“I have clothes in Switzerland.”
“Clothes and what?”
“It is the curse of my life,” he sighed, “that I can never answer a beautiful woman in the way she sometimes deserves. I ought to tell you firmly and unmistakably not to seek to penetrate into my secrets and instead of that I find myself telling you very gently that much though I appreciate your interest in my affairs I should prefer your abandoning this habit of perpetually teasing me with questions.”
“You are a tantalizing person, Charles.”
“You will like me better presently when I tell you something.”
She moved a little closer to him.
“What is it, please?”
“I possess a luncheon basket.”
Disappointment gleamed for a moment in her eyes.
“You are so very British,” she said. “I, too, love to eat and I shall certainly be hungry by and by but there are other things I like better.”
“Yes?”
“I love kindness and kind words. I am a soft woman. I love affection. I love love. I really do not think you understand what Austrian women are like, Charles.”
He was silent for several moments. When he spoke again she might well have believed that she had made progress.
“It is a pity,” he complained, “that women, so lovable in themselves, should devote their lives as they so often do to unworthy purposes. I can imagine you, Beatrice, as a wonderful wife, a delightful companion, an excellent mother. The trouble seems to be that nowadays a woman does not find these things sufficient. She peers into the men’s world of strife and struggle and she fosters unsuitable ambitions. The Viennese world, the little I have seen of it, is inclined to be artificial, Beatrice. The realities arc not sufficient. From the manicurist to the Princess, all women seem to be searching for something in life which they will never find.”
“What we do, we do for men’s sake,” she said bitterly. “It is to help or to bring us nearer to some man whom we love or think that we love.”
He rose to his feet.
“This,” he declared, “is an absurd conversation. If I can find my way so far I am going to make a little promenade.”
“And leave me alone with all your property?” she asked, pointing with a sudden smile to the tin box.
“I shall leave you alone even with that. Baroness. Perhaps the very fact that I do so will dispel some of those suspicions you have of me. If I should happen to come across the crushed and suffocated remains of our conductor amongst this phalanx of people, is there any information you would like to have?”
“I should like to know at what hour we arrive at this little town near Feldkirch where we are to wait for the other train to join us, and whether we are supposed to leave the train for the night or remain in it.”
“I’ll do my best to find out,” he promised, “but it’s a thin chance, from what I can see.”
He paused to light a cigarette and stepped out into the corridor. It took him more than a quarter-of-an-hour to reach the conductor, who was obstinately protecting his stool in the far corner of the voiture. The corridor was jammed. Not a single window was open. One other coupé, the same size as his own, was occupied by at least a dozen English and American tourists. In every other compartment the people seemed to have wedged their way in indiscriminately. Some were sitting upon the floor outside in the corridor itself. It was necessary at times to step over crowds of prostrate men and women, some of them still asleep. Charles reached the conductor at last. The man rose and saluted him as he approached but he kept his foot upon the stool.
“I have here,” he announced, “a note for the gnãdiger Herr. If I had tried to deliver it before I should never have been able to return.”
He felt in his satchel and produced the note. It was written in Blute’s clear handwriting and addressed to him by name.
Your train will remain outside the station of Feldkirch at a small country village until ours arrives. A room is engaged for you at the only hotel—the Schweizerhof. Be sure to claim it directly you arrive. The journey will be continued at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. All well.
M. B.
Charles handed the eagerly anticipated trinkgeld to the man who took off his cap and broke into a smile which sat strangely upon his wrinkled and perspiring countenance.
“We shall arrive at about what time?” Charles enquired.
The man’s gestures were indicative of a profound ignorance.
“To-night—to-morrow night. Who can tell? We are taking the place of the great express which touches in these parts a hundred kilometres an hour. We proceed at less than thirty. Nevertheless, we make no stops. That much is to the good. I would offer my services to the gnãdiger Herr but I am helpless. There is nothing I can do. If by chance the guard should bring the train to a standstill I will offer myself to seek anything the gnãdiger Herr might wish for.”
“I have some food with me,” Charles told him. “If you have any drinkable water you can bring it along. There is nothing else I want seriously.”
Charles started on his return journey and decided that he had no curiosity left in his fellow passengers. He tore the note which he had received into small pieces and let them slip through his fingers as he passed the only opened window. The Baroness looked up expectantly as he entered the coupé. He went straight to his dressing-case, drew out a cocktail shaker wrapped in a towel, shook it violently, handed a glass to his companion, brought one out for himself, filled the two and replaced the shaker. He swallowed half his cocktail at a gulp.
“The place,” he declared, “is a madhouse. Men and women of every race, squawking babies; the women—half of them asleep—are lying about anywhere, the men angry and sullen. I don’t think I like these wild rushes.”
He lit a cigarette which she had placed between her lips, lit another for himself, refilled their glasses and put away the shaker.
“Did you collect any information?” she asked.
“Not a scrap. Apparently no one knows where we are going or when we shall get there.”
She came a little nearer to him.
“Just now I don’t much care.”
He ignored the pressure of her fingers upon his arm. His eyes were fixed upon the tin box.
“I don’t believe you’ve touched it,” he observed.
“It’s locked,” she sighed.
CHAPTER XXIII
Table of Contents
Charles closed the atlas, which he had been studying, with a snap between quarter- and half-past six that evening. The great train was slowly slackening speed. He pointed out to his companion a tiny village composed of a few white-washed villas with overhanging roofs and fantastic decorations dimly seen through the trees.
“We are about to stop,” he announced. “I’m afraid there is nothing more that I can do for you, Baroness. I have not asked you what your plans are and I do not know my own. I shall fight my way into the inn if I can. Perhaps the station master here will be able to tell us when we move on again.”
She seemed suddenly very strange. If such a thing had been possible he would have thought her nervous. She looked out of the window. They were almost at a standstill.
“I know where we are,” she said. “I have friends living not far away. I must find them.”
“I am sorry to be so ungallant,” he regretted. “This is a moment when I can offer you no further assistance.”
“I have wasted all this time,” she sighed. “We have sat looking at each other, my heart has been full, there have been words trembling on my lips. Now we shall part and they are unspoken. I shall regret it, I know, all my life.”
There was a series of violent jolts. Then they came to a standstill. People were tumbling out of the carriages in a mad procession. A brawny man in the uniform of a hotel porter came striding up the platform pushing everyone on one side. He threw open the door of the coupé.
“Herr Mildenhall!” he called out. “This way.”
He picked up th
e despatch box, the suitcase and dressing-case. Charles looked over his shoulder as he turned to follow the porter.
“I am being taken care of, you see, Baroness,” he said. “Farewell. We shall meet, I hope, in happier days.”
She still presented the distracted appearance of a woman torn many ways by opposing impulses. Charles stepped lightly out onto the platform.
“You are from the Schweizerhof ?” he asked.
“Ja wohl, mein Herr,” the man replied. “You follow—yes?”
He strode along the platform, led the way through the little station hall and out into the street.
“No passport, no tickets?” Charles asked in surprise.
The man grinned.
“Here there is only one station master and one porter,” he explained. “The officials could not deal with a thousand people. That will arrive when the gnãdiger Herr crosses the frontier. Oh, they will take care to be there then, without a fear.”
Charles followed him across the road to where a straggling and somewhat shabby edifice described itself on a sprawling placard as “Der Schweizerhof.”
People were already trying to storm the place but the hotel porter lowered his head and charged straight forward like a bull. Charles followed him perforce. There was no manager or clerk to be seen. The porter mounted the stairs and Charles pressed on behind. On the first landing his guide pushed open a door. Charles found himself in a large bedroom, reasonably clean, plainly but adequately furnished. The porter stacked the tin box, the dressing-case and suitcase upon a luggage rack. Then he held out his hand with a grin.
“Too many people,” he grumbled. “Such a crowd have I never seen. This room is for Herr Mildenhall. Here is the key, sir.”
Charles handed him over a fantastic gratuity which the man stared at for a moment without speech. Then he removed his cap and bowed.
“Danke schon, gnãdiger Herr“ he said. ”Guten Abend.”
“When will the other portion of the train be in?” Charles asked.
The man shook his head.
“No one knows,” he declared. “The station master says that it left Vienna two hours after yours but that it will have travelled faster.”
“One moment, before you go,” Charles persisted. “Do you think it would be possible for me to have a word with the manager?”
The porter looked doubtful. He watched Charles’s hand straying once more towards his pocket.
“The manager’s name is Hauser,” he confided. “He is afraid of all this crowd. He saw them jumping out of the train and running across the street as soon as it stopped. He has shut himself up in his own room/’
“I just want to ask him a friendly question,” Charles explained.
His hand was removed from his pocket. The porter watched the note which he had withdrawn. He retraced his steps and lowered his voice.
“The gnãdiger Herr will follow me down the stairs,” he said. “I shall turn to the left instead of to the right at the bottom, then I walk along a passage. The last door on the left along that passage will be locked, but if the gentleman knocks quickly three times it will be opened.”
The matter of the note was arranged. Taking the man’s advice, Charles locked up his room and descended the stairs, which were already crowded with people sitting and lying about. He followed his guide to the bottom of the stairs, turned to the left and down the passage. The man pointed to a door and promptly disappeared himself. Charles obeyed his instructions. He knocked sharply three times, heard a key turn and the latch slowly drawn back. He pushed his way through. A small man with a sandy moustache recovered his balance and looked up at him angrily. Charles bowed in his politest fashion to the lady who was seated at the dining table, smiled on the children and relocked the door.
“You are Herr Hauser, I am sure,” he said pleasantly. “I apologize a thousand times for my intrusion. I am the occupant of number seven, so you see I am not like all these other people wanting a room.”
The frown left the face of the little man.
“You are the English gentleman,” he said, “for whom the great Mr. Blute engaged an apartment?”
“I am he.”
“Mr. Blute can command my services at any time,” the manager declared. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“I want to know whether Mr. Blute has engaged rooms for himself and a friend here.”
“He asked for nothing else but a room for Mr. Mildenhall.”
“What time do you expect the second portion of the train to arrive for the frontier?”
“In about one hour’s time, sir.”
Charles bowed to the lady who, unlike her husband, was very dark indeed and very fat. He smiled at the manager and turned towards the door.
“I will detain you no longer, Mr. Hauser,” he said. “I thank you for the room.”
“The gentleman is welcome,” the manager declared, softly unlocking the door. “The porter will warn you, sir, when the train is starting for the frontier in the morning.”
Charles made his way through the thronged passages, across the crowded lounge and out into the street. He turned towards the open country. The road, as straight as a line, disappeared in the heart of a pine wood. He followed it, walking slowly, pausing every now and then to draw in a deep gulp of the fragrant air. After his long day of confinement in the ill-ventilated, unwholesome atmosphere of the railway carriage he felt stimulated, felt somehow a lessening of the strain of the last few days. The end of this curious adventure was close at hand. He realized that in twenty-four hours he might be riding the clouds again. If his half-formed plans came to anything Patricia might be seated by his side, her sweet, eager little face all alight with the novelty of the flight and the joy of a difficult task accomplished. The depression from which he had been suffering was falling from his shoulders. Then he was confronted with a sudden relapse. A limousine car, rapidly driven, emerged from the tree-bordered road ahead and came towards him. The road was narrow and he stepped on to the grass border to avoid the dust. As the car passed him he recognized its solitary passenger. It was the Baroness, unusually pale, her large eyes set and fixed, her whole appearance that of a woman who has received a shock. He stood quite still, startled by her sudden appearance. He heard her cry of recognition, her sharply spoken order to the chauffeur, the grinding of the brakes. He turned round to find the car already at a standstill. He crossed the road and approached her. She had the look of a woman who had either just passed through a crisis or was preparing to face one.
“Has anything happened?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she told him without hesitation. “I am in great distress.” I am sorry.
“I do not know why I stopped you,” she continued. “I suppose it was the sudden excitement of seeing you so unexpectedly. You cannot help me—or anyone else…I can give you some news, perhaps.”
“Yes?”
“England is on the point of declaring war against Germany.”
“England alone?”
“France will declare soon afterwards.”
“All this was a certainty,” he said simply. “Tell me why it has so greatly affected you.”
She made no reply. Somehow or other she seemed very pathetic leaning out of the car, speaking as though every word were a tragedy. Then she asked him a question.
“Did you read the letter your friend Lascelles sent to you, the letter in the tin despatch box?”
“I did.”
“You know my history, then?”
“A good deal of it.”
“Yet you were pleasant to me to-day.”
“I hope so.”
“You do not all the time despise me?”
“No. I am sorry about it all.”
“Do you know where I was going when I met you?”
He shook his head.
“You were not very confidential about your movements,” he reminded her. “You spoke of Monte Carlo or Paris.”
“I was coming to see if I could find you,” she
told him. “No,” she went on, “you need not frown. It was only for one reason. I wanted to beg you, to implore you, to give up your present enterprise. You see, I have guessed what it is.”
He looked at her in astonishment. Slowly his expression began to harden. She knew the symptoms. She laid her fingers upon his hand.
“Do not be angry with me,” she begged. “I am not the woman I was twenty-four hours ago. I want you to abandon this foolish enterprise. It is beneath your dignity. You will not succeed. It will probably cost you your life.”
“Yes? Is that all you have to say?”
“I am telling you the truth.”
“How did you hear about my enterprise, as you call it?”
“As I have heard of others,” she answered wearily. “I expect you have heard me called a spy, a dangerous woman, but what you did not know until you read that letter, and I do not suppose you appreciate the truth of it even now, is that although I have a legal right to the name I bear I am also the wife of one of the world’s greatest criminals. I obtained my divorce before I was married to the Baron but the divorce is worthless. I was married in a Roman Catholic cathedral. That is enough of the past. Did Mr. Lascelles tell you my real husband’s name?”
“Yes.”
“Charles, won’t you take a great weight off my mind?” she pleaded, and in the softly gathering twilight she was beautiful once more. “Pass on your way to England, forget the purpose for which you started out, let them carry it on without you. Will you do this?”
“I cannot.”
“It is because you love this girl?”
“Partly.”
“No words that I could say will change you?”
“Nothing that you or anyone else could say.” She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. “Good-bye, Charles.”
He heard her give an order to the chauffeur and before he realized it she was gone. He watched the car disappear in a cloud of dust, then he scrambled down the bank into the meadow and walked back to the village by the side of a dashing little stream which had tumbled down from the mountains. Three-quarters of the way there he heard the roar of a locomotive. He looked across the road. With its huge engine belching out black smoke the second part of the last train crawled past him into the station.
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