Bobby’s thoughts took another twist. Who were these men; and why had they had that talk that night? On the surface the answer appeared simple enough: they were a couple of crooks come to Pé to see whom they could pluck among the great crowds gathered for the Musical Festival. And their object, so far as he was concerned, was blackmail.
Blackmail! But that meant money—and he had no money! At least, nothing beyond the few pounds he had brought with him to cover his expenses.
Did this thing go deeper than ordinary crime? Had these men a more dangerous intention than mere crookery?
He suddenly realised that he, a British officer, was in a country which might declare war on England at any moment—and that if hostilities did so swiftly break out, he would be in an extremely awkward position.
The thought came—and persisted: Had that conversation been carefully planned? Had he, in other words, been meant to listen to it? If so, what was the object?
For the rest of the night Bobby debated the most important question which had ever occupied his attention. Should he do the sensible thing and return to Paris the next day, or should he stay on in the hope of discovering what lay at the back of the plot?
Long before dawn, he had arrived at his decision.
He would stay.
Chapter VIII
Drama
Morning brought merely a strengthening of this resolve. It was foolhardy, perhaps, but he was going to see this thing through. He simply had to get at what was behind the plot—for of the fact that it was a plot, every moment’s further thought brought added confirmation.
As he lay in his bath, he endeavoured to piece together the different bits of the puzzle: Seventeen years before, if those men were to be believed, Colonel Clinton had committed an indiscretion which had been attended by disastrous consequences out of all proportion to his offence. Providentially, it had been hushed up, and nothing had been heard of it until—once again, war threatened. Was the governor to be blackmailed in some way? Was he to be threatened now because of his lapse seventeen years before? That was what Bobby had to discover. That was the reason why he had to stay on in Pé instead of doing what the average person, he supposed, would have termed “the sensible thing” and returning to Paris.
***
At twenty-four, risk is the very salt of life, and the thought of possible danger merely gives a tang to existence. Bobby made an excellent breakfast that morning and, when he heard that the manager of the Hotel Poste would like to see him in his private office he sprang up from his chair in the lounge immediately.
The man whose life Dr. Emeric Sandor had said he had saved smiled at the visitor.
“I hope you have been quite comfortable, Herr Wingate?” was his opening question.
“Very, thank you.”
“You slept well?”
“Very well.”
Was this fellow in the plot, too? Of course, it was a completely conventional question for the average hotel manager to ask a guest for whose comfort he had made himself personally responsible; but.…
“I ask because my friend Dr. Sandor has just telephoned. He wished to be remembered to you.”
“Very kind of him.”
The manager hitched his chair closer.
“He asked me to give you a message. He said that his brother-in-law—now, wait a moment,” he broke off to rummage among the papers on his desk. “I have his name here somewhere.…Ah, here it is: Ernst Schroder. Well, as I was saying, Dr. Sandor asked me to say that if you would like to pay a visit to Echlen, his brother-in-law would be very pleased to see you and show you round the works.”
There was an intensity in the last few words which caused Bobby to be on his guard. But the next moment he was completely staggered. The manager, after going to the door and locking it, returned to stand by the young officer’s side.
“I place Lieutenant Robert Wingate on his honour,” he said.
Bobby stared at him.
“I don’t follow you,” he said. How the deuce did this fellow know who he was?
The man bent forward to whisper.
“I am of the British Intelligence—you can trust me. Dr. Sandor works under my direction; he is a thoroughly reliable agent.”
“Honestly, I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about.” He had no means of checking this amazing information, and in the circumstances the only thing he could do was to play safe. It was just possible, of course, that the speaker—Aschelmann—was Swiss, and therefore he might be telling the truth; but Wingate was not taking any risks.
The manager smiled.
“In the absence of documentary proof you are wise to be cautious—but if you wish to visit Kluck’s works, here is the opportunity.”
“Why should I wish to visit Kluck’s works? I am a civilian, and I’m in Pé to attend the Musical Festival.”
The manager shrugged.
“You must please yourself,” he returned. “I have done everything possible for you.”
“You’ve made me very comfortable, and I’m very grateful,” was the young officer’s response. He pondered for a moment whether he should tell of the eavesdropping he had been forced to do during the night, but decided against it; it would involve too much explanation.
Returning to the guest-house, he felt himself in a quandary. If he did not go to Kluck’s works at Echlen, he would miss the opportunity of a lifetime—but if he did go, he would be laying himself open to grave suspicion. Suppose the talk he had recently had with the hotel manager was nothing but a snare set to trap him?
He compromised by reminding himself that the big Agricultural Exhibition would have its opening on the next day. Any one was free to visit it, and if he kept his eyes and ears open he would probably be able to pick up almost as much as if he had paid a visit to Echlen, and certainly he would not place himself in anything like the same danger. Running a legitimate risk was one thing, but behaving like a damned fool was another. He assumed the worst for the moment: supposing the hotel manager had lied when he said he was working for the British Intelligence? Then, with his identity known, a visit to the famous Kluck works would give the Ronstadtian authorities every excuse to arrest him on a charge of “attempted espionage.” He recalled, with a fervent sense of thankfulness, that he had not given himself away in any one detail either to the talkative Sandor or the equally loquacious Aschelmann.
He was still in a state of suspense, wondering what exactly he should do, when he heard a woman’s laugh.
“Well, are you going to keep to your promise and play truant to-day, Mr. Wingate?”
It was Minna Braun, her face dimpled, the shapely lips drawn back in a smile showing dazzlingly white teeth. She made a supremely attractive picture—a companion, here, whom any man must have delighted to accompany on an adventure, amorous or otherwise.
Bobby responded to her lure. He would not have been true to his age or sex had he not done so.
“You don’t really mean to say, Fräulein, that you were serious last night?”
“About playing truant with you?”
He nodded.
“But of course. In the whole of Pé I could not have found a more charming playmate.…The whole day is ours,” she went on quickly; “we will do whatever you like.”
“I’ll leave it to you. I know I could not be in better hands.”
“You are very sweet,” Bobby heard her exclaim softly. And then, very unaccountably, she sighed. A shadow crossed her face, which a second before had been so radiant.
Just as quickly her mood changed once again; she became almost boisterously happy.
“Come,” she said, “we will enjoy ourselves—and you shall make me forget, for a few hours at least, that I am an old woman.”
“Old woman!” he returned scoffingly. “That’s absurd! I think you’re marvellous.”
For
the second time the transformation took place in the woman’s face. It became drained of colour; a haunted expression showed in the eyes that had been so brilliant, shining with what had seemed high-spirited but innocent mischief. It was as if she were looking at a ghost.
“What’s the matter?” asked Bobby, alarmed. “Are you ill?”
She recovered herself quickly.
“No, of course not. I am never ill. I was thinking of my cousins.…Oh, it was nothing—nothing at all,” she ended with a trace of irritability. “Are you ready? If so, we will go.”
***
They had had a wonderful time. Bobby, as he smoked a final pipe before the bedroom fire, decided that he had never more enjoyed a day. Sight-seeing had taken up the morning, then lunch—and what a lunch!—at a little select restaurant which his cicerone stated she had discovered the last time she had come to Pé.
After the coffee and cigarettes—a testing-time for the young officer, who realised that, but for the memory of Rosemary, he would certainly have fallen in love with this extremely fascinating woman of the world—his companion had suggested a cinema.
“I admit I have a craving for films,” she said, with a frankness that appealed to Wingate. “A deplorable taste, perhaps, but”—waving the manicured hand that held the cigarette as though the praise or censure of the world did not bother her in the least—“there it is! How does it appeal to my new—what is it you say in England?—boy friend, is it not?”
“I think it’s a very sound scheme—but all your ideas are so good.”
“You are beginning to spoil me,” she protested.
“Then I’m merely in the fashion,” he replied. “I can’t imagine any one not spoiling you.”
There must be some reason why this woman had never married, Bobby told himself—and started to speculate on what it might be.
She picked up her fox fur from the adjoining chair and signalled the waiter.
“If I stay here any longer listening to your nice words, I shall end by falling in love with you—and that would never do. The bill, if you please,” she added to the waiter, who had now arrived.
Bobby, confused already by the remarks she had made, became more embarrassed.
“I say, you can’t do that, you know—” he expostulated.
“But it is already done. Apart from that man over there—and I had a very good mind to tell him to keep his eyes to himself—no one knows that you have honoured me by taking lunch with me to-day.…Silly boy,” she added, patting his hand. “What use is money except to bring one happiness?”
The words were puzzling. He couldn’t understand this woman. Surely, with her attractions of mind and body, she could get any man she liked—and yet, here she was, saying things which…Oh, it was absurd. She couldn’t possibly have fallen for him. Yet the emotion he experienced as her hand closed over his for the second time, and she told him that it was her determination to pay the bill, was very agreeable.
They then visited the latest monster cinema to be opened in Pé.
“Can you see?” his companion whispered as they entered. “Let me have your hand.”
So it was that, with her fingers touching his own, Bobby walked down the carpeted aisle and presently sank into a seat at the end of a gangway.
The scent of violets came to him as Minna Braun leaned sideways to whisper: “It is said to be a good film—you will enjoy it.”
Looking back, he realised that he had but the most hazy notion of what the thing was about. In straightening his legs, his knee brushed the dress of his companion; he felt the outline of the woman’s thigh. Immediately her fingers pressed his hand.
The story of the film remained unheeded. Why not? he asked himself. If this woman—this marvellously attractive woman—offered herself, as she seemed on the point of doing, why should he refuse such a gift from the gods? Such offerings came but seldom. Young as he was, he knew that. Another man would not have hesitated—he would be a fool if he held back.
***
The temptation he had gone through returned with added ardour as he tapped his pipe out on the bars of the grate and prepared for bed. The very fact that he had kept himself so rigorously under control—it was the thought of Rosemary Allister that had been largely responsible for this in the past—now came as an enemy to attack him.
The woman had been kind—too kind. Apart from what she had actually said, she had promised so much—it seemed, everything—with her eyes, that day. They had smiled at him as she wished him good-night.
“Sleep well—Robert,” she whispered.
Gripped by a temptation infinitely stronger than anything he had ever known before, he turned to the bed. In doing so, his mind did a complete volte-face. He realised, with a sense of something approaching horror, that for the space of nearly twelve hours the thought of the danger and disgrace which threatened to close in on his father had been obliterated from his mind. Fascinated, almost in spite of himself, by Minna Braun, he had forgotten the one vital reason for his decision to stay on in Pé. The knowledge was humiliating and staggering.
The fact sobered him. It caused him to remember that there was a girl in England who still had complete trust in him. True, he could never marry her—it wouldn’t be fair, as he had already done his best to explain—but, all the same, he couldn’t let her down. He wasn’t a prig, but Rosemary believed in him.
Sleep would not come. He tried to banish from his thoughts the woman with whom he had spent the day, but the face of Minna Braun would not be dismissed; her personality had taken too strong a hold on him.
He tried strenuously, and then desperately, to switch his thoughts. His first duty was to his governor: everything came back to that. He must, by some means or other, get to the bottom of the plot, which perhaps by this time had developed another stage. He ought, he supposed (his mind a jumble of conflict now) to have tried to get into touch with Colonel Clinton the first thing that morning. Yes, that was what he should have done, instead of wasting a whole precious day gallivanting about with a woman. He could have telephoned or telegraphed. There would have been no need to tell the whole story: just a hint that a blackmail plot of some kind was being prepared against him in Pé, and that these two men, who claimed to know a certain Marie Roget, were in it, would have been sufficient. The governor would have known what to do—he could trust him for that.
But now, perhaps, it was too late. Practically twenty-four hours had passed—and how much might not be done by unscrupulous enemies within twenty-four hours!
***
He continued to toss from side to side.
Half-expecting and yet half-dreading it, he waited to hear another talk between the two men in the adjoining room. But no sound came; there was only silence on the other side of the wall.
Had he turned his eyes towards the ceiling, however, he might—had he been quick enough—have observed a face peering down at him.
As it was, he waited for—he scarcely knew what: his usually reliable nerves were at full stretch; the slightest further call and he felt they would snap.
And, presently, they did snap: with a bound he was out of bed and rushing across the room! Some one was outside his door, clamouring to get in—some one whose voice was shaking with terror. And that some one, unless all his faculties had played him false, was Minna Braun.
He turned the key quickly and the next moment the woman was clinging to him with all the desperation that fear can give. She was wearing such a thin négligé that she might have been naked. Her firm, full breasts pressed against his body.
“Bobby!” she moaned. “Bobby…!”
“Wait a minute,” he told her. There was the door to be shut, and not merely shut, but locked, before he could hope to restore her to any state of normal behaviour. That she had recently been badly frightened—she, this sophisticated woman of the world!—was evident. What had happened to sca
re her so that her eyes were glassy, her voice faltering and her lips dry and trembling?
It was not until he had set her down in the easy-chair by the fire that she recovered sufficiently to smile. And even then her face was white and her whole body shook as though she had a fever.
“You’re cold,” he said, uttering the fatuity that a man does when his wits are scattered and he has not yet had time to gather them together again.
“I’m afraid,” she replied faintly.
“Of what?”
“I will tell you in a minute.…You don’t mind my coming to you? You’re not cross—or ashamed of me?”
“Of course not. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
She took his right hand and pressed it to her lips.
“I knew I could trust you,” she said; “that was why I came—and, besides, there was no one else.”
She started trembling again and, cursing himself for his neglect, Bobby fetched first his dressing-gown and then a travelling brandy-flask. Pouring out some of the spirit, he held it to her mouth. She swallowed—and shuddered.
“Oh…how it burns!” Then, with his Jaeger dressing-gown round her shoulders, she looked up and smiled her thanks.
“You will look after me, Bobby?” she asked.
He nodded—mainly because he did not know what else to do.
“Of course—but what’s it all about?”
“Have you a cigarette?” she asked. “My nerves are still shaky,” and, indeed, her hand as she raised it was still trembling. “Put something round you, my dear—you will catch cold,” she said, branching off with what struck the listener as amazing inconsequence.
“I shall be all right; I want to hear your story. What frightened you?”
She blew cigarette smoke slowly.
“Some men tried to get into my room,” she said at length.
“Who were they?”
“I don’t know. At least, I couldn’t give them any names, but I believe I know who they were all the same.”
The Traitor: A British Library Spy Classic (British Library Spy Classics Book 2) Page 10
