The Four Corners of the World. A. E. W. Mason
"Prisons," she answered with a break in her voice.
"What?" I exclaimed.
"Yes," she said. "Prisons--especially in the Northern Republics of South America. … He explained that, though you have more liberty here than anywhere else so long as you are free, you are more completely--destroyed--here than anywhere else if you once get into prison." From her hesitation I could guess that "destroyed" was a milder word than Juan Ballester had used.
"He described them to me," she went on. "Hovels where you sleep in the mud at night, and whence you are leased out by day to work in the fields without a hat--until, in a month or so, the sun puts an end to your misery."
I knew there was truth in that description. But it was not possible that Ballester could put his threat into force. It was anger now, not consternation, which filled me.
"Señorita, reflect!" I cried. "In whose garden are you standing now? The British Minister's--and Harry Vandeleur is an Englishman. It was no more than a brutal piece of bullying by Ballester. See! I am his secretary"--and she suddenly turned round towards me with a gleam in her eyes.
"Yes," she interrupted. "You are his secretary and Harry's friend. Will you help us, I wonder?"
"Show me how!" said I.
"It is not Harry whom he threatens, but my father"; and she lowered her eyes from mine and was silent.
"My father"; and her answer made my protestations mere vapourings and foolishness.
The danger was real. The British Minister could hold no shield in front of Santiago Calavera, even if there were no guilt upon him for which he could be properly imprisoned. But Olivia's extremity of terror and my knowledge of Santiago warned me that this condition was little likely to exist. I took Olivia's hands. They clung to mine in a desperate appeal for help.
"Come, Señorita," I said gravely. "If I am to help you, I must have the truth. What grounds had Ballester for his threat?"
She raised her head suddenly with a spurt of her old pride.
"My father is a good man," she said, challenging me to deny it. "What he did, he thought right to do. I am not ashamed of him. No!"--and then she would have stopped. But I would not let her. I dared not let her.
"Go on, please!" I insisted, and the pride died out of her face, and she turned in a second to pleading.
"But perhaps he was indiscreet--in what he wrote. He thought, perhaps, too much of his country, too little of those who governed it."
I dropped her hands. I had enough of the truth now. Rumour had always spoken of Santiago Calavera as an intriguer. His daughter was now telling me he was a traitor, too.
"We must find your father," I cried. "He brought you to the ball."
"Yes," said she. "He will be waiting to take me home."
We hurried back to the house and searched the rooms. Calavera was nowhere to be found.
"He cannot have gone!" cried Olivia, wringing her hands. In both of our minds the same question was urgent.
"Has he been taken away?"
I questioned the servants, and the door-keeper replied. A messenger had come for Don Santiago early in the evening. I found the British Minister at Olivia's side when I returned, and a smile of relief upon her face.
"My father made his excuses and went home," she said. "Important business came. He has sent the carriage back."
"May I take you home?" I asked.
"Thank you," said she.
It was getting near to dawn when we drove away. The streets were empty, the houses dark. Olivia kept her face close to the window, and never stirred until we turned the corner into the Calle Madrid. Then she drew back with a low cry of joy. The windows of the great house were ablaze with light. I helped her out of the carriage and rang the bell. We stood in front of the door talking while the coachman drove away to his stables.
"Say nothing to my father," Olivia pleaded. "Promise me, Señor."
I promised readily enough.
"I will come in with you, Señorita," I said. "I must talk with your father"; and I turned impatiently to the door and rang the bell again.
"To-night?" said she.
"Yes," said I. "I promised Harry Vandeleur to look after you."
"Did you?" said she, and though her anxieties were heavy upon her, a tender smile parted her lips.
Still no one came to the door.
"They must have gone to bed," I said, pushing against the panels. To my surprise the door yielded and quietly swung wide. We looked into a hall silent and empty and brightly lit. We were both in a mood to count each new phenomenon a disaster. To both of us there was something eerie in the silent swinging-in of the door, in the emptiness and bright illumination of the hall. We looked at one another in dismay. Then Olivia swept in, and I followed. She walked straight to a door at the back of the hall, hesitated with her hand upon the knob for just the fraction of a second, and flung it open. We went into a room furnished as a study. But the study, too, was empty and brightly lit. There was a green-shaded reading-lamp beside an armchair, as though but now the occupant had sat there and read. Olivia stood in the centre of the room and in a clear and ringing voice she cried:
"Father!"
Her voice echoed along the passages and up the stairs. And no answer came. She turned abruptly, and, moving with a swift step, she opened door after door. Each door opened upon a brightly lit and empty room. She ran a few steps up the stairs and stood poised, holding up in her white gloved hand the glistening skirt of her white frock. One by one she called upon the servants by name, looking upwards. Not a door was opened above our heads. Not a sound of any movement reached our ears.
Olivia ran lightly up the stairs. I heard the swift rustle of her gown as she moved from room to room; and suddenly she was upon the stairs again looking down at me, with her hand like a flake of snow upon the bannister. She gleamed against the background of dark wood, a thing of silver.
"There is no one in the house," she said simply, in a strange and quiet voice. She moved down the stairs and held out her hand to me.
"Good night," she said.
Though her voice never shook, her eyes shone with tears. She was but waiting until I went, to shed them.
"I will come to-morrow," I stammered; "in the morning. I may have news for you," and I bent over her hand and kissed it.
"Good night," she said again, and she stood with her hand upon the latch of the door. I went out. She closed the door behind me. I heard the key turn in the lock, the bolt shoot into its socket. There was a freshness in the air, a paling of the stars above my head. I waited for a while in the street, but no figure appeared at any window, nor was any light put out. I left her alone in that empty and illumined house, its windows blazing on the dawn.
III
I walked back to the President's house and sat comfortably down in my office to think the position over with the help of a pipe. But I had hardly struck the match when the President himself came in. He had changed his dress-coat for a smoking-jacket, and carried a few papers in his hand.
"I am glad to see that you are not tired," he said, "for I have still some work for you to do. I have been looking through some letters, and there are half-a-dozen of so much importance that I should like copies made of them before you go to bed."
He laid them on my writing-table with an intimation that he would return for them in an hour. I rose up with alacrity. I was in no mood for bed, and the mechanical work of copying