Gibbs George
The Secret Witness
CHAPTER XVI
THE BEG OF RATAJ
When Marishka reached the top of the stairs, entered the Harim, gazing terrified into the darkness from which she had emerged, she pushed aside the Kis-Kelim and listening fearfully for sounds of footsteps below, then closed the door, turned the key, and put her back against it, viewing with a new vision the interior which a while ago had seemed so friendly. Without Yeva who had given its disorder a personality, the room seemed alien, hostile and madly chaotic. For the first time since the reassurances of Captain Goritz in the green limousine as to her safety, she had a definite sense of personal danger. She was not timorous by nature, and the hope of success in her mission of atonement had given her the courage for the venture. She realized now that the will which had kept her buoyant through two arduous days and nights had suddenly forsaken her and left her supine, without hope or initiative. The actions of the man at the doorway below had frightened her. He had been so uncompromising in his ugliness. The shock of her awakening had been rudely unexpected, and had bewildered her with its brutal significance. She was a prisoner in this Turkish house, in an obscure quarter of a half Oriental town, and night was imminent, a night which seemed to possess untold possibilities for evil. What was to happen? Why had not Captain Goritz returned? Enemy though she now knew him to be, even Goritz was a refuge in this perilous situation. And yet it seemed certain that the man at the foot of the stairs was acting under his orders or under the orders of another who was accountable to him.
Weakness overpowered her and she threw herself on the pile of cushions in the window and buried her face in her hands, as if by blinding herself to the imminent facts of her surroundings she could free her spirit of the terrors which were overtaking it. As in her dream, her faculties were elusive, thoughts and half-thoughts conflicting and interchangeable. The rush and the roar of the hurrying motor car, the kaleidoscope of the maddened crowd, the shots, the sunlight and then the spangled darkness with the sound of voices. She started upright in her cushions, her face pallid and drawn, her thoughts now focusing with sudden definiteness. The voices! They were no dream—no more a dream than the other horrors that encompassed her. She tried to remember what they had said. "Ten thousand kroner—the goose that lays the golden egg–" What did the phrases mean? Another—"To be kept in seclusion, of course, but you will accede to all her wishes." The meaning of the voices became clearer, at every moment. "Should she care to write, you will send a message!" Marishka put her hand to her lips as though to stifle a cry, and then sank back with a gasp of comprehension. Goritz! He had expected her to send a message, and had prepared for its delivery. But why? How could he have known!… Slowly the meaning of it all came to her. His certainty and insistence as to Hugh Renwick's pursuit—the belief that Renwick would go at once to the Hotel Europa! The power of suggestion! And she had followed it blindly—unawares, leading Hugh Renwick into this deadly trap which Goritz had laid. She read the plan now in all its insidious perfection. There was something malign—hypnotic—in an influence which could so easily compel compliance. And Hugh? She had written him to come here—to the door in the court below, where men would be waiting—perhaps to take his life. It was too horrible!
Nature mercifully intervened. The strain of long days and nights of anguish had reached the limit of her endurance, and her nerves, too, long under tension, suddenly rebelled. She sank helplessly upon the floor, sobs racking her body from head to foot. She did not know how long she lay there, but when she raised her head it was already growing dark in the room, like the shadows that were stealing about her heart. Whichever way she turned, groping mentally for a thought which would lead her toward a light, disorder reigned, danger threatened. If there was a man at the foot of the stairs to prevent her escape, there would be others beneath the windows and at the door into the garden.
Yeva! She clung to the hope of Yeva's sincerity—the last thing left to her. It was difficult for her to believe that this child with the body of a woman could be guilty of complicity in any plot. She might have obeyed instructions to be the bearer of any note that Marishka might write—indeed her childish prattle as to the wishes of her lord and master verified the voices of Marishka's dream, and suggested that Marishka should be permitted to do as she chose—so that Yeva had offered, without fear of consequences, to deliver Marishka's note at the hotel. She had even consented to leave the lower door open that Marishka might escape and follow her. No woman of the world could have acted a part as Yeva had played it. If the girl had known of the guardian of the lower door, her skill in dissimulation was consummate—so much out of keeping with the simplicity of her mind as to be entirely incredible. Yeva was innocent, a mere tool in the hands of Captain Goritz, who disposed all the pawns in his command to play his game. Yeva had been permitted to depart without hindrance. Would Marishka's note reach its destination? Or would it be intercepted and its message read by Captain Goritz? His cunning had amazed her but it frightened her now. A ruse so carefully planned could have for its object nothing less than the obliteration of Hugh Renwick, as a prisoner or something worse—perhaps Death! She shuddered. She, Marishka, would unwittingly have caused it! She had asked him to come at midnight and knock upon the door in the court below and she knew enough of Hugh to be sure that if he received the message, no matter how great the danger to himself, he would come. The note! If she could recall it! She would suffer whatever Goritz had in store for her, if Hugh could only be spared. She had already done him hurt enough—without the chance of this last most dreadful sacrifice in her behalf—in vain. He would come to her and she must wait—without the power to warn him, and perhaps see him killed before her very eyes.
Her thoughts made her desperate—and the idea of another attempt to escape came into her head. If she could only reach the street, she could run—and it would be a better race with her pursuer than she had given Hugh in the rose gardens of the Archduke! She made the attempt, quietly opening the door by which she had entered the room and passing on tip-toe down the corridor to the door with the dutap. She drew aside the curtain which covered it and noiselessly turned the knob. As she peered out she found herself staring straight into the eyes of Zubeydeh. The woman's look was cold but full of understanding.
"Does the Fräulein wish anything?" she asked without the slightest change of expression. Her voice was colorless, like the speech which might be expected from a graven image.
"I—I was hungry," stammered Marishka helplessly. "I—I am sorry to bother you."
"If you will return to the room within, I will bring food at once," she said stolidly. And so Marishka, once more balked in her enterprise, went back to the Harim. Strong as she was, armed anew with the sudden strength of desperation, she knew that even if she could use her strength she was no match for this massive creature who, in the selamlik nearby, perhaps had men within call. She went to the windows and peered out into the street. There was no one in sight, except a tall man in black who carried an umbrella. She watched him a moment through the carved screen, but he went up the street and disappeared around a corner. The garden seemed to be deserted. Would the gate to the street be locked? She made an effort to move the lattice of meshrebiya, but it was nailed fast to the main wood work of the house. Her case was hopeless. There was nothing to do but wait upon the clemency—the mercy of Captain Goritz. A new idea of her captor was being born in her, of a creature who differed from the courteous German official of Vienna and Agram. His eyes haunted her, the dark eyes set just a little obliquely in his head, a racial peculiarity which she had not been able to identify. She knew now. They were Oriental, like Zubeydeh's, like those of the man at the door below, alien, hostile and cruel. And yet it was curious how the smile in them had disarmed her and she remembered, with a futile glow of returning hope, that she had not feared him, that she had even had the temerity to defy him. But her courage had ebbed—she could not have defied him now and in the darkness while she waited for Yeva she feared him—feared him.
It seemed strange that Yeva had not returned. She had been gone an hour or more and the Hotel Europa could not be a great distance away. As the moments passed she gave up the other hope of persuading the girl, when she returned, to go back at once to the hotel and reclaim the note, before Hugh could get it. Could anything have happened to her? Marishka wanted her—the sound of a voice, the touch of a feminine hand, her airs and graces—the foibles of a child perhaps, but intensely virile in their childishness and intensely human. It seemed that even Yeva was to be denied to her.
For when Zubeydeh brought lights and food the woman made no comment upon the absence of the girl—a confirmation of Marishka's suspicions that Zubeydeh was aware of the conspiracy and what was to come of it. But as Marishka made a pretense of eating what the woman had brought, she summoned courage to inquire.
"Yeva went out into the city by the passage to the street. She has not yet returned?"
"I do not know," she said in her heavy colorless voice.
The woman lied. Marishka knew it by the shifting glance of her eye.
"Will you kindly inform His Excellency—I need mention no names—that I should be very glad if he would meet me at his convenience–"
"Excellency is not here," said the woman.
"Well, when he comes, I should be grateful if you will deliver my message."
"I will tell him."
Nothing more. Her manner was not discourteous, but her voice was forbidding. She had been given instructions to keep silence. And just before leaving the room, a further confirmation of Marishka's conviction that Yeva was at that very moment in another part of the house, Zubeydeh gathered up the two pieces of drapery which Marishka had given the girl, and carried them out of the room.
The hours lengthened while Marishka sat trying to gather the remnants of her courage to face Captain Goritz when he should come to her. The Turkish lamp which hung from the ceiling burned dimly, casting grotesque shadows about the room, flickering in patches of tawdry light upon the gilt of the embroidered hangings, and touching the blades of the ancient weapons which decorated the wall about the couch, scimitars, swords, daggers and spears! Marishka got up and examined them more closely, curiously, as though she had not seen them before. She shuddered a little as she plucked from its sheath a small dagger with a bronzed handle, and found that its blade was very sharp and bright. She reached up to put it back, but as she did so there was a sound from the room beyond the passage, and a knock upon the door. So she slipped the weapon into the waistband of her skirt, beneath her blouse, and went to her seat among the pillows. In a moment the knock was repeated, and in reply to her call, the door opened and she heard footsteps along the corridor.
The man who entered was tall and slender, with a hooked nose, heavy brows, and a beard streaked with white. He wore the turban and bright green belt which denoted the Moslem, and the fingers with which he touched brow, lips, and heart in salutation were covered with rings.
"Saläm 'alaikum," he muttered, bowing.
Marishka knew no reply to this and made none, waiting in some trepidation for him to proceed. He was a villainous looking creature, but comported himself with an air of some dignity. In a moment he spoke again in excellent German.
"I hope that Excellency has been able to make herself quite comfortable in my poor house."
As he spoke, Marishka remembered that this was one of the voices of her dreams, the gruff voice which talked with Goritz.
Something was required of her in reply, and so, with an effort,
"Yeva has been very kind, Effendi," she managed.
"Yes. Allah has been good to me. Yeva has a heart of gold."
"You are the Beg of Rataj?" Marishka asked.
He salaamed again.
"Will you tell me, then, what has become of Herr Hauptmann Goritz?"
The man's face wore a sudden crafty look of incomprehension.
"Goritz, Excellency?" he asked coolly. "There is no one of that name in my acquaintance."
Marishka accepted the rebuke and ventured timidly, "I mean, the—the Excellency—who brought me here–"
"Ah! Lieutenant von Arnstorf! He has gone, I think, upon a journey," said the Beg.
Marishka was silent a moment, thinking.
"That is strange. It is very necessary that I should see him."
The man smiled up at the lamp above his head, revealing a void where teeth should have been.
"I need not say that he has directed that everything possible shall be done for your comfort—and it is my pleasure to obey Excellency's orders, in so far as my poor house can afford. And even were these not Excellency's instructions," he added with a grin, "it is an honor for the house of Rataj to have beneath its roof one so noble and so beautiful."
A wave of nerves swept over Marishka for the admiration in his glance was unmistakable, but she knew that any possible chance of safety for Hugh—for herself—lay in the favor of this man. And so with a shudder of repugnance which she concealed with difficulty, she motioned to him to be seated. His small eyes appraised her eagerly for a moment, and then he sank upon a cushion near her, and without asking permission, took out a cigarette.
"I—I shall not forget your kindness, Effendi," said Marishka, struggling for her composure. "Already Yeva and I are good friends."
"Ah, that is fortunate, for it was upon the question of the future of Yeva that I have come to talk with you."
"In what may I serve you, Effendi?"
He sighed deeply.
"Times change, Excellency. In the days gone by, the Begs of Rataj were reckoned among the rulers of Bosnia, high in the counsels of the Janissaries, feudal lords of great domains. But I, alas! the last of the Begs of Rataj, whose father even held the sway of a king, have been deprived of my tithes, and reduced to the low condition of a merchant in rugs, a dealer in antiquities, dependent upon the good will of tourists from the West, reduced perhaps one day to sit in a stall in the Carsija. It is not so much that I am no longer rich, but it is my pride, the pride of race which suffers under misfortune."
Whither was the man leading? Much as she distrusted him, her curiosity was aroused, and she listened, watching him intently.
"You will perhaps understand," he continued gravely, "that all this is very hard upon Yeva, the star of my heart, with whom Allah has blessed me. The West has flowed in upon the East at Bosna-Seraj, and engulfed it. We are no more a simple Moslem city with the tastes of our fathers; and our women are no more satisfied to remain as they were, childish, ignorant, and unlettered. The spell of the Occident is upon the land. Vienna, Berlin, Paris, have come to Bosna-Seraj. Our women sigh for the things which are beyond the mountains. The peace of the home is invaded and our women are unhappy, because their lords and masters have no money to procure for them the things that they wish."
Money! Thank God! This man could be bought!
"And Yeva?" Marishka asked, trembling in fear for the new hope that had risen.
"It is the same with her as with the others, Excellency," he shrugged despairingly. "She is but a child. I have been foolishly liberal with her—as liberal as my poor means allowed, and she has come to know the value of money—the dross for which men perjure their souls, and die if need be. Yeva, alas! wishes jewels, the pretty clothing of the women of fashion. And I, as I have related, being a mere dealer in rugs, Excellency, have not been able to give them to her. It has made unhappiness come into my household; it has made me, the Beg of Rataj, hereditary ruler of thousands, ashamed to raise my head or my voice in her presence—I, Excellency, her lord and master!"
He wagged his head to and fro with an air which might have been comical, had not Marishka's need been so desperate. But she read him easily, a vile, blackmailing rogue who held no allegiance higher than what he got from it—a man who, for all his fine flow of talk, could be dangerous as well as unscrupulous. But Marishka met him fairly.
"I have taken a fancy to Yeva, Effendi," she said quietly. "She will tell you perhaps that I have already given her several trifles which she fancied. Perhaps I can do something to solve your problems. In my own country I am considered wealthy and I can be generous with those who treat me with kindness."
"Ah!" The Effendi's eyes sparkled hungrily. The Austrian countess was no fool. She had already begun to understand him.
"To treat Her Excellency with kindness! And could I do anything else? My house, poor as it is–"
"Effendi," Marishka cut in boldly, "let us waste no words. I am a prisoner in your house, at the instance of Captain—of Herr Lieutenant von Arnstorf–"
"A prisoner? Has not the Excellency–?"
"One moment. I am not aware how much you know of the political situation which has brought me to Bosna-Seraj, but I do know that I am confined here against my will—a prisoner in a house within the realms of my own country. Of course you know that I have sought to escape, that I have written to a friend who will do what he can to liberate me."
"Excellency, I beg of you–"
"Please let me finish. For political reasons, the fact of my presence here and my mission should be kept a secret. My friends, therefore, would not wish to call upon General Potiorek, the governor, for soldiers or police, if my liberty can be secured quietly—without commotion. I am willing to meet you upon any reasonable grounds."
Marishka paused, for the man had risen and was pacing the floor slowly.
"Ah, Excellency, I, too, will waste no further speech, for I see that you are a woman of the world, and I, Beg of Rataj, am only a seller of rugs. But I am placed in a difficult position. It has pained me deeply to see you constrained to stay in my poor house against your will. And yet, what would you? His Excellency has done me many favors, and gratitude is one of the strongest traits in a nature which suffers much misuse. I do not know anything of politics, or of the controversy between you, and I have simply obeyed the dictates of my heart in giving his Excellency some proof—some return of his kindnesses to me. But since I have seen you, heard your voice, felt the distinction of your presence in my poor house, I am torn between my emotions—of gratitude and of pity."
"How much do you want?" said Marishka quietly.
"Excellency, the brutality of the words!"
"I mean them. How much?"
The man's keen eyes appraised her quickly and then looked away, but he sank upon his cushion again, wagging his head and breathing a deep sigh to measure his humiliation.
"I am but a poor man, Excellency," he sighed again.
Upon Marishka's wrist was a bracelet set with diamonds. She slipped it off quickly and handed it to him.
"You are a poor man," she said. "I give you this—for Yeva."
"Ah, yes. For Yeva." But his eyes were regarding the bracelet, which he was weighing in his hand.
"And if you do what I wish, I shall give you fifteen thousand kroner more."
"Fifteen thou–!" he whispered. "Excellency, a fortune–"
"If you do what I wish–"
"Anything—Excellency has but to speak."
Marishka deliberated a moment and then, "You will first remove the guard at the foot of the private stairway to this–"
"Excellency, the hour is late. If you can be comfortable in my house until the morning, all shall be arranged. For tonight I have planned–"
"No. It must be as I wish. You will also take a message addressed to Mr. Hugh Renwick at the Hotel Europa, and find him–"
"And he will give me money?" the man broke in quickly, his bony fingers clutching like talons at the bracelet. "He will give me fifteen thousand kroner?"
Marishka hesitated. The price she had mentioned was cheap for her liberty—for freedom from the fear that had all day obsessed her, but it was a large sum, and one which it might be impossible to procure at this time of night.
"He will give you such assurances as you may require. At least he will give you something. I shall write that I need this sum of money, and he will surely do what he can."
"Something—yes," he mused. "Something is, of course, better than nothing at all. But how can I be certain that I shall see him?"
"Ah, but you must, Effendi. It is necessary for you, to find him—and at once."
"But if he should refuse?"
"He will not. Do you consent?"
He salaamed deeply.
"Excellency's wish is my law."
So Marishka sat before the tabourette and wrote:
I have promised the bearer of this note fifteen thousand kroner, as the condition of my liberation. Give him what you can, and arrange for the payment of the balance tomorrow. This is the cry of desperation. Do not come here or attempt to see me. It is dangerous. I will come to you.
M.
She sealed the note and handed it to him. He turned it over and over in his fingers, his gaze aslant.
"But suppose," he repeated slowly, "that I should not be able to find him."
"You must," she said with desperate hardihood. "If the note should not reach him, the conditions of our agreement change. And be sure of this, Effendi—if harm comes to Hugh Renwick, payment will be exacted from you to the tenth part of a hair. His safety and my freedom–"
"I do not comprehend," said the man, his brows raised in a well-simulated surprise. "What have I to do with the safety of this Excellency? He can be in no danger, here in Bosna-Seraj. We are a peaceable people–"
"Still—" she said distinctly, "you will remember."
He shrugged and took a pace away from her, still fingering the note.
"I do not comprehend," he repeated. "But I will do as you request. I shall go at once," and he moved toward the door, then paused. "As to the guard at the door below, that will not be necessary, since you will await me in the mabein." He went quickly down the corridor, opened the door of the dutap, and called Zubeydeh, who entered at once. "The Countess will wait in the outer room. When I return I shall conduct her to the Hotel Europa, where she will spend the night. You will wait upon her in the meanwhile, as becomes a distinguished guest of the house of Rataj."
Then followed a phrase or two of Turkish, and the woman bowed stolidly.
"It shall be as you wish, Effendi."
And he passed the woman with another phrase, and was gone.
Zubeydeh and Marishka stood facing each other, the elder woman in sullen antipathy, illy concealed by the habitual mask of imperturbability. Marishka had disliked her from the first, actuated by that rare instinct which only women can employ, and now there seemed something ominous in her stolid ugliness. Marishka had not fully understood the instructions of the Beg, and not until Zubeydeh picked up her suitcase and carried it down the corridor, did she realize that she was merely carrying out the orders of her master. But Marishka did not move. Before her eyes danced the words of her earlier note to Hugh, which asked him to come to her by the private passage to the court below. If the Effendi did not succeed in finding him, he would come; and she would not be there to meet him. Instead of following Zubeydeh, who had returned and stood staring at her, her feet refused to obey.
"But I should prefer to remain here–" she said firmly.
A vestige of a smile—slight, but none the less disagreeable—came into the woman's yellow face.
"The Harim," she said dryly, "is intended for the daughters of the faithful. You cannot stay tonight."
And as Marishka still stood irresolutely, she caught her by the arm with a grip which was none too gentle, and pushed her down the corridor and out into the mabein.
Marishka sat upon the couch in the room into which she had first been conducted, her head near the latticed window, through which the pale green moonlight vied with the glow from the lantern over her head. Though it could not yet be time for him to return, she listened intently for the sound of the footsteps of the Beg. Had she succeeded? In spite of the danger which threatened Hugh Renwick, and the ominous absence of Captain Goritz, she felt that there was a chance that all might still be well. Where was Captain Goritz? The tale that he had gone upon a journey was an invention, of course. He was here in Sarajevo if not in the house where she was held a prisoner, at least somewhere near, where he could be sure of the culmination of the plot to remove Hugh Renwick, without himself being involved in any unpleasant issues. From the appearance of the Beg of Rataj and of the man she had met at the foot of the stairs, she knew that any dreadful deed was possible in the darkness of the secluded streets outside the house, in the garden below, or in the house itself. But she did not despair. It was easier to win money by keeping within the law than by breaking it. The Beg was a rogue, but money was his fetish, and Marishka's bribe was the larger.
As the moments lengthened and the man did not return, hope ebbed, and she grew anxious. The small metal clock on the table in the corner indicated the hour. It was half-past eleven. In half an hour, if the Beg had not delivered her note, Hugh Renwick would come to find her, unless! She breathed a silent prayer—unless he had not yet reached Sarajevo! For hours she had prayed that he had followed her, for that was the proof of his devotion that her heart required of him; but now she prayed just as fervently that he had not come. The notion of another attempt to escape occurred to her, but when she got up and peered down into the darkness of the stairway which led below, her courage failed her, and she remembered the man at the foot of the other stair. Zubeydeh, too, was near, and while she was planning, the woman passed into the Harim and closed the door behind her.
She peered out of the window into the garden, searching its shadows for signs of a guard, but all was quiet, except for the sound of whispering voices, which might have come from the street or from the house adjoining. In the dim light she watched the hour hand of the clock as it slowly moved around the dial. Ten, fifteen minutes passed, and still she heard no sound of footsteps. What if Hugh came while the Beg was absent searching for him? She knew that there must be other men besides the villain she had met at the foot of the stairs. What orders had the Beg given his men? And what orders had he countermanded? The silence was closing in upon her like a fog. She could not bear it. What if Hugh were already at the foot of the stairs, waiting to knock upon the door of the Harim as she had directed? The suspense was killing her. She rose quietly and tried the door of the dutap into the corridor which led to the Harim. It was locked.
She staggered and clung to the wall to keep from falling. She saw it all now. Goritz had intercepted the note she had sent by Yeva. They were in there—Zubeydeh, the Beg and his men, and perhaps Goritz, too, waiting—waiting for the two knocks at the steps below. And then the door would be opened, and Hugh–
The bell of the cathedral tolled, and fearfully she counted its strokes. It was twelve o'clock.
