Read Ebook: The Vanishing Point by Dawson Coningsby Flagg James Montgomery Illustrator

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Ebook has 1772 lines and 80936 words, and 36 pages

Leisurely he freed himself, bending back her fingers and taking pleasure in demonstrating that his strength was the greater.

"I've no idea what you're talking about," he said coldly. "Your feelings toward Prince Rogovich are none of my concern. If, by the thing that had to happen, you refer to the shameless way in which you made love to him, I can not conceive any possible set of circumstances that would make it necessary for you to make love for my sake to another man."

He had turned and was sauntering away from her. She went after him breathlessly, arresting him once more with the secret strength of her slim, gloved hand.

"To make love to him! I didn't mean that."

The tug was backing away to get sufficient clearance to turn in the direction of land. She had not quite cleared herself, when signs of frenzied disturbance were noticeable on the promenade deck. The musicians were dropping their instruments and fleeing. Passengers were glancing across their shoulders and scattering in all directions. In the vacant space which their stampede had created, the infuriated head of the Prince's wolfhound reared itself. For a couple of seconds he hung there poised, glaring down; then suddenly he seemed to descry the object he was searching. Steadying himself, he shot straight out into the gulf of blackness. In a white streak, like the finger of conscience pointing, he fell, just missing the deck of the tug, where Hindwood and his companion were standing. He must have struck the side, for as he reached the water he sank.

It was over in less time than it takes to tell, but it had seemed to Hindwood that as the hound had leaped, his burning gaze had been fixed on Santa Gorlof.

She made no sound while the danger lasted, but the moment the hurtling, white body had fallen short, she rushed to the side, peering down into the yeasty scum of churned-up blackness. She was speaking rapidly in a foreign language, laughing softly with malicious triumph and shaking a small, clenched fist at the night. It was thus that a woman at Jezreel must have looked, when she painted her face and tired her hair and leaned out of her palace window, jeering at the charioteer who had been sent to slay her. The passionate eloquence of Santa's gestures thrilled as much as it shocked Hindwood; it made her appearance of lavish modernity seem a disguise. And yet he admired her more than ever; it was her courage he admired. Putting his arm about her roughly, "Enough," he said. "You're coming inside."

She darted back her head in defiance like a serpent about to strike. Then recognition of him dawned in her eyes. She ceased to struggle and relaxed against his breast. It was only for a second. Slipping her arm submissively into his, "Very well. If you say so," she whispered.

Guiding her steps across the slippery deck, he pushed open the door of a little saloon and entered. The atmosphere was blue with wreaths of smoke and heavy with the smell of tobacco. At a table in the center, beneath a swinging lamp, the immigration officers were dealing cards and settling their debts with pennies. They were too absorbed in their petty gambling to notice what was going on about them. In a corner, outside the circle of light, he found a trunk and ordered her to sit down. The meekness with which she complied flattered his sense of her dependence. He might really have been a Pasha and she his slave-girl.

He did not understand her. She cozened and baffled him. People and things which he did not understand were apt to rouse his resentment, especially when they were women. His distrust of the sex was inherent. But as he watched this woman drooping in the shadows, his pity came uppermost. She was so alone, so unprotected. The hour was late--long past midnight. Her storm of emotion had exhausted her. It was absurd that he should have allowed himself to become so jealous. He could never have made her his wife. The chances were, she would not have accepted him; she belonged to a more modish world. And if she had, she would have driven him from his course with her whims and tempests. She would have wrecked his career with her greed for wealthy trappings. He and she were utterly different. They had nothing in common but their physical attraction.

He was seeing things clearly. With each fresh whiff of land, affairs were regrouping themselves in their true perspective. He had been the shuttlecock of a shipboard flirtation. He had magnified infatuation into a grand passion. On many a previous voyage he had been the amused spectator of just such profitless expenditures of sentiment. And here he was, a victim of the same foolishness! The futility of the ending was the adventure's condemnation. Probably she was indulging in similar reflections! Within an hour of stepping ashore they would have lost sight of each other forever. After so much intimacy and misplaced emotion, they would walk out of each other's life without regret. Partly out of curiosity, but more out of courtesy, he seated himself beside her for what he intended should be their last conversation.

"What happens next?"

She clutched her furs more closely about her. "I don't know."

"But you must know," he persisted. "What I meant was, where is your destination?"

"London." Then she added wearily, "You could have discovered by examining my labels."

Her fatigue made him the more determined to be helpful. "I didn't ask out of impertinence, but because I thought it would be London. Probably there'll be no train to London to-night. If the Prince had been with us, they'd have put on a special, but you and I are the only passengers, and neither of us is sufficiently important. Besides, after this delay, it'll be nearly daylight before we clear the Customs."

"Then I'll have to sleep in Plymouth."

"Perhaps you'll be met by friends?"

Sweeping him with her pale, derisive eyes, "Friends!" she murmured. "You may set your mind at rest. I shall be met by no friends."

After that there was silence, a silence interrupted at intervals by the exclamations of the players as they thumped down their cards and raked in their pennies.

For relief he reverted to the subject uppermost in both their minds. "I wonder what became of him."

"I wonder." Her tone betrayed no interest.

"I've been trying to think back," he said, "trying to remember when last I saw him."

"Yes."

She spun round, as though jerked on wires. "Alive! Who suggests that he isn't alive?"

"No one. I'm the first. But if he isn't found by to-morrow, the suggestion will be on the lips of all the world."

"I doubt it."

"You do?" Hindwood smiled. "Men of the Prince's eminence are not allowed to vanish without a stir. I'm only hoping that you and I are not involved in it. We were the only people with whom he associated on the voyage. We're likely to be detained and certain to be questioned. For all we know the air's full of Marconi messages about us at this moment."

Her face had gone white. "About us? What had we to do with it?"

"Nothing. But when a tragedy of this sort occurs, we're all liable to be suspected."

She gazed at him intently. "Then you think there was a tragedy?"

She shuddered and pressed against him. "You're trying to frighten me. I won't be frightened. It's all nonsense what you're saying. Why should any one want to push him over?"

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I didn't mean to frighten you. Perhaps we're wasting our breath and already he's been found."

"No, but why should any one want to push him over?" she urged.

"I can't answer that. But he wasn't liked. One could be fascinated by his personality, but one couldn't like him. Take yourself--weren't you telling me a few minutes ago how intensely you hated him?"

She nodded. "He was the sort of man every woman had the right to hate." After a pause she faced him, completely mistress of herself. "When did you last see him?"

"I'm not certain." Hindwood hesitated. "As far as I remember, it was after dinner in the lounge. He was giving some instructions about his baggage. When did you?"

"After dinner in the lounge." Her eyes met his and flickered. "It must have been shortly after eight, for I spent till ten in my stateroom finishing my packing."

Before she had made an end, he knew that she had lied. Several times after dinner he had walked past her stateroom, hoping for a last encounter. Her trunks and cases had been piled in the passage, already locked and strapped. He had tried to discover from the stewardess her whereabouts and had been told that since dining she had not returned. He had gone on deck in search of her, hunting everywhere. It must have been shortly after ten that he had come across two shadowy figures in the bows. They were whispering together. They might have been embracing. The man's figure had been too dim for him to identify, but he could have sworn that the woman's was hers.

He had reached this point in his piecing together of evidence, when he noticed that the card-players were pushing back their chairs.

Santa touched his arm gently. "I think we're there."

The next moment the soft bump of the tug against the piles confirmed the news of their arrival.

It began to look as if all hope of rest would have to be abandoned. At the moment of landing the dock had been almost festive. There had been a group of railway officials, mildly beaming and fussily important, who had approached Hindwood as he stepped ashore, with "Prince Rogovich, if we are not mistaken?" There had been another group of newspaper reporters who, having addressed him as "Your Highness," and having discovered their error, had promptly turned their backs on him.

There had been a Major in uniform, with a monocle in his eye, who had pranced up, tearing off a salute and announcing, "I'm detailed by the Foreign Office, your Excellency."

When they had learned that the Prince had unaccountably avoided Plymouth, their atmosphere of geniality faded. The special train, which was to have borne him swiftly to London, was promptly canceled. Within ten minutes, muttering with disgust, all the world except two porters had dribbled off into the night.

In the waiting-room where, pending the inspection of the Customs officers, Hindwood and Santa were ordered to remain, their reception was no more enlivening. At first, when they had entered, a lunch-counter had been spread, gleaming with warmth and light. Before mirrors, girl attendants had been self-consciously reviewing their appearance with smiles of brightest expectation. Their expectancy had been quickly dulled by the news of the Prince's non-arrival. They had scarcely spared time to supply the wants of the two travelers before they had started to close up. The ticket clerk had copied the girls' example. As he had pulled down the shutter of his office he had briefly stated, "No train till the eight-thirty in the morning."

After that they had been left--he and this strange woman--in the drafty gloom of the ill-lighted dockstation. The two porters had huddled down and snored among the baggage; Santa, closing her eyes, had appeared to join them in their slumbers.

At last a solitary Customs officer had arrived. He volunteered no explanation for his delay. He was evidently newly risen, half awake, and in a mood of suppressed irritation. His examination was perfunctory. Having completed his barest duty, he likewise made his exit. It was then, when all their troubles seemed ended, that the porters had informed them that it was necessary for passengers to see their luggage weighed and personally to supervise its being loaded in the van for London.

Hindwood turned to his companion. "You're tired. You'd better be off to bed. I'll see this through for you."

Half an hour later, when he had complied with all formalities and was free to seek a bed himself, he remembered that he hadn't inquired where she would be staying and that he didn't know the name of a hotel. Wondering where he should sleep and how he could reach her with the receipts for her trunks, he wandered out into the yard of the station. The first grayness of dawn was spreading. A chill was in the air. Behind the sepulchers of muted houses a cock was crowing. He gazed up and down. Near the gate a horse-drawn cab was standing. Its lamp burned dimly, on the point of flickering out. The driver sat hunched on the box; the horse hung dejectedly between the shafts. They both slumbered immovably.

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