Chapter Twenty One.

Save for a little impatience when his judgment was impugned, or somebody questioned the soundness of his opinions, Moreno was a person of the most equable temperament, and singularly light hearted.

Still, when he rose early on the morning of this most eventful day, he was in a very grave and thoughtful mood. He was playing a most difficult and dangerous game. Even if he outwitted the Heads of the brotherhood in Spain, as he believed he had, there were left Luçue and Jaques in London to deal with.

To save Guy Rossett was easy enough; he had laid his plans very surely for that. But he had to save himself; also to save Violet Hargrave. In the plausible explanations that he would have to give in London, there must be no loopholes.

Very early in the morning he again saw the Chief of Police, in company with Farquhar, who, now that the game was really afoot, was manifesting a keen interest in the chase. They rehearsed the whole programme all over again.

“He is cleverer than I thought him at first,” whispered Moreno to his friend, when the somewhat stout man had withdrawn for a moment to consult one of his lieutenants. “But I am relying on you to be constantly at his elbow. You are not the sort of chap to get flurried.”

And Farquhar, although quite a modest kind of fellow, agreed that he could keep his head in a crisis.

At eleven o’clock, as arranged, Moreno presented himself at the lodgings of Mrs Hargrave. She looked very pale and there were dark rings round her eyes. It was easy to see that her night had been a perturbed one, that she had enjoyed little or no sleep.

“You don’t look in the best of health and spirits,” he said kindly. “Well, you have got to pluck up your courage. You will want plenty of it for the next twenty-four hours.”

She shivered. “If I had known what I was going in for, I would never have yielded to Jaques’ entreaties,” she said.

“You never quite know what you will be landed in when you embark in these enterprises,” answered the young man lightly. “Well, now to business. You still want to be absent from that meeting to-night?”

“If it is possible.”

“It is quite possible, but you will have to rely on me, and you will also have to be very brave.”

He drew out of his pocket a small, dark-coloured phial, and held it to the light.

“You see that?” he asked. “Well, this is going to be your salvation.”

She shivered again; her nerves were very much out of order this morning, but she began to have an idea of what he was driving at.

“This is the secret, then, that you would not tell me last night. I have got to drink that.”

Moreno nodded. “Yes, if you are still in the same mind as you were yesterday. In my very early youth I was apprenticed to a chemist. I very soon began to acquire a wide knowledge of drugs, and their properties.”

They had been standing up to the present. Moreno pointed to a sofa.

“We can talk more easily if we sit. I have mixed you here a perfectly safe compound, which I want you to drink before I leave, so that I can take away the bottle; I would prefer it was not left lying about, you understand.”

She looked at him with eyes that expressed a great dread. “What effect will it have?”

“I tell you frankly, about six or seven o’clock you will feel very ill, very faint. Those effects will last for the best part of twelve hours. A few hours after that, you will be yourself again.”

She looked at him narrowly. A dark wave of suspicion had suddenly flowed over her mind. She was sure, with a woman’s certain intuition, that he was greatly attracted by her. Still, she knew nothing of him.

He had always said he was a true son of the Revolution, although she had somewhat distrusted the sincerity of that statement. Had he, out of loyalty to the Cause, revealed her perfidy to the others, and was he deputed by them to poison her, under the specious pretext of falling in with her wishes?

He read her dark, suspicious thoughts as easily as he would have read an open book. He spoke very gently, very tenderly. She had never appealed to him more than at this moment, with her pallid cheeks, the haunting dread in her eyes.

“My dear, you do not trust me, I can see. Your mind is full of doubt. Well,”—he stooped and kissed her—“I can only swear by everything I hold holy and sacred that I would not harm a hair of your head.”

No man could lie so convincingly as that. She reached out her hand for the phial, then quickly drew it back.

“I am afraid, dreadfully afraid,” she murmured in a low voice. “I don’t know which to choose—to do as you tell me, or to go to that dreadful place.”

“You must do as you please.” He was still very patient, but she noticed there was certain coldness in his tones.

She rose and walked about the room, wringing her hands. Her faith in him had come back, but she was still terribly afraid.

“It is early yet,” said Moreno presently. “You have plenty of time to send round for Contraras and throw yourself on his compassion. Implore him not to compel you to assist at the condemnation, perhaps the execution, of a man who was once your lover. He might give way.”

“The last thing he would do. He would think it a grand opportunity to show my fidelity to the Cause. He would let nothing stand in the way if it were his own case.”

“I agree with you now, as I agreed before when we discussed the same subject. Well, you must make up your mind. Take this, or wait here and come with Alvedero to-night.”

She was still wavering, torn between faith and doubt. “But you said you could save Guy Rossett? Is there any doubt of that?”

And Moreno, out of his pity for the woman, out of the attraction she possessed for him, spoke more plainly than he had intended.

“There is great doubt of it. But even if I could save Guy Rossett, I doubt if I could save you. I might just manage to save myself.”

And then, in a flash, she understood, and she doubted him no longer.

“I think I see it all now. You are no more a true son of the Cause than I am a true daughter. I sold their secrets for money. You would betray them for the same or other reasons.”

Moreno did not answer the question directly. He simply held out the phial towards her. “Will you drink this or not?”

She took it from him with a hand that no longer trembled. “Yes. I believe you now. I will drink it. Tell me what I am to do, how I am to act when it begins to take effect!”

“Do nothing; just go to the sofa and lie down. In a few minutes you will be in a stupor, unconscious of everything and everybody. Your landlady may come up; she can act as she pleases; send for a doctor or not. Probably nobody will come near you till Alvedero arrives. When he sees you there he can act as he pleases too. Anyway, he cannot stay long, because he will be due at the brotherhood, to whom he will bring the report of your sudden indisposition.”

“And if the doctor comes, will he not guess?”

“Dios!” cried Moreno, relapsing for a moment into Spanish. “You will be all right again long before the doctor has picked out your complaint from a dozen others that present similar symptoms.” She pulled the cork from the phial, and sniffed the contents. “There is no odour about it,” she said.

“Not the slightest,” said Moreno quietly. “I took very good care of that. I think if the doctor does come, he will be a bit puzzled.”

She drank it down at a draught, then handed the bottle back to her visitor.

“I am an adventuress, and you are—well—a sort of adventurer,” she said, with a half smile. “Well, you see, I have given you a proof of my faith in you.”

Moreno put the phial into his pocket, and held out his hand.

“Good-bye, for the present.”

“Shall I see you to-morrow?” asked Violet, as she walked with him to the door. “You say after about twelve hours I shall be myself again.”

“Certainly,” answered Moreno in his gayest tones. Yes, whatever betided, he would certainly see her to-morrow. Her trust in him had made her more attractive than ever.

On the whole, he thought he had done the best for her. Once he had thought of getting the Spanish police to arrest her on some false charge, with the view of letting her go as soon as all danger was past. But this method did not appeal to him very greatly. The police would be glad enough to get her into their clutches, but they might not care to let her go so easily. Too much explanation might be necessary, in the first instance.

And he always had to adapt his policy to the view of what questions might be asked in London. The tale she could tell now would be a very simple one. She had been attacked in the evening by a sudden seizure, had relapsed into unconsciousness, and been oblivious of everything till the next day.

That evening, at a few minutes past nine, Alvedero knocked at the door of the mean house. When the landlady opened it, he perceived that she was in a great state of agitation.

“Oh, señor, something terrible has happened. I went up to madame’s room some twenty minutes ago to take her her light supper. She was lying unconscious on the sofa, and she has not stirred since.”

Alvedero bounded up the stairs, entered the room, and gazed on the motionless form. At first he thought she was dead, but, on placing his hand on her heart, he could feel it beating.

“She looks as if she were dying. Have you sent for a doctor?”

“Yes. After I found that I could not pull her round, I sent my husband to fetch the first one he could find.”

Alvedero reflected as to his course of action. Humanity suggested that he should stay by the side of the insensible woman till the doctor arrived and gave his opinion as to her condition. But humanity was not a particular trait of the brotherhood, and Alvedero had less of it than most of his colleagues. He had arrived five minutes late, he had spent another five minutes here. If he left at once, he would still be keeping his colleagues waiting.

Besides, what good could he do? If the woman were not dying, as he believed she was, it must be hours before she recovered. The tribunal must sit without her. The sooner he went and informed them of that fact, the better.

He turned towards the door, and spoke a few parting words to the landlady.

“Don’t leave her till the doctor comes. Obey whatever instructions he gives promptly. I will see that you are rewarded for your trouble. I will look in again, in two or three hours from now. Please sit up for me.”

He walked a few yards down the street, where a cab was waiting. He entered it, and was driven rapidly towards an obscure portion of the town.

Half an hour later, Isobel was sitting in the drawing-room alone. Her host and hostess had gone on a visit to some friends who lived near. Guy had not been able to see her during the day, as he had been too busily engaged with his official duties. He had sent round a note telling her he would be round in the evening. She was expecting him every minute.

There was a tap at the door. The maid entered with a letter. The gentleman who had brought it was waiting in the hall for an answer.

She recognised the handwriting on the envelope at once as that of her cousin Maurice Farquhar. She tore it open and read the few pencilled words: “I want to see you at once. It is about Mr Rossett.” She rushed out into the hall, and almost pulled him into the room.

“What is it?” she panted in terrified tones. “Something has happened to Guy.”

“Yes, something has happened, but you must be brave and not give way. He has been trapped by the anarchists, but all will be well. Moreno assures me that he has foreseen this, and will save him. I am now on my way to do my share in the rescue.”

“Can I come with you?” pleaded Isobel. “I shall go mad if I stop here.”

For a moment Farquhar hesitated. He had a rooted dislike to women mixing themselves up in dangerous or turbulent scenes. But her pleading eyes overcame his scruples.

“Yes, if you wish. I have a cab waiting. Leave a note for these people here explaining your absence. Then put on your things and come with me. I will explain everything as we go along.”

A few minutes later they were seated side by side, driving to the same obscure quarter of the town which had long ago been reached by the Spanish anarchist Alvedero.