The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [3517]
"You have my word of honor," she said quite simply.
"Please go on." He sat down.
"You will see him too soon, I fear," she continued slowly. "If you had not come to him he would have gone to you." She swayed a little and pressed one hand to her eyes. "I would to God it were in my power to prevent that meeting!" she exclaimed desperately. Then, with an effort: "There are some things I want to explain to you. It may be that you will be willing to go then of your own free will. If I lay bare to you every step I have taken since I have been in Washington; if I make clear to you every obscure point in this hideous intrigue; if I confess to you that the Latin compact has been given up for all time, won't that be enough? Won't you go then?"
Mr. Grimm's teeth closed with a snap.
"I don't want that--from you," he declared.
"But if I should tell it all to you?" she pleaded.
"I won't listen, Miss Thorne. You once paid me the compliment of saying that I was one man you knew in whom you had never been disappointed." The listless eyes were blazing into her own now. "_I_ have never been disappointed in you. I will not permit you to disappoint me now. The secrets of your government are mine if I can get them--but I won't allow you to tell them to me."
"My government!" Miss Thorne repeated, and her lips curled sadly. "I--I have no government. I have been cast off by that government, stripped of my rank, and branded as a traitor!"
"Traitor!" Mr. Grimm's lips formed the word silently.
"I failed, don't you see?" she rushed on. "Ignominy is the reward of failure. Prince d'Abruzzi went on to New York that night, cabled a full account of the destruction of the compact to my government, and sailed home on the following day. I was the responsible one, and now it all comes back on me." For a moment she was silent. "It's so singular, Mr. Grimm. The fight from the first was between us--we two; and you won."
XXVI
IN WHICH THEY BOTH WIN
Mr. Grimm dropped into a chair with his teeth clenched, and his face like chalk. For a minute or more he sat there turning it all over in his mind. Truly the triumph had been robbed of its splendor when the blow fell here--here upon a woman he loved.
"There's no shame in the confession of one who is fairly beaten," Isabel went on softly, after a little. "There are many things that you don't understand. I came to Washington with an authority from my sovereign higher even than that vested in the ambassador; I came _as_ I did and compelled Count di Rosini to obtain an invitation to the state ball for me in order that I might meet a representative of Russia there that night and receive an answer as to whether or not they would join the compact. I received that answer; its substance is of no consequence now.
"And you remember where I first met you? It was while you were investigating the shooting of Senor Alvarez in the German embassy. That shooting, as you know, was done by Prince d'Abruzzi, so almost from the beginning my plans went wrong because of the assumption of authority by the prince. The paper he took from Senor Alvarez after the shooting was supposed to bear vitally upon Mexico's attitude toward our plan, but, as it developed, it was about another matter entirely."
"Yes, I know," said Mr. Grimm.
"The event of that night which you did _not_ learn was that Germany agreed to join the compact upon conditions. Mr. Rankin, who was attached to the German embassy in an advisory capacity, delivered the answer to me, and I pretended to faint in order that I might reasonably avoid you."
"I surmised that much," remarked Mr. Grimm.
"The telegraphing I did with my fan was as much to distract your attention as anything else, and at the same time to identify myself to Mr. Rankin, whom I had never met. You knew him, of course; I didn't."
She was silent a while as her eyes steadily met those of Mr. Grimm. Finally she went on:
"When next I met you it was