you received from the old lady as she stood at the door of the house in Monmouth Street, your acceding to her request, your second visit, the discovery of the tragedy, the undeserved misfortunes that fell upon you in consequence, your fidelity to your promise to the lady who was at best a mere chance acquaintance, the impenetrable mystery which surrounds it all.

"I have thought of it, and I feel that you must be consumed with a great and reasonable curiosity.

"That you have not indulged that reasonable curiosity, that you have maintained a discreet silence under very trying circumstances has caused a very good first impression of you to grow into one of respect and strong regard."

He rose and took my hand in both his, the tears running down his cheeks.

"Anstruther," he continued, mastering his emotion with an effort, "I am going to ask a further sacrifice from you as a condition of my consent to your marriage with Dolores—a very necessary condition, or I would not make it.

"Anstruther, I ask you to keep eternal silence on what has occurred to you since you entered the door of the house in Monmouth Street, that dull evening in November. I ask you never to refer to it again from this moment, in any shape or form.

"Tell me, can you make this promise?"

I stood with my hand in his, my eyes fixed on his kind old face working with emotion.

"And this is the final condition you ask," I replied, "to my union with Dolores? You are satisfied in every other way?"

"I am satisfied," he replied; "I ask no more."

"Then I give you my promise," I replied, gripping his hand hard; "the subject to me shall be dead. God help me to keep my word!"

* * * * *

My future father-in-law and I sat chatting an hour longer over the bright fire in the sitting-room while the gloaming of a February day was deepening without, and he had talked to me with the familiarity accorded to one already admitted to his family circle.

Dolores had gone to a concert at the Assembly Rooms and we did not expect her back until between five and six.

It was when we had both paused in our conversation and sat with our eyes fixed on the leaping flames—the only illumination of the room—that a knock came at the door and a waiter entered.

"A gentleman to see you, sir," he said, addressing Don Juan.

"Who is it?" d'Alta asked.

"I think it is one of the police officers, sir," replied the man; "he gave the name of Bull."

"Ah! it's the inspector, evidently," commented the Don. "Show him up. I wonder whatever Inspector Bull can want," he continued, turning to me; "we only left him an hour or two ago."

The inspector came to answer for himself. The waiter threw open the door and he entered.

I saw at once that he had something of importance to communicate. His demeanour was that of the Duke of Wellington on the morning of Waterloo.

"Certain information of importance," he commenced, after we had greeted him, "having come to 'and this afternoon, sir, I thought it well to come round and see you immediate."

The inspector's eyes wandered round the apartment. There was a sideboard certainly; previous experience on former visits had, however, taught him to expect nothing from it. The foreign Don was evidently an advocate of temperance, like so many other foreigners who could not drink good, honest English beer—well seasoned with noxious chemicals.

"Indeed," commented Don Juan, who had received several of these mysterious visits before, and did not on that account expect much from this one. "What have you discovered?"

"It 'pears," continued the police officer, "that just after dinner to-day some children was playing in the little disused graveyard in the rear of 190 Monmouth Street."

From being a listless listener I became an earnest one immediately; an idea concerning that graveyard had crossed my mind that very morning while I contemplated its dismal gravestones, almost hidden in old rank grass, through the open ironwork forming the upper part of the gate which shut it off from the little strip of sloping garden in rear of 190 Monmouth Street. In my walk backwards and forwards, while I waited for Don Juan and the lawyer, Mr. Fowler, during their examination of the safe, I had come back to that iron grating again and again. It had somehow fascinated me.

"These 'ere children," proceeded the inspector, "was playing round the gravestones, and jumpin' over 'em to keep warm. It was while they were jumpin' and shovin' each other about over the graves that they noticed that the top stone of a great flat old grave was loose, and, of course, they started to make it looser by see-sawing it, until one fat boy jumped it a bit too 'eavy, and it tilted and let him in."

"In where?" I asked quickly.

"Into a new-made grave, sir," he answered solemnly—"a grave what had been dug recently under the old stone."

"Whatever for?" asked Don Juan.

"That's just where it is," replied the officer; "that's just what we want to find out. The grave is about half filled in with loose earth. We want to know what's under that loose earth, and that's why I'm here."

"What have we got to do with it?" asked the Don.

"The theory is, sir," replied Bull, "that something is buried under that loose earth. It may be stolen property. It may be a body."

I think both Don Juan and I whitened at the prospect disclosed by the inspector, but the Don soon recovered himself. He did not seem so affected by it as I imagined he would be.

"What do you propose to do?" he asked.

"We propose," answered the inspector, "to at once have the loose earth cleared out and see what's underneath."

"Do you mean now?" I asked. "Why, it is quite dark."

"We mean to put two workmen on to dig out that earth at once, sir, and I want you and this gentleman, sir," he added, with a bow to the Don, "to come and be present. There might be something to identify."

"Identify!" I exclaimed, rather horrified at the prospect; "what could we identify in the dark?"

"There'll be plenty of light, sir," answered Bull. "We shall bring half a dozen lanterns; besides, the moon will be up in half an hour's time."

I looked at Don Juan.

"Do you intend to go?" I asked.

The old man sprang to his feet.

"Though I believe the search may be a fruitless one," he answered, "I will miss no opportunity. I will certainly accompany the inspector."

The latter at once rose to his feet with a look of satisfaction on his large face.

"I thought you would, sir," he answered, with a broad smile; "but I should advise you, sir, if I might be so bold, to wrop up well, as the job may be a longish one, and them graveyards is very damp."

Don Juan rang the bell for his valet to fetch him a fur-lined overcoat, and I told the waiter to tell my man Brooks to bring mine.

At my suggestion, the Don ordered some liquid refreshment for the inspector. Scotch, cold, proved to be his selection, and he stood imbibing it, while we waited, commenting upon its excellent qualities for "keeping out the cold," a theory which I have since learned is totally erroneous.

Presently the coats came, and we followed the inspector down to the door of the hotel, where a closed fly was already awaiting us. We drove away through the brilliantly lighted city to the neighbourhood of long, dismal Monmouth Street on the hillside, but this time we did not drive down the street itself but took a turning which ran below it.

"The gate of the old burial ground," explained the police officer, "is in this street. It will be far more convenient to enter it this way than by going round by Monmouth Street."

At the old-fashioned, sunken iron gateway of the dreary looking, neglected graveyard a policeman was standing, apparently keeping guard.

He might have saved himself the trouble, for, with the exception of two poor-looking little children—one standing with his mouth open and a forgotten hoop and stick in his hand—the place was deserted.

We received the constable's salute and, passing through the rusty iron gate which he held open for us, came at once among the long wet grass and sunken, often lopsided, tombs. On the farther side of the ground another constable stood with a lighted lantern, and near him two labouring men, with spades and picks leaning against an old stone by them. These latter hastily put out their pipes as we approached.

I was curious to see what sort of tomb this was which had been apparently so desecrated, and followed the inspector towards it at his invitation.

"This is the grave I told you about, gentlemen," he said, indicating it with his finger; "you will see they have lifted the top stone off."

It was a very large tomb of the description called "altar tombs," but the flat stone which covered it lay by its side, and the rotten state of the low brickwork which had supported it accounted for its giving way, even with the boy's weight.

The inspector took a lantern and held it inside the broken brickwork; yes, there could be no doubt the grave had been disturbed, and that recently.

Freshly turned earth lay between the walls of brickwork, which were spacious enough to allow of an ordinary-sized grave being dug within them.

"Is the grave just as it was found?" I asked.

"Exactly, Mr. Anstruther," he answered. "The earth has not been disturbed at all. But I think we'll make a start now. Here comes Dr. Burbridge, the officer of health. We thought it better to have him present."

The figure of a man wearing a tall hat now appeared crossing the graveyard, preceded by a constable bearing a lantern.

After briefly introducing the newcomer, the inspector gave the word to the two labourers, and they scrambled inside the broken brickwork and commenced digging.

I looked round the weird spot as the noise of their spades became monotonous, relieved only by the throwing aside of the great lumps of moist earth; a mist was rising from the river flowing near, of which in the first stillness of our coming I could just catch the ripple of the water. It seemed to me that those who were long buried there had in life perhaps had some association with the river—even an affection for it—and had wished to be laid there near its soft murmur while they slept.

The men dug on and the pile of earth they threw up grew and grew; it was very clear that the old ground had been recently broken, and a new grave carefully shaped out of it. The sides were compact and firm and had not been disturbed, perhaps, for a whole century.

I glanced at the stone which had been removed, thinking, perhaps, that it might give me a clue to the date of the grave, but, alas, time and the weather had rotted the soft stone and it had come off in layers. The face of the stone was a blank, and the names of those who lay beneath lost for ever.

The moon had risen and the men had dug down perhaps four feet, but nothing had come to light. Then, as they were proceeding after a brief halt, one of them gave a cry.

"There's something here, marster!" he cried excitedly.

At the sound of his voice all the lanterns were brought to the edge of the grave, and we looked down into the hole, which the bright moonbeams did not reach. It was illuminated solely by the dull yellow light of one candle-lantern by which the men worked. The two diggers had withdrawn themselves, half scared, to the sides of the hole, and were looking down fearsomely at something at their feet. It appeared that they were afraid of treading upon this something; at first I could not tell what they were looking at, but presently my eyes became accustomed to the gloom. It was a dark patch protruding from the ground.

"What is it?" I asked the men, as we all hung over the edge of the brickwork.

The nearest man turned a white face up to mine and answered me.

"It's a human 'ead, sir," he said.

I think we all drew back again as he said this, and the doctor stepped forward with a flask in his hand.

"If you will take my advice, gentlemen," he said, addressing Don Juan and me, "you will have a nip of this old brandy before we go any further in this matter. Then I think you had better let me give the instructions to these workmen, Mr. Inspector, or they may do some damage unintentionally."

Don Juan touched me on the arm. His hand trembled fearfully.

"Let us come away and walk a little," he said; "the strain of this affair is too much for me."

I took his arm and walked away with him towards the gate, where now quite a little crowd had assembled, attracted by the lanterns round the grave.

Knowing the Don's fondness for smoking and its soothing effect upon him, I handed him my cigar case, and he took a cigar and lit it. There seemed to be something in the aroma of the fine Havannahs as I lit one, too, that dispelled the lurking mouldiness of the old burial ground.

"But for those children playing around that tomb this afternoon," remarked d'Alta, "this body might have lain there undiscovered for years. It was a cunning mind which thought of using an old grave as a receptacle for a fresh body."

We strolled backwards and forwards on the grass-grown pathway, and I kept the old gentleman as far as I could from the open grave. The voice of the doctor giving directions and the muffled answers of the men working in the excavation came to us occasionally.

Presently, as we turned in one of our walks, I saw the labourers had come out of the grave and were hauling at something, assisted by the two policemen.

As I checked the Don in our walk, and looked on, a white mass was raised from the opening and laid by the doctor's direction on an adjacent flat tomb.

I shuddered as I saw the whiteness of it in the moonlight, and my thoughts reverted to the blood-stained figure of the old lady which I had last seen lying on her bed in the house in Monmouth Street.

The workmen went down into the grave again, and Inspector Bull came towards us.

"Will you kindly step over this way for a few moments, Mr. Anstruther?" he asked. "I want to see if you can recognise the body which has been brought to the surface."

I let go the arm of Don Juan which I had been holding, and with a sickening feeling at my heart followed Inspector Bull. He led me towards the object lying on the old moss-grown tomb, and I could not summon the words to ask him who it was. There was a strong presentiment in my mind that I should look upon the dead face of the old lady at whose wish I had crossed the Atlantic.

We came to the body, over which a piece of sacking had been thrown, and this the inspector drew back, while one of the policemen held a lantern.

In its yellow light mingled with the clear moonbeams, I looked upon the face, and my heart gave a great leap of thankfulness. The face was perfectly fresh and recognisable. It was not the face of the old lady which I had feared to see, but that of a man with a coal-black beard, which seemed very familiar to me.

I had scarcely looked upon it when a cry came from the grave where the men were working, and they threw up a white bundle, evidently a bundle of linen.

This the inspector quickly opened, and displayed a heap of bedclothing and a pillow all stained with blood.

"Is that all?" asked the inspector, as the men jumped out of the hole.

"Yes, marster," the man replied, knocking the clay off his boots, "there's naught there now but the coffin of the old 'un, well-nigh moulderin' away, and the plate says he was one o' the old Mayors o' Bath."

I turned again to the exhumed body, and the recognition of it came to me in a flash.

It was the dark German who had helped to strap me in the chair in Cruft's Folly, when Saumarez was going to torture me.



CHAPTER XIX

THE STRUGGLE IN THE TUNNEL

I was delayed two days in Bath by the inquest on the body of the German, the discovery of which in the old graveyard formed a nine days' wonder in the old western city and then died out altogether.

It was a very barren inquiry, for it discovered nothing. The man was a stranger, no evidence was produced to show who he was, and as an unknown stranger he was buried again, not in the old graveyard, but in the new cemetery away among the hills.

There was only one piece of evidence which carried any interest with it, and that was the testimony of the doctor.

He stated that the man had been shot through the head and immediately killed; he produced the .450 revolver bullet which he had found in the head.

Furthermore, he added that the body had been buried at once, and by that means preserved from decay. It was practically incorrupt. It might have been buried there a month.

That was all, and all the coroner's acumen, and all the researches of the police, could produce no more. Public opinion had to be satisfied with a very vague verdict.

There was only one point of interest left for me in the matter, and that was the bundle of bed-linen which was found buried in the grave.

That was proved beyond doubt to be the bed-linen of my old lady of Monmouth Street; it was plainly marked with the letter C, surmounted on the case of the pillow by a small coronet.

"Things is coming round in a most extraordinary way to corroborate your statement about the old lady, Mr. Anstruther," remarked Inspector Bull patronisingly. "I could 'ardly believe it. I don't know when I come across another case like it."

I don't suppose he did. It was an enigma which puzzled many wiser heads than his in the long run; but I think the part which astonished him most was to be discovering, bit by bit, that the story of my visit to the house in Monmouth Street, as related to him and his brother, the "tip-top London detective," was actually founded at any rate on some fact!

The Don and I joyfully directed our respective servants to pack up for London at the conclusion of the inquest. Dolores had been sent back to Claridge's by her father, and placed under the care of Mrs. Darbyshire the morning after the discovery in the old graveyard. He had very wisely decided to keep her away from the gruesomeness of the inquest, which pervaded the whole town.

Under the circumstances that little interview which I was so anxious that he should have with her to discover the state of her affections towards me, was postponed, and things remained just as they were.

Nevertheless, I think both Dolores and I were perfectly satisfied to wait for the formal declaration of her father's sanction, being happy in the consciousness of each other's love and steadfastness.

So the inquest being disposed of, we very gladly went off to the station beneath the great cliff to catch the afternoon express to town.

We were in ample time, and strolled up and down the platform, taking a last look at the town which had proved so fateful to us both.

Presently the great engine, the embodiment of modern steam power, swept into the station, and the Don's man at once secured a first-class smoking compartment for us, with the aid of the guard, while Brooks looked after the luggage, the other man being a foreigner.

"I'm afraid I shall not be able to keep the whole compartment for you, gentlemen," said the guard civilly, as we took our seats; "but I'll put as few in as I can."

The old Don was the embodiment of politeness; he was the last person in the world to inconvenience any one on the railway or anywhere else, though he liked to have a carriage to himself when he could.

He told the guard so.

"I'll do my best, sir," replied the guard, with great impressement, as he pocketed Don Juan's five shillings. "You shall be inconvenienced as little as possible."

He locked the door and walked away, and I thought we should be left to ourselves.

The guard, however, had overestimated his powers.

The train was within a minute of starting when two passengers, evidently in a great hurry, made their appearance at the window. One was an old gentleman with a white beard, wearing blue spectacles, and apparently half blind; the other a young sturdy man, evidently his son, for the elder leant on his arm, and was addressed by him as "father."

The son led the old man straight to our carriage, and called aloud for the guard on finding it locked.

"Now, guard!" he cried with authority, when the official made his appearance, "open the door; all the other carriages are full."

"If you wouldn't mind coming down a few carriages farther, sir," suggested our guard, "I can find you two good corner seats at once."

"Open this door at once," cried the gentleman furiously; "there is only half a minute to spare, and don't you see my father is an invalid?"

Don Juan emerged from his corner with a look of genuine concern upon his face.

"Let the gentlemen in at once, guard," he ordered. "I would not be the cause of inconvenience to them on any account. Come in, gentlemen, I beg."

The guard opened the door, and the two passengers entered just as the stationmaster called out a remonstrance not to delay the train. The old gentleman sank back in his seat with a sigh of relief.

"I'm so glad we caught the train," he said breathlessly.

Brooks ran up at the last moment and handed our tickets to the collector, who had been waiting for them, as the train did not stop again until it reached Paddington.

As Brooks turned and touched his hat to us, it appeared to me that he started as he looked into the carriage, but the train was just off and the ticket collector almost pushed him into the next compartment to ours—a second, of course.

We puffed out of Bath, and I saw the last of its hills and stone houses for many a day; indeed, I don't think I have seen it since, except perhaps in the same way from a flying train. We were soon swallowed up by a great tunnel, and the Don and I subsided into thoughtfulness and the quiet enjoyment of our cigars.

Our fellow-travellers in the opposite corners maintained an absolute silence; they might have been two statues.

But in a few minutes we burst out again into the almost blinding daylight, and then it seemed to me that the appearance of the two men we were shut up with had undergone a change. It was, if not my fancy, a total change in the expression of their faces.

The idea seemed to fascinate me, and I kept my eyes fixed upon them both.

Presently, after a quick glance at his companion, the old man put his hand into the pocket of the thick travelling coat he wore and quickly pulled out a revolver; then in a voice which I knew again full well he addressed us both, at the same time covering Don Juan with his pistol.

"If you make the slightest movement, or speak without my permission, I shall fire."

I saw as I sat looking at them that the younger man had also produced a revolver, and was covering me.

Then the two moved nearer us into the two central seats of the compartment, for the convenience, as it proved, of talking to us.

Don Juan and I sat petrified with astonishment, whilst the elder man spoke again. I knew him from the first moment he had opened his lips, despite his disguise, to be the Duke of Rittersheim, or "Saumarez," as he had called himself.

"Don Juan d'Alta," he began, "I know you very well, and I don't suppose you have forgotten me."

"I know your voice, Your Serene Highness," responded the old Don, with a distinct accentuation of the title.

"Very well," replied the Duke. "Then that knowledge will enlighten you to the extent that you will be aware that I want something of you."

Don Juan made no reply.

"I want," proceeded the Duke, "the key of the steel safe which you removed from 190 Monmouth Street, Bath, and sent to the Bank of England. I want also an order from you to the directors of the Bank of England, authorising them to give me access to the safe. My friend here has writing materials."

My glance turned to Don Juan, who was contemplating the Duke with a stony stare of contempt.

"You will get neither the key nor the order, sir," he replied.

The Duke shrugged up his shoulders.

"You will compel me, then, to take a certain course," he answered. "I believe you have the key with you?"

He was right, the Don had it, but neither of us answered him.

"You will not answer," he proceeded. "Very well; silence gives consent. I believe you have it.

"That being so, I give you five minutes by this watch to make up your mind, Senor. At the conclusion of that period, we shall shoot you both as I shot the German they have been making such a fuss about in Bath, and take the key if you don't give it up. I have no doubt whatever I can get some clever fellow to copy your writing and manufacture me an order.

"At any rate, neither of you will be in a position to prevent me."

I confess that my blood ran cold at his words, as he took his watch out with his left hand and laid it on the seat. All my visions of happiness with Dolores seemed melting into shadows of grim death.

Don Juan, however, kept perfectly calm; there was scarcely a twitch on his face as he answered, although the colour had fled from it.

"That is all very well, sir," he replied coolly; "but what are you going to do with our bodies? You will be discovered, tried, and executed."

The Duke laughed aloud.

"They don't execute Serene Highnesses," he replied; "but, at any rate, as you are curious about my safety, I will tell you. In a few minutes the train will run into a tunnel. There we shall shoot you.

"In half an hour's time, during which we shall have the discomfort of regarding your two dead bodies, the train will once more enter a tunnel, the last before we reach London, and invariably the driver slows down in it to negotiate a very sharp curve. There we shall cast your bodies out on to the line as soon as we are in the tunnel, and availing ourselves of the slowing down which will occur a few minutes later, we shall leave the train."

As he spoke, the train entered the tunnel he mentioned, and almost at the same moment I saw a face appear at the window on the farther side behind the Duke and his accomplice.

It was the face of Brooks—my servant!

At first he expressed great astonishment at the situation as he looked through the window, then he very clearly frowned to me to keep silence.

Covered by the rattling of the train in the tunnel he began very carefully to open the door.

"The minutes are passing, gentlemen," remarked the Duke, in a mocking tone. "I must beg of you to make up your minds."

He clicked his revolver lock as a gentle reminder; but as he glanced at us in triumph, Brooks crept into the carriage behind him, and in a flash, with a great spring, his two strong hands held down those of our assailants which held their pistols. It was a splendid act of judgment.

In a moment I sprang forward too, to aid him, and then began a fearful struggle, in which Don Juan could take but little part. The great endeavour of Brooks and myself was to prevent the men using their revolvers; with all our strength we held down their hands and rendered them powerless.

When it appeared to me we were getting the mastery of them, I heard the Duke gasp out some guttural remarks in German to his companion.

Then suddenly the latter released his hold of the pistol, leaving it in our hands, but his freed hand went to his breast and reappeared with a long knife in it.

I did not actually see the blow, but I heard Brooks cry out, and I knew that the man had struck him.

But meanwhile Don Juan had picked up the revolver and pointed it towards the two villains.

"Fly, Duke," he cried, "for the honour of your house, or I will kill you."

With a curse the Duke let go his revolver and cried out in German to his companion. Then in a moment the two slipped out of the open door of the carriage on to the footboard and disappeared. We saw them no more.

Don Juan and I turned at once to Brooks, who had sunk back with a groan on the cushions.

"Are you hurt, my poor man," asked the Don; "have they stabbed you?"

"Yes, sir," he answered faintly, with his hand to his side. "They've about done for me, but I'm glad I die fighting like a British soldier should. I'm glad I've wiped the old score out by saving my master and you, sir."

When a quarter of an hour later the train ran into Paddington poor Brooks lay back in a corner with set white face. He had had his wish; he had died like a British soldier.



CHAPTER XX

THE DEPARTURE OF THE DUKE

As Dolores and I had both anticipated, the result of her interview with her father on the subject of her affections was entirely satisfactory to us both. The Don expressed himself satisfied, too, with the consultation, and gave us his blessing in the good old-fashioned way still in vogue in Aquazilia, or at any rate among the adherents of the old monarchy. We knelt at his feet to receive it. The result was a paragraph in the Morning Post, as follows:—

"A marriage has been arranged, and will shortly take place, between William Frederick, only son of the late Sir Henry and Lady Mary Anstruther, and Dolores, only daughter of Don Juan d'Alta, for some years Prime Minister of the late Queen Inez of Aquazilia."

This announcement brought us a shower of congratulations and inquiries as to the date of the wedding.

That query I naturally left to Dolores to answer, and at my earnest solicitation she very considerately decided, having in view my intense impatience in the matter, that the paternal assent—with blessing—-having been given in the month of February, we should be married in April.

Yes, absolutely married! The idea took me greatly by surprise at first. I used to wake in the morning, and the thought would in a manner sweetly confront me. It was as if a little mischievous Cupid sat on the end rail of my bed and revelled in his work.

"William Frederick," he seemed to say, "you're going to be married. You're going to marry Dolores. What do you think of it?"