The Great Secret

E >> E. Phillips Oppenheim >> The Great Secret

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"Let us take it for granted, for a moment, that you are right," I said,
"and that I am a convert. I am willing to abjure my sports and my quiet
days for a plunge into the greater world. Who will be my guide? Which
path shall I follow?"

"You are not in earnest," she murmured.

"Perhaps I am, perhaps not," I answered. "At any rate, there have been
times when I have found life a tame thing. Such a feeling came to me two
years ago, and I went to Africa to shoot lions."

She leaned towards me.

"You should hunt men, not lions," she whispered. "It is only the animal
courage in you which keeps you cool when you face wild beasts. It is a
different thing when you measure wits and strength with one of your own
race!"

"Count me a willing listener and go on," I said. "If you can show me the
way, I am willing to take it."

"Why not?" she said, half to herself. "You have strength, you have
courage! Why shouldn't you come a little way into life?"

"If it is by your side," I began passionately.

She stopped me with a look.

"Please go away," she said firmly. "You only weary me! If it is to gain
an opportunity of saying this sort of rubbish that you have induced me to
take you seriously, I can only say that I am sorry I have wasted a second
of my time upon you!"

"The two things are apart," I answered. "I will not allude to the one
again. My interest in what you have said is genuine. I am waiting for
your advice."

She rose slowly to her feet. She looked me in the eyes, but there was no
shadow of kindness in their expression.

"If I were a man," she said--"if I were you, I would seek out the person
whom you befriended--he goes by the name of Guest--and I would learn from
him--the secret!"

"Where can I find him?" I asked eagerly. "He seems to have disappeared
entirely."

Her voice sank to a whisper. Her breath fanned my cheek, so that I felt
half mad with the desire to hold her in my arms, if only for a moment. I
think that she must have seen the light flash in my eyes, but she ignored
it altogether.

"Go to your room," she said, "and wait till a messenger comes to you."

CHAPTER VI

"MR. GUEST"

I had been alone for nearly an hour before there came a cautious tapping
at my door, I opened it at once, and stared at my visitor in surprise. It
was the man in the grey tweed suit, who had broken into my room the night
before.

"You!" I exclaimed; "what the mischief are you doing here?"

"If you will permit me to enter," he said, "I shall be glad to explain."

He stepped past me into the room. I closed the door behind him.

"What do you want with me?" I asked.

My visitor regarded me thoughtfully through his gold-rimmed spectacles.
I, too, was taking careful note of him. Any one more commonplace--with
less of the bearing of a conspirator--it would be impossible to imagine.
His features, his clothes, his bearing, were all ordinary. His face had
not even the shrewdness of the successful business man. His brown beard
was carefully trimmed, his figure was a little podgy, his manner
undistinguished. I found it hard to associate him in my mind with such
things as the woman whom I had left a few moments ago had spoken of.

"I understand," he said, "that you wish for an interview with your
friend, Mr. Leslie Guest. His room happens to be close to mine. I shall
be pleased to conduct you there!"

"You have seen Miss Van Hoyt then?" I exclaimed.

"I have just left her!" he answered.

I stared at him incredulously.

"Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that, after last night, you have dared
to remain in the hotel--that you have a room here?"

My visitor smiled.

"But certainly," he said, "you are under some curious apprehension as to
the events of last night. My friend and I are most harmless individuals.
We only wanted a little business conversation with Mr. Guest, which he
was foolish enough to try and avoid. That is all arranged, now, however!"

"Is it?" I answered curtly. "Then I am sorry for Mr. Guest!"

Again my visitor smiled--quite a harmless smile it was, as of pity for
some unaccountably foolish person.

"You do not seem," he remarked, "if I may be pardoned for saying so, a
very imaginative person, Mr. Courage, but you certainly have some strange
ideas as to my friend and myself. Possibly Mr. Guest himself is
responsible for them! A very excitable person at times!"

"You had better take me to him, if that is your errand," I said shortly.
"This sort of conversation between you and me is rather a waste of time."

"Certainly!" he answered. "Will you follow me?"

We took the lift to the sixth floor, traversed an entire corridor, and
then, mounting a short and narrow flight of stairs, we arrived at a
passage with three or four doors on either side, and no exit at the
further end. We seemed to be entirely cut off from the main portion of
the hotel, and I noticed that there were no numbers on the doors of the
rooms. A very tall and powerful-looking man came to the head of the
stairs, on hearing our footsteps, and regarded us suspiciously. Directly
he recognized my companion, however, he allowed us to pass.

"A nice quiet part of the hotel this," my guide remarked,
glancing towards me.

"Very!" I answered dryly.

"A man might be hidden here very securely," he added.

"I can well believe it," I assented.

He knocked softly at the third door on the left. A woman's voice answered
him. A moment later, the door was opened by a nurse in plain hospital
dress.

"Good evening, nurse!" my companion said cheerfully. "This gentleman
would like to see Mr. Guest! Is he awake?"

The nurse opened the door a little wider, which I took for an invitation
to enter. She closed it softly behind me. My guide remained outside.

The room was a very small one, and furnished after the usual hotel
fashion. The only light burning was a heavily-shaded electric lamp,
placed by the bedside. The nurse raised it a little, and looked down upon
the man who lay there motionless.

"He is asleep," she remarked. "It is time he took his medicine. I must
wake him!"

She spoke with a pronounced foreign accent. Her fair hair and stolid
features left me little doubt as to her nationality. I was conscious of a
strong and instinctive dislike to her from the moment I heard her speak
and watched her bending over the bed. I think that her face was one of
the most unsympathetic which I had ever seen.

She poured some medicine into a glass, and turned on another electric
light. Her patient woke at once. Directly he opened his eyes, he
recognized me with a little start.

"You!" he exclaimed. "You!"

I sat down on the edge of the bed.

"You haven't forgotten me then?" I remarked. "I'm sorry you're queer!
Nothing serious, I hope?"

He ignored my words. He was looking at me all the time, as though
inclined to doubt the evidence of his senses.

"Who let you come--up here?" he asked in a whisper.

"I made inquiries about you, and got permission to come up," I answered.
"How are you feeling this evening?"

"I don't understand why they let you come," he said uneasily. "Stoop
down!"

The nurse came forward with a wineglass.

"Will you take your medicine, please?" she said.

"Presently," he answered, "put it down."

She glanced at the clock and held the glass out once more.

"It is past the time," she said.

"I have had two doses to-day," he answered. "Quite enough, I think. Set
it down and go away, please. I want to talk with this gentleman."

"Talking is not good for you," she said, without moving. "Better take
your medicine and go to sleep!"

He took the glass from her hand, and, with a glance at its contents which
puzzled me, drank it off.

"Now will you go?" he asked, handing back the glass to her.

She dragged her chair to the bedside.

"If you will talk," she said stolidly, "I must watch that you do not
excite yourself too much!"

He glanced meaningly at me.

"I have private matters to discuss!" he said.

"You are not well enough to talk of private matters, or anything else
important," she declared. "You will excite yourself. You will bring on
the fever. I remain here to watch. It is by the doctor's orders."

She sat down heavily within a few feet of us.

"You speak French?" Guest asked me.

I nodded.

"Fairly well!"

"Watch her! See whether she seems to understand. I want to speak of what
she must not hear."

She half rose from her chair. So far as her features could express
anything, they expressed disquietude.

"She does not understand," I said. "Go on!"

She bent over the bedside.

"You must not talk any more," she said. "It excites you! Your temperature
is rising."

He ignored her altogether.

"Listen," he said to me, "why they have let you come here I cannot tell!
You know that I am in prison--that I am not likely to leave here alive!"

"I don't think that it is so bad as that," I assured him.

"It is worse! I am likely to die without the chance of finishing--my
work. Great things will die with me. God knows what will happen."

"You have a doctor and a hospital nurse," I remarked. "That doesn't look
as though they meant you to die!"

"You don't know who I am, and you don't know who they are," he answered,
dropping his voice almost to a whisper.

"I want a month, one more month, and I might cheat them yet!"

"I don't think that they mean you to die," I said. "They have an idea
that you are in possession of some marvellous secret. They want to get
possession of that first."

"They persevere," he murmured. "In Paris--but never mind. They know very
well that that secret, if I die before I can finish my work, dies with
me, or--"

The nurse, who had left us a few moments before, re-entered the room. She
went straight to a chair at the further end of the apartment, and took up
a book. Guest looked at me with a puzzled expression.

"Stranger still!" he said, "we are allowed to talk."

"It may be only for a moment," I reminded him.

"Or pass it on to a successor who will complete my work," he said slowly.
"I fear that I shall not find him. The time is too short now."

"Have you no friends I could send for?" I asked.

"Not one!" he answered.

I looked at him curiously. A man does not often confess himself entirely
friendless.

"I need a strong, brave man," he said slowly--"one who is not afraid of
Death, one who has the courage to dare everything in a great cause!"

"A great cause!" I repeated. "They are few and far between nowadays."

He looked at me steadily.

"You are an Englishman!"

I laughed.

"Saxon to the backbone," I admitted.

"You would consider it a great cause to save your country from ruin, from
absolute and complete ruin!"

"My imagination," I declared, "cannot conceive such a situation."

"A flock of geese once saved an empire," he said, "a child's little
finger in the crack of the dam kept a whole city from destruction. One
man may yet save this pig-headed country of ours from utter disaster. It
may be you--it may be I!"

"You are also an Englishman!" I exclaimed.

"Perhaps!" he answered shortly. "Never mind what I am. Think! Think hard!
By to-morrow you must decide! Are you content with your life? Does it
satisfy you? You have everything else; have you ambition?"

"I am not sure," I answered slowly. "Remember that this is all new to me.
I must think!"

He raised himself a little in the bed. At no time on this occasion had he
presented to me the abject appearance of the previous night. His cheeks
were perfectly colorless, and this pallor, together with his white hair,
and the spotless bed-linen, gave to his face a somewhat ghastly cast, but
his dark eyes were bright and piercing, his features composed and
natural.

"Listen," he said, "they may try to kill me, but I have a will, too, and
I say that I will not die till I have found a successor to carry on--to
the end--what I have begun. Mind, it is no coward's game! It is a walk
with death, hand in hand, all the way."

He raised suddenly a warning finger. There was a knock at the door. The
nurse who answered it came to the bedside.

"The gentleman has stayed long enough," she announced. "He must go now!"

I rose and held out my hand. He held it between his for a moment, and his
eyes sought mine.

"You will come--to-morrow?"

"I will come," I promised. "To-morrow evening."

CHAPTER VII

A TETE-A-TETE DINNER

At about nine o'clock the following morning a note was brought to my room
addressed to me in a lady's handwriting. I tore it open at once. It was,
as I bad expected, from Miss Van Hoyt.

"DEAR MR. COURAGE,--

"I should like to see you for a few minutes at twelve o'clock in the
reading-room.

"Yours sincerely,

"ADELE VAN HOYT."

I wrote a reply immediately:--

"DEAR MISS VAN HOYT,--

"I regret that I am engaged for the day, and have to leave the hotel in
an hour. I shall return about seven o'clock. Could you not dine with me
this evening, either in the hotel or elsewhere?

"Yours sincerely,

"J. HARDROSS COURAGE."

Over my breakfast I studied the handwriting of her note. It might indeed
have served for an index to so much of her character as had become
apparent to me. The crisp, clear formation of the letters, the bold
curves and angular terminations, seemed to denote a personality free from
all feminine weaknesses. I was reminded at once of the unfaltering gaze
of her deep blue eyes, of the chill precision of her words and manner. I
asked myself, then, why a character so free, apparently, from all the
lovable traits of her sex, should have proved so attractive to me. I had
known other beautiful women, I was not untravelled, and I had met women
in Paris and Vienna who also possessed the more subtle charms of perfect
toilet and manners, and were free from the somewhat hopeless obviousness
of most of the women of our country. There was something beneath all
that. At the moment, I could not tell what it was. I simply realized
that, for the first time, a woman stood easily first in my life, that my
whole outlook upon the world was undermined.

Just as I was leaving the hotel, I saw her maid coming down the hall with
a note in her hand. I waited, and she accosted me.

"Monsieur Courage!"

"Yes!" I answered.

She gave me the note.

"There is no reply at present," she said, dropping her voice almost to a
whisper. "Monsieur might open it in his cab."

She gave me a glance of warning, and I saw that the hall porter and one
of his subordinates were somewhat unnecessarily near me. Then she glided
away, and I drove off in my cab. Directly we had started, I tore open the
envelope and read these few lines.

"DEAR MR. COURAGE,--

"I will dine with you to-night at the Cafe Francais at eight o'clock.
Please take a table upstairs. Do not ask for me again or send me any
further message until we meet there.

"Yours sincerely,

"ADELE VAN HOYT."

At Lord's I was compelled to spend half the day hanging about the
pavilion, smoking a good many more cigarettes than I was accustomed to,
and finding the cricket much less interesting than usual. My own innings
fortunately kept me distracted for a little more than two hours, and the
effort of it soothed my nerves and did me good all round. On my way back
to the hotel, I determined to forget everything except that I was going
to dine alone with the one companion I would have chosen first out of the
whole world. In that frame of mind I bathed, changed my clothes, and made
my way a little before the appointed time to the Cafe Francais.

I found out my table, sent for some more flowers, and ordered the wine.
Then I descended to the hall just in time to meet my guest.

She wore nothing over her evening dress save a lace scarf, which she
untwisted as we ascended the stairs. For some reason I fancied that she
was not very well pleased with me. Her greeting was certainly cool.

"Is this your favorite restaurant?" I asked, as the head-waiter ushered
us to our table.

"I have no favorite restaurant," she answered; "only to-night I felt in
the humor for French cooking--and French service."

I fancied that there was some meaning in the latter part of her sentence;
but at that time I did not understand. I had ordered the dinner
carefully; and I was glad to see that, although she ate sparingly, she
showed appreciation. Wine she scarcely touched.

"So you have been particularly engaged to-day," was almost her first
remark.

"I was forced to go to Lord's," I reminded her. "A cricket match lasts
three days."

"Three whole days!" she exclaimed, raising her eyebrows.

"Certainly! unless it is over before," I replied.

"And you mean to say that you are a prisoner there all that time--that
you could not leave if you chose to?"

"I am afraid not," I answered. "Cricket is a serious thing in this
country, you know. If you are chosen to play and commence in the match,
you must go through with it. Surely you have met with something of the
same sort of thing in the football matches in America!"

"I have never been interested in such things," she said. "I suppose
that is why I have never realized their importance. I am afraid, Mr.
Courage--"

"Well?"

She lifted her eyes to mine. What a color!--and what a depth. Then I
knew, as though by inspiration, how it was that I found myself passing
into bondage. Cold she might seem, and self-engrossed! It was because
the right chord had never been struck. Some day another light should
shine in those wonderful eyes. I saw her before me transformed, saw color
in her still, marble cheeks, saw her lips drift into a softer curve,
heard the tremor of passion in her quiet, languid tone.

"Do you know that you are staring at me?" she remarked, calmly.

I apologized profusely.

"It is a bad habit of mine," I assured her. "I was looking--beyond."

There was real interest then in her face. She leaned a little forward.
Perhaps it was my fancy, but I thought that she seemed to regard me
differently.

"How interesting!" she said. "Do you know I had not given you credit for
much imagination. You must tell me what you saw!"

"Impossible!" I declared.

"Rubbish!" she answered, "nothing is impossible. Besides, I ask it,"

"I do not know you well enough," I declared, helping myself to an
artichoke, "to be personal."

"The liberties you take in your thoughts," she answered, "I permit you to
render into speech. It is the same thing."

"One's thoughts," I answered, "are too phantasmagorial. One cannot
collect them into speech."

"You must try," she declared, "or I shall never, never dine with you
again. Nothing is so interesting as to see yourself from another's point
of view!"

"Is it understood," I asked, "that I am not held personally responsible
for my thoughts--that if I try to clothe them with words, I am held free
from offence?"

She considered for a moment.

"I suppose so," she said. "Yes! Go on."

I drank off my glass of wine, and waited until the waiter, who had been
carving a Rouen duckling on a stand by the side of the table, had stepped
back into the background.

"Very well!" I said. "I am thirty-three years old and a bachelor, well
off, and I have never been a stay-at-home. I know something of society in
Paris, in Vienna, in Rome, as well as London. I have always found women
agreeable companions, and I have never avoided them. The sex, as a whole,
has attracted me. From individual members of it I have happened to remain
absolutely heart-whole."

"Marvellous," she murmured in gentle derision. "Please pass the toast.
Thank you!"

"I have been compelled," I said, "to be egotistical. I must now become
personal. I saw you for the first time in the hall at the Universal, the
morning before yesterday. I encountered you the night before under
extremely dubious circumstances. I spoke to you for the first time
yesterday. I have met other women as beautiful, I have met many others
who have been more gracious to me. These things do not seem to count. You
have asked for truth, mind, and you are going to have it. As surely as we
are sitting here together, I know that, from henceforth, for me there
will be--there could be--no other woman in the world!"

She moved in her chair a little restlessly. Her eyes avoided mine. Her
eyebrows had contracted a little, but I could not see that she was angry.

"What am I to think of such a declaration as that?" she asked quietly.
"You are not a wizard. You have seen of me what I chose, and you have
seen nothing which a man should find lovable, except my looks."

I smiled as I leaned a little forward.

"Don't do me an injustice," I begged. "You have brought me now to the
very moment when I forgot myself, and prompted your question. Remember
that one has always one's fancy. I looked at you to-night, and I thought
that I saw another woman--or rather I thought that I saw the woman that
you might be, that I would pray to make you. The other woman is there,
I think. I only hope that it may be my good fortune to call her into
life."

Her head was bent over her plate. She seemed to be listening to the
music--or was there something there which she did not wish me to see? I
could not tell. The waiter intervened with another course. When she spoke
to me again, her tone was almost cold, but it troubled me very little.
There was a softness in her eyes which she could not hide.

"It seems to me," she said, "that we have been very frivolous. I agreed
to dine with you that we might speak together of this unfortunate person,
Leslie Guest. You saw him last night?"

"Yes," I answered, "I saw him."

My tone had become grave, and my face overcast. She was watching me
curiously.

"Well!"

"I am bothered," I admitted. "I don't quite know what I ought to do!"

"Explain!"

"It seemed to me," I said, "that the man was neither more nor less than a
prisoner there in the hands of those who, for some reason or other, are
his enemies."

"That," she admitted, "is fairly obvious; what of it?"

"Well," I said, "the most straightforward thing for me to do, I believe,
would be to go to the nearest police-station and tell them all I know."

She laughed softly.

"What an Englishman you are!" she exclaimed. "The law, or a letter to the
_Times_. These are your final resources, are they not? Well, in this
case, let me assure you that neither would help you in the least."

"I am not so sure," I answered. "At any rate, I do not see the fun of
letting him remain there, to be done to death by those mysterious enemies
of his."

"Then why not take him away?" she asked quietly.

"Where to?" I asked.

"Your own home, if you are sufficiently interested in him!"

"Do you mean that?" I asked.

"I do! Listen! I have no pity for the man who calls himself Leslie Guest!
Death he has deserved, and his fate, whomever might intervene, is
absolutely inevitable. But I do not wish him to die--at present!"

"Why not?"

"You can imagine, I think. He has the secret."

"He does not seem to me," I remarked, "the sort of man likely to part
with it."

"Not to me," she answered quickly, "not to those others. From us he would
guard it with his life! With you it is different."

"I am not sure," I said slowly, "that I wish to become a sharer of such
dangerous knowledge."

"You are afraid?" she asked coldly.

"I do not see what I have to gain by it," I admitted. "I am not curious,
and the possession of it certainly seems to entail some inconvenience, if
not danger."

Her lip curled a little. She nodded as though she quite understood my
point of view.

"You have said enough," she declared; "I perceive that I was not
mistaken! You are exactly the sort of man I thought you were from the
first. It is better for you to return to your cricket and your sports.
You are at home with them; in the great world you would soon be weary and
lost. Call for your bill, please, and put me in a cab. I have a call to
make before I return to the hotel"

"One moment more," I begged. "You have not altogether understood me! I
have spoken from my own point of view only. I have no interest in the
salvation of Leslie Guest, beyond an Englishman's natural desire to see
fair play. I have no wish to be burdened with a secret which seems to
spell life or death in capital letters. But show me where your interest
lies, and I promise you that I will be zealous enough! Tell me what to do
and I will do it. My time and my life are yours. Do what you will with
them! Can I say more than that?"

She flashed a wonderful look at me across the table--such a look that my
heart beat, and my pulses flowed to a strange, new music. Her tone was
soft, almost caressing.

"You mean this?"

"Upon my honor I do!" I answered.

"Then take Leslie Guest with you back to your home in the country," she
said. "Keep him with you, keep every one else away from him. In less than
a week he will tell you his secret!"

"I will do it," I answered.

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE TOILS

"This," the nurse said, after a moment's somewhat awkward pause, "is the
doctor--Dr. Kretznow!"

A tall, awkwardly built man, wearing heavy glasses, turned away from the
bedside, and looked at me inquiringly.

"My name is Courage, doctor," I said; "I am an acquaintance of your
patient's."

The doctor frowned on me as he picked up his hat.

"I have given no permission," he said, "for my patient to receive
visitors."

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