“I was lost on the moor,” she faltered. “I followed you to Rudha Mor
and saw you leave in the Yellow Dove. When I turned to go back, a cloth
was thrown over my head. They chloroformed me----”
He muttered an imprecation. “And on the yacht----”
“I--I had nothing to complain of. He did everything he could for my
comfort.”
She watched him again moving around the room. At the chimney he paused
and, reaching swiftly upward, lifted the clock and then put it into its
place again, the expression in his face still strained and anxious.
“I am not sorry for him,” he said again. Suddenly he came to her saying
in such a low whisper that she could hardly hear him,
“I’m not satisfied. There’s something dangerous in von Stromberg’s
sudden kindness. _Act_, Doris. We are overheard.” And then in louder
tones, “If anything had happened to you----”
She glanced around her timidly, her initiative suddenly at a loss.
“N-nothing happened to me,” she repeated bewildered.
“I would have made another death for him--a man’s death at least.”
“It is terrible,” she managed to say, “and I will have been the cause
of it.”
He came closer and took her by the hand, speaking distinctly.
“And do you regret that it is Rizzio instead of me?”
“No, no,” she stammered. Her accents of horror were genuine, but it
seemed more horrible that she should be making a farce of her genuine
emotions. Yet Cyril’s eyes impelled her. “It is terrible. I can’t
believe----”
“General von Stromberg is not a man to make idle threats. I am glad
that I am not in Rizzio’s shoes.”
She saw him pause, his mouth open, gazing upward at the lithograph of
Emperor William. To Doris the picture merely typified power, ambition,
intolerance of any ideals but those of military glory. But it was not
at the portrait that Cyril was looking. He was examining the frame,
which was swung a little to one side, revealing a patch of unfaded
wallpaper. He looked down into the fireplace thoughtfully and while the
girl wondered what he was going to do next, he whirled suddenly and
moved quickly toward the door into the hall, which he opened swiftly
straight into the face of Captain Wentz, who managed to step back only
in time to avoid it.
But the officer was equal to the occasion.
“I was seeking General von Stromberg,” he said coolly.
“He isn’t here,” Doris heard Cyril say quietly. And then, “I wanted a
glass of water. Fräulein Mather is feeling ill.”
“Ah! I will have it brought at once.” As he disappeared in the passage
to the kitchen, Cyril closed the door and came in three strides to the
fireplace, reached up and raised the picture from the wall, peering
under it, and touched the surface of the wallpaper with the tips of his
fingers. Then with great care he put the picture back in its place and
bent over Doris close to her ear, whispering: “They suspect. Everything
we have said has been overheard. A microphone! I knew it was here
somewhere.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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