The Strangers’ Gate E-Book

E. Phillips Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

This is a mystery novel surrounding German intrigue and bauxite mining in typical Oppenheim style. E. Phillips Oppenheim was the self-styled „prince of storytellers” and composed some one hundred and fifty novels, mainly of the suspense and international intrigue nature, but including romances, comedies, and parables of everyday life. In this one, Beverley, a handsome tycoon, operates an unknown bauxite mine in mythical kingdom of Orlac, and wages a battle of wits against German secret agents and the extravagant king when another mine is discovered. Beverley sides with a pauper Prince, on whose property the metal is found, and with his sister.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER I

Mr. Nigel Beverley, seated before his desk in the handsomely furnished private office of the Anglo-Orlacian Trust Company, glanced with a distinct frown at the card which his secretary had just brought in to him. He read it aloud as though for the benefit of his companion and of the demure-looking young lady who was standing by his side.

“‘Marya [Princess] Mauranesco.’ The ‘Princess,’ I should tell you, is in brackets. And what is this?” he went on, scrutinising the rest of the announcement. “‘Violinist, Grill Room, Germanic, 7 p.m.-10 p.m. Restaurant, Germanic, 10.30 P.M.-12.’”

“God bless my soul!” an elderly gentleman, in strikingly correct morning clothes and wearing light spats, who was seated in an easy chair opposite, exclaimed. “Is this the sort of visitor you get down in the City on a busy morning, Nigel? Violinist at the Germanic restaurant! What’s that got to do with us?”

Nigel Beverley, with the card still between his fingers, glanced up at his secretary.

“Perhaps Miss Dent can explain,” he remarked drily. “Whatever made you bring this card in, five minutes before an important meeting? You ought to know perfectly well chat I am not likely to see anyone–not even the Governor of the Bank of England.”

The girl leaned over and with the tip of her little finger tapped a corner of the card which he had not noticed.

“From Orlac,” she pointed out. “As the meeting is largely concerned with affairs in that country, Mr. Beverley, and the young lady declared that her business was of the utmost importance, I thought it best at any rate to let you know that she was here.”

Her employer laid the card upon the desk.

“Miss Dent,” he remonstrated, his tone kindly but reproachful, “you know quite well that the board-room is half-filled already. The meeting is called for half-past eleven, and it is now twenty-past.”

“I should have pointed that out to the young lady, sir,” she explained, “but Sir Charles Brinkley has just telephoned begging that you will give him ten minutes. His car has met with a slight mishap, but he will be here at a quarter to twelve.”

“That’s all very well,” Beverley replied, “but we can’t interview young ladies who play the violin down here in the City a few minutes before an important meeting–even if they do come from Orlac. Tell her to write a note instead, and let me know her reasons for wishing for an interview; and I will see her for a moment, if I think it necessary, after the meeting–or this afternoon.”

The girl turned away without remark, closing the door softly behind her.

“Sorry about Brinkley, sir,” Beverley apologised.

“So am I,” was the irritated reply. “I hate being kept waiting on an occasion–an important occasion–like this. Serves me right for ever having promised to make the blasted speech. I have forgotten every word I had to say already.”

“It’s only a vote of thanks,” was the other’s smooth reminder. “You will do that on your head. Just the bare words, and anything that comes into your mind at the moment. There isn’t a hitch anywhere, you see. No worrying questions or anything of that sort. Everyone will be in a jolly good humour. So they ought to be, with a report like ours.”

The elderly gentleman, who figured in Dehrett as “the Earl of Portington,” and who was his companion’s prospective father-in-law, grunted.

“All very well for you fellows. You are on your legs half the time, making speeches. Twice a year is enough for me; once at the Royal Agricultural Show, and a few words at the annual meeting of the Fox-hunting Association…Damn it all, here’s that girl of yours back again!”

Miss Dent’s tone was really apologetic this time.

“I am so sorry, Mr. Beverley,” she said, “but the young woman is very much in earnest. She says that she must talk to you before the meeting takes place. She does not speak good English and is not easy to understand, but it seems that her brother, who intended to call on you, has been detained, and she is taking his place.”

“But what about?” Beverley asked in mild but somewhat irritated expostulation. “What does she want?”

Lord Portington suddenly remembered a visit to the Germanic a few nights before and had an inspiration.

“Why not see her for a minute, Nigel?” he suggested. “Then, as soon as Brinkley arrives, we can all go in together.”

The younger man shrugged his shoulders.

“As you will, sir,” he agreed. “You may show the young lady in, then, Miss Dent. Tell her that she must not stay for more than five minutes.”

The secretary disappeared. Nigel Beverley sat back in his chair and assumed the stern expression of the man of affairs who is yielding unwillingly to an unreasonable request. The effort was by no means an easy one, for besides being an exceedingly good-looking man with clean-cut features and a wholesome out-of-door complexion, there was a gleam of humour in his unwavering blue eyes and at the corners of his otherwise firm mouth. Portington, who was really short-sighted and was wondering whether it was the same girl, rubbed his eyeglass and adjusted it. The door was quietly opened.

“The young lady to see you, sir,” Miss Dent announced.

Princess Marya Mauranesco entered the room.

The effect of the girl’s entrance was perhaps exemplified by its reaction upon the two men. Both had seemed at first inclined to remain seated. Both, however, before she reached the desk, had risen to their feet. She seemed a little uncertain as to whom to address. Beverley pointed to a chair.

“My name is Beverley,” he said, “and I am president of the Anglo-Orlacian Trust Company. Won’t you sit down? I must tell you that I can spare only three or four minutes. We have an important meeting to attend.”

The girl smiled as she sank gracefully into the chair, and from that moment Lord Portington was perfectly willing to forget all about the meeting. Beverley, although he dimly realised the charms of his visitor, was of sterner mould. He awaited her explanation with ill-concealed impatience.

“But it is about that meeting,” she explained, “that I come. You must not hold it.”

“Not hold it! What do you mean?” he asked brusquely.

“Well, if you hold it you must not say what you say here, then.”

She drew from the modest bag she was carrying a folded-up newspaper cutting. Beverley recognised it at a glance. It was a copy of an interview he had given recently to a well-known journalist.

“Why not?” he demanded.

There was no trace of a smile upon her face now. She looked, indeed, a little pathetic.

“Because–you must please not be angry–it is not true.”

“What is there in that interview which is not true?”

She sat very upright in her chair, the thin, nervous fingers of her right hand gripping its arm. Her eyes were fixed upon Beverley. She was utterly serious. In a remote sort of way she was entirely beautiful.

“I shall try to explain,” she began. “You forgive if I make mistakes. In that talk you told the man that the supply of this new mineral, which is mixed with some other metal, is to be found only in the Kingdom of Orlac.”

“So far as we know at present,” Beverley corrected gently.

“Yes, but you add,” she continued, “that this mineral is only to be found in the mountains at Klast, which you have leased from the Crown and where you have sunk the great mine.”

“That is the truth,” he declared.

The girl shook her head.

“Oh, no,” she contradicted. “In another part of Orlac there is also to be found this mineral.”

“You are mistaken,” he assured her. “We have paid large fees to scientists and metallurgists, who have examined the whole country. No trace of bauxite has been discovered anywhere except in the mountains which we have leased. Apart from that, may I ask what you know about it?”

“Nothing at all,” she admitted. “It is my brother who knows.”

“Why is he not here himself?”

She coughed slightly. She was evidently embarrassed.

“It was his wish to be here,” she confided. “He was–prevented.”

She glanced at Lord Portington, whose expression told her nothing. She looked back at the younger man and then continued with a little deprecating gesture.

“He could not come. You wish to know the truth? He is in prison.”

“A good place for him, I should think–or a lunatic asylum,” Beverley remarked.

“But that is not kind,” the girl protested. “Rudolph was unfortunate.”

“How did your brother get into prison?” he asked. “For making false statements, I imagine.”

“Oh no,” she remonstrated with a little shiver. “And yet–” She hesitated. “I do not know. It might have been something hke that. We are all very poor–very poor indeed–in Orlac. My brother speaks languages. He takes tourists round sometimes. An American family engaged him to travel with them through the country, and it seems that he made a mistake in the accounts.”

“Indeed,” was Beverley’s dry comment.

“It was not the fault of my poor brother,” she declared. “He never had much understanding of figures, and he is inclined to be extravagant. These people v/ere very unkind to him. They took him before a magistrate and he was sent to prison, A Mauranesco of Orlac has never known such disgrace. It was very terrible.”

Beverley glanced at the clock which stood upon the table.

“Young lady,” he said, “we have listened most patiently to all you have had to say, but you have not yet explained the reason for this visit.”

“Brinkley has not turned up yet, you know, Nigel,” Portington intervened. “Better let the young lady finish her story. We must remember that she is in a strange country and naturally she finds our language a little difficult.”

The girl flashed a grateful glance across at him.

“The money which my brother Rudolph borrowed,” she explained, turning eagerly to Beverley, “he took to buy some shares in your company so that he could attend the meeting to-day.”

“What was he going to do when he got there?” Beverley asked.

“I am not sure,” she confessed. “I expected a letter from him this morning. I believe he thought that you would buy those shares from him at a great deal of money sooner than have anyone in the meeting ask stupid questions.”

Beverley leaned forward and pressed a bell on his desk. Marya Mauranesco looked at him questioningly.

“What is that for?” she asked.

“To have my secretary show you out.”

“But is that polite?” she continued with a little quiver of the lips.

“I say, Nigel, old chap,” Portington put in, “aren’t you being a little severe? Evidently this young lady doesn’t understand much about business. I think that we ought to hear everything that she has to say.”

She looked at him once more with gratitude in her eyes.

“How kind you are,” she said softly. “What you say is true. I know nothing about business. I only know what my brother told me: that there is more bauxite in Orlac and it is not upon the property which your company has leased. Wait–” she opened her bag, drew out a small piece of rock and laid it upon the desk. “He said,” she concluded, “that anyone who understood minerals would know what that streak meant.”

Beverley picked up the fragment and examined the scarred end of it. His glance was only a cursory one.

“Well,” he admitted, “so far as my knowledge goes, I should say that that streak was bauxite. How do I know where it came from, though?”

“That is what my brother wishes to tell you,” she said reproachfully. “It was found in our country, but nowhere near the Klast Mine. He is very clever. He has studied at a great college in Paris. He has a degree in geology.”

“And he is now in prison!”

The door was quietly opened. Miss Dent stood passively in the background. Beverley rose to his feet.

“You have brought us some very interesting information, young lady,” he said kindly. “I am sorry to say that I do not believe a word of it. I am not blaming you. I will admit that you have probably been misled.”

The girl looked at him in surprise.

“But this,” she protested, touching the fragment of rock, “does it not speak for itself?”

“There is without a doubt a trace of bauxite there,” Beverley agreed. “It is easily come by. We are finding it every day at our mine at Klast. There is not the slightest evidence to prove that it did not come from our own mine.”

“I don’t think we can dismiss the young lady like this,” Portington remonstrated, “You must make allowances for Mr. Beverley,” he went on, turning towards her with a little bow. “You see, the hour of the meeting has already passed and we could not possibly discuss this matter at present. Perhaps we might, later in the day.”

“But will you not wish to tell the people at the meeting what I have come to tell you?” the girl asked. “Ought you not to contradict what Mr. Beverley has said? It is here in print, you remember. My brother has discovered that there is bauxite to be found elsewhere in the kingdom. You must tell the company that you have made a mistake–”

“The present meeting,” Beverley interrupted, “is concerned only with the matters which have happened during the last six months up to the date when it was summoned. It is not the place for the discussion of this idle story which you have brought us.”

She looked at him steadily and Beverley was conscious of a most uncomfortable sensation.

“You think, then, that I have told you a story which is not true?”

Miss Dent tactfully intervened.

“Sir Charles Brinkley is on his way up in the lift, Mr. Beverley,” she announced.

Lord Portington rose to his feet.

“You see–er–Princess,” he explained, “it is impossible for us to go further into the subject at the moment. May we ask Miss Dent to take you into the waiting room below? It is very comfortable, believe me, and the meeting will not last long. As soon as it is over we will consider anything further you may have to say.”

The girl stood quite still–very remote, very subdued, it seemed to Beverley.

“I will wait until your meeting is over,” she agreed.

“Miss Dent, will you do as Lord Portington suggests?” her employer enjoined. “You had better let His Lordship know exactly where she is, after the meeting.”

Marya of Mauranesco looked steadily into his eyes.

“Perhaps, then,” she said, “I do not see you again?”

“Probably not,” he answered in an almost childlike spirit of defiance to the challenge which lurked in her tone. “I will wish you good morning. Lord Portington is a director of the company, and if he thinks it necessary to investigate your statement it will be done.”

Her gesture as she turned away was a trifle enigmatic. She left the room with the secretary. The folding doors at the other end of the office were thrown open. Brinkley, who had just arrived full of apologies, led the way into the board-room. The door closed to the sound of muffled applause.

CHAPTER II

Lord Portington met with several minor difficulties when, at the conclusion of a highly satisfactory meeting during which he flattered himself he had fulfilled the position of vice-chairman with tact and dignity, he went in search of this unusual young lady from Orlac. She was seated in an easy chair in the waiting room, a morning paper had slipped from her fingers onto the carpet, her eyes were inscrutably fixed upon a little patch of blue sky visible through the top of the tall window. She rose to her feet with obvious relief at his arrival. She looked over his shoulder towards the door.

“Where is Mr. Beverley?” she asked. “He is not coming?”

Portington shook his head.

“He has appointed me his deputy. You can tell me everything you choose about that most unprepossessing lump of rock and I will pass it on to him faithfully. I see that it is past one o’clock. It will give me great pleasure if you will lunch with me.”

“Mr. Beverley–he does not come, too?”

“Not much in Beverley’s line–festivals in the middle of the day,” Portington explained. “A brainy fellow but a dull dog sometimes. I have a car waiting. Where would you like to go?”

She hesitated.

“I am not sure. There are several more things I should like to have said to Mr. Beverley. The words come with such difficulty when I speak in your tongue.”

Portington’s fingers strayed to his upper lip. He had finished his military career as a Colonel in the Yeomanry and he rather fancied the remains of his scrubby but neatly kept little moustache.

“Won’t I do as well?” he asked with a smile. “I am not sure that you will not find me easier to get on with than Nigel Beverley.”

“He was rather rude to me,” she said, “but it was perhaps my fault that I did not explain myself properly.”

“You shall explain things to me,” he proposed, leading her towards the door. “Over a bottle of champagne, if you like. Not that I often take it myself in the middle of the day,” he went on, “but there must always be exceptions, of course. Where would you like to lunch?”

“I do not mind,” she replied, still a little doubtfully. “I cook my own meals always in my small apartment. I have never been to any other restaurant but the Germanic.”

Portington was somewhat startled. He hesitated as he handed her into his limousine. For a real critic of her sex–and he rather fancied himself in that direction–it was quite easy to appreciate the beauty of her slim but soft body underneath that shabby frock, the grace of her movements and indeed the perfection of every gesture. All the same, her hat would have been dear at anything more than half a sovereign and cleaned gloves are not often seen in the haunts which he patronized. After a moment’s consideration he decided upon Soho.

“An old-fashioned place just coming to life again,” he remarked. “We will go to Kettner’s.”

“To me it is the same thing,” she acknowledged. “I like very much good food but it must be simple. That is why I like to cook for myself.”

“How long have you been in this country?” he asked.

“Three weeks,” she told him. “At first I could not breathe. Now it is better but I do not like it. I wish the engagement I came to fill had been in Paris.”

“You girls are all the same,” he grumbled. “Paris! No other place is worth looking at.”

“But I do not know,” she confided, “because I have never been there.”

“Never been to Paris?” he repeated in astonishment.

She shook her head.

“I came from Orlac by the cheapest route,” she explained. “We travelled very slowly in a noisy, dirty train and we came through Belgium.”

“You never went to Paris to school?”

There was something a little grim about her gentle smile.

“I went to the convent school in Klast, our capital city,” she confided. “There I learnt very little. No one seemed to have any money to pay for me. They made my father a General in the war and he was killed and there was no pension. You must not think that I am rich because I am a Princess. My brother works for a Tourist Agency; my mother made dresses, before she died, for the ladies who could still afford to go to Court. The palace that was once ours has been made into flats and we are permitted by the proprietor to occupy the top one. Now I earn more than anyone else in the family has ever earned–and it is not much–playing the violin.”

“I think that you should earn a great deal,” he assured her. “You play the violin in a style of your own very beautifully. I was one of the first to hear you.”

She smiled–a wan little smile of acknowledgement.

“Sometimes,” she continued after a moment’s pause, “I sing a little song. Then they pay more. I put ‘Princess’ on my card because that is my title and the management made me do it or they would not have engaged me. English people seem so much to like titles that they sometimes behave as though they were not very accustomed to them. You are a Lord, are you not?”

He nodded.

“Just an Earl,” he told her. “The lowest thing but one in the peerage. Recent creation, too. I am only the third.”

“My brother is the thirtieth Prince of Mauranesco–and he is in prison for stealing. He has been in prison before, too,” she went on thoughtfully. “He is not, I am afraid, very honest. What is he to do? I hope there will be no more Mauranescos or they will die of starvation.”

“That sounds very sad,” Portington remarked. “I think we must try and be a little kinder to you over here than the world has been so far.”

“What do you mean?” she asked curiously. “You find me a husband–yes?”

Lord Portington coughed. He felt that such suggestions as to her future were a little premature.

“Well, we shall see,” he replied. “Here we are.”

They descended at the restaurant and an eager maitre d’hôtel conducted them to a quiet corner table. Marya approved of the luncheon he ordered–grilled sole and Iamb cutlets–but declined champagne.

“A glass of red wine, if you like–Carlowitz, if they have it, or a French claret not heavy.”

“Cocktail?”

She hesitated but finally shook her head.

“You will be sorry you brought me out,” she warned him. “I know so little about the things one should eat and drink.”

“How old are you?” he asked.

She drew her passport from her bag and handed it to him. He read it with interest.

“Eighteen and a half!” he exclaimed. “And you are travelling about alone?”

“Not that,” she told him. “I have a serving-maid only because she has been with the family for thirty years and if she did not live with me she would starve. She speaks not a word of English and she is terrified of the streets. I pay her no wages and I am sometimes very unhappy about her as well as myself. She is the only thing that loves me in my life, and she is the only person except Sister Georgina at the convent whom I love.”

“You will soon make friends here,” he assured her. “They told me at the Germanic the other night that you were filling the place for them.”

“I am very glad,” she said, replacing the little mirror she had been using in her very worn vanity case and closing the latter with a snap. “I thought that they did not very much like me. The people applaud and they all send wine to the musicians and to me, but because I cannot drink unless I eat, I refuse, and Monsieur Berthou, the leader of the orchestra, he does not approve. I think this is the best food I have had to eat or wine to drink,” she went on, “since I have been in England…Tell me about Mr. Beverley. He has such a pleasant face but he was not very kind to me this morning.”

“He is rather a rough diamond, anyway,” Portington observed. “Thoroughly decent chap–good family, makes heaps of money, fine sportsman and all that–but not much of a ladies’ man, I should think. Never so surprised in my life as when he told me he wanted to marry my daughter.”

She looked at him in astonishment.

“He is the fiancé of your daughter?” she exclaimed.

Portington nodded.

“They’ve been engaged for nearly a year now. Neither of them seems to be in any hurry to get married.”

Marya was silent for several moments.

“Is she very beautiful, your daughter?” she asked at last with apparent irrelevance.

“The illustrated papers always say so,” he replied. “She is good-looking, I suppose. Nigel isn’t a bad-looking fellow himself, if only he would look at life more kindly.”

“I do not like him,” she declared a little sadly. “And he does not like me. I think perhaps I said things wrongly. It is difficult to explain in a foreign language.”

“That reminds me,” Portington said. “You had not finished all that you wished to say.”

She nodded.

“Of course,” she admitted, “I do not understand business. It is quite strange to me. Docs everyone treat everyone else as though they never spoke the truth?”

“I would not go so far as that,” he answered, “but you must remember that you started off by confessing that your brother was in prison for theft.”

“That is true,” she acknowledged, “and because it was true I was not ashamed of it. One cannot live without money. Poor Rudolph, he is very often hungry and he did want the money so badly for those few shares. He did want to be at the meeting to-day.”

“But what good would that have done him?”

“What good? Ah, but then,” she went on, tapping the table with her very delicately-shaped forefinger, “I do not say things properly. It was not that he wanted to be unpleasant. He wanted to show Mr. Beverley his shares and to say to him: ‘If you do not buy these from me and give me a great deal of money for them, I will tell your shareholders what I know about there being bauxite somewhere else in Orlac. It does not all belong to your mine as you told the newspaper man.’”

“I see,” Lord Portington murmured. “Blackmail.”

She smiled happily.

“Very likely that is the word,” she admitted. “What my brother wished was that Mr. Beverley should give him a great deal of money for not telling the people what he knew. Is that blackmail?”

Portington concealed a smile behind his napkin.

“Something of the sort,” he acknowledged.

“Well, that was what was in his mind,” she said. “Now I must write to tell him that Mr. Beverley does not wish to buy his shares and that he does not believe his story. After that I suppose we shall write to the Germans.”

Her companion looked up a little startled.

“Oh, there are some Germans in this, are there?” he asked.

“Of course there are,” she told him. “I was coming to that if Mr. Beverley would have given me time to tell my story. There is a man called Treyer. If the King had not disliked him so much he would have given him the concession that he gave to Mr. Beverley, and your mine at Klast would have belonged to him. Now I am to let Mr. Treyer know that there is more bauxite in Orlac and I suppose he will try to buy that instead.”

“Why not sell it to us?” Portington asked.

She leaned a little forward in her chair.

“I believe that was my brother’s idea,” she confided. “It is all very unfortunate, you see. Mr. Beverley disliked me so much that he did not even come after the meeting to hear what I had to say.”

“But he sent me instead,” her companion reminded her. “I am a director of the company.”

“He should have come himself,” she decided. “He had no faith in me. He would not believe me.”

“But my dear young lady,” Portington remonstrated, “you should consider this. The present company has spent thousands of pounds in having the country surveyed. The finest metallurgists and geologists in Europe have been over the place in sections and we have their signed report that nowhere else in the kingdom of Orlac are there any traces of the existence of bauxite.”

“Then your men of science were all wrong,” she said indignantly. “My brother knows. I think that I myself shall go to Nicolas, the King, and ask him if he will give permission to Mr. Treyer to dig for bauxite in the place where the piece in my bag was found.”

“And ruin our company.”

“Is Mr. Beverley the sort of man who cares whether he ruins others when he does business?” she demanded. “I do not think so.”

“I have heard of this Mr. Treyer,” Portington said thoughtfully. “Shifty devil they call him and as stingy as they make ‘em.”

“Do forgive,” she begged, “I do not understand.”

“He would grab the concession in his own name and you would get nothing for it. You know nothing of business. How could you deal with it–a little musician who can barely speak our language, as beautiful as an angel, a stranger in the country! How could you hold your own against Treyer?”

She reopened her vanity case and looked in the mirror speculatively.

“You think that I am beautiful, or is it that you just say foolish things?” she asked.

“On my honour I do think so. I never flatter.”

“And attractive?”

“Devastatingly,” he assured her.

She frowned.

“Why do you use words you know I shall not understand?” she complained. “If I am attractive, why did your Mr. Beverley not look at me twice? Why did he hurry me out of the place? Why did he not wish to see me again?”

“Perhaps because he is one of those unfortunate Englishmen,” Portington suggested, “who can only see one woman at a time. I am rather like that myself.”

“You mean that he thinks of no one but your daughter? Well then, he had better think a little of me. I do not like men who look at me as he did…I do not like men who look at me the other way, either,” she added, with a faint tinge of reproof in her tone.

“It seems to me that you are a little difficult to please, anyway,” he observed peevishly.

“How clever of you,” she murmured. “Let us not talk much more. It is noisy here. Everyone seems so interested in life and one another and they all have so much to talk about. I am lonely and I am disappointed.”

“Too bad,” he murmured sympathetically.

He patted her hand. She withdrew her fingers quite slowly, with even a graceful little gesture, but there was something quite definite in their removal. Lord Portington had had a great deal of experience, however, of shy young ladies, and he was not easily discouraged.

“You want cheering-up,” he suggested. “I think I must take you shopping after lunch.”

“Shopping?” she repeated. “What is that?”

“Take you to the big establishments here where they sell pretty things–say frocks, hats, jewellery.”

“I have no money,” she sighed.

“You would not need any,” he assured her.

“You mean that they would give me the things I admired?”

“Not exactly,” he smiled. “Someone would pay, of course.”

“You mean that you would?”

“Naturally.”

She shook her head.

“I should not like that,” she objected coldly.

“Why not?”

“You are not my father or my brother or any sort of relative,” she said, looking at him steadily. “I meet you in a business office this morning. You are a stranger. Why should you give me presents?”

“Because I like you,” he answered. “Because I have money and you have not.”

“It is not a good reason, that,” she objected. “You cannot like me very much. One gives presents because one is very generous or because–one loves somebody. I do not think there is any love in your heart for me.”

“That might very easily come,” he told her, leaning across the table impressively.

She shook her head again.

“Some day you would expect to be paid,” she said. “You see, there is no way in which I could pay you.”

She dabbled her fingers for a moment in the rose-scented bowl which the waiter had placed before her, glanced at a worn silver watch and pushed back her chair.

“Do you mind,” she asked, “if we go? I must think a little and rest a little before I begin work this evening.”

“And what about this fellow Treyer?” Portington asked as he summoned the waiter and paid the bill.

“I may write to him,” she replied, “or I may write to the King. They say that he is in Paris.”

“The place where your fragment of rock came from may not be on Crown Lands,” he reminded her.

“That I know nothing about,” she admitted. “If I write to the King, however, he will help to get Rudolph out of prison. That would be better, I think.”

“You will let me drive you home, at any rate,” he begged as they left the restaurant.

“That would be very kind of you,” she consented gratefully. “I know the way from Chelsea to the Germanic. Nowhere else. I lose myself and people are not polite.”

A woman with a flower-basket accosted them as they stood upon the pavement waiting for the car. Marya gave a little cry of delight.

“If you please,” she implored, looking up at her companion, “instead of taking me shopping, will you give me that bunch of daffodils and a bunch of violets, too? That would give me great pleasure.”

“Why, of course.”

He filled her arms with the blossoms and left the flower-seller almost speechless with surprise and gratitude.

“That was the greatest kindness which anyone has offered me since I left Orlac,” Marya said. “I have not smelt a flower since I left home. Thank you very much. If you are really driving me home it is Number 114, Chappell Court, Chappell Street, Chelsea. I have it written down here.”

He handed her into the car and they drove off together. The girl’s whole attention seemed to be taken up by her flowers.

“Look here,” Portington began. “We can’t part like this, Princess.”

She raised her face from the cool caress of the flowers. Her beautiful eyes were once more cold.

“Why not?”

“The matter of the bauxite,” he explained hastily. “I have been thinking it over, and in the interests of our company the affair had better be cleared up.”

“I think,” she decided, “that I shall write to Mr. Treyer.”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” he insisted. “Supposing I fetch you, will you come down and see us to-morrow?”

She shook her head.

“I have been to your office once,” she said. “I have done, or tried to do, what my brother wished. Mr. Beverley was not polite to me. He did not believe that I was honest. I could see it in his eyes. Very well, I go somewhere else.”

“It was only Nigel’s manner,” he assured her. “It would do us a great deal of harm if anyone suspected a German had got a second concession in Orlac and it turned out that there was really bauxite there. Please do as I suggest.”

She considered the matter for a moment. A whiff of perfume from the violets seemed suddenly to attract her. She stooped down to smell them. When she looked up, the queer little suggestion of anger had left her expression. It was the face of a child again.

“You know my address for letters,” she said. “You know where I am to be found in the evening. If Mr. Beverley wishes to see me he can do so. Thank you very much for the lunch, Lord Portington,” she added as the car came to a standstill, “and with all my heart I thank you for the flowers. They will keep me happy for days.”

She stepped lightly on to the pavement, hugging the two nosegays, and took leave of him with a foreign but not ungracious nod. Portington waved his hand, replaced his hat upon his head, and resumed his seat in the car with a grimace. He was by no means an inexperienced boulevardier, but the ways of this little lady from Orlac were strange to him.

CHAPTER III

There were times when Nigel Beverley, even-tempered man though he was, found his prospective father-in-law a distinct nuisance. As a frivoler in life he was an easy and pleasant companion. Directly he took himself seriously, however, he became troublesome. He was very serious indeed when Beverley returned to his office late that afternoon and heard with surprise that Lord Portington had been waiting for him for nearly an hour,

“I am terribly sorry,” Beverley apologised. “If I had had any idea that you were coming back, I’d have left word where I was. Is it the little violinist who is still on your conscience?”

Portington had worked himself into a state of great solemnity. He hitched up his trousers and leaned across the desk.

“My dear Nigel,” he began, “you are taking this matter much too lightly. I will admit that our luncheon started upon a more frivolous note but since then I have had a long conversation with the young lady and she has convinced me of two things.”

Beverley rose from his usual seat at his desk and threw himself into a luxurious easy chair.

“She was not here for long,” he remarked, “but she certainly had a convincing way with her.”

“She is to be taken seriously,” Portington declared. “I believe her story.”

“Brother in prison and all that sort of thing?” Beverley queried.

“I believe that every word she said was the truth. I believe that bauxite is to be discovered in another part of the country. I believe that her brother has found out about it, and that there is serious danger of his approaching one of these German fellows on the matter.”

“Disastrous, if it is true,” Beverley admitted.

“I have had an interview with Mr. Patterson, our lawyer,” Portington continued. “I am only a junior director of the company, of course, but upon the strength of what the young lady told me I felt it to be my duty. I have examined a copy of the charter, Nigel. It is as I supposed. The concession refers only to the mine at Klast. If any other deposit of bauxite has been discovered in the kingdom, it does not come within the scope of our activities. The Government of the country or the King himself, if the bauxite is upon Crown Lands, could grant another concession, and down would go the price and another country, possibly an enemy one, would be able to turn out the same stuff.”

“Well, what do you propose that we do about it?” Beverley enquired, tapping a cigarette and lighting it. “By the by, I wonder if you would like a drink, sir? I am thinking of one myself. I have had rather a strenuous afternoon.”

“A whisky-and-soda,” Lord Portington admitted, “would be most acceptable.”

Beverley unlocked a beautiful mahogany wine chest, produced a decanter of whisky and siphon of soda water, and served his guest and himself. They nodded to one another and Beverley took what was for him an unusually long gulp.

“You ask me,” Portington continued, “what action I suggest that we should take. I think, to begin with, Nigel, you should realise the seriousness of this matter. You should get it into your head that this girl, although she is naturally at a loss with our language, is thoroughly straightforward instead of being the little fly-by-night piece I thought she was myself. We should decide upon a course of action at once.”

“I am willing to presume that she was telling the truth straight away,” Beverley agreed. “Now what about that plan of action?”

“Well, I think, whether he is in prison or not, we ought to get in touch with the brother,” Portington suggested.

“Capital! And then?”

“I think we should approach either the Prime Minister of the country or the King. We should sound them as regards a further concession, if bauxite is found in any other part of the kingdom.”

“You ought to be permanently in the City,” Beverley observed.

“Just common sense, all this, my boy,” Portington pointed out with a pleased smile. “Nothing but sheer common sense. We are making a large profit, I know, with this bauxite, but that is because the supply is so limited. If there is another lot coming onto the market and new competition to face, what will become of those profits? What will become, too, of the advantage we gain over any other country by having the control of this material?”

“That is the question,” Beverley agreed. “Well now, tell me how you got on with the young lady.”

Portington for a moment lost his air of extreme confidence and his tone became a little dubious.

“I had an exceedingly pleasant time, Nigel,” he said. “I found the girl intelligent but remarkably stand-offish. She seemed very much hurt indeed at her reception here. She appears to have a personal grievance against you, and I’m afraid that she will take any opportunity that comes her way of getting her own back.”

“In other words,” Beverley suggested, “you think that she’s not likely to help us in this matter if it turns out to be serious?”

“She’s much more likely,” Portington declared impressively, “to enter into negotiations with this fellow Treyer. You know what that will mean, Nigel. Not only shall we lose our monopoly, but we shall lose it to Germany.”

Beverley, who was at all times a very moderate drinker, replenished his glass. He glanced across at Portington but shook his head.

“To prove to you, sir, how thoroughly I am in accord with you,” he began, “I will tell you how I have spent my afternoon. I, too, have been to the lawyers. I have read over the charter and taken counsel’s opinion upon a portion of it. I have ascertained the exact whereabouts of His Majesty King Nicolas and where he is likely to be for the next few days. I have wired to Klast, to our Consul there, to ascertain whether Mauranesco is still in prison, what is the length of his sentence and whether there is any truth in these rumours of a political upheaval in the country. I have ordered a plane to be ready for me at eight o’clock tomorrow and I have already telegraphed to Will Hayter, the assistant engineer at the mine, whom we have used once or twice before as a confidential inquiry-man out at Klast, and begged him to let me know the exact position of affairs. You see, sir, how right you are. I am admitting it and doing my best to make amends.”

“There is just one thing you have not done which you will have to do,” Portington told him. “You will have to make friends with the girl.”

Beverley was silent for a moment or two. His eyes had wandered to the empty chair in which she had sat. He chased away a somewhat disturbing memory.

“My dear beau-pere-that-is-to-be,” he expostulated, “do you think that it is seemly on my part to be chasing a lady of her youth, beauty and poverty, bearing in mind the fact that I am an engaged man?”

“Ursula is very sensible,” her father reminded him. “You will have me on your side. I shall be able to explain.”

“That’s all very well,” Beverley objected, “but I have not the gift for this sort of thing which you have. I never was a gay dog with the other sex, you know. A slow starter and never a finalist.”

“You have got to get your nose down to it this time, my boy,” Portington persisted. “I tell you frankly, I can’t make any headway myself. The little devil even refused a shopping expedition. I have paved the way for you all right, though. She confessed that she was anxious to see you again. That’s something, anyway.”

“Perhaps so,” Beverley assented. “What am I to do? Ring her up somewhere, call at her rooms? Shall I–”

“Nothing of that sort,” Portington interrupted. “The poor child is living in the utmost poverty. I’ll swear she hasn’t a telephone. She has one room, a bed sitting-room I suppose, on the top floor of a newly erected block of flats in Chelsea. I don’t believe she’d receive you there if you went.”

“Tell me how you suggest that I approach her, then? I’m perfectly willing, up to a certain point.”

“Well, I have discovered for one thing,” Lord Portington confided, “that you are off duty to-night. Ursula is dining and going on to a committee meeting at the Copleys’. I believe that you are supposed to fetch her afterwards, but that would be considerably later.”

“Quite true,” Beverley agreed. “And so?”

“We don’t want to advertise ourselves too much,” Portington went on, “and I shall only accompany you in order to give the affair a start-off. The young lady will be more outspoken if I am not there. Besides–er–my presence would naturally cramp your style. I propose that you and I dine together quietly in the Grill at the Germanic, and that during the interval you do your best to get on terms with the girl.”

There was a distinct frown, indicated by the contraction of his very fine eyebrows, upon Beverley’s face.

“Rather vague,” he commented.

“Any sort of terms; what’s it matter? You and I are men of the world. She can’t do the company much harm between now and ten o’clock, and when you do get a chance to talk to her it is up to you to convince her that we are the Johnnies to keep in with.”

“I don’t fancy,” Beverley commented, “that Ursula would altogether approve.”

“She’s got to approve,” the young lady’s father said firmly. “Fifty per cent dividend on hoisting that infernal mineral out of the earth is making life a different thing for me. Don’t you worry about Ursula. Leave it to me. You could start by making it entirely a matter of business with the girl. If you can’t succeed that way you must take a chance.”

“A trifle modern, aren’t you, in the way of prospective fathers-in-law?” Beverley grunted.

“Never you mind about that, my lad,” was the prompt retort. “It is you who got us into this hole by putting the girl’s back up. You will have to set the matter right at any cost. I have shown you the way and I will give you a start-off, Nigel. I can’t say fairer than that.”

Beverley frowned doubtfully. Again he was glancing at that empty chair and seeing visions.

“I suppose not,” he acquiesced.

“Of course if she had been one of the ordinary sort,” Portington conceded, “it would not have been your job at all. I might have figured in your expense account rather heavily but I would have got the concession. As it is, the world is full of fascinating young women nowadays but there’s only one other bauxite mine!”

Beverley rose from his chair and walked the length of the office and back again. His pleasant expression and debonair carriage had almost completely disappeared. His hands were deep in his trousers’ pockets. His lips were pursed for a whistle which never materialized. He came to a standstill upon the hearthrug and looked across at Portington.

“Listen,” he said. “I will do my best. I must warn you of this much, though. If I find for any reason, probably for no reason you would ever understand, that I want to back out, I shall–and it will be for you to carry on.”

Portington’s fingers once more strayed to the neighbourhood of his upper lip.

“You have plenty of common sense, Nigel,” he admitted. “I will say that. If you decide to pass the business back again to me, well, all I can say is that I, too, will do my best.”

Beverley rang the bell.

“I have some letters to write,” he confided a little shortly, “and I must have a few words with my head clerk. What time do we meet to-night?”

“Half-past eight at the Germanic grill,” Lord Portington replied, accepting the hint and rising to his feet. “I should suggest dinner coats and black ties, and a cocktail at Black’s en route.”

“I will be there,” Nigel Beverley promised.

CHAPTER IV

At nine o’clock that evening Nigel Beverley, seated at the most favoured table in the Germanic grill with Lord Portington, had decided that he was a mean dog. By a quarter-past nine he was sure of it. His companion was a little annoyed.

“For goodness’ sake,” Portington begged, “don’t sit there looking like a thundercloud, Nigel. We have a perfect right to come here and the girl should accept it as a compliment that we wish to hear her play. Can’t you manage to look as though you were enjoying yourself? Waiter,” he added, “I’ll change that wine order. Give us a bottle of Clicquot ‘21 instead of the claret.”

“Very good, my lord,” the man replied obsequiously.

“There appears to be a brief interval,” Portington observed. “I shall pay my respects to the young lady.”

He rose and crossed the room to where the orchestra was seated on a little raised dais. Beverley let him depart without a word. His eyes were still fixed upon that slim, girlish figure standing with her back to the piano. She was looking apparently in his direction but with unseeing eyes. Her costume had no kinship with the ordinary type of suburban evening gown affected by young ladies who play the violin in an orchestra. It was a perfectly plain black frock buttoned high up to her neck with scarcely a break in its continuous line. A little bow of white tulle at her throat was her only ornament. Her beautiful hair–he realised for the first time how beautiful, in its mellow golden softness–was brushed plainly back from what he saw now to be a serious as well as an attractive face. She was unduly pale, perhaps, but it was a pallor which carried with it its own distinction. Her deep-set hazel eyes were expressionless but it was because she was looking at nothing. The slight curve of her lips seemed almost childish, a trifle disdainful, too, at her forced appearance amongst that small but heterogeneous crowd of performers. Somehow, she gave him the feeling that he would like to leave his seat, fetch his coat and hat and walk away from the place. At the same time, he had another feeling–that nothing would induce him to leave until he had talked to her…

He had not long to wait. It was a quiet evening and the place was half full. The leader of the orchestra was only too happy to grant a request from a distinguished visitor. Portington brought the girl to their table and the waiter hurried to place a chair for her.

“There’s ten minutes’ interval,” Portington announced, “and Mademoiselle Mauranesco–the Princess, I should say–is going to drink her first cocktail with us.”

“Her first?” Beverley remarked, rising to his feet.