“Well, what can I do?” Andrew asked. “Shall I use my influence with the Government to have you protected, or shall I go to the Home Office to try to prevent these fellows being allowed to land? I have influence here and there—anything you tell me—I’m at your service.”
The young man set his teeth.
“It’s money we want,” he declared bluntly. “Police protection perhaps to reach Southampton or Liverpool—but money to get to America at once— all of us.”
“That,” Andrew assured him, “is the easiest thing of all. How many are there of you?”
“My father and myself,” Charles replied—“my stepmother doesn’t count—we should leave her behind—and there is Anna, my sister, and Paul, my younger brother. Four in all. For years,” he went on, helping himself once more to brandy and soda, “we have lived in terror that this thing might one day happen. It is for this reason we made Félice swear that she should keep secret even from her husband our real names. Yet we have been betrayed somehow or other. We know for certain—we still have some good friends—one even in Moscow itself— we know for certain that they have started—eleven of them—with one idea. It will be my father first, afterwards the rest of us.”
“Not a chance!” Andrew asserted cheerfully. “We’ll get you over to America before they reach here. Now let me see,” he reflected, “what would be the easiest way to arrange this? You had better catch your train this afternoon and let your people know our plans. I will motor up to London to-night and get you tickets on the White Star steamer leaving to-morrow night from Southampton. I’ll bring the tickets to the house, meet your people, and see you off. If you like, I’ll drop Scotland Yard a hint, and I think I can promise that you won’t be molested.”
Félice, who had been sitting upon the arm of his chair, clasped his hand tightly.
“Andrew, can you really do this?” she cried breathlessly. “What about your guests here?”
“Philip can look after them for a couple of days,” Andrew assured her. “Of course I can do it. Do you think I should like to have your father leave the country without a word from me? You can rely upon my doing all that I have promised,” he continued, turning to Charles, “but frankly, if you weren’t Félice’s brother, I should feel bound to say that your story sounds more like a film play than anything actually happening in real life. I rather thought that since that abortive raid, all this talk about the Bolshevists being such wholesale murderers had died away.”
The young man shuddered.
“Don’t you believe it for a minute,” he begged. “Only last month there was an old man of seventy-seven, a non-politician, perfectly harmless, murdered. He had risked going back to look for his sister, who had left off writing to him a few years ago. He was a monarchist, it is true, but all the time he was in England he had never opened his mouth, never attended a single political meeting. He was simply dragged out of the train the moment he had crossed the frontier and shot within a few hours. They hide things more now, sir, but they are just as bloodthirsty as ever they were.”
“Well, anyhow,” Andrew declared, rising to his feet and lighting a cigarette, “your friends may be deceiving you, or they may not. The story begins and ends, so far as I am concerned, with the fact that you are all Félice’s relatives and that you need help. Any aid my name or banking account can give you is yours. Félice and I will motor to London tonight. I will go to the steamship office as soon as it is open, and she shall bring me round to see you later in the day. In the meanwhile, by the grace of providence,” he continued, strolling across towards his desk, “I have plenty of money in the house. If you’re short, you had better take a couple of hundred pounds with you.”
“I have enough money for my ticket back, and that’s all,” Charles confessed. “We ought to buy some clothes to-morrow morning. Anna will want some things too.”
“Naturally,” Andrew agreed. “Take these notes now, then, and anything else you want you can have to-morrow. We’ll talk then about your plans when you get to the States. I am fortunately not a poor man, and I shall hope to explain to your father myself that for Félice’s sake he can give me no greater pleasure than to accept my help. The only thing I’m sorry about is that I didn’t know of this before.”
“It might have been better,” the young man admitted, “but when you have talked to my father you will understand. We passed through such a terrible time, he has lived so long as a hunted man, that when at last we had found a hiding place, the idea of letting any other human being in the world into the secret of his identity simply paralysed him with fear.”
Andrew glanced out of the window.
“Well, there’s no use talking about it now,” he said. “The car’s waiting for you. Your taxicab’s paid and sent off, and you’ve just comfortable time to catch the train. We’ll be up to-night. Parkins can telephone Curzon Street to let us have just two or three rooms,” he suggested, turning to Félice. “Not worth while opening the whole house. See you to-morrow, Charles.”
He touched the bell. The young man, with an attempt at his usual manner, finished the rest of his brandy and soda, bent over Félice’s fingers and kissed them, shook hands with Glenlitten, and was escorted outside. After the car had driven off, Félice and Andrew returned to the library, and Félice, with a great happiness shining out of her face, threw her arms around her husband’s neck.
“Oh, why did they not let me tell you before!” she sobbed. “You do not know what a difference it makes. Whatever happens now there is nothing between us.” He kissed her fondly.
“Félice,” he said, “at no time, under any circumstances, whatever might have happened or whatever may happen, could anything come between us. It did give me rather a shock to see that young man offering you brotherly attentions that time I blundered in upon your dancing lesson, but I’m one of those pig-headed Saxons, you know,” he went on, “who, when they really care, don’t believe the evidence of their eyes or of any one else’s eyes. The result shows how right I was, you see. We’ll get these people of yours safely out of the country, if that is what they want,” he added, taking her by the arm and leading her towards the door, “although I fancy I could make things all right for them here. Still, if they want to go to America, they shall, and if they want a good start out there, why, they shall have it. You know that. I can perhaps do more for them there even than here. You’d better get ready at once, dear. We’ll have a scratch meal on the way up. I’ll go and explain. Thank goodness, we haven’t got a houseful of women.”
Félice slipped up the back stairs, and Andrew wandered off to make his peace with his guests. Philip, to whom he confided the whole story, was frankly astonished.
“So that fellow was really Félice’s brother!” he exclaimed incredulously. “Awful what bloomers one can make! I always thought he was a dead wrong ‘un.”
“Can’t judge these foreigners by externals as you can an Englishman,” Andrew declared sagely.
CHAPTER XXVII
It was exactly midday when Andrew rang the bell at the gloomy looking house at the corner of Milden Square. Félice clung convulsively to his arm. There was a faint repugnance in her face, the shadow of something mysterious, almost a subconscious fear.
“You are not going to like them, Andrew,” she warned him pitifully. “Sometimes—it is very terrible, I know, and unnatural—but I do not like them very well myself. They frighten me. They have been through