The Mission of Poubalov

CHAPTER XV.

LOUISE RECEIVES A CALLER

Mr. Pembroke met Clara at the train when it arrived in the Grand Central Depot promptly at nine o'clock. He was plainly anxious, almost agitated.

"Tell me, child," he exclaimed, "why you have come?"

"I couldn't be satisfied," she replied, "without setting at rest the rumors that connect Ivan's name with Lizzie White."

"Oh," said her uncle, apparently relieved, "is that all?"

"All, uncle? Why, no, not if I find anything that leads me to believe that Ivan is in New York. In that case I shall search for him here. What did you think I had come for?"

"I had nothing in mind except anxiety. When I received your telegram, I feared something had happened. I couldn't tell what. I have been so occupied with business matters recently that I haven't been able to keep up with you, you know."

"I'm so sorry to give you more trouble and anxiety," said Clara, with the sincerest contrition, "but I felt as if I must come on."

"Let us go straight to the hotel," said Mr. Pembroke; "I suppose there's nothing you want to do to-night?"

They had been standing on a station platform as they talked, and not far away was Litizki, watching, trying to listen, and wondering who the gentleman could be whom Clara greeted so affectionately. He knew nothing about her relationships, and supposed that Mr. Pembroke was her father. He followed them and saw them enter a hack, and he managed to get near enough to overhear Mr. Pembroke say "Travelers' Hotel" to the driver. Not content with knowing the hotel, however, Litizki ran along the sidewalk, keeping the vehicle in view all the way, and he did not turn aside content until he saw by the departure of the hack empty that Clara and her escort were both in the hotel. Then he felt that she would be safe through the night, for he was possessed of the idea that the powerful Poubalov would follow her, and he feared that she would come to harm at his hands.

Mr. Pembroke had said little on the way from the depot to the hotel, but when they were in the quiet of Clara's room, he remarked:

"I suppose, my dear, that this coming to see Lizzie White is the last step you will take in this matter, isn't it?"

"I cannot tell yet, uncle," she replied; "I do not see why it should be, but, of course, I know so many things connected with the case that I have had no opportunity to tell you – things that I want to tell. I have needed somebody's advice, so much, and I could not intrude on you when you are so busy. I would not even now but that I think you ought to know as much as I do of what has happened."

An expression of pain crossed Mr. Pembroke's features, and he responded uneasily:

"Of course I want to help you, Clara, and I am more regretful than I can possibly express that my business has been in such shape."

"Are you seriously alarmed about it, uncle?"

"I was, but I think we shall pull through all right now. Let us talk of your affairs. I would like to suggest, with all sympathy, Clara, that the world in general, while it would admire your loyalty if it understood it, would yet do so in a pitying way that would be eminently distasteful to you if on your own part you understood the world. You see, you are regarded, no matter how unjustly, as deserted. You have a remarkably clear head, and you must see what I mean without putting me to the necessity of using disagreeable terms."

Clara flushed. She felt at that moment the full force of the calamity that had overtaken her. While she was actively at work building up theories, investigating clews, and examining those who might throw light on the matter, her grief had been measurably lightened. The thought that she was working, however doubtfully, toward an end, had enabled her to keep her emotions in control. Her uncle's words, which were evidently but the preface to an appeal to give up the struggle, reopened her wounds. It was as if he had torn away the foundations of that structure of the mind by which she had supported her heart. With difficulty she restrained her tears, and responded:

"It would be better, uncle, to use plain language. Then there would be no possible chance of a misunderstanding. I know how I am looked upon, as deserted by my lover, perhaps not for another woman, but at all events deserted by him. The world will say that it would comport better with womanly dignity to suffer in silence and solitude, and that it is unmaidenly to pursue the man."

"You use harsher language than I would have used had I spoken without consideration of your feelings," interposed her uncle, nervously. His niece's faculty for manifesting occasionally an imperious will, and of firmly maintaining her own way without regard to general opinion, had always been a bit of a terror to him. It was difficult for him to reconcile it with her affectionate disposition, her real consideration for the sufferings of others. He could not see that in this matter, without the faintest trace of egotism, she unconsciously measured her own suffering as infinitely greater than that of anybody else who was related to the case, and that she as unconsciously asserted her right to minister to that suffering in the way best calculated to alleviate it. Such characters as hers, under the pressure of great trouble, elevate self-interest to the very heights of nobility.

"I ask no consideration for my feelings," said Clara, almost coldly; "it seems to me that real consideration would credit me not only with dignified motives but with an intelligent basis for my conduct. Uncle dear," and she suddenly crossed to him and put her arms about his neck, "let me take that back. I didn't mean it. I wouldn't for the world say an unkind word to you, but you see I feel my lonely position so keenly. I do what I think is right, but there is no one to uphold me."

Mr. Pembroke disengaged her arms, and again the expression of pain flitted across his face.

"I am doing as well as I can under the circumstances," he said huskily, "not only to show you my deep sympathy, but to guide you also. For your own interests, I must point out one possibility of your interview to-morrow. I shall place no obstacle in the way of your seeing Lizzie White, but I caution you, without knowing more about her than that she left a good home, that she may take a most unfriendly attitude. If there is anything unseemly in the meeting, I know that it will arise from her. No one can tell me that she lacks your native refinement; it must be so; a woman such as she is at heart may make a dreadful scene, whether she be interested in Ivan or not. To be concerned in such a scene, my dear child, would be a stigma from which even your goodness could not escape. Clara, there is nothing so scandalous as a quarrel between women when a man is in question."

"You wish me not to see her," said Clara, faintly.

Mr. Pembroke rose and paced up and down in extreme agitation for several minutes, while Clara sat with a dreadful weight upon her heart; for she not only loved her uncle, and wished earnestly to be guided by him if possible, but she also realized that his warning was a wise one. She had herself, with all her thought, scarcely considered how she should approach Lizzie White. So certain was she that Ivan had not eloped with her, that the interview itself had not appealed to her as more than a friendly discussion of facts and rumors as to which both would be in accord. But there was her theory that Lizzie might be an accomplice of Poubalov's. What attitude might she not take, therefore, in order to carry out her part in the spy's design?

"I would say yes," declared Mr. Pembroke at length, "for that is my wish, but I do not, cannot say it. Go to this Lizzie White to-morrow, Clara. You will know how to speak with her better than I can tell you. I will myself go to the house with you, but you shall have your meeting all alone if you so desire. Of course you do."

"Then, uncle," said Clara, "let me tell you of the strange things that have occurred since I began to search for Ivan. I am sure you will feel, when you know all, that I am justified in my general course, however much I may have been mistaken in details."

Mr. Pembroke listened with the closest attention to the narrative. He was deeply moved by it, and when she had finished he said brokenly:

"There is great villainy at work here."

Then he leaned his head upon his hand, shielding his eyes from hers as she eagerly sought, not so much commendation of her persistence as suggestion as to what to do, or some theory upon which to explain the many mysteries that centered upon the disappearance of Ivan.

"I wonder," he mused at last, "if this could have been accident?"

"Accident, uncle!" exclaimed Clara, with just a touch of impatience; "don't you see that if it had been accident, we should have known of it? Think: in a busy street of a city no accident could have occurred by which Ivan could be incapacitated without some report of it coming to the authorities. Even if Ivan had not been taken to a hospital in the usual way, but had fallen into the hands of private persons, it is not possible that with all the stir that was made by his disappearance, police or reporters should not have found some trace of him."

"True, true," said Mr. Pembroke, vacantly; "I was thinking – you see it is hard to master all these strange details at once. I marvel at your courage."

"Courage! What else could I do?" asked Clara.

"Nothing with your character, nothing else. You have done right, Clara. I am very tired. Let us talk further of this in the morning."

Mr. Pembroke was not disposed to talk in the morning, however, and Clara was engrossed with a long letter from Louise that had been mailed on the train leaving Boston at midnight.

"Poubalov," she wrote, "was at the house when I returned from seeing you off. If the man were capable of expressing emotion, I should say that he was disappointed at not seeing you; but whatever he felt, he masked it under his grand assumption of dignity and courtesy. He had called, he said, to make his apologies for his extraordinary leave-taking of the evening before, and also, he added with ponderous humor, to recover his property. I got his hat and cane for him, and what do you think! he had brought a lovely basket of flowers for you, to plead his apologies, as he put it. There was no refusing such an offering, dear, and I am enjoying their fragrance and rich colors as I write. I hope this will reach you in time to be of use if Poubalov's call can be of use to you in New York. I thought it my duty to report it. I felt how immeasurably superior you are to me intellectually – I won't draw other comparisons lest they be odious to one of us – for I was utterly at a loss to draw him out. He didn't present his excuses to me, and how he managed to evade doing so I can't quite see now as I think it over, for he remained several minutes, talking with apparent candor. The man himself is as great a mystery as anything connected with your trouble. All I can say is that with one hat on his head, and his other hat and his cane in his hand, he eventually took his departure, promising to call again. There is one thing I managed not to do, though it was quite plain, even to me, that he was trying to find out. I didn't tell him where you were. Of course I had to say that you were not at home, and in answer to direct questions that I did not expect you before Saturday, but I didn't even hint at New York or Lizzie White, and he made no allusion to either. Did I do right? I hope so, for I have felt so often what a shame it is that I cannot be of more help to you. I believe in Ivan as you do, dear, and my heart and thoughts are with you."

They were at breakfast in the great dining-room of the hotel when Clara read this letter, and she furtively kissed the paper that conveyed such loyal sympathy to her. As she replaced the letter in the envelope, she was surprised to see the old man Dexter hobbling across the room. There was an ugly scowl upon his face as he bowed to her, and Mr. Pembroke rose from his chair with an expression little less than fierce.

"Another time, Dexter," he exclaimed under his breath, taking the old man by the arm and wheeling him around. As Mr. Pembroke walked him away, Clara heard Dexter croak:

"What is she here for, Mat Pembroke?"

When her uncle returned, his face was still dark and he said:

"Business necessities, Clara, that sometimes compel a man to tolerate disagreeable persons. I wouldn't have him near you, however."

"He is disagreeable, surely," responded Clara, "but I could have borne with him for your sake, uncle."

The subject seemed intensely disagreeable to Mr. Pembroke, and nothing further was said about it.

After breakfast Mr. Pembroke inquired the number of the house on Second Avenue from which Lizzie White had written, and they set out to find it.

"I shall have to leave you, Clara," said her uncle, "as soon as I am sure you have found the right place. I will call for you or I will put a carriage at your disposal."

"There is no telling how long I shall be," returned Clara, "and I don't see why you should need to inconvenience yourself. I have acquired more self-dependence during the last three or four days than I ever had before, and I think you can trust me to take care of myself. But I should think it would be well to have a carriage at command; and, uncle, all the expense I have been to thus far has come from my allowance. You will let me pay for a carriage, won't you?"

"If you prefer to," said Mr. Pembroke, "and we will engage one in the vicinity of the house as we can reach the place readily by a cross-town line of cars."

So they proceeded by street-car, and when they alighted in Second Avenue they were but a short distance from the desired number. Mr. Pembroke signaled to a passing hack and instructed the driver to wait near the house to which they were going. Then they continued their way on foot.

Just before they came to the steps leading up to the door their attention was attracted by the noise of a man running behind them, and then a voice panting, "Miss Hilman! Miss Hilman!"

They turned about quickly, and, to her unspeakable surprise, Clara saw that it was Litizki. His sallow face was flushed with the exertion of his long run, for he had chased them afoot from the hotel. He could hardly speak for lack of breath when he came up to them, but he did manage to gasp:

"I've seen him, Miss Hilman, this morning!"

CHAPTER XVI.

LIZZIE WHITE

Clara clutched her uncle's arm convulsively and leaned heavily upon him.

"You have seen Mr. Strobel?" she whispered.

All the color fled from Litizki's face as he realized how woefully he had put his foot in it. In the intensity of his hate for Poubalov and his distrust of him, he had forgotten for the moment that the spy was but a secondary figure in the drama they were enacting. Clara saw in the little tailor's distressed expression that she had interpreted his words erroneously. The double shock well nigh unnerved her.

"Let us walk on a little way," she said faintly. Stuyvesant Square was near by, and Mr. Pembroke led her within the gates and sat with her upon a bench. Litizki followed humbly, suffering miserably from his indiscreet zeal, and Clara told her uncle who he was. Mr. Pembroke asked:

"Well, my man, who is it you have seen?"

"Alexander Poubalov, sir," he replied with his eyes upon the ground.

"Strange!" said Mr. Pembroke, turning to his niece; "did you tell him you were coming to New York?"

"No; I didn't mean that he should know it. He called at the house yesterday after I had gone, and Louise writes that she withheld any definite information about my whereabout."

Mr. Pembroke looked inquiringly at Litizki.

"I came on yesterday by the same train that brought Miss Hilman," he said, "for I didn't know that there was anybody in New York to watch out for her. There was nothing for me to do in Boston, and I was afraid for her. Neither of you know this man Poubalov as I do. I should say that he had the gift of second sight, but I don't believe in the supernatural. He is not only a master of deceit, but he has marvelous powers of discernment. I was certain that he would pursue Miss Hilman, and I wanted to do what I could to protect her."

"Mr. Litizki has been very kind and faithful, uncle," said Clara; "you remember that I told you about him."

"Yes," replied Mr. Pembroke, to whom the idea of his beautiful niece under the watchful eye of such an unprepossessing man was distasteful. "How did you come to see Poubalov?"

"I went to the hotel very early this morning," was the reply, "and hung around where I could keep all the doors in view. Poubalov turned up about half-past seven. He was walking very rapidly. He went first into the hotel near yours, and I saw him examining the register at the clerk's desk. Presently, with the same hurried strides, he came out and went into the Travelers'. There he looked over several pages of the register, and when he had finished he strolled to the door leisurely. All his hurry was gone, and after pausing to light a cigarette, he went slowly down the avenue. I remained to give warning to Miss Hilman. I didn't know your name, sir, or I would have sent for you, and I couldn't get a chance to say a word until just now. I am very sorry that I gave Miss Hilman a wrong impression."

"Don't think of it, Mr. Litizki," said Clara, who was rapidly recovering her accustomed calmness; "it is all over now. You see, uncle, how strangely I am beset. There is no doubt, from Poubalov's actions, that he has followed me here. What is his purpose? To put Lizzie White on her guard? Then he has circumvented me, for he has had nearly two hours in which to act since he found from the register that you were staying at the Travelers', and perhaps my name, too, was on the book."

"Yes, I put it there myself, last night."

Clara rose and extended her hand to Litizki.

"You are a faithful friend," she said, "and I am very glad you told me this. I shall be the more satisfied with my talk with Miss White now, for I shall be able to ask questions that otherwise might not have occurred to me."

Litizki mumbled some words of acknowledgment of her kindness, and Mr. Pembroke asked anxiously whether she felt strong enough to proceed with her programme.

"Oh, yes," she answered bravely; "you won't need to wait longer. I will take the carriage afterward and Mr. Litizki, I suppose, won't be far away if I need escort."

"I shall not be far from you at any time," said the tailor.

"I shall be glad when you are through with it," sighed Mr. Pembroke. "I will accompany you as far as the house as I at first intended."

Litizki hung back as they started and remained within the entrance to the park until he saw them mount the steps, and until Mr. Pembroke had gone down again, leaving Clara in the house.

The servant who answered the ring had readily admitted that Miss White lived there, and had invited the callers to enter. She ushered Clara into a small reception-room, and, without asking her name, went to find Lizzie. Clara sat down to wait, feeling more perturbation than she had experienced at any time since her trouble began. She had not long to pass in painful speculations, for Lizzie White promptly responded to the summons.

"I supposed it was you," she said with a hard, resentful tone as she entered the room.

Lizzie would have been a comely girl if her rather sharp features had been softened by a pleasant expression. On the contrary, disappointment and bitterness dwelt in her eyes and drew down the corners of her mouth. She was dressed as a domestic servant, wearing a white cap and apron. She held an open letter in her hand, and sat down in the nearest chair without making the slightest advance to the kindly greeting that was upon Clara's lips as she rose. It was as if she expected a disagreeable scene, and was determined not only to see it through, but to contribute her full share to its unpleasantness.

Clara's greeting was unuttered.

"Why did you think it was I?" she asked.

"This," said Lizzie, indicating the letter; "it's from mother."

"Did she tell you I was coming?"

"No, but she tells me how you've hunted for Mr. Strobel, and how people say he went away with me. I knew well enough you'd come on here to find him."

"It is hardly correct," said Clara, gently, "to say that I came on to find him, though I would go anywhere to do so."

"Yes, I guess you would."

Lizzie was relentless. Her tone spoke determination to make Miss Hilman suffer to the utmost. Clara conquered the emotions that Lizzie stirred within her, and added:

"From the start, Lizzie, I have steadfastly denied that Mr. Strobel went away with you, or that your departure had to do with his disappearance. Please understand me: I did not expect to find Mr. Strobel with you. If I had thought differently, I should not have come."

Lizzie laughed scornfully.

"No," she said, "you would have known that you were too late. You are very brilliant, Miss Hilman, but I guess you're finding that it takes more than that to hold a man."

This was as bad as anything that Clara had anticipated as among the possibilities of the conversation; but, holding her great purpose firmly in mind, she persisted in continuing the interview. Suffer insult she must, but she would not give up without obtaining some manner of information.

"For your own good name, Lizzie – " began Clara, but the girl interrupted hotly:

"My good name! what have you to do with it, I should like to know? I hadn't seen any Boston papers, and I didn't know until I got this letter that the whole city had talked about me. They have said that I eloped with Mr. Strobel, and that settles it, I suppose. Why didn't you let mother write to me the day she received my letter?"

"I didn't ask her not to write," replied Clara, feeling a little guilty at the thrust; perhaps she had gone too far in influencing the communication between mother and daughter, setting her own anxieties and griefs above theirs. "I asked her not to mention Mr. Strobel's disappearance, and she chose herself not to write at all. I did so because I confidently expected to obtain proofs in the evening that he could not have gone with you."

"Then you did think so!" cried Lizzie triumphantly; "you did fear, at least, that all your education and money and high society ways were not enough to keep him from falling in love with a poor girl who has no position!"

"I had no such thought," returned Clara, greatly distressed; "I did think that you would be happier to know that such a thought could not occur to me, as you would know if the circumstances were such as to prove that Mr. Strobel could not have come to New York."

"Me, happy!" exclaimed Lizzie, bitterly, and then in the same breath – "You found it quite possible that he could have come, didn't you?"

Ignoring the last part of her remark, Clara quickly took her cue from the first, and said very gently:

"Your mother showed me your letter in which you said you could be almost happy."

The color rushed to Lizzie's cheeks as she replied:

"Mother ought to have known better."

Then she shut her lips hard together, and it was plain that she was obstinately determined to say no more on that subject.

"I have sincerely tried," said Clara, "to think and act in a friendly way, Lizzie."

"Friendly with a rival!" and again Lizzie laughed with bitter scorn.

"I should not need the evidence of your words," responded Clara, "to convince me that there never was any rivalry between us."

She rose to go, and Lizzie looked at her with startled eyes. Was this to be the end of the conversation? Clara was the picture of haughty pride, unmoved apparently by any of the thrusts that Lizzie had tried to make so cruel. Jealously insensible to Clara's kindly advances, Lizzie was completely overcome by her manifestation of calm superiority. She bit her lip and crumpled her mother's letter in her hand.

"Mr. Strobel is not here," she said, and her voice broke as if the words choked her.

"I know it," remarked Clara, coolly, with her hand upon the door.

"Miss Hilman! don't go yet!"

There was the sign of coming tears in Lizzie's eyes, and Clara looked down upon her pityingly.

Lizzie made one last effort to recall her determination to be bitter, and compel her visitor to suffer as she suffered, but hers was not the strength of character to meet emergencies, overcome difficulties, and play a part unswayed by her deeper, genuine devotions. She extended her arms upon the table before her, and, laying her head upon them, burst into passionate crying. Clara laid her hand caressingly on Lizzie's head and waited until the first storm of sobs had begun to subside. Then she said in a quiet but not unkind voice: