LITMIR.BIZ

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I introduce you?” mademoiselle asked. “M’sieur Ewart—M’sieur le Baron de Moret.”

      “Charmed to make your acquaintance, sir,” the Baron said, grasping my hand. “Mademoiselle here has already spoken of you.”

      “The satisfaction is mutual, I assure you, Baron,” was my reply, and then we re-seated ourselves and began to chat.

      Suddenly mademoiselle made some remark in a language which I did not understand. The effect it had upon the new-comer was almost electrical. He started from his seat, glaring at her. Then he began to question her rapidly in the unknown tongue.

      He was a flashily-dressed man, of overbearing manner, with a thick neck and square, determined chin. It was quite evident that the warning I had given them aroused their apprehensions, for they held a rapid consultation, and then Julie went out, returning with another man, a dark-haired, lowbred-looking foreigner, who spoke the same tongue as his companions.

      They disregarded my presence altogether in their eager consultation, therefore I rose to go; for I saw that I was not wanted.

      Julie held my hand and looked into my eyes in mute appeal. She appeared anxious to say something to me in private. At least that was my impression.

      When I left the house I passed, at the end of the Crescent, a shabby man idly smoking. Was he one of the watchers?

      Four days went by. Soon my rest would be at an end, and I should be travelling at a moment’s notice with Blythe and Bindo to the farther end of Europe.

      One evening I was passing through the great hall of the Hotel Cecil to descend to the American bar, where I frequently had a cocktail, when a neatly-dressed figure in black rose and greeted me. It was Julie, who had probably been awaiting me an hour or more.

      “May I speak to you?” she asked breathlessly, when we had exchanged greetings. “I wish to apologise for the manner in which I treated you the other evening.”

      I assured her that no apologies were needed, and together we strolled up and down the courtyard between the hotel entrance and the Strand.

      “I really ought not to trouble you with my affairs,” she said presently, in an apologetic tone, “but you remember what I told you when you so kindly allowed me to travel with you—I mean of my peril?”

      “Certainly. But I thought it was all over.”

      “I foolishly believed that it was. But I am watched; I—I’m a marked woman.” Then, after some hesitation, she added, “I wonder if you would do me another favour. You could save my life, M’sieur Ewart—if you only would.”

      “Well, if I can render you such a service, mademoiselle, I shall be only too delighted. As I told you the other day, my next journey is to Petersburg, and I may have to start any hour after midnight to-morrow. What can I do?”

      “At present my plans are immature,” she answered after a pause. “But why not dine with me to-morrow night? We have some friends, but we shall be able to escape them, and discuss the matter alone. Do come.”

      I accepted, and she taking a hansom in the Strand, drove off.

      On the following night at eight I entered the well-furnished drawing-room in Burton Crescent, where three well-dressed men and three rather smart ladies were assembled, including my hostess. They were all foreigners, and among them was the Baron, who appeared to be the most honoured guest. It was now quite plain that, instead of being a governess as she had asserted, she was a lady of good family and the Baron’s social equal.

      The party was a very pleasant one, and there was considerable merriment at table. My hostess’s apprehension of the previous day had all disappeared, while the Baron’s demeanour was one of calm security.

      I sat at my hostess’s left hand, and she was particularly gracious to me, the whole conversation at table being in French.

      At last, after dessert, the Baron remarked that, as it was New Year’s Day, we should have snap-dragon, and, with his hostess’s permission, left the dining-room and prepared it. Presently it appeared in a big antique Worcester bowl, and was placed on the table close to me.

      Then the electric light was switched off, and the spirit ignited.

      Next moment, with shouts and laughter, the blue flames shedding a weird light upon our faces, we were pulling the plums out of the fire—a childish amusement permissible because it was the New Year.

      I had placed one in my mouth and swallowed it, but as I was taking a second from the blue flames I suddenly felt a faintness. At first I put it down to the heat of the room, but a moment later I felt a sharp spasm through my heart, and my brain swelled too large for my skull. My jaws were set. I tried to speak, but was unable to articulate a word.

      I saw the fun had stopped and the faces of all were turned upon me anxiously. The Baron had risen, and his dark countenance peered into mine with a fiendish, murderous expression.

      “I’m ill!” I gasped. “I—I’m sure I’m poisoned!”

      The faces of all smiled again, while the Baron uttered some words which I could not understand, and then there was a dead silence, all still watching me intently—all except a fair-haired young man opposite me, who seemed to have fallen back in his chair unconscious.

      “You fiends!” I cried, with a great effort, as I struggled to rise.“What have I done to you that you should—poison—me?”

      I know that the Baron grinned in my face, and that I fell forward heavily upon the table, my heart gripped in the spasm of death.

      Of what occurred afterwards I have no recollection, for when I slowly regained knowledge of things around me, I found myself lying beneath a bare, leafless hedge in a grass field. I managed to struggle to my feet, and discovered myself in a bare, flat, open country. As far as I could judge it was midday. I got to a gate, skirted a hedge, and gained the main road. With difficulty I walked to the nearest town, a distance of about four miles, without meeting a soul, and to my surprise found myself in Hitchin. The spectacle of a man entering the town in evening dress and hatless in broad daylight was no doubt curious, but I was anxious to return to London and give information against those who had, without any apparent motive, laid an ingenious plot to poison me.

      At the “Sun” I learned that the time was eleven in the morning. The only manner in which I could account for my presence in Hitchin was that, believed to be dead by the Baron and his accomplices, I had been conveyed in a car to the spot where I was found.

      What, I wondered, had become of the fair-haired young man whom I had seen unconscious opposite me?

      A few shillings remained in my pocket, and, strangely enough, beside me when I recovered consciousness I had found a small fluted phial marked “Prussic acid—poison.” The assassins had attempted to make it apparent that I had committed suicide!

      Two hours later, after a rest and a wash, I borrowed an overcoat and golf-cap, and took the train to King’s Cross. At Judd Street Police Station I made a statement, and with two plain-clothes officers returned to the house in Burton Crescent, only to find that the fair Julie and her friends had flown.

      On forcing the door, we found the dining-table just as it had been left after the poisoned snap-dragon of the previous night. Nothing had been touched. Only Julie, the Baron, the man-servant, and the guests had all gone, and the place was deserted.

      The police were utterly puzzled at the entire absence of motive.

      On my return to my rooms I found orders from Bindo to start at once for Petersburg, which I was compelled to do. So I left London full of wonder at my exciting experience, and not until my arrival at Wirballen, the Russian frontier, six days later, did I discover that, though my passport remained in my wallet, a special police permit to enable me to pass in and out of the districts affected by the revolutionary Terror, was missing! It was a permit which Blythe had cleverly obtained through one of his friends, a high diplomatist, and without which I could not move rapidly in Russia.

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