The Lost Ambassador by E. Phillips Oppenheim (robert munsch read aloud .txt) 📖

"Delora!" he exclaimed. "That is my name! I am Ferdinand Delora! My brother Maurice was here a moment ago. You are Signor Vanhallon, are you not?" he continued. "You must remember me!"

The ambassador grasped him by the hand.

"My dear Delora," he said, "of course I do! What has been the meaning of all this mystery?"

Lamartine stepped quickly forward.

"Can't you see what it all means?" he exclaimed. "Ferdinand Delora here arrives in Paris on a secret mission to England. There, through some reason or through some cause,—who knows?—he falls ill. There comes to London Maurice Delora with some papers, playing his part. Maurice Delora was here a moment ago. His game is up and he is evidently gone. The one thing to be feared is that we are too late!"

The ambassador turned swiftly to the new Delora, who was looking from one to the other with the pained, half-vacant expression of a child.

"Delora," he exclaimed, "how comes it that you have let your brother intervene? Did you not understand how secret your mission was to be?—how important?"

The man shook his head slowly.

"I am sorry," he said, "I have been ill. I know nothing. There was an accident in Paris. I have no papers any longer. Maurice has them all."

My lady of the turquoises plunged into the conversation.

"But it has been a wicked conspiracy!" she cried. "Monsieur here," she added, clutching his arm, "was drugged and poisoned. Since then he has been like a child. He was left to die, but I found him, I brought him here And meanwhile, that wicked brother has been playing his part,—using even his name."

I went to Felicia.

"Felicia," I said, "it is you who can clear this up. The time has come when you must speak."

Felicia was standing with her hands clasped to her head, looking from one to the other of the speakers as though she were trying in vain to follow the sense of what they said. At my words she turned to me a little piteously. She was beginning to understand, but she had not realized the whole truth yet.

"The lady over there," she said, pointing to my lady of the turquoises, "has spoken the truth. Uncle Ferdinand was ill when he arrived in Paris. He stayed with us—that is, my uncle Maurice and I—in the Rue d'Hauteville. He seemed to get worse all the time, and he was worried because of some business in London which he could not attend to. Then it was arranged that my Uncle Maurice should take his place and come over here, only no one was to know that it was not Ferdinand himself. It was secret business for the Brazilian Government. I do not know what it was about, but it was very important."

"Your Uncle Maurice, then," I said, "was the uncle who lived in Paris—whom you knew best?"

She nodded.

"Yes! I have had to call him Ferdinand over here. It was hateful, but they all said that it was necessary."

A motor drew up outside. The Chinese ambassador stepped out with more haste than I had ever seen him use, and by his side a man in dark clothes and silk hat, who from the first I suspected to be a bank manager. The Brazilian minister welcomed them on the threshold.

"You are looking for Delora?" he exclaimed.

The Chinese ambassador looked around at the little circle. His face was emotionless, yet he spoke with a haste which was unusual.

"It is true that I seek him," he said. "This morning he has cashed a cheque for two hundred thousand pounds. I do not understand. There is a part of our bargain which he has not kept."

A gleam of intelligence flitted into the face of the newly discovered Delora. He stepped forward.

"It is in order," he said. "You have taken over from my brother, who represents the Brazilian Government, two new battleships."

"That is so," His Excellency answered, "but I want the indemnity of your ambassador."

"I cannot give it you," the ambassador declared, "until I have received the money."

"Where is Delora?" some one asked.

We looked around. The same suspicion was in the minds of all of us. Delora had fled! I drew my arm through Felicia's, and led her to the lift.

"Dear," I said, "you must come upstairs with me."

She clung to me a little hysterically.

"What do they mean?" she said. "It is not true that my uncle has been working for the Government?"

"It is true enough," I answered. "The only point for doubt is what he has done with the money he received on their account. Your Uncle Ferdinand there was the person who was intrusted with the plans and commission. For some reason or other your Uncle Maurice has carried it through, and to tell you the truth, I believe he has gone off with the money. If you take my advice you will bring your Uncle Ferdinand upstairs, and the lady who is with him, if you like, and let the others fight it out."

She took my advice. The new Delora was exhausted, and without any complete comprehension of what had taken place. Felicia busied herself attending to him. Then a sudden idea struck me. I opened the door of the further bedchamber softly and stood face to face with Delora. There was a quick flash, and I looked into the muzzle of a revolver. Delora was apparently preparing for flight. He had changed his clothes, and a small handbag, ready packed, was upon the bed.

"So it's you, you d—d interfering Englishman!" he said. "There's no one I'd sooner send to perdition!"

I stood quite still. I could not exactly see what was best to be done, for the man's hand was steady, and I scarcely saw how I could escape if indeed he pressed the trigger.

"They are looking for you everywhere," I said. "The sound of that revolver would fill your room."

"Do you think I don't know it?" he answered. "Do you think you would not have had a bullet through your forehead before now if I was not sure of it?"

"Put your revolver down and talk sense!" I said. "I am interested in no one except your niece."

"It's a lie!" he answered. "It's through you I'm in this hole!"

"Well, here's a chance for you," I said. "They are all of them down at the Court entrance. Probably some of them are on their way up now. Turn to the left and take the other lift. Leave the hotel by the Embankment entrance."

"And walk into a trap!" he snarled.

"Upon my honor I know of none," I answered. "It is exactly as I have said."

I knew from his face that he had forgotten the other lift. He snatched up his hat and disappeared. I returned to the sitting-room, and, although I had made no promise, the consciousness of my escape kept me silent as to having seen him. Felicia was sitting on the sofa, talking to her uncle. My lady of the turquoises, with a triumphant smile upon her lips, was occupying the easy-chair.

Felicia rose at once and drew me to the window.

"Capitaine Rotherby," she said, "I fear that you will never forgive me nor believe me,—perhaps it does not matter so very much,—but you see I have seen no one but my Uncle Maurice since I was at school. He used to visit me there. He was always kind. My Uncle Ferdinand there came as a stranger. I knew nothing of him except that he was taken ill. How he met with his illness no one told me. Then my Uncle Maurice came to me one night and said that his brother had come to Europe on a wonderful secret mission, and that now he was too ill to go on with it, it must be carried through for the honor of the family. He meant to call himself Ferdinand Delora, and to come to England and do his best, and I was to come with him and hold my peace, and help him where it was possible. I begin to understand now that, somehow or other, this poor Ferdinand was ill-treated, and that my Uncle Maurice took his place, meaning to steal the money he received. But I did not know that. Indeed, I did not know it!" she said, sobbing.

I passed my arm around her waist.

"Felicia, dear," I said, "who would doubt it? Let them fight this matter out between them. It is nothing to do with us. You are here, and you remain!"

She came a little closer into my arms with a sigh of content. My lady of the turquoises laughed outright.

"You are infidèle, monsieur!" she exclaimed. "But there, the poor child is young, and she needs some one to look after her. Listen! What is that?"

We all heard it,—the sound of a shot in the corridor. I kept Felicia back for the moment, but the others were already outside. The waiter and the valet had rushed out of the service room. A chambermaid, with her apron over her head, ran screaming along the corridor. There in the middle Delora lay, flat on his back, with his hands thrown out and a smoking revolver by his side!...

I did then what might seem to be a callous thing. I left them all crowding around the body of the dead man. I let even Felicia be led back to her room by her companion. I took the lift downstairs, and I made my way into the café.

"Where is Louis?" I asked the first waiter I saw.

"He is away for a minute or two, sir," the man answered.

Almost as he spoke Louis entered from the further end of the restaurant. He did not see me, and I noticed that his fingers were arranging his tie, and that as he passed a mirror he glanced at his shirt-front. When I came face to face with him he was breathing fast as though he had been running.

"Louis," I said, "five flights of stairs are trying at our time of life!"

He looked at me blankly, and as one who does not comprehend.

"Five flights of stairs, monsieur!" he repeated.

I nodded.

"I myself came down by the lift," I said. "Louis, Delora is lying in the corridor outside his rooms with a bullet through his forehead. I am wondering whether he shot himself, or whether—"

"Or whether what?" Louis asked softly.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"After all," I said, "I suppose the truth will come out. Have you any idea, I wonder, where those two hundred thousand pounds are?"

"I, monsieur!"—Louis held out his hands. "Delora has had several hours to dispose of them. If he had taken my advice he would have been flying to the south coast in his motor by now. As to the money, well, it may be anywhere"

"It may, Louis!" I admitted.

"Delora was a bungler," Louis said slowly. "The game was in his hands. Even the reappearance of his brother was not serious. He was carrying out a perfectly legitimate transaction in which no one could interfere."

"Excepting," I remarked, "that he proposed to retain the proceeds of this sale of his."

"That would have been hard to prove if he had chosen to assert the contrary," Louis remarked. "Vanhallon would have had little enough to say if the money had passed into his hands."

"And the Chinese ambassador?" I remarked.

"His documents would have been good enough," Louis replied. "He has the ships. He has value for his money. There was no need for Delora to have despaired. His behavior during this last hour has been the behavior of a child. Monsieur will pardon me!"

Louis glided away, and I saw him smilingly escorting a party of late guests to their places. I stood where I was and watched him. To me, the man was something amazing! I firmly believed, even at that moment, that he had, safely hidden, part, if not the whole, of the proceeds of this gigantic scheme of fraud. I believed, too, that his had been the hand which had killed Delora. And there he was, within a few minutes of the time