it was not difficult for jessie to guess the identity of the man who addressed her. only a man who loved and felt sure that he was loved in return would have spoken to a girl like that. this was charles maxwell beyond a doubt. nice-looking enough, jessie thought, with a pleasing, amiable face—perhaps a trifle too amiable, but there was no mistaking the power in the lines of the mouth.
"what are you doing here like this?" he asked. "heavens! has all the world gone mad to-night?"
the bitterness of despair rang in the speaker's voice. jessie noticed that maxwell was dressed not in the least like men in his position usually dress at that time of the night. he wore a grey flannel suit and a panama hat pulled down over his eyes.
"i came on urgent business," jessie said. "i presume that you are mr. maxwell?"
"why should i deny it?" the other asked. "i am charles maxwell, and the most miserable dog in london. but i am forgetting. why do you ask me such a foolish question, vera?"
"because i want to be quite sure of my ground," jessie said. "and because i am not miss vera galloway at all. if you look at me very closely you will see that for yourself."
maxwell stared at jessie in a dull, wooden kind of way, as if the whole thing were past his comprehension.
"yes," he said, "there is a difference, but it is so subtle that even i should not have noticed it unless you had called my attention to it. but i know who you are now. you are miss harcourt, daughter of colonel harcourt, late of the —th. i have often told vera of the wonderful likeness between you. if you should ever meet her in private life——"
"i have met her, i am personating her at the present moment," jessie whispered.
"amazing!" maxwell exclaimed. "but i understood that you were—that you had been—in short——"
"engaged in a bond street shop," jessie finished the sentence. "so i was till to-day, when i was discharged through no fault of my own. miss galloway sent for me to take her place. secretly i have played her part all this evening. and she went away dressed in my simple black clothes——"
"but why?" maxwell demanded jealously. "why all this absurd mystery?"
"surely you can guess? why do you look so suspicious? i am not altogether in miss galloway's confidence, but i understand that she wanted to save somebody whom she loved—somebody that was in trouble. it requires no great intelligence to guess that you were the person in question. it was all connected with those papers missing from the foreign office."
"i know no more about it than the dead," maxwell said vehemently. "the papers in question—and others—were as much in lancing's custody as[128] mine. it was he who was to blame, though i admit that i locked the papers away to-night after lord merehaven had done with them. when i saw the mercury i was horror-stricken. i guessed exactly what had happened."
"how could you guess what had happened?" jessie asked.
"because i have had my suspicions for some time," maxwell said. "i dismissed those suspicions as unworthy of me and insulting to captain lancing. i know that he was greatly infatuated with countess saens, whom a mr. lechmere, a late queen's messenger, had warned me against as no better than a russian spy. lancing was mad over her. there is not the slightest doubt that she induced lancing to let her have those papers to copy. then she refused to return them, and lancing committed suicide. that is what i make of it."
"the sensational report in the mercury went farther than that," jessie said. "it is assumed that you are a party to the conspiracy, and that you fled to paris. is that true, or going to be true?"
"as heaven is my witness, no," maxwell said in a hoarse whisper. "when i had made up my mind what had happened, i determined to get possession of those papers. i vanished, saying that i was called suddenly to paris. for the last four hours i have been dogging countess saens. i followed her here, and i am not going to lose sight of her until she is safely at home. and when she is once safely at home, i am going to do a desperate and daring thing. what is she doing here?"
jessie made no reply for the moment. she had pulled her wrap over her face again so that she should not be recognized. she was watching the[129] movements of countess saens breathlessly. the woman had passed up the steps into the big hall beyond the swinging glass doors. she seemed to be arguing with a porter, who shook his head in an emphatic way. evidently the countess was angry; so much could be seen from her gestures and the shake of her shoulders.
"she is trying to see a patient at irregular hours," jessie said, "and the porter is adamant. i pray from the bottom of my heart that she may fail."
"is this another piece in the puzzle?" maxwell asked hopelessly.
"it is the key-piece of the problem," said jessie. "ah, the porter is not to be moved. he has sent off an under porter, possibly to call one of the house surgeons. see, the countess sits down."
surely enough the countess had flung herself angrily into a seat. nobody seemed to care much about her, for she waited ten minutes without any sign of anybody in authority. meanwhile jessie was making maxwell au fait with the situation.
"you threatened some dangerous and desperate enterprise a little later on," she said. "i suppose that is a supreme effort to try and get those papers?"
"you have guessed it," maxwell said grimly. "if i could do that, the whole situation would be saved. we could do anything; we could point to lancing's suicide as the result of reckless gambling. mind you, that would be more or less true. if lancing had not been desperately situated, he would never have yielded to the countess's fascinations and sold those precious documents."
"yes, yes," jessie interrupted. "but unless i am greatly mistaken, you have been forestalled.[130] somebody else has already removed the documents from countess saens's custody."
"you don't really mean that! what was it—a case of diamond cut diamond?"
"yes, but not quite in the way you imagine. those papers were stolen in turn from countess saens to-night, taken from a drawer in her bedroom by miss galloway."
maxwell pressed his hands to his head. the situation was too much for him. he groaned for an explanation.
"i can only surmise," jessie said. "but presently you will have to admit that i have very strong grounds for my surmises. in some way miss galloway obtained a clue to what was about to happen. that is why i was called in to take her place, so that she could have an hour or two without being suspected. an hour or so ago countess saens's maid came to merehaven house with the information that there had been a burglary in the countess's bedroom, but that nothing besides some papers seemed to be missing. that those papers were important could be guessed by the ghastly yet furious expression on the lady's face. the maid was pressed for a description of the thief—who, by the by, was a woman. and then and there the maid pitched upon me. she declared point blank that it was i who committed the burglary. what do you think of that?"
"you are a clever young lady," maxwell said hoarsely. "pray go on."
"the maid stuck to her guns, though everybody laughed at her. she said the thief was dressed in plain black, and as i was in evening dress, and had been seen all the evening, those who heard were amused. but i understood. in my plain black[131] dress miss galloway had gone to the countess's house and stolen those papers. the thing was as clear as daylight to anybody behind the scenes. under the circumstances, your prospective burglary would be so much loss of time."
"i quite understand that," maxwell muttered. "it is exceedingly clever of you to read between the lines so clearly. vera has done this for my sake. but how did she know—how could she possibly tell what was going to happen, and when those papers were to be found? of course, i guessed where the trouble lay directly i saw the mercury paragraph, but vera! and she never takes the slightest interest in politics. what are you looking at?"
once more jessie was staring intently past the swinging doors of the hospital into the big hall beyond. the countess had now risen from her chair and was facing a little man with a bald head and gold-rimmed spectacles, who appeared to be explaining something to her. jessie could see him bow and shake his head. her breath came very fast.
"why are you so interested in the countess's present action?" maxwell asked.
"because she has come here to try and see a patient," jessie whispered intently. "from the bottom of my heart, i pray that she may fail. if she succeeds we are ruined, you are ruined. for the patient is no other than vera galloway."
