would have flogged her in the fortress of St Peter and Paul, but I stopped them. She was grateful I think, and almost human…but it passed off.’
Bartholomew paid for his drink, and ostentatiously tipped the obsequious man before him. He remembered as he did so that Menshikoff was reputedly a millionaire.
‘Your change, m’sieur,’ said Menshikoff gravely, and he handed back a few jingling coppers and two tightly folded banknotes for a hundred pounds. He was a believer in the principle of ‘pay as you go’ Bartholomew pocketed the money carelessly.
‘Good day,’ he said loudly.
‘Au revoir, m’sieur, et ban voyage’, said the waiter.
Chapter VI
Princess Revolutionary
The Woman of Gratz was very human. But to Bartholomew she seemed a thing of ice, passionless, just a beautiful woman who sat stiffly in a straight-backed chair, regarding him with calm, questioning eyes. They were in her flat in Bloomsbury on the evening of the day following his interview with Menshikoff. Her coolness chilled him, and strangled the very passion of his speech, and what he said came haltingly, and sounded lame and unconvincing.
‘But why?’ that was all she asked. Thrice he had paused appealingly, hoping for encouragement, but her answer had been the same.
He spoke incoherently, wildly. The fear of the Four on the one hand and the dread of the Reds on the other, were getting on his nerves.
He saw a chance of escape from both, freedom from the four-walled control of these organizations, and before him the wide expanse of a trackless wilderness, where the vengeance of neither could follow.
Eden in sight — he pleaded for an Eve.
The very thought of the freedom ahead overcame the depression her coldness laid upon him.
‘Maria — don’t you see? You are wasting your life doing this man’s work — this assassin’s work. You were made for love and for me!’ He caught her hand and she did not withdraw it, but the palm he pressed was unresponsive and the curious searching eyes did not leave his face.
‘But why?’ she asked again. ‘And how? I do not love you, I shall never love any man — and there is the work for you and the work for me. There is the cause and your oath. Your comrades—’
He started up and flung away her hand. For a moment he stood over her, glowering down at her upturned face.
‘Work! — Comrades!’ he grated with a laugh. ‘D’ye think I’m going to risk my precious neck any further?’
He did not hear the door open softly, nor the footfall of the two men who entered.
‘Are you blind as well as mad?’ he went on brutally. ‘Don’t you see that the thing is finished? The Four Just Men have us all in the hollow of their hands! They’ve got us like that!’ He snapped his fingers contemptuously. ‘They know everything — even to the attempt that is to be made on the Prince of the Escorials! Ha! that startles you — yet it is true, every word I say — they know.’
‘If it is true,’ she said slowly, ‘there has been a traitor.’
He waved his hand carelessly, admitting and dismissing the possibility.
‘There are traitors always — when the pay for treachery is good,’ he said easily; ‘but traitor or no traitor, London is too hot for you and me.’
‘For you,’ corrected the girl.
‘And for you,’ he said savagely; he snatched up her hand again. ‘You’ve got to come — do you hear — you beautiful snow woman — you’ve got to come with me!’
He drew her to him, but a hand grasped his arm, and he turned to meet the face of Starque, livid and puckered, and creased with silent anger.
Starque was prepared for the knife or for the pistol, but not for the blow that caught him full in the face and sent him staggering back to the wall.
He recovered himself quickly, and motioned to Francois, who turned and locked the door.
‘Stand away from that door!’
‘Wait!’
Starque, breathing quickly, wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand.
Wait, he said in his guttural tone; ‘before you go there is a matter to be settled.’
At any time, in any place,’ said the Englishman.
‘It is not the blow,’ breathed Starque, ‘that is nothing; it is the matter of the Inner Council — traitor!’
He thrust out his chin as he hissed the last word.
Bartholomew had very little time to decide upon his course of action. He was unarmed; but he knew instinctively that there would be no shooting. It was the knife he had to fear and he grasped the back of a chair. If he could keep them at a distance he might reach the door and get safely away. He cursed his folly that he had delayed making the coup that would have so effectively laid Starque by the heels.
‘You have betrayed us to the Four Just Men — but that we might never have known, for the Four have no servants to talk. But you sold us to the Embassy — and that was your undoing.’ He had recovered his calm.
‘We sent you a message telling you of our intention to destroy the Bank of England. The Bank was warned — by the Four. We told you of the attempt to be made on the Grondovitch — the captain was warned by the Embassy — you are doubly convicted. No such attempts were ever contemplated. They were invented for your particular benefit, and you fell into the trap.’
Bartholomew took a fresh grip of the chair. He realized vaguely that he was face to face with death, and for one second he was seized with a wild panic.
‘Last night,’ Starque went on deliberately, ‘the Council met secretly, and your name was read from the list.’ The Englishman’s mouth went dry.
‘And the Council said with one voice…’ Starque paused to look at the Woman of Gratz. Imperturbable she stood with folded hands, neither approving nor dissenting. Momentarily Bartholomew’s eyes too sought her face — but he saw neither pity nor condemnation. It was the face of Fate, inexorable, unreasoning, inevitable.
‘Death was the sentence,’ said Starque in so soft a voice that the man facing him could scarcely hear him. ‘Death…’
With a lightning motion he raised his hand and threw the knife… ‘Damn you…’ whimpered the stricken man, and his helpless hands groped at his chest…then he slid to his knees and Francois struck precisely…
Again Starque looked at the woman.
‘It is the law,’ he stammered, but she made no reply.
Only her eyes sought the huddled figure on the floor and her lips twitched.
‘We must get away from here,’ whispered Starque.
He was shaking a little, for this was new work for him. The forces of jealousy and fear for his personal safety had caused him to take upon himself the office that on other occasions he left to lesser men.
‘Who lives in the opposite flat?’
He had peeped through the door.
‘A student — a chemist,’ she replied in her calm, level tone.
Starque flushed, for her voice sounded almost strident coming after the whispered conference between his companion and himself.
‘Softly, softly,’ he urged.
He stepped