I apologized prettily to the princess, explaining how early were the hours of "The Haven," and how much there was to do there. She forgave me with all her gracious charm, pressing my hand as if to show her grat.i.tude for a certain incident which could not be mentioned in words; and five minutes later I was spinning alone in a taxi toward Park Lane.

CHAPTER XXIII

I had been offered the help of Celestine and Sidney's man to make up in parcels such clothes as I wished to take for our refugees and their menfolk; but now I determined to do all the work myself. The bored-looking footman who opened the house-door showed no surprise or interest on seeing her Ladyship's sister arrive in advance of the rest.

He listened respectfully but dully as I briefly explained my errand and told him that I should need no help until I rang for my trunk and other things to be carried downstairs. When I had made this clear, I ran up to the room above Diana's and shut myself in, meaning to make such haste with what I had to do as to escape with my booty, if possible, before Di and her husband came home.

I was trembling still with excitement which clouded my mind and kept me from thinking clearly; for I was furiously angry and desperately sad at the same time. I said to myself that I didn't care if I never saw Diana again; yet my heart was ready to break because we had come to the parting of the ways. To-night, I thought, I was definitely giving up my family, or my family were giving me up, it mattered very little which.

My father had never cared for me, therefore I had not cared for him as most girls care for their fathers. Di had made use of me, but had never loved me, and I had "seen through" her ever since I was a tiny child.

Lately we became almost as strangers; and yet the two had been the only ones near to me. Breaking with them was like a small figure in a group on a big canvas suddenly loosening itself and falling off its background, a mere lonely bit of paint.

"What will become of me?" I wondered. "I can never go back to Ballyconal now. Yet I can't spend the rest of my life with the Miss Splatchleys.

What shall I do when I'm not wanted there any more?"

Tears began to drop slowly from my eyes, then to rain fast over the clothing I tried to sort. I knew it was silly to think of such things.

There would be plenty of time by and by to arrange the future. But I could not concentrate my mind on the work in hand until, as I tossed the neatly folded clothes about with a kind of stupid aimlessness, I came once more upon Sidney Vand.y.k.e's khaki uniform.

"This I will not take, anyhow!" I decided. "It would be of no use, and I do believe it might carry a curse with it, because of the evil thoughts of the man who wore it last. I wish I could burn it up!"

That I could not do; but to show spite I wreaked such childish vengeance as I could by dashing the uniform on to the floor and proceeding to trample on the coat with my high-heeled white satin slippers.

As I kicked it away in loathing at last, one of the slippers flew off and seemed spitefully to follow the coat as if to deal one final insult.

It turned a somersault on the way, as defiantly as the _Golden Eagle_ had "looped the loop" over German heads at Brussels, and then plumped down on top of the fallen garment, landing with its pointed satin nose poked under the flap of a slightly gaping breast-pocket.

I slipped my silk-clad foot into the shoe where it lay, and pushing the point still further into the pocket, thus lifted the coat on my toe to give it another disgustful toss. As I did this it seemed that something crackled with the sound--or the feel, I could hardly tell which--of stiff paper. Then a very strange thing happened to me: suddenly I saw before my eyes, as clearly as though it were really there, the khaki-coloured notebook I had given Eagle--the notebook out of which he had torn a leaf with a message written on it for Major Vand.y.k.e.

I didn't know (I don't know now, and never shall) what painted this picture on my brain: whether it was the high, mysterious Power which had been leading me slowly but very surely to this minute, or whether it was nothing more than a mental a.s.sociation between a khaki coat worn by Eagle's enemy on that disastrous night and a faint crackle of paper jarring tensely on strung nerves. I know which I _like_ to think; but in either case the effect was the same.

I saw the notebook. I saw Eagle hastily scrawling his appeal for a written order to fire the guns. I saw Major Vand.y.k.e wearing this coat, read the message, crumple up the paper, and then--then--the vision faded. But the question rang in my ears: what would he be likely to do with the paper? What should _I_ have done had I been a man in his place?

Would I have torn the message into bits and trusted to the wind to scatter it?...

No! If I meant to swear that no such doc.u.ment had ever reached me, I should have been afraid to leave bits of khaki-coloured, blue-lined paper lying about the ground. I should have crumpled the message deep down in the bottom of a pocket, and burnt it later, when I was safe in my own tent. Yes, that was what any man as quick-witted and unscrupulous as Sidney Vand.y.k.e would have been likely to do. He could not possibly have forgotten such a bit of evidence afterward, and left it in the pocket of his coat instead of destroying it; such things could happen only in the crudest melodramas, where the actors were mere puppets for uncritical and ignorant audiences to applaud. It was wildly absurd to dream that I might find any hidden treasure tucked away in a breast-pocket of Sidney Vand.y.k.e's cast-off uniform; and I did not for a moment believe it; yet the vision of the khaki-coloured paper had been so clear that I dared not resist the impulse it prompted.

I picked up the coat, holding it away from me gingerly, by the collar, as a small white cat might grip a large brown rat by the back of its neck. Then, also gingerly, I dipped my fingers into one pocket after another. All were empty: yet now quite distinctly I heard a crisp, delicate crackling of paper.

It was like searching for a ghost and seeing no sign, but catching a faint echo of invisible feet. Something was hidden there. I could not be mistaken. Perhaps the thing when found would not be worth finding; but a thousand times over, it was worth the pain of looking for.

I cleared a place on the large table which had been spread with contributions for the refugees, and laid the coat out flat. All over the two fronts I slowly, carefully, pa.s.sed my fingers until, between the cloth and lining, far down on the left side near the edge of the coat, I touched the thing that crackled.

Whatever it was, this thing must have slipped down through a break in one of the pockets. I explored again, and discovered a small rip not more than two inches in length at the bottom of the inside breast-pocket. But the lost bit of paper could not be got at through this opening. The lining of the coat would have to be slit down before the hidden thing could be reached, and I pulled the pocket wrong side out, hoping with a quick jerk to tear it from the coat. More easily said than done! The material was expensively tough, and resisted my frantic tuggings, yet I wouldn't give up. I dared not go foraging downstairs for a pair of scissors; neither did I wish to ring for a servant to bring me them. I wanted desperately to be alone with this cast-off garment of Sidney Vand.y.k.e's--alone with any secret I might force it to yield up.

The coat seemed to resist every effort and trick of mine, as if it still served its old master and were stubbornly resolved to protect him against a stranger's prying; but at last a sharp jerk made a st.i.tch give way. After that the rest was easy. I wrenched the pocket half out, and that once done I was able with both hands to tear the lining down nearly its whole length. Then I thrust my hand between it and the cloth, and touched a crumpled piece of paper.

I dreaded while I longed to look at what I had discovered: for I realized that in all human probability I was about to suffer a crushing disappointment. This lost sc.r.a.p of paper might prove to be part of some torn, irrelevant letter of long ago; or it might be an American greenback, or a forgotten memorandum. As I withdrew my hand--the paper in it--involuntarily I shut my eyes, as if shrinking from a blow. But I scolded myself for cowardly weakness, and opened my eyes again to see a folded, refolded, and crumpled piece of khaki-coloured paper ruled with blue lines. Then I knew that, from the first faint crackling which I had felt rather than heard, I had been sure in my heart of finding this thing: sure that I had always been meant by Fate to find it.

With cold and shaking fingers I cautiously unfolded the paper without tearing it. Yes! It was a leaf torn from a notebook--the khaki notebook I had given Eagle. One page was blank. The other was almost covered with writing, scribbled with blue pencil, a pencil which must have been rather blunt, because the marking was heavy, though it showed signs of haste. No one familiar with Eagle March's hand could have failed to recognize it as his, rough and hurried as was the scrawl.

At the top of the page was jotted down the date of that unforgettable night at El Paso.

"Have just received by your orderly verbal command to fire nos. one and two guns, aiming beyond Mexican end of bridge. I beg if this is correct that you repeat order in writing.

"MARCH."

Here was the evidence which would have saved Eagle at his court-martial and proved Major Vand.y.k.e a liar and blackguard. He had, no doubt, crushed the incriminating paper into the deepest depths of his breast-pocket, perhaps covering it up with other things lest it should flutter away and betray him. There had been no time to destroy the paper at that moment, and so he had put off disposing of it until after his famous rush across the Rio Grande had been safely accomplished. When he returned and could get back to his own tent, his first thought must have been of the doc.u.ment whose existence he meant to deny. To empty his pocket and find the paper gone must have been a frightful blow, and Sidney could hardly have known a peaceful moment until after the court-martial, when all danger of the lost message coming to light seemed to be past forever.

No wonder (as Tony had written, describing the trial) that the accuser had been more worn and nerve-shattered than the accused. No wonder that, even when he arrived in England, Sidney Vand.y.k.e had looked changed and ill! No wonder he had taken to steadying his nerves with alcohol, and had not tried to conquer the habit!

By this time he must have ceased to dread the reappearance of the vanished doc.u.ment; but it had reappeared, and it was not too late to be of use. The small sc.r.a.p of paper in my hand was big enough to give me all the power I had prayed for--the power to prove Captain March's innocence and Major Vand.y.k.e's guilt.

"Eagle said to-night that if the time ever came when he could take revenge without putting himself in the wrong, G.o.d help Vand.y.k.e!" I remembered. "We little thought how soon it would come. But it's here!

It's here! The 'stone wall' has tumbled down, like the wall of Jericho, and it's Sidney Vand.y.k.e's head, not Eagle's, that will be broken."

I was almost out of my wits with joy. I danced a war-dance of triumph, swinging the khaki coat and waving the doc.u.ment over my head. Then, when a wild whirl had satisfied my wish to celebrate, I refolded the bit of paper, hung the coat over my arm, and dashed to the door. Downstairs I plunged, pa.s.sed Diana's room, and had reached the head of the stairs leading to the ground floor when I actually b.u.mped against Di coming up.

If I had not stepped hastily back I should have thrown her downstairs.

As it was, she caught at the banisters and barred the way against me.

The flashing glimpse I had caught of her face, before we almost telescoped like two trains running into one another, had shown it pale and depressed; but the surprise of our encounter brought light to her eyes and colour to her cheeks. Her look changed from mere startled annoyance to puzzled suspicion. "Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "One would have thought the house was on fire! Another instant and you'd have knocked me down. What is the matter with you, Peggy?"

"I'm in a hurry, that's all," I answered.

"What are you doing with Sidney's coat over your arm?" she catechized me sharply.

"Didn't you know it was among the 'rubbish' upstairs that you were so anxious to get rid of?" I retorted in the same tone.

"Yes, I knew that; but why do you career downstairs with it as if the sky were falling, and leave everything else? You _shall_ tell me! I won't let you go till you do."

With the first words she had spoken after our collision, Di had mounted the top step, though still guarding the way down; and with her shrill threat she pushed me back from the stairhead by throwing herself against me and at the same time grasping the coat as if to s.n.a.t.c.h it off my arm.

Diana is much taller and stronger than I am. She could take the coat from me by force; and the thought darted through my head that without it to prove where and how the lost message had been found, the paper would lose half its value. My word, unsupported by proof, would not be enough against Major Vand.y.k.e, for it was known that I detested him, and was a sworn friend to Captain March. I must keep the coat at any cost to myself--or even to Diana.

Standing at bay, looking up at her white face of anger and suspicion, I felt very small and frail of body; but my soul gathered strength of battle. I clasped my bare arms over the coat and locked my fingers round my two elbows.

"This is mine," I said. "You gave it to me to do as I liked with. You've no right to take it away. I'm going to make a present of it to somebody who's been robbed of everything, and needs it."

This was the best explanation I could think of. But it was not good enough for Diana. She attempted to push me farther back, and I resisted, trying to wriggle myself free and elude her; but she was on the alert, and too quick as well as too strong for my trick to succeed.

"No, you shan't slip away like that, you little wild-cat!" she cried, beginning to pant slightly. In the white light of the electric candelabra, which made the corridor bright as day, I saw her beautiful bosom heave under its double rope of creamy pearls. All the charming softness which men loved was gone from her face. It looked hard and cruel.

Just as I meant to escape at any price, so she meant at any price to keep me. I guessed that she had come home alone, and let herself in with a latch-key, for apparently there were no servants about. That was fortunate for me; and fortunate that Father and Kitty, and above all Sidney, had gone on somewhere else from the Russian Emba.s.sy, for there would have been very little chance for me if I had had to run the gauntlet.

"You hate Sidney. I believe you hate me, too!" she went on when she had got her breath. "I don't trust anything you say or do. You've some horrid idea in your head. I read that in your face the instant I saw you here. You mean mischief. What's in your mind I don't know, but I _shall_ know! You'd better tell me!"

"I've told you all I have to tell," I said. "If I'm a wild-cat, you're a tigress. What will the servants think if they come and see you like this?"

"I don't care what they think. And besides, they won't come. I've changed my mind about giving you that coat. I must ask Sidney first if he wants to keep it for any reason. I'll let you know to-morrow."