第18章 CHAPTER X(1)

Mr. Sabin was deep in thought. He sat in an easy-chair with his back to the window, his hands crossed upon his stick, his eyes fixed upon the fire. Duson was moving noiselessly about the room, cutting the morning's supply of newspapers and setting them out upon the table. His master was in a mood which he had been taught to respect. It was Mr. Sabin Who broke the silence.

"Duson!"

"Your Grace!"

"I have always, as you know, ignored your somewhat anomalous position as the servant of one man and the slave of a society.

The questions which I am about to ask you you can answer or not, according to your own apprehensions of what is due to each."

"I thank your Grace!"

"My departure from America seemed to incite the most violent opposition on the part of your friends. As you know, it was with a certain amount of difficulty that I reached this country. Now, however, I am left altogether alone. I have not received a single warning letter. My comings and goings, although purposely devoid of the ~lightest secrecy, are absolutely undisturbed. Yet I have some reason to believe that your mistress is in London."

"Your Grace will pardon me," Duson said, "but there is outside a gentleman waiting to see you to whom you might address the same questions with better results, for compared with him I know nothing.

It is Monsieur Felix."

"Why have you kept him waiting?" Mr. Sabin asked.

"Your Grace was much absorbed," Duson answered.

Felix was smoking a cigarette, and Mr. Sabin greeted him with a certain grim cordiality.

"Is this permitted - this visit?" he asked, himself selecting a cigarette and motioning his guest to a chair.

"It is even encouraged," Felix answered.

"You have perhaps some message?"

"None."

"I am glad to see you," Mr. Sabin said. "Just now I am a little puzzled. I will put the matter to you. You shall answer or not, at your own discretion."

"I am ready," Felix declared.

"You know the difficulty with which I escaped from America," Mr.

Sabin continued. "Every means which ingenuity could suggest seemed brought to bear against me. And every movement was directed, if not from here, from some place in Europe. Well, I arrived here four days ago. I live quite openly, I have even abjured to some extent my incognito. Yet I have not received even a warning letter. I am left absolutely undisturbed."

Felix looked at him thoughtfully.

"And what do you deduce from this?" he asked.

"I do not like it," Mr. Sabin answered drily.

"After all," Felix remarked, "it is to some extent natural. The very openness of your life here makes interference with you more difficult, and as to warning letters - well, you have proved the uselessness of them."

"Perhaps," Mr. Sabin answered. "At the same time, if I were a superstitious person I should consider this inaction ominous."

"You must take account also," Felix said, "of the difference in the countries. In England the police system, if not the most infallible in the world, is certainly the most incorruptible. There was never a country in which security of person and life was so keenly watched over as here. In America, up to a certain point, a man is expected to look after himself. The same feeling does not prevail here."

Mr. Sabin assented.

"And therefore," he remarked, "for the purposes of your friends I should consider this a difficult and unpromising country in which to work."

"Other countries, other methods!" Felix remarked laconically.

"Exactly! It is the new methods which I am anxious to discover,"

Mr. Sabin said. "No glimmering of them as yet has been vouchsafed to me. Yet I believe that I am right in assuming that for the moment London is the headquarters of your friends, and that Lucille is here?"

"If that is meant for a question," Felix said, "I may not answer it."

Mr. Sabin nodded.

"Yet," he suggested, "your visit has an object. To discover my plans perhaps! You are welcome to them."

Felix thoughtfully knocked the ashes off his cigarette.

"My visit had an object," he admitted, "but it was a personal one.

I am not actually concerned in the doings of those whom you have called my friends."

"We are alone," Mr. Sabin reminded him. "My time is yours."

"You and I," Felix said, "have had our periods of bitter enmity.