The Countess Muta. A novel

Front matter

LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE S SONS. Limited THE LUDGATE NOVELS. NADINE. Ey Mrs. Campbell Praed. MURDER OR MANSLAUGHTER? By Helen Mathers. BLACK MAIL. By R. Mounteney-Jephson. THE BROTHER OF THE SHADOW. By Mrs. Campbell Praed. THE SECRET OF BARRAVOE. By Lady Violet Greville. 7 TO 12: A DETECTIYE STORY. By Anna Katharine < Irei: MR. BARNES OF NEW YORK. By Archibald C. Gunter. FREE JOE. By the Author of "Uncle Remus." HERR RICHTER'S STRANGE EXPERIMENT. By W. H. Stacpoole. MONSIEUR MOTTE. By Grace King. MR. BAZALGETTE'S AGENT: A DETECTIYE STORY. By Leonard Merrick. WELL OUT OF IT. By John Habberton. BY THE NIGHT EXPRESS. By Keith Fleming. EDEN. By Edgar Saltus. THE TRUTH ABOUT TRISTREM YARICK. By Edgar Saltus. WHAT DREAMS MAY COME. By Gertrude Franklin Atherton. HERMIA. By Gertrude Franklin Atherton.

A TRANSACTION IN HEARTS. By Edgar Saltus. MISS DAYIS OF BROOKLYN. By Wenona Oilman. LOOKING BACKWARD: 2000-1887. Bv Edward Bellamy. FROM CLOISTER TO ALTAR. By Claud. OUT AT TWINNETT'S. By John Habberton, Author of " Helen's Babies." APPLES OF EDEN: A REALISM. By Estelle. THE COUNTESS MUTA. By Charles Howard Montague. A NOVEL BY CHARLES HOWARD MONTAGUE LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited Broadwav, Ludgate Hill GLASGOW, MANCHESTER, AND NEW YORK LONDON : WOODFALL AND KINDER, PRINTERS, 70 TO 76, I^QNG ACRE, W.C. Charles Howard Montague, the author of this woik, was such a rare and versatile genius that his sudden death, within a few days after the contract with us for this publication was signed, seems to make it fitting that we should acquaint the reader with some of his marked and peculiar characteristics.

Although but thirty-one years of age at the time of his decease, he had accomplished far more in many directions, than falls to the lot of most men in a much longer lifetime. There was not the slightest hint ofthe "abnormal " in his composition ; and though, in his early life, he was surrounded with the comforts of a delightful home, so much so, that, having been left to use his leisure time as he pleased while acquiring his education, his father feared a mistake had been made in not insisting upon the formation of business habits, such as were then usual with most New England boys. But his history has been the exception to all rules. His home was in Cambridge, Mass. He was fully fitted and equipped to enter Harvard College, when he suddenly decided that " I will not waste four years of my life in college.

Chapter I. An American Gentleman In London Becomes Informed Of

A VERY WICKED PLOT. A confusing succession of yellow street lights, flaring shop windows, buildings of all ages and descriptions, motley groups of both sexes, and a general babel of the voices of brawlers, revellers, and children at play were the conspicuous sights and sounds of the locality. A very tall man with black, bushy whiskers and hazel eyes, who would have been considered by most ladies even more than good-looking, and of quite a stately bearing too, had it not been for the rather ludicrous manner in which he listed his feet and swung his arms, was hastening with an inde scribable gait along the East India Road at the east end of London. Or rather he had been hastening, with the evident purpose of getting out of the neighbourhood as speedily as might be — for it was quite ten o'clock at night, and the environ ment was entirely in keeping with any uncomfortable suspicion he might entertain of his safety — but, happening to place the sole of his very ponderous and rapidly-moving boot upon a stone which rolled away unexpectedly from beneath it, he brought up in a very limp and helpless condition against a brick wall, where he sank gently down and lay quite still, to the huge edification of a crowd which speedily gathered about him.

As there could be no doubt that the violence of his fall had deprived the stranger of his senses, a consultation was held among some of the innermost of the surrounding circle, as to the best plan of procedure ; an eventual and most .important result of which discussion was his removal to a neighbouring public-house. Not that it mattered very much to Mr. Lemuel Baxter whether he came to himself beneath the dim stars, with the cold stones of the sidewalk for a pillow, or on a wooden settee in an overheated room ; but as it happened that upon this apparently insignificant circumstance depended the whole course and outcome of the series of events which are the basis of this narrative, we may be pardoned for referring to the removal of Mr. Lemuel Baxter's senseless form to the public-house in the East India Road, as a matter of some moment.

When the transfer had been effected, the proprietor of the place, having made up his mind, after careful inspection of the attire of the prostrate form, that its possessor was able to pay for whatever was done for him, and therefore not exactly the person to be put back out-of-doors, sent for a physician. The messenger who was despatched in quest of the professional man, had scarcely departed, however, when Lemuel Baxter opened his eyes, and corroborated this evidence of his return to consciousness by remarking that he guessed he came pretty near it that time, but he reckoned he was all right notwith standing. At which the crowd, who had come in with the expectation of enjoying something more sensational, were manifestly dis appointed. Lemuel Baxter then attempted to rise, but becoming con vinced, from the dizziness and temporary blindness which ren dered the effort but indifferently successful, that the violent contact of a head of ordinary thickness with a very thick brick wall was not calculated to improve the head or the body pertaining thereto, he sat down again and said he thought he would wait awhile.

AVhile he waited, he stared about him, and, although he had turned very pale and felt decidedly sick at the moment, made a mental note of his surroundings. It was not exactly a first-class hotel ; nor was it of the very lowest order of houses, as were some which he had passed in this vicinity. It was rather a quiet, unobtrusive place, and seemed to be largely the resort of sailors and foreign-looking indi viduals, a group of whom were collected in a remote corner, conversing in a language which Lemuel Baxter did not under stand. " How do you feel now, man ? " asked the landlord, bustling through the motley throng which was standing about the settee on which the stranger was seated, and bearing a mug of steam ing liquid in his hand. "Here, you gents as do not belong here, there's nothing more to be seen.

The gent is well enough where he is, and it ain't likely he'd be any better by having a hundred or so other gents staring him in the face and choking off his breath. Tom, see to that door, or you'll have us froze. Here, sir, drink this, and you'll feel better." " Much obliged," said Lemuel Baxter, accepting the glass, and draining off its contents, though its strength brought the tears into his eyes. "Would you mind telling me how far it is to Charing Cross ? I think somehow I must have lost my reckoning." " Farther than you'll care to go to-night, after that butt on your head, I think," returned the landlord. " Why, you've got a cut over your eye as long as my finger." Lemuel Baxter put his hand to his head in a vague way, and concluded that the landlord's diagnosis was correct. The observation was further corroborated by the physician, who bustled in with a case of surgical instruments, and after a brief examination assured the patient that his bones were as whole as they ought to be, and recommended that he go to bed after having his head bandaged.

" I guess," said Lemuel Baxter, glancing about the room, " that I'd better call a cab and get down to my hotel at Charing Cross." " Of course you may," said the physician ; " but I would advise you to stay where you are till morning. Some physi cians, now, would tell you not to sleep under the circumstances ; but I tell you that you'll be better off lying on your back after a knock of that sort than jolting along in an infernal cab. That's what /tell you." And as he looked around upon the spectators with the air of a very wise man indeed, who had most excellent reasons for a pardonable confidence in his own opinion, and as the patient, of course, did not know that the doctor was a very near friend of the landlord, and got all the practice the place afforded, on the condition that he should " stand in with the house when the good of the house required it."

Lemuel Baxter decided to take his advice. " Have you got any bed that a man can sleep on ? " demanded Mr. Baxter, looking about him with a distrustful eye. " No springs ! I can't go springs. I was brought up on the soft side of a barn floor and I haven't got used to these teetering arrangements yet. And no fire, mind you. I can't sleep with the thermometer at 90. Never could." " You're an American, I think ? " the landlord said, when he had recovered from a temporary paralysis into which this speech seemed to plunge him. " I'm not ashamed to say that I am," replied Lemuel Baxter, promptly, with as much patriotic satisfaction in his tones as a man with a two-inch cut over his right eye, and the very un comfortable impression that the room was circling about him, could be supposed to manifest.

" Oh, yes," said the landlord, " we can accommodate you with 'most anything here. Tom ! here, look alive ; have the springs taken off the bed in No. 13. Wait a bit, though." The landlord hesitated a moment, quite unaware that in this small circumstance of selecting a sleeping apartment for his guest he was affecting the whole tenor of that gentleman's after life. " If you don't mind a few old trunks and baggage " " I don't mind anything. Don't bother me," said Mr. Baxter, a little testily, for his head had begun to ache as if it were splitting, and nausea was added to his giddiness, whether owing to the manipulations of the physician, who was making an application to the wounded part, I am unable to say. Accordingly, the landlord settled the question with Tom forthwith, and being anxious to clinch the matter before there was any opportunity for Mr. Baxter to reconsider his acquies cence in the physician's advice, had the patient helped up stairs with all possible despatch to a rear chamber which was not commonly used as a sleeping apartment, and in which were stored a variety of empty trunks and dusty furniture in a very dilapidated condition.

It contained, however, a bed frame, which, by the aid of a few accessories from another part of the house, was made up into a couch whose hardness the most finical expert would certainly not attempt to disparage, and which, in the end, might have rivalled even the superior attractions of the " barn floor," to which Mr. Lemuel Baxter's mind so fondly returned as one of the visions of his departed youth. And as it was rather a chilly night, about the first of February, and there had been no fire in the dreary place within the memory of man, there was little cause for complaint as to the heat either. So that altogether Mr. Lemuel Baxter ought to have been fairly well pleased with the prompt gratification of his wishes, which could not have been more literally carried out, unless he actually had been taken into the stable.

That gentleman, certainly made no complaint. He refused to take off his clothes, but laid himself down, boots and all, and after producing, in the plain sight of everybody, a very dangerous-looking plaything in the shape of a selfcocking, five-chambered revolver, which he placed under the overcoat he had rolled up for a pillow, bade his attendants good-night. The strapping, red-faced fellow called " Tom " then placed upon the top of a trunk, within easy reach of Mr. Baxter's hand, a heavy oak stick with which the lodger was to pound the floor, in case he required anything during the night, and a match or two with which he might relight the lamp if he so desired. " Anything more, sir ? " asked Tom. "You've done it all, I guess," returned. Lemuel Baxter. The attendant withdrew, leaving the light burning.

When he had gone, the American looked critically about him, for he was not wholly pleased with the situation. The miscellaneous articles with which the room had been stored had been swept into one huge pile in the corner. There were two curtainless windows, with the shutters closely drawn outside. The bed was placed against a rather flimsy partition, unplastered on his side, the bare, rough beams of which were close at his elbow. The adjoining room was apparently unoccupied, for there was no noise there, and he could scarcely have failed to hear it, had there been any. " I'll take my chances," said Lemuel Baxter to himself. He arose, locked the door, got back to bed, and blew out the light. " Well, I'll be jiggered if I'm not laid down in a queer place ! " thought he. " I'm the most extraordinary man I ever saw to run bump into something unexpected.

I rise in a palace and sleep in an attic. If Jerusha could see me now ! " Shortly after which apparently humorous reflection — for it seemed to afford him some merriment despite the pain in his head — he dropped off into a sound slumber. It must have been several hours later when he awoke. The pain in his head had departed, and for the moment the recol lection of his exact whereabouts. The sound of voices, which, though subdued, were perfectly distinct, and seemed to come from behind the flimsy partition separating him from the adjoin ing room, gradually brought back to his mind the circumstances of his situation. He lay quite still, listening in a languid way to the conversation. He concluded that he must have been awakened by the falling of some heavy object upon the floor or against the partition in the next room, for the first words which floated into his understanding seemed to have reference to carelessness on somebody's part in making so much noise.

" What do you want, — to let everybody know we're stirring?" said a gruff voice, which was evidently not that of a native-born Englishman, though its owner seemed at no loss for English words. " I'm not responsible for the accident," returned a second voice, also in a foreign accent, speaking with an aristocratic drawl which might have been assumed to give its possessor, in the ears of the person to whom he addressed himself, an air of indifference to vulgar emotion. " That champagne at Vildock's was so good that I think I took rather more than was necessary." " I hope you're not drunk," said the gruff voice, " for my time is precious, and you must be clear away from here before daylight." " How mighty snug you do keep yourself, to be sure ! " returned the drawling voice. " Mine's a snug business," was the brief and significant reply.

" Come, draw up, boy, and let's hear it, and quick abojt it, too, for I must get some sleep before breakfast." " I don't like the looks of your place, though I suppose you know best," said the other voice, suspiciously. " If some people were to get wind of what I am going to say " There was an ominous pause, during which Mr. Baxter, who was now broad awake, imagined some significant ges ture. " You can be sure that when I bury myself in such a den as this it's because it's a safer place than some others," answered the gruff voice. " This next room is a store-room, always locked, always empty. On this side is the house wall ; on that is the corridor. Down there is the kitchen, and up there the roof. As for the corridor " There were hasty steps, and a sound as of a door thrown open quickly and shortly afterwards closed.

" Deserted, as you see. As for the rest, 1 don't think we need trouble ourselves ; do you ? You see, we're in an L at the very end of the house, and as snug as — well, as I occasionally find it convenient to be." " Hem ! " said the other voice. "And you're perfectly sure of the store-room ? I don't like the look of that partition. What if some spy ? " "Stuff!" said the gruff voice. "I know this house and these people. If any suspicious parties came here inquiring for me, I'd know it. Get on. We're losing time." There was some shuffling of feet and scraping of furniture, and Lemuel Baxter concluded that the two men in the next room had taken a seat at a table. He was not quite clear in his mind whether, as a matter of honour, he ought not to rap on the partition ; but as the point was a nice one and took some time to settle, the conversation was allowed to proceed until it had gone so far that Lemuel Baxter wouldn't have made his presence known, as he himself expressed it, " for a farm down east."

" My friend," said the aristocratic voice, dropping its drawl and speaking in so low a tone that Mr. Baxter but barely heard it. " I believe that it is safe to speak to you in con fidence? " " Your father should have told you that," returned the gruff voice shortly, and with significant inflection. "That's all well enough about my father," returned the other, cautiously, "but this is myself; and some of these fellows are very unscrupulous, and I don't fancy having a hole bored through my vitals at my age. I've got a little to live for, you know." " Well ?" said the gruff voice, impassively. "Well," answered the other, in something between an undertone and a whisper, "I wish to speak of Andrew Zaluski." " Zaluski ! " echoed the gruff voice, quickly. " What not " " The same," said the other, anticipating the completion of the sentence.

"Without doubt the Russian Government would give something for Zaluski?" " I shouldn't wonder." Lemuel Baxter thought that the tone in which this reply was conveyed was peculiarly grim and significant. " Since Alexander II. was sent to join the angels, a year ago this coming March, there has been some inquiry for Zaluski, I believe ? " " A little." " Very well. I know where he is." " So do I." There was a slight pause, during which Lemuel Baxter's anxious ears plainly caught the sound of excited breathing on the other side of the partition. " I'll tell you what," said the voice of the informant, with a triumphant inflection, " You police may think you are very sharp and all that, and that you know where Zaluski is ; but I'll risk my life on the statement that you don't know his plans and his intentions, for there is only one man living besides Zaluski who does know them, and that's myself.

And there you have it." " Why, the reprobate ! " thought Lemuel, " he's betraying his best friend." " Well ? " said the gruff voice again. " Well, then, would you like to have the inside of some clever little revolutionary schemes, and more than all, Zaluski on Russian soil with the proofs of them in his possession ? " "As I am paid for such things," returned the gruff voice, " I may reasonably be expected to answer Yes to that." Lemuel Baxter imagined that the tone was a trifle con temptuous, as if the owner of the gruff voice ' did not entertain any too much respect for the man who, on whatever grounds, was willing to sell the life of the man who trusted him. " Well, then," said the other, eagerly, " as I haven't any sympathy whatever with these crazy bomb-throwers, though I unintentionally happened to be born among them, I'm ready to do you the favour I spoke of, if you're ready to return it by obliging me.

So there you have it." " So, so," said he of the gruff voice, as if he were quite pre pared for this. " State your case." "The fact is I'm wound up, entangled — you under stand — with a certain young woman, and I want to cut loose. That's about it. She's likely to prove troublesome." " Ay ? And what is your idea ? " " To send her into Russia with Zaluski." Lemuel Baxter rose bolt upright in bed. " There ! What was that ? " exclaimed the last voice. The chair scraped on the floor and the door of the room was quickly opened. " Your guilty conscience, I think," returned the gruff man, after a brief pause. " And so," he added, closing the door and evidently standing with his back against it, for there was no sound of his footsteps coming away ; " that is your plan ?" " Precisely," was the reply in a bold tone.

" What do you think of it ? " " That it's a — rascally scheme," returned the other man, but whether ironically or in dead earnest it was hard to determine. The informer uttered a forced laugh. " And for that reason, I suppose," he added, with unmis takable irony, " you will refuse ? " "I did not say that." " No, I observe not. If Zaluski were taken what would become of him ? " " You know that." " And the girl, if a suspect, and of course she would be a suspect, being in his company, would be sent to Siberia ?" " If she could not explain her presence to the satisfaction of the government." The informer laughed again. " I'll answer for that, my friend." "Ay?" " She will explain nothing. She's dumb." " Dumb ! " echoed the other. " Dumb ! " thought Lemuel Baxter — and he thought it so intensely that he almost spoke it aloud.

" Quite a novel idea, eh ? " said the aristocratic voice, affect ing a bantering tone, though it was evident that some feeble spark of shame was struggling for life in his callous breast. "It certainly never was presented to me before," was the reply. " No ; I should think likely not," said the other, " so you see it is perfectly safe. In the first place, she's had too little experience of the world to have the faintest idea of what all the fuss would be about. Her silence would be taken for obstinacy or fear, for she can hear perfectly well, and there is no flaw in her vocal organs." Lemuel Baxter swelled with righteous indignation and aimed a blow at an imaginary face in the darkness. "Then why should she be dumb?" questioned the gruff man. " It's too long a story for me to tell," returned the other.

" Besides it don't matter. The question is, if I deliver up Zaluski, will you see that the transportation of the girl is not interfered with ?" There was a slight pause, during which the gruff man appeared to be considering the proposition. "You are aware, of course, what it means to be transported to Siberia ? " " I can't help that, my friend," returned the other hastily. " One of us must suffer, she or I, and self-preservation is the first law of nature." " Oh ! " said the gruff voice. " You are very much entangled then?" " Very much ? I should say so. Curse her ! I travelled all over Europe with her, looking for a good chance to — but that don't matter." " And she now is ?" " In London." " Will she go with Zaluski ? " " Will she ? She can't help herself. Curse her ! She didn't want to go with me generally.

Still she went. You see, when one is travelling a voice is a necessary thing — or some thing to take the place of it. And she But never mind that, either. I didn't come here to give you a history." "No? And how about Zaluski? On what grounds will he burden himself with her ? " " To deliver her to fictitious relatives in St. Petersburg and so oblige me. As he will not reach St. Petersburg he will never discover the fraud. That's what I stipulate— that he be arrested as soon as he crosses the frontier. Oh, you need not look like that, my friend, you know neither when, how, nor in what character he is to go. And, believe me, it is no boy's game with him." "Well, then," said the other man, plainly, " if I understand you, you will give the police the information as to the return, plans and accomplices of Zaluski, provided the police agree to regard Zaluski's travelling companion as a dangerous person."

" Understand me," said the other. " The facts are never to go outside of us two. You are to notify them that she is a dangerous person." " And the proofs of it ? " " They will have to discover for themselves. They are not likely to be too particular in this case." " No," said the other, thoughtfully. " No. You are right. They are not. Zaluski has been much sought for. He is a man among men. Well, it's not my business what becomes ofthe girl." " I thought you'd see it in that light," said the other, with a sigh of relief. " A very mild cigar, this. Could you favour me with a light ? Thanks. You agree, then ? " " If you have no other price." " What other should I have ? I may be, perhaps, a — bad egg ; but I wouldn't, no, hang me if I would ! — sell my friend for money. I'm in a desperately bad fix with this girl.

Poor Zaluski ! By the bye, lest there be any foolishness about this, to upset a thing which has nearly worried me into a premature grave to carry out, just cast your eye over that address. If there's any trouble about this girl it will come from that quarter. If there is any hue and cry raised in that quarter about a girl of any kind, it's that girl. Don't you misunder stand me, and govern yourself accordingly." " Charles Augustus Sartoris, De Clare Hotel, Charing Cross," said the gruff voice, apparently reading aloud from a card the other had handed him. Lemuel Baxter swore a mental oath that if he forgot that name he would dash his brains out in the morning against the nearest lamp-post. " I know the fellow, don't I ? " questioned the gruff voice. " He's in the show business ? " " Thought-reader, is the precise name of the humbug, I believe," the other returned.

"The gentleman has my lady at present at his apartments. He is going away in a few days. When he returns she will not be there. You under stand?" " And when do I " " Receive full particulars about Zaluski ? Let me see. Where were you intending to be one week from to-day ? " " Nothing happening, I should be in Paris." " So should I. Give me the address." To Lemuel Baxter's intense disgust the desired information was written and read in silence. " And now then," said the gruff voice, " this finishes for to night ? " " It is all, I believe," returned the other. " Then allow me to light you downstairs. It's near day light and you should not be seen here." After some further trivial remarks on both sides, Lemuel Baxter heard the door open and both men go out, and with evident caution steal along the corridor.

Their departure was, in a sense, a great relief to him. For the last ten minutes he had been sitting bolt-upright in bed, not daring to stir, lest the slight noise resulting should disturb the conference. Now he sank back to his pillow and lay staring with wide-open eyes into the darkness above his head, in a perfect whirlwind of astonishment and indignation. And the more he thought the more violent these emotions became. " The devilish depravity of these foreigners ! " he kept mut tering to himself. " I wouldn't have believed it of any human being ! No ; I wouldn't have believed it ! It makes me blush for my kind ! " After the lapse of several minutes, the footsteps of one man came back alone. " I'd give something to have a good look at the face of that other fellow," thought Lemuel Baxter.

" This man I don't care so much about, as it seems to be his business and he's hardened to it. But the other man ! And ten to one this poor dumb girl that he wants to have starved and beaten to death, loves and trusts him. Oh ! the blindness of womankind ! I don't believe Jerusha would believe it if I told her myself! " With which consolatory reflection Lemuel Baxter pru dently composed himself — not to sleep — but to lie noiselessly and patiently awake till morning.