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- Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
Edward Phillips Oppenheim is an English novelist, creator of adventure novels that gained immense popularity in the early 20th century. His espionage novels were widely known, where the writer was a pioneer. His works to a large extent contributed to the fact that the detective acquired not only the will and mental ability of the great detectives, but also iron grip, the ability to dodge and strike at the right time. The multibook includes the most read novels of the author, such as: „The Great Impersonation”, „The Zeppelin’s Passenger”, „The Devil’s Paw”, „The Avenger, „An Amiable Charlatan”, „Jacob’s Ladder”, „The Yellow Hous”, „The Cinema Murder”, „Anna the Adventuress”, „The Wicked Marquis”, „The Box with the Broken Seals”, „The Moving Finger”, „The Black Box”, „The Golden Web”, „The Great Secret”, „The Double Traitor”, „The Vanished Messenger”, „Havoc”, „The Pawns Count”, „The Yellow Crayon”, „The Mischief Maker”, „Mysterious Mr. Sabin”, „Jeanne of the Marshes”, „The Malefactor”, „A Lost Leader”, „The Survivor”, „The Great Prince Shan”, „Berenice”, „The Hillman”, „A Millionaire of Yesterday”.
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Contents
The Great Impersonation
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 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
The Zeppelin’s Passenger
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 XXXIII
The Devil’s Paw
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
The Avenger
I. THE HEAD-HUNTER
II. MR. SAMPSON LONGVALE CALLS
III. THE NIECE
IV. THE LEADING LADY
V. MR. LAWLEY FOSS
VI. THE MASTER OF GRIFF
VII. THE SWORDS AND BHAG
VIII. BHAG
IX. THE ANCESTOR
X. THE OPEN WINDOW
XI. THE MARK ON THE WINDOW
XII. A CRY FROM A TOWER
XIII. THE TRAP THAT FAILED
XIV. MENDOZA MAKES A FIGHT
XV. TWO FROM THE YARD
XVI. THE BROWN MAN PROM NOWHERE
XVII. MR. FOSS MAKES A SUGGESTION
XVIII. THE FACE IN THE PICTURE
XIX. THE MIDNIGHT VISIT
XX. A NARROW ESCAPE
XXI. THE ERASURE
XXII. THE HEAD
XXIII. CLUES AT THE TOWER
XXIV. THE MARKS OF THE BEAST
XXV. THE MAN IN THE CAR
XXVI. THE HAND
XXVII. THE CAVES
XXVIII. THE TOWER
XXIX. BHAG’S RETURN
XXX. THE ADVERTISEMENT
XXXI. JOHN PERCIVAL LIGGITT
XXXII. GREGORY’S WAY
XXXIII. THE TRAP THAT FAILED
XXXIV. THE SEARCH
XXXV. WHAT HAPPENED TO ADELE
XXXVI. THE ESCAPE
XXXVII. AT THE TOWER AGAIN
XXXVIII. THE CAVERN OF BONES
XXXIX. MICHAEL KNOWS FOR SURE
XL. “THE WIDOW”
XLI. THE DEATH
XLII. CAMERA
An Amiable Charlatan
I. THE MAN AT STEPHANO’S
II. THE COUP IN THE GAMBLING DEN
III. CULLEN GIVES ADVICE
IV. THE WOOING OF EVE
V. MR. SAMUELSON
VI. THE PARTY AT THE MILAN
VII. “ONE OF US”
VIII. AT THE ALHAMBRA
IX. THE EXPOSURE
X. A BROKEN PARTNERSHIP
XI. MR. BUNDERCOMBE’S WINK
XII. THE EMANCIPATION OF LOUIS
XIII. “THE SHORN LAMB”
XIV. MR. BUNDERCOMBE’S LOVE AFFAIR
XV. LORD PORTHONING’S LESSON
Jacob’s Ladder
PROLOGUE
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
The Yellow House
I. The Yellow House
II. On The Moor
III. Mr. Bruce Deville
IV. Our Mysterious Neighbors
V. A South American Letter
VI. The Millionaire
VII. A Fruitless Appeal
VIII. The Coming Of Mr. Berdenstein
IX. A Terrible Interruption
X. Canon Of Belchester
XI. The Gathering Of The Cloud
XII. Mr. Berdenstein’s Sister
XIII. For Vengeance
XIV. Adelaide Fortress’s Guest
XV. The Likeness Of Philip Maltabar
XVI. “It Was My Father”
XVII. A Conference Or Two
XVIII. Friends
XIX. A Corner Of The Curtain
XX. I Am The Victim
XXI. Out Of Danger
XXII. An Unholy Compact
XXIII. In The Plantation
XXIV. My Dilemma
XXV. A Proposal
XXVI. The Evidence Of Circumstances
XXVII. A Ghost In Whitechapel
XXVIII. Eastminster
XXIX. The Breaking Of The Storm
XXX. The Master Of Colville Hall
The Cinema Murder
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
BOOK III
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
Anna the Adventuress
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
The Wicked Marquis
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 XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
The Box with the Broken Seals
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
The Moving Finger
PROLOGUE
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 XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
EPILOGUE
The Black Box
Sanford Quest, Criminologist
The Apartment-House Mystery
The Hidden Hands
The Pocket Wireless
An Old Grudge
On the Rack
The Unseen Terror
The House of Mystery
The Inherited Sin
Lost in London
The Ship of Horror
A Desert Vengeance
’Neath Iron Wheels
Tongues of Flame
“A Bolt from the Blue”
Justice Cheated
The Golden Web
BOOK ONE
I. A LIFE FOR SALE
II. THE PURCHASE
III. A FAMILY AFFAIR
IV. A MURDER
V. A DEBT INCURRED
VI. AN IMPERIOUS DEMAND
VII. LOVE OR INTEREST?
VIII. AN AWFUL RESPONSIBILITY
IX. WINIFRED ROWAN
X. AT THE THEATRE
XI. AN APPEAL
XII. RUBY SINCLAIR
XIII. AN INFORMAL TEA-PARTY
XIV. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
XV. THE EFFECT OF A STORM
XVI. A REPRIEVE
XVII. A NEW DANGER
XVIII. AN EXPENSIVE KEY
XIX. THE SEARCH
XX. IN DOUBT
XXI. RUBY IS DISAPPOINTED
BOOK TWO
I. FREE TO DIE
II. A LAPSE OF MEMORY
III. A PAINFUL INTERVIEW
IV. A QUESTION
V. MUTUAL INFORMATION
VI. AN OPPORTUNE ARRIVAL
VII. HEFFEROM IS OPTIMISTIC
VIII. A BOLD MOVE
IX. LORD NUNNELEY IS FRANK
X. A BROKEN ENGAGEMENT
XI. BITTER WORDS
XII. A STRANGE BETROTHAL
XIII. DESPERATION
XIV. AN AFTERNOON'S SHOPPING
XV. A FRIEND
XVI. PASSION
XVII. A DESPAIRING CALL
XVIII. WINIFRED IS TRAPPED
XIX. MISS SINCLAIR'S OFFER
XX. THROUGH THE MILL
XXI. ALL AS IT SHOULD BE
The Great Secret
I. ROOM NO. 317
II. A MIDNIGHT RAID
III. MISS VAN HOYT
IV. A MATCH AT LORD'S
V. ON THE TERRACE
VI. "MR. GUEST"
VII. A TÊTE-À-TÊTE DINNER
VIII. IN THE TOILS
IX. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
X. "WORTLEY FOOTE—THE SPY"
XI. A LEGACY OF DANGER
XII. OLD FRIENDS
XIII. THE SHADOW DEEPENS
XIV. GATHERING JACKALS
XV. A DYING MAN
XVI. I TAKE UP MY LEGACY
XVII. NAGASKI'S INSTINCT
XVIII. IN THE DEATH CHAMBER
XIX. AN AFFAIR OF STATE
XX. TRAVELLING COMPANIONS
XXI. "FOR YOU!"
XXII. "LOVED I NOT HONOR MORE"
XXIII. THE PRETENDER
XXIV. A PRACTICAL WOMAN
XXV. A CABLE FROM EUROPE
XXVI. FOR VALUE RECEIVED
XXVII. INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
XXVIII. DOUBLE DEALING
XXIX. I CHANGE MY NATIONALITY
XXX. THE "WAITERS' UNION"
XXXI. IN THE ENEMY'S CAMP
XXXII. SIR GILBERT HAS A SURPRISE
XXXIII. A REUNION OF HEARTS
XXXIV. RIFLE PRACTICE
XXXV. "HIRSCH'S WIFE"
XXXVI. AN URGENT WARNING
XXXVII. THE BLACK BAG
XXXVIII. A LAST RESOURCE
XXXIX. WORKING THE ORACLE
XL. THE ORACLE SPEAKS
The Double Traitor
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 XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XL
The Vanished Messenger
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 XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
Havoc
I. CROWNED HEADS MEET
II. ARTHUR DORWARD'S "SCOOP"
III. "OURS IS A STRANGE COURTSHIP"
IV. THE NIGHT TRAIN FROM VIENNA
V. "VON BEHRLING HAS THE PACKET"
VI. VON BEHRLING IS TEMPTED
VII. "WE PLAY FOR GREAT STAKES"
VIII. THE HAND OF MISFORTUNE
IX. ROBBING THE DEAD
X. BELLAMY IS OUTWITTED
XI. VON BEHRLING'S FATE
XII. BARON DE STREUSS' PROPOSAL
XIII. STEPHEN LAVERICK'S CONSCIENCE
XIV. ARTHUR MORRISON'S COLLAPSE
XV. LAVERICK's PARTNER FLEES
XVI. THE WAITER AT THE "BLACK POST"
XVII. THE PRICE OF SILENCE
XVIII. THE LONELY CHORUS GIRL
XIX. MYSTERIOUS INQUIRIES
XX. LAVERICK IS CROSS-EXAMINED
XXI. MADEMOISELLE IDIALE'S VISIT
XXII. ACTIVITY OF AUSTRIAN SPIES
XXIII. LAVERICK AT THE OPERA
XXIV. A SUPPER PARTY AT LUIGI'S
XXV. JIM SHEPHERD'S SCARE
XXVI. THE DOCUMENT DISCOVERED
XXVII. PENETRATING A MYSTERY
XXVIII. LAVERICK'S NARROW ESCAPE
XXIX. LASSEN'S TREACHERY DISCOVERED
XXX. THE CONTEST FOR THE PAPERS
XXXI. MISS LENEVEU'S MESSAGE
XXXII. MORRISON IS DESPERATE
XXXIII. LAVERICK S ARREST
XXXIV. MORRISON'S DISCLOSURE
XXXV. BELLAMY'S SUCCESS
XXXVI. LAVERICK ACQUITTED
XXXVII. THE PLOT THAT FAILED
XXXVIII. A FAREWELL APPEARANCE
The Pawns Count
FOREWORD
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 XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
The Yellow Crayon
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 XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER XLI
CHAPTER XLII
CHAPTER XLIII
The Mischief Maker
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER I. SYMPATHY AND SELFISHNESS
CHAPTER II. AN INDISCREET LETTER
CHAPTER III. A RUINED CAREER
CHAPTER IV. A BUNCH OF VIOLETS
CHAPTER V. A SENTIMENTAL EPISODE
CHAPTER VI. AT THE CAFÉ L’ATHÉNÉE
CHAPTER VII. COFFEE FOR THREE
CHAPTER VIII. IN PARIS
CHAPTER IX. MADAME CHRISTOPHOR
CHAPTER X. BETTER ACQUAINTANCE
CHAPTER XI. THE TOYMAKER FROM LEIPZIG
CHAPTER XII. AT THE RAT MORT
CHAPTER XIII. POLITICS AND PATRIOTISM
CHAPTER XIV. THE MORNING AFTER
CHAPTER XV. BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
CHAPTER XVI. “HAVE YOU EVER LOVED?”
CHAPTER XVII. KENDRICKS IS HOST
CHAPTER XVIII. A MEETING OF SOCIALISTS
CHAPTER XIX. AN OFFER
CHAPTER XX. FALKENBERG ACTS
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER I. THE FLIGHT OF LADY ANNE
CHAPTER II. “TO OUR NEW SELVES”
CHAPTER III. WORK FOR JULIEN
CHAPTER IV. A STARTLING DISCLOSURE
CHAPTER V. THE FIRST ARTICLE
CHAPTER VI. FALKENBERG FAILS
CHAPTER VII. LADY ANNE DECLINES
CHAPTER VIII. A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
CHAPTER IX. FOOLHARDY JULIEN
CHAPTER X. THE SECOND ATTEMPT
CHAPTER XI. BY THE PRINCE’S ORDERS
CHAPTER XII. DISTRESSING NEWS
CHAPTER XIII. ESTERMEN’S DEATH-WARRANT
CHAPTER XIV. SANCTUARY
CHAPTER XV. NEARING A CRISIS
CHAPTER XVI. FALKENBERG’S LAST EFFORT
CHAPTER XVII. DEFEAT FOR FALKENBERG
CHAPTER XVIII. THE ONE WAY OUT
CHAPTER XIX. ALL ENDS WELL
Mysterious Mr. Sabin
I. A SUPPER PARTY AT THE "MILAN"
II. A DRAMA OF THE PAVEMENT
III. THE WARNING OF FELIX
IV. AT THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR'S
V. THE DILEMMA OF WOLFENDEN
VI. A COMPACT OF THREE
VII. WHO IS MR. SABIN?
VIII. A MEETING IN BOND STREET
IX. THE SHADOWS THAT GO BEFORE
X. THE SECRETARY
XI. THE FRUIT THAT IS OF GOLD
XII. WOLFENDEN'S LUCK
XIII. A GREAT WORK
XIV. THE TEMPTING OF MR. BLATHERWICK
XV. THE COMING AND GOING OF MR. FRANKLIN WILMOT
XVI. GENIUS OR MADNESS?
XVII. THE SCHEMING OF GIANTS
XVIII. "HE HAS GONE TO THE EMPEROR!"
XIX. WOLFENDEN'S LOVE-MAKING
XX. FROM A DIM WORLD
XXI. HARCUTT'S INSPIRATION
XXII. FROM THE BEGINNING
XXIII. MR. SABIN EXPLAINS
XXIV. THE WAY OF THE WOMAN
XXV. A HANDFUL OF ASHES
XXVI. MR. BLATHERWICK AS ST. ANTHONY
XXVII. BY CHANCE OR DESIGN
XXVIII. A MIDNIGHT VISITOR
XXIX. "IT WAS MR. SABIN"
XXX. THE GATHERING OF THE WAR-STORM
XXXI. "I MAKE NO PROMISE"
XXXII. THE SECRET OF MR. SABIN'S NIECE
XXXIII. MR. SABIN TRIUMPHS
XXXIV. BLANCHE MERTON'S LITTLE PLOT
AXXXV. LITTLE GAME OF CARDS
XXXVI. THE MODERN RICHELIEU
XXXVII. FOR A GREAT STAKE
XXXVIII. THE MEN WHO SAVED ENGLAND
XXXIX. THE HEART OF THE PRINCESS
XL. THE WAY TO PAU
XLI. MR. AND MRS. WATSON OF NEW YORK
XLII. A WEAK CONSPIRATOR
XLIII. THE COMING OF THE "KAISER WILHELM"
XLIV. THE GERMANS ARE ANNOYED
XLV. MR. SABIN IN DANGER
XLVI. MR. WATSON IS ASTONISHED
XLVII. A CHARMED LIFE
XLVIII. THE DOOMSCHEN
XLIX. MR. SABIN IS SENTIMENTAL
L. A HARBOUR TRAGEDY
LI. THE PERSISTENCE OF FELIX
LII. MRS. JAMES B. PETERSON, OF LENOX
Jeanne of the Marshes
BOOK I
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
BOOK II
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
The Malefactor
BOOK I
A SOCIETY SCANDAL
OUTSIDE THE PALE
A STUDENT OF CHARACTER
A DELICATE MISSION
THE GOSPEL OF HATE
“HAST THOU FOUND ME, O MINE ENEMY?”
LORD OF THE MANOR
THE HEART OF A CHILD
THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES
A FORLORN HOPE
PROFESSOR SINCLAIR’S DANCING ACADEMY
MEPHISTOPHELES ON A STEAMER
A COCKNEY CONSPIRATOR
THE MOTH AND THE CANDLE
“DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST”
THE HIDDEN HAND
BOOK II
“MR. WINGRAVE FROM AMERICA”
THE SHADOW OF A FEAR
JULIET ASKS QUESTIONS
LADY RUTH’S LAST CARD
GUARDIAN AND WARD
GHOSTS OF DEAD THINGS
SPREADING THE NETS
IN THE TOILS
THE INDISCRETION OF THE MARCHIONESS
“I AM MISANTHROPOS, AND HATE MANKIND”
JULIET GAINS EXPERIENCE
NEMESIS AT WORK
RICHARDSON TRIES AGAIN
“IT WAS AN ACCIDENT”
AYNESWORTH PLANS A LOVE STORY
A DEED OF GIFT
FOR PITY’S SAKE
A DREAM OF PARADISE
THE AWAKENING
REVENGE IS—BITTER
THE WAY OF PEACE
“LOVE SHALL MAKE ALL THINGS NEW”
A Lost Leader
BOOK I
I. RECONSTRUCTION
II. THE WOMAN WITH AN ALIAS
III. WANTED—A POLITICIAN
IV. THE DUCHESS ASKS A QUESTION
V. THE HESITATION OF MR. MANNERING
VI. SACRIFICE
VII. THE DUCHESS’S “AT HOME”
VIII. THE MANNERING MYSTERY
IX. THE PUMPING OF MRS. PHILLIMORE
X. THE MAN WITH A MOTIVE
XI. MANNERING’S ALTERNATIVE
BOOK II
I. BORROWDEAN MAKES A BARGAIN
II. “CHERCHEZ LA FEMME”
III. ONE OF THE “SUFFERERS”
IV. DEBTS OF HONOUR
V. LOVE VERSUS POLITICS
VI. THE CONSCIENCE OF A STATESMAN
VII. A BLOW FOR BORROWDEAN
VIII. A PAGE FROM THE PAST
IX. THE FALTERING OF MANNERING
X. THE END OF A DREAM
XI. BORROWDEAN SHOWS HIS “HAND”
XII. SIR LESLIE BORROWDEAN INCURS A HEAVY DEBT
XIII. THE WOMAN AND—THE OTHER WOMAN
BOOK III
I. MATRIMONY AND AN AWKWARD MEETING
II. THE SNUB FOR BORROWDEAN
III. CLOUDS—AND A CALL TO ARMS
IV. DISASTER
V. THE JOURNALIST INTERVENES
VI. TREACHERY AND A TELEGRAM
VII. MR. MANNERING, M.P.
VIII. PLAYING THE GAME
IX. THE TRAGEDY OF A KEY
X. BLANCHE FINDS A WAY OUT
BOOK IV
I. THE PERSISTENCY OF BORROWDEAN
II. HESTER THINKS IT “A GREAT PITY”
I. SUMMONED TO WINDSOR
IV. CHECKMATE TO BORROWDEAN
V. A BRAZEN PROCEEDING
The Survivor
I. THE SERMON THAT WAS NEVER PREACHED
II. A STRANGE BETROTHAL
III. THE MAN WHO WAS IN A HURRY
IV. EXIT MR. DOUGLAS GUEST
V. HOW THE ADDRESS WAS LOST
VI. THE YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY HEARS SOME NEWS
VII. A NIGHT IN HELL—AND NEXT DAY
VIII. THE AUTHOR OF "NO MAN'S LAND"
IX. THE EDITOR OF THE IBEX RECEIVES A STRANGE LETTER
X. A WOMAN OF WHIMS
XI. DOUGLAS GUEST GETS HIS "CHANCE"
XII. THE MAN WHO NEARLY WENT UNDER
XIII. THE FIRST TASTE OF FAME
XIV. A VISITOR FROM SCOTLAND YARD
XV. EMILY DE REUSS TELLS A LIE
XVI. JOAN STRONG, AVENGER
XVII. A PLAIN QUESTION AND A WARNING
XVIII. THE TASTE OF THE LOTUS
XIX. A MAN WITHOUT A PAST
XX. CICELY ASKS A QUESTION
XXI. THE REBELLION OF DREXLEY
XXII. DREXLEY SPEAKS OUT
XXIII. CICELY'S SECRET
XXIV. THE COUNTESS, THE COUSIN, AND THE CRITIC
XXV. A TRAGIC INTERRUPTION
XXVI. A VISITOR FOR DOUGLAS JESSON
XXVII. FELLOW-CRIMINALS
XXVIII. THE LITTLE FIGURE IN BLACK
XXIX. JOAN STRONG FINDS HER BROTHER
XXX. DAVID AND JOAN
XXXI. DREXLEY FORESEES DANGER
XXXII. A SUPPER AT THE "MILAN," AND A MEETING
XXXIII. A MISUNDERSTANDING
XXXIV. THE WOOING OF CICELY
XXXV. THE NET OF JOAN'S VENGEANCE
XXXVI. A SCENE AT THE CLUB
XXXVII. CICELY MAKES HER CHOICE
XXXVIII. "SHE WAS A WOMAN: I WAS A COWARD!"
XXXIX. A JOURNEY—AND A WEDDING
XL. A CALL BEFORE THE CURTAIN
The Great Prince Shan
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
Berenice
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
The Hillman
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
XXXV
XXXVI
XXXVII
XXXVIII
A Millionaire of Yesterday
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 XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER XLI
CHAPTER XLII
The Great Impersonation
CHAPTER I
The trouble from which great events were to come began when Everard Dominey, who had been fighting his way through the scrub for the last three quarters of an hour towards those thin, spiral wisps of smoke, urged his pony to a last despairing effort and came crashing through the great oleander shrub to pitch forward on his head in the little clearing. It developed the next morning, when he found himself for the first time for many months on the truckle bed, between linen sheets, with a cool, bamboo-twisted roof between him and the relentless sun. He raised himself a little in the bed.
“Where the mischief am I?” he demanded.
A black boy, seated cross-legged in the entrance of the banda, rose to his feet, mumbled something and disappeared. In a few moments the tall, slim figure of a European, in spotless white riding clothes, stooped down and came over to Dominey’s side.
“You are better?” he enquired politely.
“Yes, I am,” was the somewhat brusque rejoinder. “Where the mischief am I, and who are you?”
The newcomer’s manner stiffened. He was a person of dignified carriage, and his tone conveyed some measure of rebuke.
“You are within half a mile of the Iriwarri River, if you know where that is,” he replied,–“about seventy-two miles southeast of the Darawaga Settlement.”
“The devil! Then I am in German East Africa?”
“Without a doubt.”
“And you are German?”
“I have that honour.”
Dominey whistled softly.
“Awfully sorry to have intruded,” he said. “I left Marlinstein two and a half months ago, with twenty boys and plenty of stores. We were doing a big trek after lions. I took some new Askaris in and they made trouble,–looted the stores one night and there was the devil to pay. I was obliged to shoot one or two, and the rest deserted. They took my compass, damn them, and I’m nearly a hundred miles out of my bearings. You couldn’t give me a drink, could you?”
“With pleasure, if the doctor approves,” was the courteous answer. “Here, Jan!”
The boy sprang up, listened to a word or two of brief command in his own language, and disappeared through the hanging grass which led into another hut. The two men exchanged glances of rather more than ordinary interest. Then Dominey laughed.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “It gave me quite a start when you came in. We’re devilishly alike, aren’t we?”
“There is a very strong likeness between us,” the other admitted.
Dominey leaned his head upon his hand and studied his host. The likeness was clear enough, although the advantage was all in favour of the man who stood by the side of the camp bedstead with folded arms. Everard Dominey, for the first twenty-six years of his life, had lived as an ordinary young Englishman of his position,–Eton, Oxford, a few years in the Army, a few years about town, during which he had succeeded in making a still more hopeless muddle of his already encumbered estates: a few months of tragedy, and then a blank. Afterwards ten years–at first in the cities, then in the dark places of Africa–years of which no man knew anything. The Everard Dominey of ten years ago had been, without a doubt, good-looking. The finely shaped features remained, but the eyes had lost their lustre, his figure its elasticity, his mouth its firmness. He had the look of a man run prematurely to seed, wasted by fevers and dissipation. Not so his present companion. His features were as finely shaped, cast in an even stronger though similar mould. His eyes were bright and full of fire, his mouth and chin firm, bespeaking a man of deeds, his tall figure lithe and supple. He had the air of being in perfect health, in perfect mental and physical condition, a man who lived with dignity and some measure of content, notwithstanding the slight gravity of his expression.
“Yes,” the Englishman muttered, “there’s no doubt about the likeness, though I suppose I should look more like you than I do if I’d taken care of myself. But I haven’t. That’s the devil of it. I’ve gone the other way; tried to chuck my life away and pretty nearly succeeded, too.”
The dried grasses were thrust on one side, and the doctor entered,–a little round man, also clad in immaculate white, with yellow- gold hair and thick spectacles. His countryman pointed towards the bed.
“Will you examine our patient, Herr Doctor, and prescribe for him what is necessary? He has asked for drink. Let him have wine, or whatever is good for him. If he is well enough, he will join our evening meal. I present my excuses. I have a despatch to write.”
The man on the couch turned his head and watched the departing figure with a shade of envy in his eyes.
“What is my preserver’s name?” he asked the doctor.
The latter looked as though the questions were irreverent.
“It is His Excellency the Major-General Baron Leopold Von Ragastein.”
“All that!” Dominey muttered. “Is he the Governor, or something of that sort?”
“He is Military Commandant of the Colony,” the doctor replied. “He has also a special mission here.”
“Damned fine-looking fellow for a German,” Dominey remarked, with unthinking insolence.
The doctor was unmoved. He was feeling his patient’s pulse. He concluded his examination a few minutes later.
“You have drunk much whisky lately, so?” he asked.
“I don’t know what the devil it’s got to do with you,” was the curt reply, “but I drink whisky whenever I can get it. Who wouldn’t in this pestilential climate!”
The doctor shook his head.
“The climate is good as he is treated,” he declared. “His Excellency drinks nothing but light wine and seltzer water. He has been here for five years, not only here but in the swamps, and he has not been ill one day.”
“Well, I have been at death’s door a dozen times,” the Englishman rejoined a little recklessly, “and I don’t much mind when I hand in my checks, but until that time comes I shall drink whisky whenever I can get it.”
“The cook is preparing you some luncheon,” the doctor announced, “and it will do you good to eat. I cannot give you whisky at this moment, but you can have some hock and seltzer with bay leaves.”
“Send it along,” was the enthusiastic reply. “What a constitution I must have, doctor! The smell of that cooking outside is making me ravenous.”
“Your constitution is still sound if you would only respect it,” was the comforting assurance.
“Anything been heard of the rest of my party?” Dominey enquired.
“Some bodies of Askaris have been washed up from the river,” the doctor informed him, “and two of your ponies have been eaten by lions. You will excuse. I have the wounds of a native to dress, who was bitten last night by a jaguar.”
The traveller, left alone, lay still in the hut, and his thoughts wandered backwards. He looked out over the bare, scrubby stretch of land which had been cleared for this encampment to the mass of bush and flowering shrubs beyond, mysterious and impenetrable save for that rough elephant track along which he had travelled; to the broad-bosomed river, blue as the sky above, and to the mountains fading into mist beyond. The face of his host had carried him back into the past. Puzzled reminiscence tugged at the strings of memory. It came to him later on at dinner time, when they three, the Commandant, the doctor and himself, sat at a little table arranged just outside the hut, that they might catch the faint breeze from the mountains, herald of the swift- falling darkness. Native servants beat the air around them with bamboo fans to keep off the insects, and the air was faint almost to noxiousness with the perfume of some sickly, exotic shrub.
“Why, you’re Devinter!” he exclaimed suddenly,–“Sigismund Devinter! You were at Eton with me–Horrock’s House–semi-final in the racquets.”
“And Magdalen afterwards, number five in the boat.”
“And why the devil did the doctor here tell me that your name was Von Ragastein?”
“Because it happens to be the truth,” was the somewhat measured reply. “Devinter is my family name, and the one by which I was known when in England. When I succeeded to the barony and estates at my uncle’s death, however, I was compelled to also take the title.”
“Well, it’s a small world!” Dominey exclaimed. “What brought you out here really–lions or elephants?”
“Neither.”
“You mean to say that you’ve taken up this sort of political business just for its own sake, not for sport?”
“Entirely so. I do not use a sporting rifle once a month, except for necessity. I came to Africa for different reasons.”
Dominey drank deep of his hock and seltzer and leaned back, watching the fireflies rise above the tall-bladed grass, above the stumpy clumps of shrub, and hang like miniature stars in the clear, violet air.
“What a world!” he soliloquised. “Siggy Devinter, Baron Von Ragastein, out here, slaving for God knows what, drilling niggers to fight God knows whom, a political machine, I suppose, future Governor-General of German Africa, eh? You were always proud of your country, Devinter.”
“My country is a country to be proud of,” was the solemn reply.
“Well, you’re in earnest, anyhow,” Dominey continued, “in earnest about something. And I–well, it’s finished with me. It would have been finished last night if I hadn’t seen the smoke from your fires, and I don’t much care–that’s the trouble. I go blundering on. I suppose the end will come somehow, sometime–Can I have some rum or whisky, Devinter–I mean Von Ragastein–Your Excellency–or whatever I ought to say? You see those wreaths of mist down by the river? They’ll mean malaria for me unless I have spirits.”
“I have something better than either,” Von Ragastein replied. “You shall give me your opinion of this.”
The orderly who stood behind his master’s chair, received a whispered order, disappeared into the commissariat hut and came back presently with a bottle at the sight of which the Englishman gasped.
“Napoleon!” he exclaimed.
“Just a few bottles I had sent to me,” his host explained. “I am delighted to offer it to some one who will appreciate it.”
“By Jove, there’s no mistake about that!” Dominey declared, rolling it around in his glass. “What a world! I hadn’t eaten for thirty hours when I rolled up here last night, and drunk nothing but filthy water for days. To- night, fricassee of chicken, white bread, cabinet hock and Napoleon brandy. And to-morrow again–well, who knows? When do you move on, Von Ragastein?”
“Not for several days.”
“What the mischief do you find to do so far from headquarters, if you don’t shoot lions or elephants?” his guest asked curiously.
“If you really wish to know,” Von Ragastein replied, “I am annoying your political agents immensely by moving from place to place, collecting natives for drill.”
“But what do you want to drill them for?” Dominey persisted. “I heard some time ago that you have four times as many natives under arms as we have. You don’t want an army here. You’re not likely to quarrel with us or the Portuguese.”
“It is our custom,” Von Ragastein declared a little didactically, “in Germany and wherever we Germans go, to be prepared not only for what is likely to happen but for what might possibly happen.”
“A war in my younger days, when I was in the Army,” Dominey mused, “might have made a man of me.”
“Surely you had your chance out here?”
Dominey shook his head.
“My battalion never left the country,” he said. “We were shut up in Ireland all the time. That was the reason I chucked the army when I was really only a boy.”
Later on they dragged their chairs a little farther out into the darkness, smoking cigars and drinking some rather wonderful coffee. The doctor had gone off to see a patient, and Von Ragastein was thoughtful. Their guest, on the other hand, continued to be reminiscently discursive.
“Our meeting,” he observed, lazily stretching out his hand for his glass, “should be full of interest to the psychologist. Here we are, brought together by some miraculous chance to spend one night of our lives in an African jungle, two human beings of the same age, brought up together thousands of miles away, jogging on towards the eternal blackness along lines as far apart as the mind can conceive.”
“Your eyes are fixed,” Von Ragastein murmured, “upon that very blackness behind which the sun will rise at dawn. You will see it come up from behind the mountains in that precise spot, like a new and blazing world.”
“Don’t put me off with allegories,” his companion objected petulantly. “The eternal blackness exists surely enough, even if my metaphor is faulty. I am disposed to be philosophical. Let me ramble on. Here am I, an idler in my boyhood, a harmless pleasure-seeker in my youth till I ran up against tragedy, and since then a drifter, a drifter with a slowly growing vice, lolling through life with no definite purpose, with no definite hope or wish, except,” he went on a little drowsily, “that I think I’d like to be buried somewhere near the base of those mountains, on the other side of the river, from behind which you say the sun comes up every morning like a world on fire.”
“You talk foolishly,” Von Ragastein protested. “If there has been tragedy in your life, you have time to get over it. You are not yet forty years old.”
“Then I turn and consider you,” Dominey continued, ignoring altogether his friend’s remark. “You are only my age, and you look ten years younger. Your muscles are hard, your eyes are as bright as they were in your school days. You carry yourself like a man with a purpose. You rise at five every morning, the doctor tells me, and you return here, worn out, at dusk. You spend every moment of your time drilling those filthy blacks. When you are not doing that, you are prospecting, supervising reports home, trying to make the best of your few millions of acres of fever swamps. The doctor worships you but who else knows? What do you do it for, my friend?”
“Because it is my duty,” was the calm reply.
“Duty! But why can’t you do your duty in your own country, and live a man’s life, and hold the hands of white men, and look into the eyes of white women?”
“I go where I am needed most,” Von Ragastein answered. “I do not enjoy drilling natives, I do not enjoy passing the years as an outcast from the ordinary joys of human life. But I follow my star.”
“And I my will-o’-the-wisp,” Dominey laughed mockingly. “The whole thing’s as plain as a pikestaff. You may be a dull dog–you always were on the serious side–but you’re a man of principle. I’m a slacker.”
“The difference between us,” Von Ragastein pronounced, “is something which is inculcated into the youth of our country and which is not inculcated into yours. In England, with a little money, a little birth, your young men expect to find the world a playground for sport, a garden for loves. The mightiest German noble who ever lived has his work to do. It is work which makes fibre, which gives balance to life.”
Dominey sighed. His cigar, dearly prized though it had been, was cold between his fingers. In that perfumed darkness, illuminated only by the faint gleam of the shaded lamp behind, his face seemed suddenly white and old. His host leaned towards him and spoke for the first time in the kindlier tones of their youth.
“You hinted at tragedy, my friend. You are not alone. Tragedy also has entered my life. Perhaps if things had been otherwise, I should have found work in more joyous places, but sorrow came to me, and I am here.”
A quick flash of sympathy lit up Dominey’s face.
“We met trouble in a different fashion,” he groaned.
CHAPTER II
Dominey slept till late the following morning, and when he woke at last from a long, dreamless slumber, he was conscious of a curious quietness in the camp. The doctor, who came in to see him, explained it immediately after his morning greeting.
“His Excellency,” he announced, “has received important despatches from home. He has gone to meet an envoy from Dar-es-Salaam. He will be away for three days. He desired that you would remain his guest until his return.”
“Very good of him,” Dominey murmured. “Is there any European news?”
“I do not know,” was the stolid reply. “His Excellency desired me to inform you that if you cared for a short trip along the banks of the river, southward, there are a dozen boys left and some ponies. There are plenty of lion, and rhino may be met with at one or two places which the natives know of.”
Dominey bathed and dressed, sipped his excellent coffee, and lounged about the place in uncertain mood. He unburdened himself to the doctor as they drank tea together late in the afternoon.
“I am not in the least keen on hunting,” he confessed, “and I feel like a horrible sponge, but all the same I have a queer sort of feeling that I’d like to see Von Ragastein again. Your silent chief rather fascinates me, Herr Doctor. He is a man. He has something which I have lost.”
“He is a great man,” the doctor declared enthusiastically. “What he sets his mind to do, he does.”
“I suppose I might have been like that,” Dominey sighed, “if I had had an incentive. Have you noticed the likeness between us, Herr Doctor?”
The latter nodded.
“I noticed it from the first moment of your arrival,” he assented. “You are very much alike yet very different. The resemblance must have been still more remarkable in your youth. Time has dealt with your features according to your deserts.”
“Well, you needn’t rub it in,” Dominey protested irritably.
“I am rubbing nothing in,” the doctor replied with unruffled calm. “I speak the truth. If you had been possessed of the same moral stamina as His Excellency, you might have preserved your health and the things that count. You might have been as useful to your country as he is to his.”
“I suppose I am pretty rocky?”
“Your constitution has been abused. You still, however, have much vitality. If you cared to exercise self-control for a few months, you would be a different man.–You must excuse. I have work.”
Dominey spent three restless days. Even the sight of a herd of elephants in the river and that strange, fierce chorus of night sounds, as beasts of prey crept noiselessly around the camp, failed to move him. For the moment his love of sport, his last hold upon the world of real things, seemed dead. What did it matter, the killing of an animal more or less? His mind was fixed uneasily upon the past, searching always for something which he failed to discover. At dawn he watched for that strangely wonderful, transforming birth of the day, and at night he sat outside the banda, waiting till the mountains on the other side of the river had lost shape and faded into the violet darkness. His conversation with Von Ragastein had unsettled him. Without knowing definitely why, he wanted him back again. Memories that had long since ceased to torture were finding their way once more into his brain. On the first day he had striven to rid himself of them in the usual fashion.
“Doctor, you’ve got some whisky, haven’t you?” he asked.
The doctor nodded.
“There is a case somewhere to be found,” he admitted. “His Excellency told me that I was to refuse you nothing, but he advises you to drink only the white wine until his return.”
“He really left that message?”
“Precisely as I have delivered it.”
The desire for whisky passed, came again but was beaten back, returned in the night so that he sat up with the sweat pouring down his face and his tongue parched. He drank lithia water instead. Late in the afternoon of the third day, Von Ragastein rode into the camp. His clothes were torn and drenched with the black mud of the swamps, dust and dirt were thick upon his face. His pony almost collapsed as he swung himself off. Nevertheless, he paused to greet his guest with punctilious courtesy, and there was a gleam of real satisfaction in his eyes as the two men shook hands.
“I am glad that you are still here,” he said heartily. “Excuse me while I bathe and change. We will dine a little earlier. So far I have not eaten to- day.”
“A long trek?” Dominey asked curiously.
“I have trekked far,” was the quiet reply.
At dinner time, Von Ragastein was once more himself, immaculate in white duck, with clean linen, shaved, and with little left of his fatigue. There was something different in his manner, however, some change which puzzled Dominey. He was at once more attentive to his guest, yet further removed from him in spirit and sympathy. He kept the conversation with curious insistence upon incidents of their school and college days, upon the subject of Dominey’s friends and relations, and the later episodes of his life. Dominey felt himself all the time encouraged to talk about his earlier life, and all the time he was conscious that for some reason or other his host’s closest and most minute attention was being given to his slightest word. Champagne had been served and served freely, and Dominey, up to the very gates of that one secret chamber, talked volubly and without reserve. After the meal was over, their chairs were dragged as before into the open. The silent orderly produced even larger cigars, and Dominey found his glass filled once more with the wonderful brandy. The doctor had left them to visit the native camp nearly a quarter of a mile away, and the orderly was busy inside, clearing the table. Only the black shapes of the servants were dimly visible as they twirled their fans,–and overhead the gleaming stars. They were alone.
“I’ve been talking an awful lot of rot about myself,” Dominey said. “Tell me a little about your career now and your life in Germany before you came out here?”
Von Ragastein made no immediate reply, and a curious silence ebbed and flowed between the two men. Every now and then a star shot across the sky. The red rim of the moon rose a little higher from behind the mountains. The bush stillness, always the most mysterious of silences, seemed gradually to become charged with unvoiced passion. Soon the animals began to call around them, creeping nearer and nearer to the fire which burned at the end of the open space.
“My friend,” Von Ragastein said at last, speaking with the air of a man who has spent much time in deliberation, “you speak to me of Germany, of my homeland. Perhaps you have guessed that it is not duty alone which has brought me here to these wild places. I, too, left behind me a tragedy.”
Dominey’s quick impulse of sympathy was smothered by the stern, almost harsh repression of the other’s manner. The words seemed to have been torn from his throat. There was no spark of tenderness or regret in his set face.
“Since the day of my banishment,” he went on, “no word of this matter has passed my lips. To-night it is not weakness which assails me, but a desire to yield to the strange arm of coincidence. You and I, schoolmates and college friends, though sons of a different country, meet here in the wilderness, each with the iron in our souls. I shall tell you the thing which happened to me, and you shall speak to me of your own curse.”
“I cannot!” Dominey groaned.
“But you will,” was the stern reply. “Listen.”
An hour passed, and the voices of the two men had ceased. The howling of the animals had lessened with the paling of the fires, and a slow, melancholy ripple of breeze was passing through the bush and lapping the surface of the river. It was Von Ragastein who broke through what might almost have seemed a trance. He rose to his feet, vanished inside the banda, and reappeared a moment or two later with two tumblers. One he set down in the space provided for it in the arm of his guest’s chair.
“To-night I break what has become a rule with me,” he announced. “I shall drink a whisky and soda. I shall drink to the new things that may yet come to both of us.”
“You are giving up your work here?” Dominey asked curiously.
“I am part of a great machine,” was the somewhat evasive reply. “I have nothing to do but obey.”
A flicker of passion distorted Dominey’s face, flamed for a moment in his tone.
“Are you content to live and die like this?” he demanded. “Don’t you want to get back to where a different sort of sun will warm your heart and fill your pulses? This primitive world is in its way colossal, but it isn’t human, it isn’t a life for humans. We want streets, Von Ragastein, you and I. We want the tide of people flowing around us, the roar of wheels and the hum of human voices. Curse these animals! If I live in this country much longer, I shall go on all fours.”
“You yield too much to environment,” his companion observed. “In the life of the cities you would be a sentimentalist.”
“No city nor any civilised country will ever claim me again,” Dominey sighed. “I should never have the courage to face what might come.”
Von Ragastein rose to his feet. The dim outline of his erect form was in a way majestic. He seemed to tower over the man who lounged in the chair before him.
“Finish your whisky and soda to our next meeting, friend of my school days,” he begged. “To-morrow, before you awake, I shall be gone.”
“So soon?”
“By to-morrow night,” Von Ragastein replied, “I must be on the other side of those mountains. This must be our farewell.”
Dominey was querulous, almost pathetic. He had a sudden hatred of solitude.
“I must trek westward myself directly,” he protested, “or eastward, or northward–it doesn’t so much matter. Can’t we travel together?”
Von Ragastein shook his head.
“I travel officially, and I must travel alone,” he replied. “As for yourself, they will be breaking up here to-morrow, but they will lend you an escort and put you in the direction you wish to take. This, alas, is as much as I can do for you. For us it must be farewell.”
“Well, I can’t force myself upon you,” Dominey said a little wistfully. “It seems strange, though, to meet right out here, far away even from the by- ways of life, just to shake hands and pass on. I am sick to death of niggers and animals.”
“It is Fate,” Von Ragastein decided. “Where I go, I must go alone. Farewell, dear friend! We will drink the toast we drank our last night in your rooms at Magdalen. That Sanscrit man translated it for us: ‘May each find what he seeks!’ We must follow our star.”
Dominey laughed a little bitterly. He pointed to a light glowing fitfully in the bush.
“My will-o’-the-wisp,” he muttered recklessly, “leading where I shall follow–into the swamps!”
A few minutes later Dominey threw himself upon his couch, curiously and unaccountably drowsy. Von Ragastein, who had come in to wish him good night, stood looking down at him for several moments with significant intentness. Then, satisfied that his guest really slept, he turned and passed through the hanging curtain of dried grasses into the next banda, where the doctor, still fully dressed, was awaiting him. They spoke together in German and with lowered voices. Von Ragastein had lost something of his imperturbability.
“Everything progresses according to my orders?” he demanded.
“Everything, Excellency! The boys are being loaded, and a runner has gone on to Wadihuan for ponies to be prepared.”
“They know that I wish to start at dawn?”
“All will be prepared, Excellency.”
Von Ragastein laid his hand upon the doctor’s shoulder.
“Come outside, Schmidt,” he said. “I have something to tell you of my plans.”
The two men seated themselves in the long, wicker chairs, the doctor in an attitude of strict attention. Von Ragastein turned his head and listened. From Dominey’s quarters came the sound of deep and regular breathing.
“I have formed a great plan, Schmidt,” Von Ragastein proceeded. “You know what news has come to me from Berlin?”
“Your Excellency has told me a little,” the doctor reminded him.
“The Day arrives,” Von Ragastein pronounced, his voice shaking with deep emotion. He paused a moment in thought and continued, “the time, even the month, is fixed. I am recalled from here to take the place for which I was destined. You know what that place is? You know why I was sent to an English public school and college?”
“I can guess.”
“I am to take up my residence in England. I am to have a special mission. I am to find a place for myself there as an Englishman. The means are left to my ingenuity. Listen, Schmidt. A great idea has come to me.”
The doctor lit a cigar.
“I listen, Excellency.”
Von Ragastein rose to his feet. Not content with the sound of that regular breathing, he made his way to the opening of the banda and gazed in at Dominey’s slumbering form. Then he returned.
“It is something which you do not wish the Englishman to hear?” the doctor asked.
“It is.”
“We speak in German.”
“Languages,” was the cautious reply, “happen to be that man’s only accomplishment. He can speak German as fluently as you or I. That, however, is of no consequence. He sleeps and he will continue to sleep. I mixed him a sleeping draught with his whisky and soda.”
“Ah!” the doctor grunted.
“My principal need in England is an identity,” Von Ragastein pointed out. “I have made up my mind. I shall take this Englishman’s. I shall return to England as Sir Everard Dominey.”
“So!”
“There is a remarkable likeness between us, and Dominey has not seen an Englishman who knows him for eight or ten years. Any school or college friends whom I may encounter I shall be able to satisfy. I have stayed at Dominey. I know Dominey’s relatives. To-night he has babbled for hours, telling me many things that it is well for me to know.”
“What about his near relatives?”
“He has none nearer than cousins.”
“No wife?”
Von Ragastein paused and turned his head. The deep breathing inside the banda had certainly ceased. He rose to his feet and, stealing uneasily to the opening, gazed down upon his guest’s outstretched form. To all appearance, Dominey still slept deeply. After a moment or two’s watch, Von Ragastein returned to his place.
“Therein lies his tragedy,” he confided, dropping his voice a little lower. “She is insane–insane, it seems, through a shock for which he was responsible. She might have been the only stumbling block, and she is as though she did not exist.”
“It is a great scheme,” the doctor murmured enthusiastically.
“It is a wonderful one! That great and unrevealed Power, Schmidt, which watches over our country and which will make her mistress of the world, must have guided this man to us. My position in England will be unique. As Sir Everard Dominey I shall be able to penetrate into the inner circles of Society–perhaps, even, of political life. I shall be able, if necessary, to remain in England even after the storm bursts.”
“Supposing,” the doctor suggested, “this man Dominey should return to England?”
Von Ragastein turned his head and looked towards his questioner.
“He must not,” he pronounced.
“So!” the doctor murmured.
Late in the afternoon of the following day, Dominey, with a couple of boys for escort and his rifle slung across his shoulder, rode into the bush along the way he had come. The little fat doctor stood and watched him, waving his hat until he was out of sight. Then he called to the orderly.
“Heinrich,” he said, “you are sure that the Herr Englishman has the whisky?”
“The water bottles are filled with nothing else, Herr Doctor,” the man replied.
“There is no water or soda water in the pack?”
“Not one drop, Herr Doctor.”
“How much food?”
“One day’s rations.”
“The beef is salt?”
“It is very salt, Herr Doctor.”
“And the compass?”
“It is ten degrees wrong.”
“The boys have their orders?”
“They understand perfectly, Herr Doctor. If the Englishman does not drink, they will take him at midnight to where His Excellency will be encamped at the bend of the Blue River.”
The doctor sighed. He was not at heart an unkindly man.
“I think,” he murmured, “it will be better for the Englishman that he drinks.”
CHAPTER III
Mr. John Lambert Mangan of Lincoln’s Inn gazed at the card which a junior clerk had just presented in blank astonishment, an astonishment which became speedily blended with dismay.
“Good God, do you see this, Harrison?” he exclaimed, passing it over to his manager, with whom he had been in consultation. “Dominey–Sir Everard Dominey–back here in England!”
The head clerk glanced at the narrow piece of pasteboard and sighed.
“I’m afraid you will find him rather a troublesome client, sir,” he remarked.
His employer frowned. “Of course I shall,” he answered testily. “There isn’t an extra penny to be had out of the estates–you know that, Harrison. The last two quarters’ allowance which we sent to Africa came out of the timber. Why the mischief didn’t he stay where he was!”
“What shall I tell the gentleman, sir?” the boy enquired.
“Oh, show him in!” Mr. Mangan directed ill-temperedly. “I suppose I shall have to see him sooner or later. I’ll finish these affidavits after lunch, Harrison.”
The solicitor composed his features to welcome a client who, however troublesome his affairs had become, still represented a family who had been valued patrons of the firm for several generations. He was prepared to greet a seedy-looking and degenerate individual, looking older than his years. Instead, he found himself extending his hand to one of the best turned out and handsomest men who had ever crossed the threshold of his not very inviting office. For a moment he stared at his visitor, speechless. Then certain points of familiarity–the well-shaped nose, the rather deep-set grey eyes–presented themselves. This surprise enabled him to infuse a little real heartiness into his welcome.
“My dear Sir Everard!” he exclaimed. “This is a most unexpected pleasure–most unexpected! Such a pity, too, that we only posted a draft for your allowance a few days ago. Dear me–you’ll forgive my saying so–how well you look!”
Dominey smiled as he accepted an easy chair.
“Africa’s a wonderful country, Mangan,” he remarked, with just that faint note of patronage in his tone which took his listener back to the days of his present client’s father.
“It–pardon my remarking it–has done wonderful things for you, Sir Everard. Let me see, it must be eleven years since we met.”
Sir Everard tapped the toes of his carefully polished brown shoes with the end of his walking stick.
“I left London,” he murmured reminiscently, “in April, nineteen hundred and two. Yes, eleven years, Mr. Mangan. It seems queer to find myself in London again, as I dare say you can understand.”
“Precisely,” the lawyer murmured. “I was just wondering–I think that last remittance we sent to you could be stopped. I have no doubt you will be glad of a little ready money,” he added, with a confident smile.
“Thanks, I don’t think I need any just at present,” was the amazing answer. “We’ll talk about financial affairs a little later on.”
Mr. Mangan metaphorically pinched himself. He had known his present client even during his school days, had received a great many visits from him at different times, and could not remember one in which the question of finance had been dismissed in so casual a manner.
“I trust,” he observed chiefly for the sake of saying something, “that you are thinking of settling down here for a time now?”
“I have finished with Africa, if that is what you mean,” was the somewhat grave reply. “As to settling down here, well, that depends a little upon what you have to tell me.”
The lawyer nodded.
“I think,” he said, “that you may make yourself quite easy as regards the matter of Roger Unthank. Nothing has ever been heard of him since the day you left England.”
“His–body has not been found?”
“Nor any trace of it.”
There was a brief silence. The lawyer looked hard at Dominey, and Dominey searchingly back again at the lawyer.
“And Lady Dominey?” the former asked at length.
“Her ladyship’s condition is, I believe, unchanged,” was the somewhat guarded reply.
“If the circumstances are favourable,” Dominey continued, after another moment’s pause, “I think it very likely that I may decide to settle down at Dominey Hall.”
The lawyer appeared doubtful.
“I am afraid,” he said, “you will be very disappointed in the condition of the estate, Sir Everard. As I have repeatedly told you in our correspondence, the rent roll, after deducting your settlement upon Lady Dominey, has at no time reached the interest on the mortgages, and we have had to make up the difference and send you your allowance out of the proceeds of the outlying timber.”
“That is a pity,” Dominey replied, with a frown. “I ought, perhaps, to have taken you more into my confidence. By the by,” he added, “when–er–about when did you receive my last letter?”
“Your last letter?” Mr. Mangan repeated. “We have not had the privilege of hearing from you, Sir Everard, for over four years. The only intimation we had that our payments had reached you was the exceedingly prompt debit of the South African bank.”
“I have certainly been to blame,” this unexpected visitor confessed. “On the other hand, I have been very much absorbed. If you haven’t happened to hear any South African gossip lately, Mangan, I suppose it will be a surprise to you to hear that I have been making a good deal of money.”
“Making money?” the lawyer gasped. “You making money, Sir Everard?”
“I thought you’d be surprised,” Dominey observed coolly. “However, that’s neither here nor there. The business object of my visit to you this morning is to ask you to make arrangements as quickly as possible for paying off the mortgages on the Dominey estates.”
Mr. Mangan was a lawyer of the new-fashioned school,–Harrow and Cambridge, the Bath Club, racquets and fives, rather than gold and lawn tennis. Instead of saying “God bless my soul!” he exclaimed “Great Scott!” dropped a very modern-looking eyeglass from his left eye, and leaned back in his chair with his hands in his pockets.
“I have had three or four years of good luck,” his client continued. “I have made money in gold mines, in diamond mines and in land. I am afraid that if I had stayed out another year, I should have descended altogether to the commonplace and come back a millionaire.”
“My heartiest congratulations!” Mr. Mangan found breath to murmur. “You’ll forgive my being so astonished, but you are the first Dominey I ever knew who has ever made a penny of money in any sort of way, and from what I remember of you in England–I’m sure you’ll forgive my being so frank–I should never have expected you to have even attempted such a thing.”
Dominey smiled good-humouredly.
“Well,” he said, “if you inquire at the United Bank of Africa, you will find that I have a credit balance there of something over a hundred thousand pounds. Then I have also–well, let us say a trifle more, invested in first-class mines. Do me the favour of lunching with me, Mr. Mangan, and although Africa will never be a favourite topic of conversation with me, I will tell you about some of my speculations.”
The solicitor groped around for his hat.
