The Complete Simon Iff (46 page)

"You are a fool, Fritz. Yet it was wrong to attack his life; he had knowledge which we must have. Ach! is not knowledge always better than life? But in this you are right, although your reason is wrong, that he wished to be arrested. Since it was not I who accused him to the police, it was himself. Then we must free him quickly. You will therefore detail a man to make confession of that shooting, and two men to confirm him as eye-witnesses. It must be impossible for them to hold him. He will then come out, also; he would know that to persist would show us his hand too clearly.

"Now then, listen with care. We do not know what his true mission is, as he did in his drunkenness boast. We do not know what is that certain matter of which he is so proud - oh he is so clever that he will not speak of it, even though he is drunk. But there is he so weak - that drink! He takes drugs also. I have many reports of this; it was not pretence tonight, therefore. Good: we shall get him. But he is very clever, yes; therefore he will make haste to do his mission. I have found that he plans to go to England by the Deutschland; that is in ten days more. He took a suite three weeks ago, that is long before this Cass woman put her nose into my business. So we know that all is nearly ready, and we will pick the first when it is ripe."

"I think, Highness, that he has discovered our plans, at least in part, from the woman."

"I tell you you are a fool, Fritz. This woman, what is she? A hysteric, a degenerate, a sex-madwoman, desiring publicity, with good brains in analysis, but no energy in action, and no skill. Pah! I laugh at her. Nevertheless, I shall kill her, on general principles. But to our important man! Listen! He has learnt only our rough work; he thinks we are assassins. Therefore we will be not so unkind - not until it is right. So we shall offer him one so dear problem, and thus lead him to Mother Meakins, the 'Murder Stable' our rough friends call it, do they not? and there I shall give him belladonna - oh will not his eyes grow great and bright? - and nitrous oxide and ether to breathe, so that he talks - oh yes! he will talk! and I with my will-power and my skill in soul-science will pick every secret from him, and then, my friend, you will ask Mother Meakins to make everything quiet. For yes! he is a dangerous man, Mr. Simon Iff, too dangerous. Only he has too much ego; he values himself too much; he does not know about me, aha!"

The Prince rubbed his hands softly together with satisfaction.

"So you will please arrange with Mr. Berkeley to call here in the morning, and I will have my plan ready for him."

The two men exchanged salutes as before; then the Prince once again became the butler, and retired to the servants' hall with a tray of liqueurs.

IV

Dolores, sitting in a prison cell, became a very formidable person indeed. The absolute silence and solitude, the remoteness of humanity, the absence of any possible distraction, acted upon her brain as a most potent stimulus. She began to understand what Simon Iff had once told her about the advantages of a hermit's life, such as he himself adopted at such frequent intervals. She felt that a few months of it would enable her to solve the secret of the Universe, just as he had done. But for the moment the possibilities of mysticism did not interest her. She concentrated, naturally enough, upon the immediate problem.

In the first place, why prison? She felt pretty sure that her master was not there against his will. Perhaps he wanted just such facility for profound and undisturbed thought as she herself was enjoying. She had often heard him complain of the difficulty of concentration in New York City. Prison was a simple and ingenious substitute for a cloister! Also, it seemed probable that he feared for her life, after two, perhaps three, such narrow escapes.

Next; why the great change in his manner towards her? He was going to expose the conspiracy; and he did not want her help. She was sure that he was not actuated by any ungenerous feeling. All she had to go on was the snub "Do as you like about it!"

But what was his plan? To let the enemy pursue him, catch him. He had said so. He had some device in his mind, no doubt, for dealing with that situation; but then, why did he not want her to help? There could be only one answer: he was not perfectly sure of the result. He was going into danger, and he knew it. He would not tell her to go back to Boston, and throw up the case; he would know that that would be the very word to make her insist upon continuing.

The more she thought over the situation the more she felt sure of the correctness of that conclusion. There was then only one course for her to take, and that was to watch over him. Whether his snub were due to scorn or to fatherly care, she would go on, either to show her mettle or to prove herself worthy of his loving thought, as the event might declare.

She next turned her thoughts to the enemy. Who was it? Somebody with immense resources, with a brain altogether Machiavellian, and a supreme talent for organization. It must be some one highly placed in his own country, or he would not be trusted. Yet it could not be an accredited representative; the discovery of such a plot would mean war, and the events of the previous summer had proved conclusively that war was the one thing which that nation wished to avoid, even at the cost of humiliation in the face of the whole world. Who then would serve but a man who could be disowned? Was there no man of this sort available? Possibly there was some one who had been publicly disgraced, who was supposed even, it might be, to be dead. Her mind ran back over the years. Had not her father told her something once - something that suggested such a personality? Of course. The cap fitted a certain Prince Joachim von Araberg, a mathematician of the highest rank, a physiologist of extraordinary distinction and original views, who had become a specialist in psychotherapeutics. In 1901 he had been mixed up in an intrigue to manipulate the succession to a principality by driving the heir-apparent into insanity. The Emperor had interfered, the Prince was disgraced, and the report of his suicide in exile a year later had ended the scandal. She remembered, too, that her father had discredited the report at the time, saying that he was the last man in the world to kill himself, and a year or so afterwards had produced an anonymous monograph on the Binary Theorem of Fermat, published in Philadelphia, as evidence of his survival. "It's as characteristic as a photograph or a thumb-print," had been his comment. Dolores thought that her own identification was more than a little more than guesswork; it was not likely that two men should so accurately fill the conditions demanded by her problem.

But her satisfaction was dimmed by the reflection that she had no evidence on his presence in America beyond her mere deduction, and that, even so, she had not the slightest idea where to begin to look for him.

The next morning she was freed, with apologies, and her first thought was to communicate her idea to Simon Iff, who, they told her, had been released an hour before.

She telephoned his apartment: he had not returned. A second call an hour later met with equal ill-luck. She began to be alarmed. Already he had plunged into the abyss. He was in danger, she was sure of that; and she had lost track of him completely.

She began once more to analyze. Simon had told her that he meant to be caught, and that he would make the enemy think that he was an ass. Somehow, then, he was sure that they would no longer aim at his life, that they would try in some way to fool him. Simon's whole speech implied that he foresaw a personal interview, the most probable method of direct communication; and he intended to make no difficulty about this; he courted it. He must then be gone away on this business. But Dolores felt certain that the enemy - she already thought of him as Joachim - would terminate the interview, whatever its results, by the murder of her master. Of course, he might have taken some secret precautions; he might have arranged for some one to follow him, for instance, or for certain explosions to occur in case of his non-reappearance. She remembered with what unexpected foresight and resource he had acted on the morning Alma sailed.

But where was he? The Lord only knew! On no! came the swift antiphone. There are men who know, and they can be made to tell.

But who?

V

Simon Iff, returning with cheerful resignation to his apartment from the prison, had found Miss Mollie Madison waiting in the hall. There was also a gentleman, said the janitor, a Mr. Berkeley, on important business. Mr. Iff would be glad to speak with him.

Mr. Berkeley approached hastily. His very elegant dress was slightly disordered, and he bore other marks of extreme impatience and agitation.

"Shall we go upstairs?" asked Simon.

"If you would only come direct? Every second is precious, unspeakably precious."

"Certainly; I see your car is at the door. But what is the trouble?"

Berkeley handed a letter to the magician: at the same time he gave the Sign of Distress of the Royal Arch. The letter, moreover, was written in the secret cipher of that Companionship, with which Simon Iff was well acquainted. But even when rendered into English, it remained quite unintelligible.

 "Three-one in Washington Square.

 Station of Principal Sojourner.

 Where was the Saviour born?

 Fourth from the East.

 I must die unless Companions rescue me."

"This letter means nothing to you, Companion Berkeley?"

"Nothing."

"It is quite plain to me. Imagine yourself in a great Chapter-Room, with the Arch of Washington Square to represent the East, where the Three-One sit. Then where would the station of the Principal Sojourner be? Just one street away, to one side of Fifth Avenue. Where was the Saviour born? In a stable. There are several stables in that street; it's the fourth, counting from the East. Let's be off and help him! Come along, Mollie!"

They got into Berkeley's car and started on their journey.

"I was sure you would solve the puzzle," said the remittance man.

"I was sure you were sure, because you wanted me to hurry, before I had even seen it."

Berkeley looked a little confused.

"I won't ask you how you got the letter, or why our Excellent Companion did not appeal to the community at large in the terrible situation in which he finds himself. Quite otherwise. I will ask you which college you were at."

"Magdalen," answered Berkeley, with a sudden note of pain in his voice.

"Ah, Magdalen!" cried Iff, with enthusiasm. "I am Cambridge, of course, Trinity, but I had rooms there once, Lord Gorham's old rooms, do you remember? I was reading the Dee Manuscripts in the Bodder."

Iff took no notice of the devious route by which the chauffeur chose to approach Washington Square, of his sudden changes of speed, or of the interest he took in any car which came up behind them. He talked of Magdalen Tower, the Thames, Iffley, the Broad, the High, the Radcliffe Camera, Tom Tower, the Torpids, Carfax - everything that means everything to Oxford men. He made history itself vital and lyric.

Berkeley's interjections, at first mechanical, became gradually natural and enthusiastic.

Iff noticed it, and suddenly changed the subject. "This is Third Avenue, isn't it?" Berkeley went white. "Yes, Mr. Iff, it is," he said in a tone of lamentable sadness. There was a moment's pause.

"Mr. Iff, it has just struck me that the letter is some foolish hoax. Let's forget it, and go to lunch somewhere."

"A letter in Our Cipher?" cried Simon in assumed surprise. "Impossible!"

"I'm sure of it," answered Berkeley. "Now I come to think, I believe it's in Cummings' writing, and he's a practical joker, if ever there was one."

"It is none the less our duty to investigate the matter. This is your car, of course; but we go to this stable, or Miss Madison and I get out and take a taxi."

Berkeley acquiesced with a groan.

It is my first rule," continued the magician, "never to let any thing interfere with plans once agreed upon. Think what would happen to the Solar System if the planet Jupiter suddenly decided to lunch at Delmonico's! The Way of the Tao is to allow everything to happen. It all comes right in the end."

Simon Iff, perceiving Washington Square in the distance, gave his directions through the speaking-tube.

There was no difficulty in finding the stable indicated in the letter. The party got out, and the magician rapped upon the door. It slowly opened.

The interior of the stable was very dark, but Mollie, who kept close to 'Cephas' while Berkeley shut the door, caught the glint of levelled pistols. She sprang impetuously in front of the mystic.

"Charming of you, child!" he said calmly. "But the revolvers are only for effect."

"For effect indeed!" boomed a sinister voice from the darkness.

"This is merely a pleasant talk between old friends. Is it not so, Prince Joachim?"

"You know me - so!"

"Who could forget that wonderful voice - the very incarnation of will-power? Didn't we meet at Munich in July of '84?"

"Very good, Mr. Iff. We may have light then for our pleasant talk!"

"Please do," said Simon. "I dislike to smoke in the dark." And as an electric bulb glowed overhead, he offered his case to the Prince. The latter took one thoughtfully, but did not light it.

"I do not quite understand your attitude, Mr. Iff," he said slowly.

"Exactly," replied the magician, very cordially, as he lighted his cigar. "That is why I have come here. Pray observe; our apparent antagonism is entirely on your side. We are both agents of the Great Purpose; but perhaps you do not understand so well as I do how this can be so."

"Ha!" said the Prince. "Do they keep something back from me in the Wilhelmstrasse?"

"Possibly," said Iff, with cool insolence.

"I do not like this," said Joachim heavily; "I do not like this at all; no, it is sure that I do not like this." He looked at his companion, who wore a black mask. The reply was a shrug of the shoulders.

"Yes, there is something wrong," said the Prince. "I know it is so because you think it is not so."

"Yes; von Weibheim always was a fool," chirped Simple Simon. "I recognize him by the shape of his chin and the very characteristic creases in his waistcoat."