The Mystery Road

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 270, 14 November 1928, Page 16

The Mystery Road

I J E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

CHAPTER XXXV. The Story of the Escape. The butler made his announcement to his mistress a little doubtfully. "There is a person here, your ladyship, who desires to see you." "What sort of a person?" Lady Mary inquired. The butler coughed. "A woman, your ladyship. She struck mo as being some 6ort of a foreigner. She assured me that her business was urgent. I have shown her into the morning room." Mary rose to her feet at once. "A foreigner?" she repeated, with suddenly aroused interest. "Perhaps she has news of Lord Downe.'* Nevertheless, when she entered the little room where Elsa Francks was waiting, it scarcely seemed likely that news of so fastidious a person as her brother could com© from such a source| Her doubts, however, were soon set at rest. "Are you Lord Downe's sister?" the woman asked bluntly, without offering to move from her chair. "I am," Lady Mary acknowledged at once. "Have you brought news of him ?" "I have brought him home," was the unexpected reply. "You?" Lady Mary exclaimed. The woman laughed unpleasontly. "Yes, me!" she declared. "I have saved his life a dozen times over, as I dare say he will tell you some day. Even now I do not know why." "But where is he?" Lady Mary demanded.

"He is safe in the Charing Cross Hospital," the woman replied, "and if you want to know all about him you will give me some wine quickly."

Mary, scarcely conscious of what she did, rang the bell. This woman was certainly the strangest visitor who had ever penetrated the portals of Hinterleys House. She seemed larger and coarser than evr. Her clothes were showy, but unbrushed and crumpled as though she had slept in them for nights; her hair was yellow, bat untidy. The rouge and powder were distributed upon her face in ungainly daubs. She breathed an atmosphere of stale scent. Notwithstanding all these things, she had news of Gerald, Gerald who for seven months had been lost! Lady Mary waited eagerly for the butler, who entered the room full of the confident anticipation that he would be asked to remove this incongruous visitor. "This lady would like some wine," Lady Mary announced. "Do tell me what you would prefer?" she added, turning towards her guest. "Champagne, if you have it," was the prompt reply.

"Bring champagne, Richards," his mistress "Perhaps you harl better tell his lordship. This lady has brought us news of Lord Downe." The woman held out her hand. "Don't bring any lordships here," she begged. "I will tell my story to you, ma'am. I am very near hysterics my«elf. To reach here from Sokar has taken us a montli. We tried at seven places on the frontier before we could get into Poland."

"Poland?" Mary exelaiined. "But hero is the wine. Do, please, help your-

The woman was served with champagne and, dry biscuits, the latter of which she scornfully -rejected. She drank three glasses of champagne, however. Then she filled a fourth glass for herself and began to talk. "How much do you know of your brother's visit to Russia"* she asked. "Only that he went there on some mysterions errand at the instigation of two ladies, who are, I believe, Russians." "One of them was called Pauline—his sweetheart, eh?" "I suppose so," Mary admitted. "Wtll, here is my story," Elsa Francks said, draining te contents of her glass and refilling it. "Remember it, for I shall never tell it again. It is a story I would like to' forget." "I will certainly remember it," Mary promised. "Twelve months ago I went to live at SokarElsa Francks began. "It is a miserable place, but I went there to bis near my friend, Ivan Krossneys, the Governor of the fortress. In that fortress was confined a man whom your brother went to Russia to rescue. He came to ask me to help him bribe the Governor. That was in the month of October last year. He was a very different person then, and I thought that I liked him very mucftr i The woman sipped her champagne, j The warmth of the room, and the wine, had moistened her face. A little streak of-rouge had spread upon her left cheek. There were black lines under her eyes. Her voice, however, was stronger. . "He offered a great deal of money and I agreed to help. I sent for Ivan, and although he made, difficulties, he was easy to persuade. .It was arranged. The prisoner—number 29, we called him walked out of the fortress in your brother's clothes, and with his American passport. Your brother was to take his place for twenty-four hours. Then he was to leave the prison in the funeral coach of another prisoner who had died." "This was seven months ago," Mary faltered.

The woman wiped her lips, shivered at the sight of the colour upon her handkerchief, closed her eyes for a moment, and recovered hersell.

"That seven months." she said, deliberately, "has seemed like seven years, and cach year like a lifetime in Hell! Listen. I go on with the story. Your brother entered the fortress as arranged, changed clothes with number 29, who walked out of the place and came, withont doubt, to Loudon. Your brother was to spend that night in the fortress. K-rossneys came down to me. We were both excited. It was a great sum of money, and lite in Russia is a horrible ® dr J ank a eat deal of wine, raore we drank, the more quarrel- !° m ® Jr an resented having to part with so large a share of the money to me. We quarrelled. Once or twice we made it up. Then Ivan's anger v n the end he w® I i e f wa y a Part of my share We had a struggle. Some how or otner, nis revolver went off. He fell backwards with a groan. He was dead." The-woman dabbed at her face. Mary could find no word of any sort. Her visitor's eyes semed fixed in a rigid •'■are. It was as though she were living through the scene again. "The police came," she went on. "T wm arrested. I told my story. There were no witnesses. After four days they had to let me go. The moment !

was free I went to the fortress. Ivan's deputy was taking his place. He was a man of a different type, a politician, a Bolshevist from conviction. Every time he mentioned 29, he spat. I had much trouble with him."

"Go on," Mary begged, glancing at the clock.

"You need not worry about your brother," Elsa Francks said. "He will not know you when you go to see him. He has forgotten most things. This' man's name was Ahrensein. I told himi the whole truth. lam quite sure that if he had come into charge of the prison whilst the real 29 had been there he would have found some excuse for having him shot within twenty-four hours. He even told me so. Ho was furious at the trick which had been played. 'But,' he declared, 'the Englishman who has put himself in number 29's place shall suffer for him!' I was allowed to see your brother. He had got over the first shock of what had happened and I found him full of courage. We discussed several plans for his escape, which, however, we never carried into effect. I do not believe that anyone could have bought the life of number 29 from Ahrensein for a million pounds. With your brother, however, it was different. In the end I made over to him one of your brother's drafts, one I tcok back from Ivan Krosseneys after he was dead, cashed one of the smaller ones, and one dark night we drove away from the fortress." "But this is all so long ago!" Mary exclaimed, wondcringly. The woman nodded. "We were in the train for Petrograd," she went on, "when I had a message from Ahrensein telling me that he was superseded. His successor had arrived, and was holding an inquiry into the escape of number 29.' He advised me not to go near Petrograd. We left the train just as a company of soldiers from the fortress arrived on the platform. The train was held up and searched. We took a carriage and drove away, anywhere, away into the plains. We had money, but nothing else. We bought the carriage and horses, bought the driver body and soul. Driving by night, resting the horses and hiding ourselves by day, we travelled a hundred miles southeastwards."

"You must tell me the rest another time," Lady Mary suggested.

"What I am going to tell you I shall tell you now or never," Elsa Francks answered fiercely. ''It won't be much, I can promise you. When I leave this house, the story of these months is coming out of my mind, whether I have to dull it by drink, or even cut it out of my brain. We were always in danger, always being tracked. We went short distances by train. Sometimes we hired carriages. Wo even travelled for the whole of one day in an electric car which crawled between two small towns. Seven times we tried to cross the frontier into Poland, and each time we were turned back. Once they had heard of us and we were placed under arrest. Yourbrother shot two of the guards and we escaped. After that it was life or death with us. We were passed across the frontier at last in a spot where the war zone had been. We were scarcely in Poland before half a regiment of Russians was after us. We were in Poland, however. We left them fighting. We heard afterwards that the Russians who had crossed the frontier were wiped out. We got across Poland, somehow or other, 'into Germany. The rest was all discomfort and misery, but most of the danger was past. Your brother fell ill m Warsaw. Since then he has been dazed and weak, with a high temperature and with fits of unconsciousness. How I got him here I don't know. We arrived at Fenchurch Street this morning. I drove to Charing Cross Hospital, and they took him at once. He was shouting like a madman. Then I drove here."

She poured out the last glass of wine from the bottle and drank it. Then she rose to her feet.

"It is a wonderful story, this!" Mary exclaimed. "You must not go away yet, or, if you do, you must come back again. My father will want to thank you."

"I do not want thanks," the woman scoffed. "I started out on this adventure because your brother had paid a great sum of money and because I had a fancy for him. I have lost that fancy, but I made up my mind that I would bring your brother home, and I have done it. I do not wish for any further payment. I have spent your brother's money freely, but I have enough left to give me all that I need in life. Ido not like England, and I am going away today. Is there any further question you wish to ask?"

"None that I can remember for the moment," Lady Mary admitted. "1 think that it was very wonderful of you to run all these risks. You might have left my brother there and gone away with the money."

"I very nearly did," the woman confessed bluntly. "Many a time, on the way home, I wished that I had done it. Your brother lias a fine courage at times, but he is a weakling in the ugly places of life. Often when I dragged him along through the mud, and he had to sleep on a stone floor, with coarse food to eat, and no wine, he would rather have come out into the open and fought for his life and ended it. I dare say, when he recovers, he will be grateful to me. There hare been many times when he has hatd me. Now I will go."

She rose to her feet, dabbed more powder on her face, and looked at her hostess a little defiantly. Lady Mary rang the bell. Then she held out her hand.

"Thank you very much for bringing Gerald home," she said. Elsa Francks laughed hardly. She refused the hand.

|Tou have no need for gratitude," she said. "I started on the job because I had a fancy for your brother, When I lost that I went on because I am an obstinate woman. As for recompense, I still have a fortune, but' I am glad that these months are over. You can tell your brother that I took Krossney'a share of the money as well as my own. When he comes to think it over, I expect he will say I earned it." She followed the butler out of the room. Mary watched her from the window with fascinated eyes, saw her hail a passing taxi cab with her outstretched umbrella, watched her fling herself into it, put her feet on the opposite seat and light a cigarette. She had the air of a woman who has accomplished a great task. Lady Mary rang the bell. "The car at once, Richards," 6he ordered. "Lord Downe is in London. I am going to fetch him home." (To be continued daily.)