CHAPTER X

AT THE RITZ

When Victor Cleves telegraphed from St. Augustine to Washington that he and his wife were on their way North, and that they desired to see John Recklow as soon as they arrived, John Recklow remarked that he knew of no place as private as a public one. And he came on to New York and established himself at the Ritz, rather regally.

To dine with him that evening were two volunteer agents of the United States Secret Service, _ZB-303_, otherwise James Benton, a fashionable architect; and _XYL-371_, Alexander Selden, sometime junior partner in the house of Milwin, Selden & Co.

A single lamp was burning in the white-and-rose rococo room. Under its veiled glow these three men sat conversing in guarded voices over coffee and cigars, awaiting the advent of _53-6-26_, otherwise Victor Cleves, recently Professor of Ornithology at Cambridge; and his young wife, Tressa, known officially as _V-69_.

"Did the trip South do Mrs. Cleves any good?" inquired Benton.

"Some," said Recklow. "When Selden and I saw her she was getting better."

"I suppose that affair of Yarghouz upset her pretty thoroughly."

"Yes." Recklow tossed his cigar into the fireplace and produced a pipe.

"Victor Cleves upsets her more," he remarked.

"Why?" asked Benton, astonished.

"She's beginning to fall in love with him and doesn't know what's the matter with her," replied the elder man drily. "Selden noticed it, too."

Benton looked immensely surprised. "I supposed," he said, "that she and Cleves considered the marriage to be merely a temporary necessity. I didn't imagine that they cared for each other."

"I don't suppose they did at first," said Selden. "But I think she's interested in Victor. And I don't see how he can help falling in love with her, because she's a very beautiful thing to gaze on, and a most engaging one to talk to."

"She's about the prettiest girl I ever saw," admitted Benton, "and about the cleverest. All the same----"

"All the same--_what_?"

"Well, Mrs. Cleves has her drawbacks, you know--as a real wife, I mean."

Recklow said: "There is a fixed idea in Cleves's head that Tressa Norne married him as a last resort, which is true. But he'll never believe she's changed her ideas in regard to him unless she herself enlightens him. And the girl is too shy to do that. Besides, she believes the same thing of him. There's a mess for you!"

Recklow filled his pipe carefully.

"In addition," he went on, "Mrs. Cleves has another and very terrible fixed idea in her charming head, and that is that she really did lose her soul among those damned Yezidees. She believes that Cleves, though kind to her, considers her merely as something uncanny--something to endure until this Yezidee campaign is ended and she is safe from assassination."

Benton said: "After all, and in spite of all her loveliness, I myself should not feel entirely comfortable with such a girl for a real wife."

"Why?" demanded Recklow.

"Well--good heavens, John!--those uncanny things she does--her rather terrifying psychic knowledge and ability--make a man more or less uneasy." He laughed without mirth.

"For example," he added, "I never was nervous in any physical crisis; but since I've met Tressa Norne--to be frank--I'm not any too comfortable in my mind when I remember Gutchlug and Sanang and Albert Feke and that dirty reptile Yarghouz--and when I recollect _how that girl dealt with them_! Good God, John, I'm not a coward, I hope, but that sort of thing worries me!"

Recklow lighted his pipe. He said: "In the Government's campaign against these eight foreigners who have begun a psychic campaign against the unsuspicious people of this decent Republic, with the purpose of surprising, overpowering and enslaving the minds of mankind by a misuse of psychic power, we agents of the Secret Service are slowly gaining the upper hand.

"In this battle of minds we are gaining a victory. But we are winning solely and alone through the psychic ability and the loyalty and courage of a young girl who, through tragedy of circumstances, spent the years of her girlhood in the infamous Yezidee temple at Yian, and who learned from the devil-worshipers themselves not only this so-called magic of the Mongol sorcerers, but also how to meet its psychic menace and defeat it."

He looked at Benton, shrugged:

"If you and if Cleves really feel the slightest repugnance toward the strange psychic ability of this brave and generous girl, I for one do not share it."

Benton reddened: "It isn't exactly repugnance----" But Recklow interrupted sharply:

"Do you realise, Benton, what she's already accomplished for us in our secret battle against Bolshevism?--against the very powers of hell itself, led by these Mongol sorcerers?

"Of the Eight Assassins--or Sheiks-el-Djebel--who came to the United States to wield the dreadful weapon of psychic power against the minds of our people, and to pervert them and destroy all civilisation,--of the Eight Chief Assassins of the Eight Towers, this girl already has discovered and identified four,--Sanang, Gutchlug, Albert Feke, and Yarghouz; and she has destroyed the last three."

He sat calmly enjoying his pipe for a few moments' silence, then:

"Five of this sect of Assassins remain--five sly, murderous, psychic adepts who call themselves sorcerers. Except for Prince Sanang, I do not know who these other four men may be. I haven't a notion. Nor have you.

Nor do I believe that with all the resources of the United States Secret Service we ever should be able to discover these four Sheiks-el-Djebel except for the astounding spiritual courage and psychic experience of the young wife of Victor Cleves."

After a moment Selden nodded. "That is quite true," he said simply. "We are utterly helpless against unknown psychic forces. And I, for one, feel no repugnance toward what Mrs. Cleves has done for all mankind and in the name of God."

"She's a brave girl," muttered Benton, "but it's terrible to possess such knowledge and horrible to use it."

Recklow said: "The horror of it nearly killed the girl herself. Have you any idea how she must suffer by being forced to employ such terrific knowledge? by being driven to use it to combat this menace of hell? Can you imagine what this charming, sensitive, tragic young creature must feel when, with powers natural to her but unfamiliar to us, she destroys with her own mind and will-power demons in human shape who are about to destroy her?

"Talk of nerve! Talk of abnegation! Talk of perfect loyalty and courage!

There is more than these in Tressa Cleves. There is that dauntless bravery which faces worse than physical death. Because the child still believes that her soul is damned for whatever happened to her in the Yezidee temple; and that when these Yezidees succeed in killing her body, Erlik will surely seize the soul that leaves it."

There was a knocking at the door. Benton got up and opened it. Victor Cleves came in with his young wife.

Tressa Cleves seemed to have grown since she had been away. Taller, a trifle paler, yet without even the subtlest hint of that charming maturity which the young and happily married woman invariably wears, her virginal allure now verged vaguely on the delicate edges of austerity.

Cleves, sunburnt and vigorous, looked older, somehow--far less boyish--and he seemed more silent than when, nearly seven months before, he had been assigned to the case of Tressa Norne.

Recklow, Selden and Benton greeted them warmly; to each in turn Tressa gave her narrow, sun-tanned hand. Recklow led her to a seat. A servant came with iced fruit juice and little cakes and cigarettes.

Conversation, aimless and general, fulfilling formalities, gradually ceased.

A full June moon stared through the open windows--searching for the traditional bride, perhaps--and its light silvered a pale and lovely figure that might possibly have passed for the pretty ghost of a bride, but not for any girl who had married because she was loved.

Recklow broke the momentary silence, bluntly:

"Have you anything to report, Cleves?"

The young fellow hesitated:

"My wife has, I believe."