The Unknown Mr. Kent/Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
THE widow opened the door leading from the room to the little storm entrance, a mere square of vestibule, and withdrew the bolts from the outer door. She swung it wide and stepped back. Instantly, as if already rendered impatient by the delay, a man stepped inside. A long raincoat dripped water on the floor and the visor of his military cap trickled until, annoyed, he jerked it from his head and wiped his brow with his hand. He appeared to be scarcely more than thirty years of age, and of slender frame, but with an erect carriage that lent him a false dimension of height.
Close behind him crowded a burly, gray-haired man with fierce moustaches demanding more attention than any other part of his face, who pursed his lips and blew the water from this adornment with a single loud, explosive "Poof!" His eyes, round, pale, and staring, almost child-like but appraising, fixed themselves on Kent across his leader's shoulder, and at sight of them Kent, who had looked up with casual curiosity, smiled slightly and arose.
"We are sorry to disturb you," said the younger man, in apologetic French, "but we fail to find an inn. Yours was the only light. Can you direct us"
"There is no inn open at this hour. We can perhaps accommodate you," Kent replied, and Ivan, reading his lips, lifted his eyebrows, knowing that within less than a quarter of a mile was one of late habit though excellent repute.
"Then" The young man turned dejectedly as if to consult his companion, while Keut watched him,
"Perhaps," suggested Kent, "you could be comfortable here; you and—your friend. You're welcome."
Ivan wondered at his pertinacity.
"But her High—My sister and her maid are outside," the younger man said, with faint eagerness. "My sister and her maid, and the man who—their chauffeur. Can you provide for so many?"
"Easily, if you don't mind a little discomfort," was the instant response. "Bring them in. Don't keep them out there in the rain."
The elder man, with a grunt, swung round and reopened the door of the vestibule through which the younger man, as if too relieved to think for the moment of offering thanks, preceded him out into the storm.
"You said there was no inn!" indignantly remonstrated the old peasant woman. "You said that"
"S-s-sh!" Kent silenced her, with twinkling eyes. "Forget that," he said, quietly. "All you are to do is to see that they are made comfortable. Understand?" he rapped out like an order, on discovering that she still hesitated. Grumbling, but obedient, and more or less subjugated, she turned back toward her kitchen just as the outer door opened and through it stepped a young woman who, without hesitation, walked to the fire and with gloved fingers fumbled at the buttons of her coat, and doffed it with an air of satisfaction, exposing a graceful, well-rounded figure clad in a serviceable tailored costume. Kent, watching her, and ignored, saw that her fine eyes were sombre and absent, as if her mind were concentrated on something other than her surroundings, and that her hands, when ungloved and lifted with feminine habitude to adjust her disordered, exquisite hair, were white and graceful. Her features were refined, sensitive, well bred, and of strength. Her lips, grave, and compressed, made him wonder what they might be like when relaxed by laughter. Tenderness and strength, he decided, were her characteristics and he was not quite certain but what, under different circumstances, she might appear beautiful; even to the indifferent judgment of a fiscal agent.
Behind her came a most haughty personage carrying a jewel case. Nothing save the fact that she carried it indicated that this might be the maid and the other the mistress.
"Well," said the lady with the box, addressing him abruptly, "can't you offer a chair?"
She fixed Kent with a haughty stare, and he, realising that in his inspection of his new guest he had forgotten to be polite, felt rebuffed, and hastened to make amends.
"Pardon me," he said, lamely. "I forgot."
He drew two chairs toward the fireplace, and was then aware that during his ministrations the door had opened and another young man had entered carrying a suitcase and handbag. This, he decided, eyeing the visitor's long, gauntleted gloves, was the chauffeur. The latter carefully deposited the luggage out of the way at one side, removed his cap and stood by the door. He appeared to be the youngest of the party and was clean and fearless of face and eyes. Kent, the student of men, mentally valuing him, concluded that he liked the young man as one who could be depended upon in almost any emergency. He had scant time for his inspection; for the door from the vestibule again swung open and the two men who had first disturbed him appeared, closed the door after them and divested themselves of their raincoats. The younger man, evidently the leader of the party, was clad in the uniform of an officer of hussars from which the shoulder insignia was missing, and his high boot tops were here and there splattered with mud, proof that his ride had been far from leisurely. One of the frogs of his coat braid had been torn loose and dangled by a thread as if it had been ripped away in the haste of fastening it, and one of his spurs was missing. He fumbled absently at his belt, unfastened it, and threw belt and sword carelessly on top of the suitcase before turning toward the fire. His stout and elderly companion was far from being as neat in his attire, being clad in a rather startling mixture consisting of a pair of dress trousers tucked into cavalry boots, a dress waistcoat exposing a soiled dress shirt front, and a heavy hunting coat from each pocket of which protruded letters and papers crammed hastily inward. Around his portly waist was strapped a cavalry sabre and, mixed with the papers in one pocket of his coat, projected the handle of a huge revolver. Before he was clear of his raincoat he began roaring orders like an important guest newly arrived at an inn.
"Here, Woman," he called to the aged peasant dame. "Have some one take our horses to a stable, rub them down, water and feed them. Not too much, mind you! And you might take these raincoats out and clean the mud off the skirts. And bring us all something hot to drink. Quickly! We're half frozen and wet to our hearts!"
With considerable resentment she faced Kent, as if accepting orders from none other, and he, smiling sardonically, made a swift gesture commanding her to obey. She sniffed her nose high in the air, tossed her head and disappeared. The younger man, in the meantime, with an air of great weariness and dejection, dropped into a chair by the side of the fireplace, where he suddenly leaned forward until his elbows rested on his knees and held his white, well-kept hands toward the blaze. On one of his fingers was a huge old signet ring that now and then he absently twisted in distraction, while moodily staring in front of him.
Kent, finding himself still ignored, smiled knowingly and reoccupied his chair by the desk, where he pretended to absorb himself in a book. Ivan, taking the cue from his master, resumed his search of the book shelves as if receiving unexpected guests on such a night was a regular routine, and the young officer by the door, on an invitation from the leader of the group, joined the others by the fireplace in an attitude of respectful waiting.
"Well, we are this far and" began the elder man, in his booming French, and then, recalling that they were not alone, turned stiffly and stared at Kent, made a significant gesture of warning with his hand, and changed to a dialect language that was plainly a mixture of German, French and Italian in quality. Had he been observing the financial agent he might have been startled by another flicker of a smile on that absorbed gentleman's features due to the fact that Kent, the polyglot, spoke the language of Marken almost as fluently as he did his own tongue.
"And a close call it was, too, Your Majesty. It was very fortunate that I had the foresight to divert them from following Captain Paulo across the border by"
The king of Marken interrupted him impatiently.
"Your foresight? Humph! It seems to me that if your foresight as chancellor of my kingdom had amounted to much, we should never have been compelled to run like a hutch of rabbits to save our lives! But, anyway, my sister is safe," he concluded, and then observing that the acting chauffeur, Captain Paulo, appeared restlessly eager to speak, added, "What is it, Paulo?"
"Does it not seem best, Sire, that I stand guard outside the door for at least an hour or two to make certain that we are not pursued, even here across the border? We are but an hour's ride from it"
He hesitated. The king vented a short, bitter laugh.
"Go ahead," he said. "What you mean to say is that our cousin, Baron Provarsk, is not the sort to pay much attention to boundaries on a dark night when out for a chase?"
"Exactly, Sir."
"Then do as you wish," the king assented, with a shrug of his shoulders and a gesture of helplessness. Instantly, and with an air of willingness, the young officer saluted and passed outside to stand guard in the storm.
"Karl, I can not yet see the sense of all this," asserted the princess, who up to now had not spoken, and Kent caught himself starting at the musical sound of her voice.
"But, Your Royal Highness!" blurted the chancellor, "it would have been extremely dangerous for you to have remained there. I foresaw that, and being a man of action, I"
He paused, interrupted by the opening of the door from the kitchen and the appearance of the peasant woman wearing, draped about her head and shoulders, a gunny sack that she had used to protect herself from the rain. She glared haughtily at the visitors and spoke directly to Kent, the only one she acknowledged as her master.
"I have put the horses in the woodshed," she announced. "That fool Peter helped. He is feeding them now. The poor beasts! Scandalous, I call it, to ride animals so hard on such a night!"
Kent smiled at her tolerantly.
"That being done," he said, "you will now prepare the best chamber for our lady guests. Make it comfortable in every way you can. After that, do the best you can with other rooms."
The lady's maid, as if to assure herself of the princess' comfort, arose, saying, "I will help you. Please lead the way," and, when the peasant woman disappeared, followed her. Kent, after a glance at his guests, who, as if too dejected to be interested in anything save their own plight, still stared at the fire, again resumed his pretence of reading. Now and then his bushy eyebrows tightened and his mouth took on a grim, firm look, as if he were slowly threshing his way toward a resolution; but his guests, evidently feeling safe behind the barrier of their language, again took up their conversation.
"What I fail to understand, despite your somewhat lame explanations, Von Glutz," remarked the king with asperity, "is how Provarsk could have hatched his plot and taken possession of the palace before you suspected it."
"A chancellor can not see everything," doggedly grumbled Von Glutz. "And you will remember, Sire, that it was you who did away with our secret service."
"Bah! Why not! It accomplished nothing, and cost much to keep."
"Now when your father was alive, under whom you must not forget I had the extreme honour to act as chancellor" began Von Glutz, crustily and pompously.
"Yes, Father willed you to us," interjected the princess with acerbity.
The chancellor said, "Humph! Hum-m!" noisily, and then, having cleared his throat preparatory to speaking, contented himself by getting extremely red in the face, opened his lips, closed them, and tugged at his white moustache.
"And things went from bad to worse, regardless of all I wanted to do for my people!" The king spoke with a voice of regret and sorrow.
This evidence of sincerity appeared to be the final spur necessary to bring Kent to a decision. He turned slowly around and stared hard at the young man, then abruptly closed his book, tossed it on the table and said, addressing him in the tongue of Marken, "And so, abandoning your good intentions, you ran away, eh?"
The falling of one of the beams of the ceiling could scarcely have proven more startling to the three refugees by the fireplace. The king pivoted in his chair and faced Kent with a look of consternation. The princess, aghast, opened her eyes widely, and the chancellor, bristling with annoyance, jumped to his feet and roared loudly, "What business have you listening? Do you know whom you are addressing?"
To a man who, throughout his life, had been accustomed to see his hearers quail when he vented that tremendous roar, the effect was more than disappointing. The roar seemed to have lost its efficacy; for the financial agent merely grinned at him and snapped his fingers. He even had the temerity to eye the chancellor slowly from his round eyes down to the tips of his boots, then back up again; almost contemptuously, but with infinite good nature. Yet there was something about him suggesting that he might grin just as pleasantly if he were ordering the chancellor to be taken out to the hen house and hanged by his fat neck.
"Suppose you drop that style of talk with me," he said at last, "and sit down like a good boy. Certainly I know whom I address. Otherwise—Humph! I don't think I'd take the trouble. This pleasant little party consists, first, of Her Royal Highness, Princess Eloise; second, of His Majesty, Karl Second, King of Marken, and third, of His Excellency, that clever, astute and far-sighted chancellor, Baron Von Glutz."
He chuckled softly as the chancellor writhed under his sarcasm, stuttered, threatened apoplexy, and then added, with a soft drawl that even the language of Marken could not hide, "Don't trouble to speak, Baron, if it hurts you. I undoubtedly have the advantage of you in this, that while you don't know who I am, which after all matters but little, I know all about you."
"You—you—you—Impudence, I call it! How dare you"
"Easy! Easy, Baron," he admonished, with much of the good nature vanishing from his eyes, and his firm mouth adjusting itself to harshness. "Best not make a fool of yourself. You have my permission to scowl at me. Perhaps it's just as well, so that in future meetings, if there are any, you can identify me quickly and thus learn to suppress what I fear is—shall we say—a rather truculent temper."
The king, who had watched him closely, evidently had greater control of his emotions and faced his chancellor sharply.
"Baron, sit down," he said, quietly. "We are not in a position to domineer. You forget yourself. We are this gentleman's guests, although, as he says, he has an advantage of knowledge."
Kent refused to accept this suggestion that he make himself known and turned to his desk and the steel despatch box which he had opened and took therefrom a packet of papers that rustled as he spread them before him.
"That there may be no further doubt of my knowledge," he said, drily, "and that you may realise how thoroughly I do know you, I ask you to kindly listen while I read."
The face of the princess expressed nothing save expectancy, while the king watched his strange host with a look of curiosity. The chancellor, subdued momentarily by the command of his superior, fidgeted and moved restlessly in his chair.
Without preliminary, Kent read, slowly, distinctly, as if to impress his words upon them, but in rather a kindly tone of tolerance:
"'In obedience to your request for a thorough report, I submit as follows: After some six weeks of study of the situation, I may add. His Majesty Karl II is in character a well-meaning, morally clean young man. He has neither bad nor extravagant habits. There is small doubt that he cares for his people and has at all times their welfare at heart. His unfortunate failing is that he clings to the old monarchical ideas, but without the strength and firmness to enforce them upon his subjects and thereby control them. He may possibly have the courage to face the issues that are certain to confront him as a ruler, but I am inclined to doubt it. He is too kindly disposed and is given to the evasion of harsh or unpleasant duties, the prompt meeting and deciding of which can alone make his reign a success. I had not the means of studying him very closely, and therefore may be mistaken; yet I can not help but regard him, until he proves otherwise, as what is termed a Slacker.'"
He paused and looked up at the king, who bit his lip, frowned thoughtfully, and said, quietly, "It is the truth!"
The princess gazed at her brother angrily, and urged him to speak in his own defence.
"Karl! Karl!" she demanded indignantly. "Are you going to sit here and let a stranger dare to criticise you in this manner?"
"If the princess will but listen," Kent began politely, and with an air of deference; but was interrupted by the chancellor, who again blustered until he was silenced. And that, too, without politeness or deference.
"Suppose, Baron, you keep out of this!" Kent's voice was stern albeit satirical. "No, no; wait a moment, and I'll give you an excuse to talk. The best part of this report deals with you, and no doubt an outside appraisal of your character might prove interesting."
He flipped the pages over rapidly, paying no heed to the chancellor's angry protests, until he interrupted with a dry, "Here we are!" and again read aloud: "'Chancellor Von Glutz is in person a large, pot-bellied man with a bulbous red nose, eyes like a golliwog's, given to boasting, over-eating and arrogance, who has a vastly exalted opinion of himself; and is, in reality, a man of but mediocre ability.' Steady! Steady, Baron! I've not finished."
"Yes, do be quiet!" insisted the king, with a slight grin of satisfaction.
"'It is largely due to his incompetence and pig-headedness that the kingdom is secretly in a state of unrest at the time of rendering this report; but it is doubtful if the king will dismiss him from office inasmuch as the baron is a sort of family heirloom. I find nothing to his credit save that he is bluntly honest and loyal.'"
"There you are, Baron!" the king laughed, almost gleefully; but the chancellor, after gasping like a large and overfat codfish hauled from deep water, was now on his feet, bristling with rage, his eyes completely round and blazing, his moustaches quivering, his face red, and his fist clenched and threatening assault on Kent, who grinned cheerfully and said in English, "Hoity-toity! Got a rise out of you that time, you old porpoise!"
"By what right, I demand to know," shouted the baron, "did you dare to send a detective to Marken? You have gone too far, even if we do have to accept you as host. By what right, sir? Answer me!"
Kent's bushy eyebrows closed in a heavy frown and all tolerance and good-humour disappeared. Even his voice underwent a subtle change and became frigid and emphatic. His eyes coldly met and held those of the chancellor.
"If any one had the right to investigate the procedure by which you and your king, between you, botched up the affairs of Marken, I am that man. Let's be done with paltering, flattery, and rubbish, and talk plainly. I happen to be Richard Kent, who, as confidential agent for John Rhodes, gave the unfortunate advice by which he advanced five million dollars in gold to start Karl the Second, just come to the throne, free from other debt. Oh, I had right enough! You may rest assured."
As if touched by an electric spark, the king arose from his chair, stared for an instant, and then slowly dropped back again with a long sigh of resignation. Von Glutz breathed heavily through his nose, and appeared to wilt into an equal state of helplessness. There was a moment's silence in which Kent sternly eyed him, and then a voice broke out, filled with anger and defiance, that of the princess Eloise.
"And so," she said, scornfully, "the vultures gather on the borders, waiting to fatten from our misfortunes!"
"Mademoiselle—Your Royal Highness! You"
She swept his attempted defence aside with an eloquent gesture.
"John Rhodes! The nightmare that has been over our heads for four years. Men might worry and work, but John Rhodes' interest must be paid! That magnificent usurer who thrives fat from the misfortunes of Nations, of peoples, of private enterprises. The gigantic spider that crouched behind the war, waiting, that he might plunge forward with money and twist his prey harder than ever. Shylock clutched and hung to his pitiable victims. And you have the affrontery to tell us here to-night, when we are your reluctant guests, with everything lost behind us, that you are the agent of the infamous John Rhodes!"
Kent looked at her in a strange admixture of annoyance and admiration. Here, at least, was one who was not afraid. His eyes lowered themselves to the papers on his desk. And it was as if the great John Rhodes before whom, as she said, kings and financiers alike had trembled, was for the first time being presented to Kent's mind in true light. She waited for his defence; indeed, demanded it as eloquently through the silence of the room as if she had voiced long sentences asking him what he could say to purge from the character of John Rhodes those charges and imputations that she had so stormily assembled against him.
"It is true," he said, thoughtfully, "that I am the agent of John Rhodes. But I have not, as your Royal Highness implies, been set here as a spy in waiting for your flight—for an abdication, or to make terms for John Rhodes' protection. My being here is an accident."
She shrugged her shoulders with an air of disdain, as if expecting a financial agent to evade or lie. It added to his distress. Men he understood, and could fight. He was no quaverer. He had, in his capacity as agent, boldly met and boldly browbeaten half the chancelleries of Europe. His nerve and bravery were recognised by those of far more importance than any one connected with this paltry, petty, betinselled little kingdom that had survived by accident, and whose disruption had been delayed by his own efforts, merely because it was the whim of John Rhodes, for financial purposes of his own, that it should continue to exist.
"An accident?" she said, mockingly. "An accident! They are strange, such accidents as these! Mr. Richard Kent admits to being the financial emissary for the gentle Mr. Rhodes! Rhodes! whose crimes of selfishness and remissness are greater than those of any man living. Who ever heard of John Rhodes ever doing anything to lessen the cares and sorrows of kingdoms, or of peoples? The Rothschilds, with less power than this hard-hearted American, found ways to save many; but not so Rhodes. There was in them a respect for the dignity of those who had suffered responsibilities and a desire to assist those nations that struggled for existence, and because they had endured, were worthy of some respect and veneration; but Rhodes, the cruel, uncanny, and monstrous genius of money, has no such saving grace. Not even you, his agent, can truthfully tell of one unselfish and kindly act in his career. I am not afraid to tell you this, though 'like master like man' is a fine old proverb in your tongue. And you have the temerity to declare that you were not lying here in wait; that you"
Without thought she had advanced, as she tempestuously spoke, until she stood at the end of the desk, and he, to meet her approach, arose and, from its opposite side, stood and looked at her. The king and chancellor in turn tried to check her, but she imperiously waved them aside. Her beauty alone would have commanded deference from Kent; but there was added to it the desperate indignation of tricked fearlessness, and a reckless desire to speak that over which she had thought in previous days. It was debt that had ruined her house. And the agent of debt, justly or unjustly, stood before her for arraignment.
"Does not your Royal Highness understand," objected the chancellor pleadingly, "that you are making a powerful enemy of the only man, possibly, who can assit us in the future?"
"Future? There is no future!" she declared, impatiently gesturing the baron aside; but Kent, who stood almost stolidly under her words, objected to interference.
"If you please, Baron," he said, steadily, "I prefer that the princess have her say. She is at least candid and honest. From her at least I shall not find subterfuge." He stepped around the side of the desk until his back was to Von Glutz, and also by the change he carelessly and impolitely ignored the king.
"I implore your Highness to proceed," he said, respectfully, yet firmly meeting her eyes. "There is nothing that so clarifies the atmosphere of misunderstandings as freely uttered truths. And—Mademoiselle—even a money lender may be permitted to admire bravery such as yours. I have told you that my being here was an accident. I told the truth. Is it fair and just to believe that I also may not be candid? To condemn me, unheard, as a liar? Neither of us is afraid! I listen."
For some reason that she could not have analysed, her defiance faltered and waned. There was the protest of honour affronted in his quiet musical voice, that had dismissed severity and command from its tone when he turned to her from the faltering chancellor; and she suddenly discerned in this alien some prodigious power, some inflexible strength, that hitherto, blinded by anger, she had not recognised.
"What is the need?" she asked lamely. "You are in a position to laugh at our distress; a distress that you do not, and can not, understand! Oh, if I were a man" She paused. He smiled vaguely, at this sign of femininity.
"Other women have said that," he declared, softly. "Other brave women ever since thrones and kings began. It is the most hackneyed cry of creation. And I doubt not that if you were"
He turned sharply as the sound of a door opening disturbed him, and glanced across the room to where the lady-in-waiting had entered and stood with her hand upon the latch.
"Your Royal Highness' apartment is ready," the lady-in-waiting said, as perfunctorily as if they were still in a royal palace and undisturbed. The king arose to his feet, wearily, and the chancellor bowed punctiliously before the princess as she slowly turned and advanced toward the door. She paused for an instant, as if torn by a desire to speak again, hesitated with other words on her lips, perhaps those of appeal to the man she had so valiantly defied, and then slowly passed from sight.