"I had hoped to turn my back once and for all on my connection with the Prince. But your German Secret Service had been warned about me. The Imperial Authorities were obviously afraid that Imight tell tales out of school. Scarcely had I arrived in London when a man who called himself Bryan Mowbury, but who looked and spoke like a German, came to see me and said he had been instructed to 'look after me.' What that meant, I was soon to discover. In a very few days I found that I was under the supervision of your Secret Service here. In fact, Mowbury gave me to understand that any indiscretion on my part as to my stay at Metz would result in my immediate denunciation to the English police as a spy.
"My friend, I had no alternative. I am not German; I am not English; I am a Pole. I have good friends in Germany, I have good friends in England, and their quarrels are not mine. I held my peace about the past and submitted to the incessant watch which Mowbury and his friends kept on my movements.
"And then one day I had a letter. It was from Count Plettenbach, the Crown Prince's aide-de-camp, as I knew by the hand-writing, for it was signed with an assumed name. In this letter the Count, 'on behalf of a mutual friend,' as he put it, requested me to hand back to a certain Mr. Mortimer, his accredited representative, 'Erich's present.' There were cogent reasons, it was added, for this unusual request.
"I sent no reply to that letter, although an address in Switzerland was given to which an answer might be despatched. Iwas resolved, come what may, not to part with the Star of Poland.
When Mortimer came, five days later, I told him the jewel was not mine to hand over, that it was part of the regalia of Poland and that I would never give it up.
"Mortimer replied that the German and Austrian Governments had decided to restore the independence of Poland, that probably an Austrian Archduke would be made king and that it was essential that the Star of Poland should be restored in order to include it in the regalia for the Coronation. But I knew what this Austro-German kingdom of Poland was to be, a serf state with not a shadow of that liberty for which every Pole is longing. Since Ihave been in England, I have kept in touch with the Polish political organizations in this country. Rass, as he calls himself, the landlord of this inn, is one of the most prominent of the Polish leaders in England.
"Mortimer reasoned with me in vain and finally went away empty-handed. But he did not abandon hope. Four successive attempts were made to get the jewel away from me. Twice my apartments at the Nineveh Hotel were rifled; once my dressing-room at the theatre was entered and searched whilst Iwas on the stage. But I wore the jewel day and night in a little bag suspended by a chain from my neck and they never got it from me.
"Two days before I came down to your house--it was the day before the murder--I was hustled by a group of men as I came out of the theatre. Fortunately the stage-door keeper came up unexpectedly and the men made off. But the encounter frightened me, and Iresolved to break my contract with the Palaceum and bury myself down here in the country.
"But somehow Mortimer learnt of my intention. The next night--it was the night of the murder--he came to the theatre and warned me against trying to elude his vigilance by flight. I have never forgotten his words.
"'I can afford to wait,' he said, 'for I shall get what I want: Ialways do. But you have chosen to set yourself against me and you will bitterly repent it!"As though the recollection proved too much for her, Nur-el-Din broke off her narrative and covered her face with her hands.
"And do you think that Mortimer did this murder?" asked Desmond gently.
Wearily the girl raised her head.
"Either he or one of his accomplices, of whom this girl is one!"she answered.
"But why not have put the jewel in a bank or one of the safe deposits? Surely it was risky to have entrusted it to a girl of whom you knew nothing""My friend,", said the dancer, "I was desperate. Mortimer sees and knows all. This unexpected meeting with the daughter of my old friend seemed at the moment like a heaven-sent chance to place the jewel, unknown to him, in safe hands. I felt that as long as I carried it on me, my life was in constant danger. It was only to-day, when I heard of the murder, that it dawned on me how indiscreet I had been. I might have guessed, since Miss Mackwayte knew Mortimer--""Miss Mackwayte knows Mortimer?" echoed Desmond in stupefaction.
"But certainly," replied Nur-el-Din. "Was it not I myself--" She broke off suddenly with terror in her eyes.
"Ah, no!" she whispered. "It is enough. Already I have said too much..."Desmond was about to speak when the door opened and a foreign-looking maid, whom Desmond remembered to have seen in the dancer's dressing-room, came in. She went swiftly to her mistress and whispered something in her ear.
The dancer sprang to her feet.
"A little moment... you will excuse me..." she cried to Desmond and ran from the room. The maid followed her, leaving Desmond alone.
Presently, the sound of Nur-el-Din's voice raised high in anger struck on his ears. He stole softly to the door and opened it.
Before him lay the staircase deserted. He tiptoed down the stairs to the first landing and listened. The murmur of voices reached him indistinctly from the room below. Then he heard Nur-el-Din crying out again in anger.
He craned his ear over the well of the staircase, turning his face to the window which stood on the landing. The window gave on a small yard with a gate over which a lamp was suspended and beyond it the fen now swathed in fog. The dancer's maid stood beneath the lamp in earnest conversation with a man in rough shooting clothes who held a gun under his arm. As Desmond looked the man turned his head so that the rays of the lamp fell full upon his face. To his unspeakable consternation and amazement, Desmond recognized Strangwise.