"You got my messages, then? Nogam delivered them?"

"So I understand. I myself did not see him, Excellency. The man Sturm--"

On that name the voice died away in what Victor fancied was a gasp that might have been of either fright or pain.

"h.e.l.lo!" he prompted. "Are you there, Shaik Tsin? I say! Are you there? Why don't you answer?"

He paused: no sound for seconds that dragged like so many minutes, then of a sudden a deadened noise like the slam of a door heard afar--or a pistol shot at some distance from the telephone in the study.

Further and frantic importuning of the cold and unresponsive wire presently was silenced by a new voice, little like that of Shaik Tsin.

"h.e.l.lo? Who's there? I say: that you, Prince Victor?"

Involuntarily Victor cried: "Karslake!" "What gorgeous luck! I've been wanting a word with you all evening."

"What has happened? Why did Shaik Tsin--?"

"Oh, most unfortunate about him--frightfully sorry, but it really couldn't be helped, if he hadn't fought back we wouldn't have had to shoot him. You see, the old devil murdered Sturm to-night, for some reason I daresay you understand better than I: we found a paper on the beggar, written in Chinese, apparently an order for his a.s.sa.s.sination signed by you. Half a mo': I'll read it to you ..."

But if Karslake translated Victor's message, as edited by the hand of Nogam, it was to a wire as deaf as it was dumb.

XXI

VENTRE a TERRE

With exceeding care to avoid noise, Sofia unlocked the door and for the second time since midnight let herself stealthily out into the darkened corridor; but now with the difference that she did what she did in full command of all her wits and faculties, with no subjective war of wills to hinder and confuse her, and with a definite object clearly visioned--a goal no less distant than the railway station.

Lanyard had promised that Karslake should come for her within an hour or two and take her away with him, back to London and the arms of the father whom, although so recently revealed and accepted, she had already begun to love; if indeed it were not true that she had in filial sense fallen in love with Lanyard at first sight, through intuition, that afternoon in the Cafe des Exiles so long, so very long ago!

Well: she might as well await Karslake at the station. It would be simpler, she would be more at ease there, would breathe more freely once she turned her back on Frampton Court and all its hateful a.s.sociations. Where Victor was, she could not rest.

If she had feared the man before, now she hated him; but hatred had added to her fear instead of replacing it, she remained afraid, desperately afraid, so that even the thought of continuing under the same roof with him was enough to make her prefer to tramp unknown roads alone in the mirk of that storm-swept night.

Though she went in trembling, she felt sure n.o.body spied upon her going; and in this confidence crept to the great staircase, down to the entrance hall, and on to the front doors; and a good omen it seemed to find these not locked, but simply on the latch. And if the night into which she peered was dark and loud with wind and rain, its countenance seemed kindlier, more friendly far than that of the world she was putting behind her. Without misgivings Sofia stepped out.

It was like stepping over the edge of the universe into the eternal night that bides beyond the stars. Neither did waiting seem to habituate her vision to the lack of light.

Still, the feel of gravel underfoot ought to guide her down the drive to the great gateway; and once outside the park, clear of its overshadowing trees, one would surely find mitigation of darkness sufficient to show the public road.

She took one tentative step out of the recessed doorway and into Victor's arms.

That they were Victor's she knew instantly, as much by the crawling of her flesh as by the choking terror that stifled the scream in her throat and froze body and limbs with its paralyzing touch.

And then his ironic accents:

"So good of you to spare me the trouble of coming for you!"

Before she could reply or even think, other hands than his were busy with her. A folded cloth was whipped over the lower half of her face, sealing her lips, and knotted at the nape of her neck. Stout arms clipped her knees and swung her off her feet, leaving her body helpless in Victor's tight embrace. And despite her tardy recovery and efforts to struggle, she was carried swiftly away, a dozen paces or so, then tumbled bodily in upon the floor of a motor-car.

The door closed as she tried to pick herself up, the smooth purring of the motor became a leonine roar while she was still on her knees, gears clashed, and the car leaped with a jerk that drove her headlong against the cushions of the seat. Then the dome light was switched on, and she saw Victor with a bleak face sitting over her, an automatic pistol naked in his hand.

"Get up!" he said, grimly, "and if there's any thought of fight left in you, think better of it, remember your mother paid with her life the price of defying me, and yours means even less to me. Up with you and sit quietly beside me--do you hear?"

He lent her a hand that wrenched her arm brutally and wrung a cry which Victor mocked as Sofia fell upon the seat and cringed back into the corner.

For perhaps thirty seconds, while the car raced away down the drive, he continued to hold her in the venom of her sneer; then his gaze veered sharply, and leaning over he switched off the light.

With the body of the car again the dwelling-place of darkness, objects beyond its rain-gemmed gla.s.s--the heads of the Chinese maid and chauffeur, the twin piers of the nearing gateway--attained dense relief against the blue-white glare of two broad headlight beams, that of the limousine boring through the gateway to intersect at right angles that of another car approaching on the highroad but as yet hidden by the wall of the park.

In one breath and the same the lights of the second car swerved in toward the gateway, and consternation seized hold of Sofia's intelligence and wiped it clear of all coherence.

Already the strange lamps were staring blankly in between the piers--and the momentum of Victor's car was too great to be arrested within the distance. The girl cried out, but didn't know it, and crouched low; the horn added a squawk of frenzy to a wild clamour of yells; all prefatory to a scrunching, rending crash as, in the very mouth of the gateway, a front fender of the incoming car ripped through the rear fender above which Sofia was sitting. Thrown heavily against Victor, then instantly back to her place, she felt the car, with brakes set fast, turn broadside to the road, skid crabwise, and lurch sickeningly into the ditch on the farther side.

For an interminable time, while the ponderous fabric rocked and toppled, threatening very instant to crash upon its side, the rear wheels spun madly and the chain-bound tires tore in vain at greasy road metal.

Without clear comprehension of what was happening, Sofia heard shouts from the other car, now at a standstill, and an oddly syncopated popping. The window in the door on Victor's side rang like a cracked bell, shivered, and fell inward, clashing. With a growl of rage, Victor bent forward and levelled an arm through the opening. From his hand truncated tongues of orange flame, half a dozen of them, stabbed the gloom to an accompaniment of as many short and savage barks.

Then the chains at last bit through to a purchase, the car scrambled to the crown of the road and lunged precipitately away; and the lights of the other dropped astern in the s.p.a.ce of a rest between heartbeats.

Sitting back, Victor turned on the dome light again, and extracting an empty magazine clip from the b.u.t.t of his automatic pistol, replaced it with another, loaded.

From this occupation he looked up with lips curling in contempt of Sofia's terror.

"Your friends," he observed, "were a thought behindhand, eh? When you come to know me better, my dear, you'll find they invariably are--with me."

Aftermath of fright made her tongue inarticulate; and Victor's sneer took on a colour of mean amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Something on your mind?"

She twisted her hands together till the laced fingers hurt.

"Wha-what are you go-going to do with me?"

"Make good use of you, dear child," he laughed: "be sure of that!"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know ..."

"Really not? But there I think you do injustice to your admirable intelligence."

The jeering laugh sounded as he put out the light again, in darkness the derisive voice pursued: