Unrest in both camps: an outpost skirmish and a warning
It was raining in Stockholm: heavy clouds were drifting over the sky, and an occasional peal of thunder rolled over the wet, glistening roofs. At the office of the Finno-Russian Import and Export Company, Marcus Tassler stood looking gloomily out at the rain. He was alone in the two showily-furnished rooms, for he had sent out the typist who was his only assistant, if one excepts those who came and went on business that had nothing to do with the purchase and sale of tea and coffee. He was alone with his thoughts, hence his gloom.
He was thinking principally of the baron--who had inspired him with a certain amount of dread that morning--and of the future, which he dreaded even more. He was aware that he was standing on dangerous ground, and he knew that his one hope of escape was--in plain English--to cut and run! That is an unpleasant conviction for anyone, and especially for a man whose most prominent characteristics are an oriental love of pleasure and a barbaric thirst for gold.
Marcus Tassler gulped down half a glass of old cognac, and lighted a dark cigar, with a band round it. He looked at that minute like some fat, pagan high-priest, engaged in mystic rites, and in forecasting gruesome omens from the sacrificial offerings.
Baron Fayerling came in without knocking. He greeted his partner with a diabolical smile, provoked partly by Tassler's harassed expression, partly by his empty glass. He appeared to be in a hurry, for he kept his hat on, and remained standing, leaning on his cane.
"Well!" said Tassler sharply. "You are late. Have you caught him?"
"No," replied the baron. "That duffer I sent up to his flat last night, came back in a panic, reporting that the journalist was at home, and had a visitor into the bargain--since then, Maurice Wallion has vanished as completely as Pharaoh in the Red Sea."
"Does nobody know who his visitor was?"
"No."
"And when our men searched his room at the office, did they find nothing?"
"No. Nothing! Nichts! Rien!"
The baron uttered each successive negative with an explosive emphasis which made his companion wince. He added:
"His being away wouldn't matter so much if I had not the written proof that the fellow is set on exterminating us. Can you imagine anything cooler than his treatment of Rastakov and myself! Informing us frankly that he will fight us for the Tarraschin document--for, of course, that's what he is after."
"At any rate, he can't get anything now out of B.22," remarked Tassler.
"Out of whom?" said the baron sharply. "What may B.22 be? I'm not acquainted with the witness."
"Oh, come, baron, between ourselves! From the way in which he died, I can pretty well guess whom you sent...."
The baron collared the fat man, and shook him till he quivered like a jelly.
"Idiot!" he cried. "You will chatter your head off some day! We don't speak about dead men."
When the baron loosed his hold, Tassler filled and drained his glass once more; his hands were trembling, and his eyes wandered uneasily round the room.
"I don't like that business with B.22," he muttered. "What's the sense of employing persons whom one has to kill as soon as they get to know anything? The Chief said nothing about murder, when we first discussed our plans."
"Nonsense. In such an undertaking as ours, there must always come a time, sooner or later, when we can stick at nothing. But that's no business of yours. Have you been to see Burchardt?"
"Yes, I have been to him."
Tassler thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets, and confronted the baron.
"Yes, I have seen the damned lawyer! Fayerling, they mean to fight us: there is something up. Maurice Wallion is at the back of it, devil take him!"
His bloodshot eyes turned towards the glass, but he abstained, and went on with dry lips:
"That Burchardt is a fox. He looked at me quite differently when I came in, and was twice as obliging as he had been before. I mistrust people who grow politer the better one knows them! He was ready to lick my boots! I thought everything was going smoothly, and I was saying that as I had heard that the owner of the Copper House was in town, and the matter was urgent--when suddenly, the old rascal, who had been listening to me without turning a hair, said, quite softly:
"'Mr. Grath has changed his mind. He is not thinking of selling the Copper House, before he has gone into the matter thoroughly.' I can tell you, I nearly fell off my chair: 'Not sell!' 'No, very sorry--old traditions--family inheritance,' and all the rest of it. To hell with the old traditions! They are on our track, Fayerling, they mean to 'go into the matter thoroughly!'"
Tassler almost groaned as he said these words, but after a minute, he glanced at the baron with the humiliated surprise of a story-teller who sees his best point fall flat; the baron looked perfectly unconcerned.
"So they decline to sell," said he, slowly. "I guessed as much. Leonard Grath is at the Copper House, and no doubt he has been warned by Wallion. You are right, we are in for a fight."
"Fayerling, Tarraschin's memorandum will be the ruin of us!"
"It would, if we were all as blind and as cowardly as you. Can't you understand that no human beings ever had greater luck than we had, when Bernard Jenin, contrary to all expectation, fled for refuge to the Copper House."
"But Rastakov couldn't get hold of him!"
"We have to thank the old she-grenadier for that. Andrei Bernin and his sister evidently mean to play for their own hand, but I intend to smoke out that wasp's nest--the Bernins won't be of any more use to us. Of course, Bernard Jenin counted on their help, although Lona Ivanovna seems to have played the wrong card. Oh well, the document is there, at any rate, as safe as though it were in a strong-box...."
"Who is Bernard Jenin really?"
"How should I know? A knave or a fool. You have heard that in Moscow he went by the name of Doctor Zero, and he managed to get the document from our agent, who was on the point of bringing it here. At first I thought it was all up, but thank goodness, Jenin was idiot enough to travel direct to Stockholm, and had B.22 at his elbow during the whole journey: he simply had him on a string! And, not content with coming to Stockholm, no sooner had that journalist rescued him from room 23, than the silly fool runs straight off to the Copper House. And then you come and say that we have no luck!"
Tassler sucked away at his cigar with his thick lips: his eyes looked like two china marbles.
"Can I see his photograph?" he asked in a hesitating voice. Fayerling threw it down in front of him, without a word.
One might have thought that Tassler was afraid of the picture: he held it at arm's length, between his thumb and finger, whilst a curiously fixed expression came over his face; he felt as though an electric shock had gone through him, and he tottered slightly.
"You must be drunk!" said the baron, with cold disapproval; but this diagnosis, though founded on past experience, and supported by the witness of the empty glass, was incorrect. Marcus Tassler was perfectly sober, though his legs were giving away under him, and his brain was spinning like a Catherine wheel. He sat down.
"Fayerling," he whispered almost inaudibly, "do you know who Bernard Jenin is?"
"A common thief," replied the baron contemptuously.
"Don't call him that!" snarled the other, with sudden vehemence. "A common thief! And what are we, then?"
"Well, who is the creature, then?"
"It is Sergius!"
The baron started. The news fell upon him like a bolt from the blue, and he stared at Tassler with a look of keen inquiry. Finally he gave a short and somewhat ironical laugh, and said:
"Sergius! The much-talked-of Sergius, whom I have never seen! Of course! Now we know what took him out to the Copper House. I might have guessed."
He reached for the photograph, and examined it carefully, after which he put it back in his pocket.
"So little Sergius has a finger in the pie--on his own account! This will amuse Ortiz immensely. What a joke! Now we have only to hold out our hands for Tarraschin's memorandum: Sergius will be delighted to give it up to you as soon as he sees you, Tassler."
"He loathes me."
"That's no business of mine, it's your own affair. All I can say is that you must manage to get speech with him, by Lona Ivanovna's help. Why man, with such cards in our hands, we can't help winning the game. When is the next train to Karkby?"
Tassler's fishy eyes seemed to conceal all manner of dark and crafty thoughts.
"When is the Chief to arrive?" he asked after a pause.
"This evening, or, at latest, to-morrow."
"How much does he know?"
"Nothing of Sergius' arrival, or Wallion's interference. He expects to find Tarraschin's memorandum in our hands; his plans are ripe, and he is growing impatient. Things are going to move a bit in the Copper House, before we are many hours older. Every man is at his post, and we mustn't let any risks hinder us now. Come along."
He took Marcus Tassler by the arm, and they went out together.
As soon as breakfast was over, Leo hurried up to his room, but Maurice Wallion was no longer there. A little thread of blue smoke was still curling up from a cigarette in an ash-tray on the window-ledge; the window had been fastened, which Leo interpreted to mean that the Problem-hunter had not left the room that way, but was making a reconnaissance inside the house.
The young man went out into the corridor, and before he could say "Jack Robinson" the journalist confronted him, calm and smiling. Leo started, and looked anxiously round, but Wallion said:
"Go downstairs again, and try not to look as though you were accessory to a crime! I have only been looking about me a little. Where does that winding staircase lead to, in the lumber-room at the back?"
"Down to a little passage between the kitchen and the back door," replied Leo.
"Can one reach the first floor that way?"
"Yes, there is a landing and a door there."
"That's fine! Have you met Andrei Bernin?"
Leo described in a few words what had taken place.
Wallion smiled again, and said:
"So they are expecting me?"
"Yes, anxiously. Something seems to have alarmed them; they have quite changed their attitude since yesterday."
The Problem-hunter nodded thoughtfully.
"That's to be expected; they are beginning to wake up now. I shall set to work when Marcus Tassler has been here."
"Do you think he is coming?"
"Yes, he is bound to. You must receive him!"
Wallion fixed his gray eyes for a moment on Leo.
"You are keeping cool, that is right. Don't forget that I am here."
He nodded once more, and slipped quietly away. Leo saw him vanish in the direction of the back stairs; he was beginning to think that this man was independent of sleep at night, and breakfast in the morning, and he marveled at the buoyancy of his disposition.
Sonia Bernin's voice called from below:
"Mr. Grath, where are you?" and he went downstairs.
A bank of cloud was drifting slowly up from the direction of Stockholm; the sun shone palely from an almost colorless sky. A distant rumble of thunder sounded through the uncomfortably close atmosphere like the echo of a cannonade.
The young man went out with the girl into the garden. He could see, through the dining-room window, the blind man sitting in the shadow of the curtain, with his sister, who was working as usual. At some distance away in the garden, a man with a knife was cutting a bunch of red flowers. He wore a broad-brimmed straw hat, and a blue apron. It struck Leo that the garden was the only part of his property that showed signs of being carefully, and even lovingly tended. It was fragrant with the scent of old-fashioned flowers: silky-soft sweet peas, white stocks, and modest mignonette, growing between beautiful crimson and deep yellow roses. A carpet of velvety pansies contrasted with the brilliant display of sunflowers, peonies and dahlias. Some way off, the orderly ranks of the useful vegetables were marshaled; pale-green, dark-green, and purple cabbages, crimson beetroots, and regular masses of radishes, carrots and parsley. Cucumbers lay beneath the panes of the forcing-frames, and behind the glass walls of the hothouses was a mighty though nondescript array of reserve forces in green uniforms.
"What colors!" said Leo. "Your gardener must be an artist...."
"That's Rosenthal," said the girl, pointing towards the man in the blue apron. "He is mad on flowers!"
They approached the man, who looked up as they reached him. His face was fair but sunburnt, with light-blue eyes and a kindly mouth. He touched his cap, but in such a way that Leo saw at once that he was a well-bred man.
"Good morning," said Leo: "'il faut cultiver notre jardin,' n'est-ce-pas?"
"Voltaire was wrong there," replied the man quietly: "it is not a duty, but a pleasure to cultivate a garden."
He spoke as to an equal, and Leo raised his eyebrows and looked at him more attentively. There was something military in his bearing, but his speech was that of an educated man, and his thoughtful eyes were those of a poet.
"You love color, don't you?" Leo continued.
"Yes," answered the man, "especially purple; it is the color of royalty--and of revolution."
"A good idea," Leo agreed. At that minute he felt the girl give his arm a little tug.
The man went on quietly with his flower-cutting, and after a second's almost awkward silence, Leo turned away, feeling that he had been tacitly dismissed.
"Why did you pull my arm?" he asked, softly.
"It is Rosenthal," whispered the girl: "he speaks in a way that somehow frightens me. And Rastakov too...." Sonia's voice broke a little; her complexion looked transparently clear this morning.
"Everything seems so strange since last night," she went on: "something is going to happen!"
"What is it? Why won't you be frank with me?"
The girl did not reply. They were standing amongst the rose-bushes at the corner of the terrace. Some distance away in the garden, Rosenthal straightened himself up, shading his eyes with his hand. As he looked down the avenue a whistle sounded suddenly from the direction of the gate; he threw down his knife, and went off to the kitchen, carrying the cut flowers in his apron. He came out again almost immediately, and walked quickly away. At the same time, Lona Ivanovna opened the front door, and stepped out on to the terrace.
Two persons now appeared in the avenue: one was Rastakov, the other a short, stout gentleman, who looked very warm and agitated.
"Do you know who that is?" whispered Sonia.
"No," answered Leo.
"It is Marcus Tassler."
The newcomers went up to the terrace, where Lona Ivanovna received them with what seemed to Leo to be an air of undisguised hostility.
"You come in good company, Marcus! But, to make your trio quite complete, you should have brought the baron with you. What do you want?"
Tassler went up to her; his eyes were bloodshot, and his face had turned a sort of sickly gray color.
"Baron Fayerling is here," he answered hoarsely, "he is coming immediately; where is Sergius?"
"And you ask for Sergius?" she exclaimed shrilly;--"you have no right...."
"Who has a better right than I?"
"You have forfeited it. Besides, things have changed; I don't trust you any longer, Marcus. Mind what you are about! The fire is kindled, opposition awaits you at every turn--and as for Sergius, he is where you will never get hold of him!"
"Lona Ivanovna," said Tassler in a stifled voice: "I warn you, it is impossible to stop us!"
Sonia had seized Leo's hand quite unconsciously in hers, and was squeezing it tightly.
"Oh, God! Oh, God!" she moaned softly.
Tassler turned his head and caught sight of them. Leo went up to him, and both men raised their hats simultaneously, whilst the young man said:
"I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Tassler; I am Leonard Grath. I don't know if you have come out here to see me, but in any case...."
"Yes, I have come to speak to you," said the other heavily. "I hear that you no longer wish to sell the Copper House: is that true?"
"Perfectly true," replied Leo politely.
Marcus Tassler looked at him as though this reply was not unexpected, and puffed away at his cigar.
"My client is prepared to increase his offer," he said after a minute.
Leo smiled.
"It is not a question of increasing the offer, but of the entire rejection of any offer whatsoever.... Besides, your client is Mr. Andrei Bernin, isn't he? I have been talking to him, but he didn't allude to the matter; it does not seem to interest him any longer," added the young man boldly. Lona Ivanovna stood listening to them, her eyes bright, and her lips tightly shut: but she said nothing. Tassler turned to her:
"Can I see Andrei Ivanovitch?" he asked sharply; "Rastakov tells me that your brother is up...."
The old lady turned, and went indoors.
"Allow me to show you the way, gentlemen," she said, over her shoulder. Her voice and look bore traces of an inward conflict.
