About the same time that these events were happening at the Park, Ferdinand Contraras was taking farewell of his family. He explained to them that he was going to Spain, he could not say how long he would be away. It might be a few days, it might be weeks. He had left plenty of money in the bank for their needs.
His wife and daughter watched him out of the house without any signs of emotion. To these two, who should have been his nearest and dearest, he had long appeared as a man out of touch with realities.
When the car rolled out of sight, Madame Contraras turned to her daughter.
“I have a presentiment, Inez, he will never come back. He is going to give his life as well as his fortune to this insane cause.”
Inez, who was rather callous, shrugged her shapely shoulders. “Why did you marry him, mother? He must have been mad then.”
“The madness of strong, impetuous youth, my child. I never thought it would last through middle and old age.”
Chapter Twelve
Contraras embarked on his great mission. Elderly man as he was, the fire of his convictions kept him alert and youthful.
He stayed a day in Madrid; from thence he travelled to Barcelona. And then he went on to Fonterrabia.
In the same little café, the “Concha,” he met several members of the brotherhood, Zorrilta, specially summoned, Alvedero, Andres Moreno, Violet Hargrave, and Mademoiselle Delmonte.
He opened the proceedings in his sharp, autocratic way. “You have already had a meeting about this particular coup which I planned in London.”
The young Frenchwoman spoke eagerly. If ever there was an enthusiast in the sacred cause, she was one. Ready to be burned or hanged for her principles, she had the spirit of the early Christian martyrs.
“We know all about it, Contraras.” In the spirit of true democracy, they addressed each other by no formal prefix. “I have undertaken it. It probably means death to me, I can only escape by a miracle, but it also means death to our enemies.”
Contraras looked at her approvingly from under his bushy eyebrows. “There spoke a true daughter of the Revolution which is to remake the world. If years had not come upon me, if my eyesight were more keen, my hand more sure, I would not delegate this task to another, less especially to a woman.”
Zorrilta hastened to observe obsequiously, “We cannot afford to hazard your precious life, Contraras. You are the head and brain of this organisation. The general directs the battle from safe ground. He does not go into the firing-line like the common soldier.”
Contraras smiled, well pleased. Like most great men, he was very susceptible to flattery, as easily susceptible as the most despotic monarch that ever ruled.
“I appreciate your devotion to the cause, your loyalty to myself,” he said in his most gracious manner. “When this great blow is struck, when we make a most terrible example, the echoes of it will reverberate through the world. The downtrodden population will arise, the world-revolution will be in being.”
There was a subdued murmur of applause at the conclusion of his speech. Moreno applauded the loudest; somehow Violet Hargrave could never force herself to be very enthusiastic. Moreno was watching her very narrowly.
Mademoiselle Delmonte spoke. “I cannot say how proud I am to have had this task deputed to me.” She looked very brave and resolute.
The meeting lasted for over half an hour. Details of the great coup were settled. Contraras had a powerful and logical brain. He never allowed digressions or diversions, he always kept everybody to the point. When the meeting broke up two people were very radiant, Contraras, who had planned the coup, the enthusiastic Valerie Delmonte, who had undertaken to carry it into execution, with or without assistance, as might be determined.
They strolled out from the obscure little café one by one. Moreno presently overtook Mrs Hargrave, in her peasant dress. They lodged near each other; it was natural they should stroll along together in the direction of their respective homes.
Behind them came Contraras, and the two other men who had joined forces after leaving the café. Contraras looked after the two young people with those keen eyes which age had not very greatly dimmed.
“The Englishwoman I know well,” he whispered to Alvedero. “She is a protégée, almost an adopted daughter, of our staunch comrade Jaques. What about this Moreno? Is he to be trusted?”
“You know that Luçue vouches for both.”
“Ah!” sighed Contraras. “Luçue is a keen judge of men. I have never known him make a mistake. But I do not like the English mother.”
“And, in the case of Violet Hargrave, you have the English father. And yet, you have no suspicion of her.”
Contraras nodded his massive head, the head with the broad, deep brow of the thinker.
“Your remark is just, my friend. I chose Violet Hargrave myself, on the recommendation of my friend Jaques; that, of course, prejudices me in her favour. Moreno was chosen by Luçue. Perhaps I am a little bit jealous of Luçue. And I am growing old.”
“No,” cried Alvedero, with whole-hearted admiration. “Give you another ten years yet, and you will still be the brains and leading spirit of this organisation. Zorrilta is good, Luçue has a touch of genius. But there is only one Contraras. Ten years hence you will be our leader, as you are to-day.” And while Contraras and Alvedero were exchanging these confidences, Moreno was talking to Violet Hargrave.
“We seem to be engaged in a pretty bloodthirsty business, don’t you think, Mrs Hargrave? Not much in common with Fleet Street, or the flat in Mount Street, eh?”
Violet Hargrave smiled. “We have both come out here to find adventure. Spain is a land of surprises. We shall have plenty of adventure before we have done with it.”
There was a grim note in the journalist’s tones, as he answered: “On this particular coup, engineered by our great leader, Contraras, it seems to me as likely as not that you and I shall meet our deaths. The one person who seems perfectly happy over the business is Mademoiselle Delmonte. By the way, she went out the first. She must have flown along like the wind. The others are behind. I can see them through the back of my head. I can wager they are just discussing whether we can be trusted – you, with your English father, I, with my English mother.”
He shot at her a penetrating glance, but she did not move a muscle.
“The southern blood in both is stronger than the northern,” she answered calmly. “And we are each a true son and daughter of the Revolution.”
He came to the conclusion that, for the moment, Violet Hargrave was impenetrable. Would he ever be able to disturb that sang-froid?
When he reached his humble lodgings, for it was a part of his rôle to live plainly, he found a long letter from his old friend, Maurice Farquhar.
It was the letter that had been written from Ticehurst Park. It explained at great length that Isobel Clandon had lost her father, that there were no longer any ties to bind her to England, that she wanted to be near her lover, in view of the danger that threatened him. Above all, that she did not wish Guy to know, at any rate for the present. Could Moreno help?
The young man knitted his brows. His first impulse was to write back and strongly oppose the scheme. Then his subtle mind began to work, half unconsciously. Isobel Clandon over in Madrid could do no harm. He would not prophesy that she would do any good. But there was no knowing what might happen with this bloodthirsty brotherhood. She might be useful.
He knew an English couple living in Madrid, old connections of his mother; he was sure they would willingly take in Isobel as a boarder. They were not rich people, only just in comfortable circumstances, they were elderly and childless. They would welcome a young girl as a member of their household.
He would go to Madrid to-morrow and interview them. And he could kill two birds with one stone while he was there.
He interviewed the elderly couple; they would be delighted to receive Miss Clandon.
Afterwards, in response to a letter received at the Embassy, Guy Rossett met the young journalist in the same obscure restaurant in Madrid, where he had met him previously.
“Things are humming a bit, eh?” queried Moreno, as they sat at a small table, quaffing a bottle of light wine.
“Looks like it,” answered Rossett, speaking with the usual English phlegm. “I’ve had some very important information over to-day.”
“Most of which, I expect, has been supplied by me, not but what I admit there are two or three very good men out on the job.” Moreno was dreadfully conceited, but he could be generous when he chose. He would sometimes allow that there were other people who might be – well, nearly as clever as himself.
“Well, Moreno, you wanted to see me. I take it, you have a reason?”
“Of course I have. I know you ultimately hear everything from headquarters. But that takes time, and I am on the spot.”
“I know all that,” said Rossett. “Besides, I have instructions from headquarters to keep in touch with you, because you are on the spot.”
“That is really awfully good of them, when you come to think of it,” said Moreno in his quiet, sarcastic way. “Fancy them relaxing red tape to that extent! I fancy there is a new spirit abroad.”
“Well, what is it?” asked Rossett a little impatiently.
Moreno puffed at his cigar a little time before he answered.
“I am going to put a very direct question to you. Some time ago you gave some very important information to the Secret Service about this anarchist movement. It is due to that that you are here.”
“Yes, I did,” answered Guy shortly.
“You know we are both practically in the same service,” said Moreno slowly, “and we might be frank with each other. Was that information given under the seal of secrecy?”
Guy nodded. “Yes, it was, absolutely.”
“As an honourable man, you could not reveal the name of your informant? I can give you my word, it is very important.”
Guy thought for a few seconds. “No, I cannot give you the name of my informant. It was done absolutely under the seal of secrecy.”
“I understand,” said Moreno. “And a very considerable price was paid to the man – or woman – I am convinced it was a woman, who sold you this information.”
“Quite right. But why do you say it was a woman?” asked Guy Rossett quickly.
“If I had not already been sure it was a woman, my friend, I should be quite sure of it by your sudden question. You English people are not quite so subtle as we who have southern blood in our veins.”
Rossett bit his lip. He felt he had given himself away to this quick-witted foreigner, nine-tenths Spanish and one-tenth English.
There was a long pause. Moreno shifted his point of attack.
“Do you know that Mrs Hargrave is over in Spain, in Fonterrabia?”
“What!” almost shouted Guy in his astonishment.
Moreno looked at him steadily. “Ah, you have not heard that from headquarters. Well, you see, they don’t know the little side-currents as well as I do. They do not know, for instance, that she is a sworn and apparently zealous member of the brotherhood.”
“Violet Hargrave, of all people!” cried Rossett. He was in a state of bewilderment.
“You know, I daresay, that Mrs Hargrave is no friend of yours now, whatever she may have been once,” said Moreno, speaking in his quiet, level tones.
“Yes, I think I can understand that.”
“Come, Mr Rossett, throw off a little of that insular reserve, and let us talk together quite frankly. Believe me, I am speaking entirely in your own interests. There is no doubt that, at one time, you paid Mrs Hargrave very marked attention, that you fed her hopes very high.”
“I was a bit of a fool, certainly,” admitted Guy.
“And then, pardon me for speaking quite frankly, you threw her over rather abruptly, because you had fallen in love with somebody else – a woman, of course, a thousand times superior to the discarded one.”
“You seem to know all about it, Mr Moreno.”
“It is my business to know things,” replied the journalist quietly. “Well, it is a case of the ‘woman scorned,’ you know. I should say the fair Violet hated you now as much as she once loved you.”
“It may be possible. I have a notion that you know women better than I do.”
“Bad women perhaps,” said Moreno quietly. “My experience has lain rather in their direction. I think I have only known three good women in my life, two of whom were my mother and a girl I was once engaged to – she died a week before our wedding day.”
Rossett regarded him with a sympathetic gaze. So this swarthy, black-browed young Spaniard had had his romance. His voice had broken as he spoke of his dead sweetheart.
“I am sorry for your experience. Most of the women I have known have been very good, the fingers of one hand would count the bad. But tell me more about Violet Hargrave. She hates me, you say?”
“I should say with a very bitter and malignant hatred,” was Moreno’s answer.
“All arising, of course, from jealousy or disappointment. How far is this hatred going to lead her?”
“I should say to the furthest point.”
Rossett recoiled. “You mean to say she can have so changed that she would contemplate that?”
Moreno did not mince his words. “You will take my word for it that it is revenge she seeks, and she will not hesitate. Her position in the brotherhood will give her a very plausible excuse.”
For a moment, Guy Rossett lost his head. “Yes, you told me just now, I remember, she belonged to the brotherhood. But I always understood – ”
He paused; Moreno noted that sudden pause. Rossett had been on the point of saying something that would have revealed much.
The young man leaned forward and whispered.
“Mr Rossett, do you still refuse to give me the name of your informant?”
“I am afraid I cannot,” was the firm reply. “My word was given, you understand.” Again he seemed on the point of saying something further, and refrained.
Moreno shrugged his shoulders. “I admire your scrupulousness, but I still think you are very foolish in your own interests. Still, I know what you Englishmen are. If my suspicions had been confirmed by your positive evidence, my hands would have been very much strengthened. I could have dealt with the matter in a very positive and speedy way.”
Rossett kept silence. It was the safest method with the subtle young Spaniard, who took notice of every word and every glance, and rapidly constructed a theory out of the most slender facts.
“There is no more to be said, so far as that is concerned,” said Moreno quietly. “You could have made it very easy for me; as it is, I shall have to expend more time and trouble. But trust me, I shall get the information I want in good time. I shall find people in your own walk of life less scrupulous than you are yourself.”
“Perhaps,” replied Rossett briefly.
“I am keeping watch and ward over you, as you know,” went on Moreno in lighter tones. “And I promise you I will give you plenty of notice of danger.”
“It is pretty near, eh?” queried Rossett.
“Not very far off, I can assure you. I am seeing the Chief of the Spanish police to-morrow. I have some very important information to give him.”
The next day Moreno had a long interview with the Chief of Police, and also with the Head of the Spanish Secret Service. Both the officials made copious notes at the respective interviews. When he left them Moreno felt he had done good work. He was sure that he could outwit Zorrilta, Alvedero, even the great Contraras himself.
He took a flying visit to England after this, having two objects in view. First, he wanted to see Isobel to arrange the details of her journey to Madrid. He lunched with her and Lady Mary at a quiet little restaurant in Soho. He promised to meet her on her arrival at Madrid and conduct her to her friends. He would say nothing to Guy Rossett till he had her permission.
For at the eleventh hour Isobel’s heart a little failed her. From what point of view would Guy contemplate this rather wild adventure? Would he take it as a proof of her devoted love, or would he frown at the escapade, as a little unwomanly? Men of the straightforward English type like Rossett are apt to be a little uncertain in their judgment of what is seemly in their womenkind, and what is the reverse.
After luncheon, he went to keep an appointment with one of the chiefs of the English Secret Service. This gentleman received him very graciously. Moreno stood high in his estimation. He had rendered very valuable service in the past and the present.
“Delighted to see you, Mr Moreno. But I should have thought at the moment you could hardly be spared from Spain, more especially the neighbourhood of Fonterrabia, and Madrid.”
“I never take a holiday, sir, unless I feel I am justified. In this instance I am. It is true I had a little private business on in England at this particular time, which does not concern your department. But I have sandwiched that in.”
The grey-haired gentleman listened politely. Moreno, as he knew by experience, did not make many mistakes.
“Some little time ago, Mr Guy Rossett, at present attached to Madrid, gave you some very important information about the anarchist movement in Spain.”
“Ah, you know, do you?” was the cautious answer.
“Of course, I have known it for a long time. For very special reasons I want to know the name of the man or woman who gave that information to Rossett. I will give you my reasons presently.”
The other man thought a moment. “Yes, I remember the details perfectly. Rossett handed us certain memoranda which he had obtained from somebody, whose name he would not disclose.”
“That is exactly like Rossett. I have attacked him direct and he still keeps silence. As an honourable Englishman he remains staunch to his promise. One cannot blame him, although in his own interests it would be better if he were a little less scrupulous.”
The grey-haired man began to get interested. “Give me a few more details, Mr Moreno, so that I can see what you are driving at.”
Moreno unfolded his suspicions briefly. He finished his story with the words, “If you could not make Rossett speak, I cannot. But you have those memoranda in your archives. Will you show them to me so that I may see if I recognise the handwriting.”
The other thought for a moment before he replied. Even in the Secret Service everything is conducted with the most scrupulous fairness, although their opponents are destitute of the elementary principles of honesty.
Then he made up his mind. “From what you have told me, I think it is wise that I should show you these memoranda, with a view to strengthening your hand. Kindly wait a few minutes and I will fetch them.”
He was only away a very short time, but Moreno’s nerves were on the rack during the brief absence. Were his suspicions going to be absolutely confirmed, or still left in the region of mere conjecture?
The grey-haired man came back, and placed half a dozen closely covered sheets before him. They were in a small, clear, feminine handwriting.
Triumph glared in Moreno’s dark eyes. “As I guessed. She wasn’t clever enough to disguise her hand. I can understand she could not run the risk of having them copied. Why didn’t she get Rossett to write them out at her dictation?”
The other man made no reply to this ebullition on the part of the young Spaniard.
“Of course you can’t part with these, or any one page of them?” asked Moreno.
“Out of the question,” came the expected answer. “I quite agree. But you can get photographs taken of them, and then I shall have this woman in the hollow of my hand.”
“That shall be done, Mr Moreno. You are going back to Spain to-day. They shall be sent to you to-morrow at whatever address you leave with me.” And Moreno walked out of the cosy little room well pleased with himself. Guy Rossett might have saved him all this trouble if he had chosen to open his mouth. Still, he had got the information he wanted. And, above all, what a fool Violet Hargrave had been, to let those memoranda go out in her own handwriting! Moreno, who thought of every detail, would not have done that.
Chapter Thirteen
The great anarchical association of which Ferdinand Contraras was the leading spirit did not differ greatly in essential features from those tyrannical and effete institutions which it was striving to supersede.
There was still the wide gulf between the classes, bridged over speciously by the fact that they addressed each other as “comrade,” waiving all distinctive titles.
The chief addressed the educated young fisherman as Somoza shortly, which was natural. And, on the other hand, Somoza addressed him, though always very respectfully, as Contraras, which would not have been at all natural, under ordinary circumstances.
Still, Somoza did not slap him on the back, or take liberties, as he would have done with an elderly fisherman in his own rank of life. The gulf of class could not quite be crossed by dropping titles, and calling each other comrade.
And then there was the question of wealth. Contraras, in spite of his numerous donations to the cause, was still rich; so was Jaques. Zorrilta was moderately well-off. Alvedero and Luçue were poor. The sharing out had not begun yet. Luçue, as we know, lived in humble lodgings in Soho, which galled him somewhat, as he was fond of comfort and the flesh-pots.
Contraras, after a brief sojourn at Fonterrabia had come back to Madrid, where he had many friends in his own sphere of life. Although not of noble birth himself, he had married a woman, a member of a family poor but boasting of the proudest blood of Spain in its veins.
At Madrid he had engaged a suite of rooms at the Ritz Hotel in the Plaza de Canovas, near the Prado Museum. Democrat and anarchist as he was in theory, the man delighted in displaying a certain amount of ostentation, whether at home or abroad.
A little aware of his weakness in this direction, he consoled himself by the thought that in doing this he was throwing dust in the eyes of people of his own class – that he could more successfully carry on his propaganda, because nobody would ever suspect him of seeking to overthrow the régime under which he had prospered so exceedingly.
The young Frenchwoman, Valerie Delmonte, was in Madrid at the same time also as Contraras. She was staying at an equally luxurious hostelry – the Grand Hotel de la Paix in the Puerta del Sol. She also had a suite of rooms, imitating her illustrious chief.
She chose to be known by her maiden name of Mademoiselle Valerie Delmonte. It did not suit her emancipated notions that a woman should sink her identity in that of a husband. She had borne with the infliction for three short years of married life. When her elderly husband, a rich Paris financier, died she found herself a very wealthy woman. Monsieur Varenne had no near kith or kin. With the exception of a few handsome legacies, he had left all his money to this young woman who was very handsome and still young, only in the late twenties.
Contraras was an anarchist by profound and philosophical conviction. He had persuaded himself that revolution, open and brutal revolution, was the only cure for a rotten and diseased world.
Valerie had arrived at the same conclusion from a merely personal standpoint – from the point of view of her own feelings. Naturally of a morbid temperament, absolutely a child of the gutter, the offspring of drunken and dissolute parents who had starved and beaten her, she had suffered no illusions as to what existence meant for the impoverished.
She was a sharp-witted child, with plenty of brain-power, and a marvellous capacity for self-education. At the age of twelve her parents had sold her for a paltry sum to the proprietor of a travelling circus. This man had perceived at once that there was plenty of grit in the precocious child. He had got her very cheap. If he trained her carefully he might make a good deal of money out of her.
The precocious little Valerie left her parents without the slightest regret – her life had been one long torture with them. The circus-proprietor was a big, burly man, not destitute of a rough geniality. There was a hard look in his eyes, a dogged squareness of the jaw that suggested a latent brutality.
On the whole, however, he was a welcome relief from her former torturers, who had never thrown a kind word to her from the day of her birth. Sometimes he was generous, sometimes he was brutal, as the mood took him. Often he swore at her till she trembled in every limb. Occasionally, in his cups, he beat her. But he was always sorry the next day, and did his best to make amends. In short, he was a ruffian with a certain amount of decent feeling, and an uncertain temperament.
She stayed with him till she was seventeen. She might have stayed with him for ever, had not a sudden severance been put to their relations, by the man’s sudden death, brought about prematurely by his constant indulgence in alcohol.
Valerie could never recall the years that succeeded without a shudder. The circus was broken up, she was left helpless and friendless.
It was during those terrible years that the iron entered her soul, when she experienced the keen, cruel suffering of the really poor, when she went to bed night after night, cold and hungry, after tramping the streets in vain for work.
A weaker spirit would have succumbed to the temptation that was always at hand, for she was a very attractive girl. But she was resolved, with her indomitable grit, to keep herself pure. She turned away disdainfully from the leering old men, the callous young ones who accosted her as she paced the streets in her restless tramp for an honest living. Better the river than that!
After many vicissitudes, she came to anchor at last. She was then about twenty-two. She was very clever at educating herself. She had taught herself to sing, she had taught herself to play the piano, she had taught herself to dance.
She got an engagement at one of the minor halls in Paris to do a turn which combined singing and dancing. She was very pretty and attractive. In a small way she made a name. At the end of three months the manager trebled her salary.
To this minor music hall came one night the rich financier, a somewhat shady one, if the truth must be told, Monsieur Varenne, a man of about fifty-five who had never married.
He was greatly attracted by this elegant young girl. Her voice was small, her dancing was nothing great. But there was an indefinable charm about her that appealed to his somewhat jaded senses.
He obtained an introduction through the manager, who was only too anxious to oblige such a well-known personage. He invited her to supper. She accepted the invitation graciously, but coldly. Her coldness inflamed him the more.
When they met, he was surprised at her cleverness, the correctness with which she expressed herself. This was certainly no ordinary girl of the music halls.
“Tell me something about yourself, my dear,” he said, as they sat over their coffee. “I did not expect to find you such a charming companion.”
Valerie smiled a little bitterly. “I have not very much to tell. I expect my lot has been like that of many thousands in this delightful world. I am a child of the gutter. My father and mother beat and starved me, and sold me for a paltry sum to the proprietor of a travelling circus. It wasn’t exactly a rosy life then, but it was paradise to where I had been. He died; I was thrown on my beam ends. I can’t tell you what I have been through for the last few years. I couldn’t bear to talk of it – I have suffered everything that the poor have to suffer in such profusion – cold, hunger, the most absolute misery. And, at last,” she looked round at the luxurious appointments of the restaurant a little disdainfully, “I find myself in receipt of a decent salary, and the guest of a rich man who has pressed upon me every dainty. And I have so often wanted a meal!”
Varenne was a very kindly man, in spite of his somewhat sharp ways in business. Those last few pathetic words had gone straight to his heart. She had often wanted a meal, and she was a most attractive girl! Many would have called her beautiful.
“It is a sad history, my poor child,” he said sympathetically. He paused a moment before he put the delicate question. “And during those terrible years, when you suffered hunger and privation, you kept yourself straight? It would have been so easy to go wrong, so excusable under the circumstances.”
“Of course,” she answered, and there was a note of wounded pride, of indignation, in her voice. “I am not that sort of woman – better the river than that. I might give myself to a man out of love or gratitude, but never merely for money.”
It was a new experience for the wealthy financier. Here was a girl who had just stepped off the platform of a music hall, where she was, no doubt, earning a very modest salary, who had grit and backbone in her, and, moreover, a proper pride and self-respect.
He had, of course, with the easy confidence of a man of the world, imagined the usual termination to such an adventure. But he recognised at once that he could not make any proposition of the kind he meditated. He pressed her hand tenderly at parting, and arranged a further meeting.
They met several times, and Varenne went through agonies of indecision. But the attraction was too strong, and at last he asked her to marry him. It was that or losing her altogether.
And did it matter much? His world would laugh at him as a matter of course, say he had got into his dotage. And a girl who was young enough to be his daughter! There is no fool like an old fool, he told himself rather ruefully.
But she had so subjugated him that he was quite a humble wooer in spite of the enormous advantages he was offering her.
“Of course I am an old man, I cannot expect you to have any real affection for me,” he said.
She met his glance quite frankly. “I have never been in love with anybody; my life has been too hard to permit me to indulge in the softer emotions. But I like you very much. I have always hated rich men; they think they can buy anything with their gold. You are a rich man, I know, you have told me so yourself, but you have a kind nature and a good heart.”