CHAPTER XL
THE WAY TO PAU
The way to Pau which Mr. Sabin chose may possibly have been the most circuitous, but it was certainly the safest. Although not a muscle of his face had moved, although he had not by any physical movement or speech betrayed his knowledge of the fact, he was perfectly well aware that his little statement as to his future movements was overheard and carefully noted by the tall, immaculately dressed young man who by some strange chance seemed to have been at his elbow since he had left his rooms an hour ago. “Into the lion’s mouth, indeed,” he muttered to himself grimly as he hailed a hansom at the corner and was driven homewards. The limes of Berlin were very beautiful, but it was not with any immediate idea of sauntering beneath them that a few hours later he was driven to Euston and stepped into an engaged carriage on the Liverpool express. There, with a travelling cap drawn down to his eyes and a rug pulled up to his throat, he sat in the far corner of his compartment apparently enjoying an evening paper—as a matter of fact anxiously watching the platform. He had taken care to allow himself only a slender margin of time. In two minutes the train glided out of the station.
He drew a little sigh of relief—he, who very seldom permitted himself the luxury of even the slightest revelation of his feelings. At least he had a start. Then he unlocked a travelling case, and, drawing out an atlas, sat with it upon his knee for some time. When he closed it there was a frown upon his face.
“America,” he exclaimed softly to himself. “What a lack of imagination even the sound of the place seems to denote! It is the most ignominious retreat I have ever made.”
“You made the common mistake,” a quiet voice at his elbow remarked, “of many of the world’s greatest diplomatists. You underrated your adversaries.”
Mr. Sabin distinctly started, and clutching at his rug, leaned back in his corner. A young man in a tweed travelling suit was standing by the opposite window. Behind him Mr. Sabin noticed for the first time a narrow mahogany door. Mr. Sabin drew a short breath, and was himself again. Underneath the rug his fingers stole into his overcoat pocket and clasped something cold and firm.
“One at least,” he said grimly, “I perceive that I have held too lightly. Will you pardon a novice at necromancy if he asks you how you found your way here?”
Felix smiled.
“A little forethought,” he remarked, “a little luck and a sovereign tip to an accommodating inspector. The carriage in which you are travelling is, as you will doubtless perceive before you reach your journey’s end, a species of saloon. This little door”—touching the one through which he had issued—“leads on to a lavatory, and on the other side is a non-smoking carriage. I found that you had engaged a carriage on this train, by posing as your servant. I selected this one as being particularly suited to an old gentleman of nervous disposition, and arranged also that the non-smoking portion should be reserved for me.”
Mr. Sabin nodded. “And how,” he asked, “did you know that I meant to go to America?”
Felix shrugged his shoulders and took a seat.
“Well,” he said, “I concluded that you would be looking for a change of air somewhere, and I really could not see what part of the world you had left open to yourself. America is the only country strong enough to keep you! Besides, I reckoned a little upon that curiosity with regard to undeveloped countries which I have observed to be one of your traits. So far as I am aware, you have never resided long in America.”
“Neither have I even visited Kamtchatka or Greenland,” Mr. Sabin remarked.
“I understand you,” Felix remarked, nodding his head. “America is certainly one of the last places one would have dreamed of looking for you. You will find it, I am afraid, politically unborn; your own little methods, at any rate, would scarcely achieve popularity there. Further, its sympathies, of course, are with democratic France. I can imagine that you and the President of the United States would represent opposite poles of thought. Yet there were two considerations which weighed with me.”
“This is very interesting,” Mr. Sabin remarked. “May I know what they were? To be permitted a glimpse into the inward workings of a brain like yours is indeed a privilege!”
Felix bowed with a gratified smile upon his lips. The satire of Mr. Sabin’s dry tone was apparently lost upon him.
“You are most perfectly welcome,” he declared. “In the first place I said to myself that Kamtchatka and Greenland, although equally interesting to you, would be quite unable to afford themselves the luxury of offering you an asylum. You must seek the shelter of a great and powerful country, and one which you had never offended, and save America, there is none such in the world. Secondly, you are a Sybarite, and you do not without very serious reasons place yourself outside the pale of civilisation. Thirdly, America is the only country save those which are barred to you where you could play golf!”
“You are really a remarkable young man,” Sabin declared, softly stroking his little grey imperial. “You have read me like a book! I am humiliated that the course of my reasoning should have been so transparent. To prove the correctness of your conclusions, see the little volume which I had brought to read on my way to Liverpool.”
He handed it out to Felix. It was entitled, “The Golf Courses of the World,” and a leaf was turned down at the chapter headed, “United States.”
“I wish,” he remarked, “that you were a golfer! I should like to have asked your opinion about that plan of the Myopia golf links. To me it seems cramped, and the bunkers are artificial.”
Felix looked at him admiringly.
“You are a wonderful man,” he said. “You do not bear me any ill-will then?”
“None in the least,” Mr. Sabin said quietly. “I never bear personal grudges. So far as I am concerned, I never have a personal enemy. It is fate itself which vanquished me. You were simply an instrument. You do not figure in my thoughts as a person against whom I bear any ill-will. I am glad, though, that you did not cash my cheque for £20,000!”
Felix smiled. “You went to see, then?” he asked.
“I took the liberty,” Mr. Sabin answered, “of stopping payment of it.”
“It will never be presented,” Felix said “I tore it into pieces directly I left you.”
Mr. Sabin nodded.
“Quixotic,” he murmured.
The express was rushing on through the night. Mr. Sabin thrust his hand into his bag and took out a handful of cigars. He offered one to Felix, who accepted, and lit it with the air of a man enjoying the reasonable civility of a chance fellow passenger.
“You had, I presume,” Mr. Sabin remarked, “some object in coming to see the last of me? I do not wish to seem unduly inquisitive, but I feel a little natural interest, or shall we say curiosity as to the reason for this courtesy on your part?”
“You are quite correct,” Felix answered. “I am here with a purpose. I am the bearer of a message to you.”
“May I ask, a friendly message, or otherwise?”
His fingers were tightening upon the little hard substance in his pocket, but he was already beginning to doubt whether after all Felix had come as an enemy.
“Friendly,” was the prompt answer. “I bring you an offer.”
“From Lobenski?”
“From his august master! The Czar himself has plans for you!”
“His serene Majesty,” Mr. Sabin murmured, “has always been most kind.”
“Since you left the country of the Shah,” Felix continued, “Russian influence in Central Asia has been gradually upon the wane. All manner of means have been employed to conceal this, but the unfortunate fact remains. You were the only man who ever thoroughly grasped the situation and attained any real influence over the master of western Asia! Your removal from Teheran was the result of an intrigue on the part of the English. It was the greatest misfortune which ever befel Russia!”
“And your offer?” Mr. Sabin asked.
“Is that you return to Teheran not as the secret agent, but as the accredited ambassador of Russia, with an absolutely free hand and unlimited powers.”
“Such an offer,” Mr. Sabin remarked, “ten years ago would have made Russia mistress of all Asia.”
“The Czar,” Felix said, “is beginning to appreciate that. But what was possible then is possible now!”
Mr. Sabin shook his head. “I am ten years older,” he said, “and the Shah who was my friend is dead.”
“The new Shah,” Felix said, “has a passion for intrigue, and the sands around Teheran are magnificent for golf.”
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
“Too hard,” he said, “and too monotonous. I am peculiar perhaps in that respect, but I detest artificial bunkers. Now there is a little valley,” he continued thoughtfully, “about seven miles north of Teheran, where something might be done! I wonder——”
“You accept,” Felix asked quietly.
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
“No, I decline.”
It was a shock to Felix, but he hid his disappointment.
“Absolutely?”
“And finally.”
“Why?”
“I am ten years too old!”
“That is resentment!”
Mr. Sabin denied it.
“No! Why should I not be frank with you, my friend? What I would have done for Russia ten years ago, I would not do to-day! She has made friends with the French Republic. She has done more than recognise the existence of that iniquitous institution—she has pressed her friendship upon the president—she has spoken the word of alliance. Henceforth my feeling for Russia has changed. I have no object to gain in her development. I am richer than the richest of her nobles, and there is no title in Europe for which I would exchange my own. You see Russia has absolutely nothing to offer me. On the other hand, what would benefit Russia in Asia would ruin England, and England has given me and many of my kind a shelter, and has even held aloof from France. Of the two countries I would much prefer to aid England. If I had been the means of destroying her Asiatic empire ten years ago it would have been to me to-day a source of lasting regret. There, my friend, I have paid you the compliment of perfect frankness.”
“If,” Felix said slowly, “the price of your success at Teheran should be the breach of our covenants with France—what then? Remember that it is the country whose friendship is pleasing to us, not the government. You cannot seriously doubt but that an autocrat, such as the Czar, would prefer to extend his hand to an Emperor of France than to soil his fingers with the clasp of a tradesman!”
Mr. Sabin shook his head softly. “I have told you why I decline,” he said, “but in my heart there are many other reasons. For one, I am no longer a young man. This last failure of mine has aged me. I have no heart for fresh adventures.”
Felix sighed.
“My mission to you comes,” he said, “at an unfortunate time. For the present, then, I accept defeat.”
“The fault,” Mr. Sabin murmured, “is in no way with you. My refusal was a thing predestined. The Czar himself could not move me.”
The train was slowing a little. Felix looked out of the window.
“We are nearing Crewe,” he said. “I shall alight then and return to London. You are for America, then?”
“Beyond doubt,” Mr. Sabin declared.
Felix drew from his pocket a letter.
“If you will deliver this for me,” he said, “you will do me a kindness, and you will make a pleasant acquaintance.”
Mr. Sabin glanced at the imprescription. It was addressed to—
“Mrs. J. B. Peterson,
“Lenox,
“Mass., U.S.A.”
“I will do so with pleasure,” he remarked, slipping it into his dressing-case.
“And remember this,” Felix remarked, glancing out at the platform along which they were gliding. “You are a marked man. Disguise is useless for you. Be ever on your guard. You and I have been enemies, but after all you are too great a man to fall by the hand of a German assassin. Farewell!”
“I will thank you for your caution and remember it,” Mr. Sabin answered. “Farewell!”
Felix raised his hat, and Mr. Sabin returned the salute. The whistle sounded. Felix stepped out on to the platform.
“You will not forget the letter?” he asked
“I will deliver it in person without fail,” Mr. Sabin answered.
