“Anyway,” broke in Pagan, our doors were locked there was no imagination about that. And this morning when we started off again, the first thing we discovered was a haunted battlefield.”
“Haunted! How did you know it was haunted?” she exclaimed.
“We had it on the word of two independent witnesses, both of whom warned us not to go there at night.”
“And did you see the haunting, whatever it is?”
“No. Apparently it walks only at night. We were there this morning. But if you are interested in battlefields, it’s quite a good specimen. And, mark you, within a stone’s throw of our mysterious inn.”
Clare nodded her small head seriously. “That certainly is an interesting coincidence,” she said. “Of course you think that there is some connection between the two.”
“Maybe,” answered Pagan. “Anyway Baron has a theory—a poor thing, but his own.”
She turned to Baron. “What is your bright idea, Dicky?”
“Not very bright, I’m afraid,” said Baron. “But it explains the facts. It occurred to me that the existence of a secret political club, meeting at the inn, would account for our locked doors. You see, the landlord was obviously a Bosche—decent enough fellow to be sure, but almost certainly he was fighting on the other side in the war.”
“But surely that does not prove anything,” she objected. “All the Alsatians had to, whether they liked it or not. Though quite a number used to migrate to France, I believe, in order to avoid military service in the German army. I thought they were delighted to be under French rule again.”
“They were pro-French before the war, I agree,” said Baron. “But, like the Irish, they are always agin the government, I fancy. And many of them are pro-German now. You see, the Alsatian is an independent sort of cove. He has been so chivied about between the two of them that at rock bottom he is neither really French nor really German: he is just Alsatian. And he is up against French or German, whichever happens to be top dog at the moment. And in these peaceful little villages there is a good deal of political intrigue going on sub rosa, I suspect. Don’t you agree, Charles?”
“Well, methought yon landlord had a lean and hungry look, certainly,” agreed Pagan.
“It sounds terribly plausible,” said Clare. “You are depressingly matter of fact, Dicky, aren’t you? Destroying all the spookiness and mystery!”
“He has the soul of a film magnate,” said Pagan. “Fit only for treasons, stratagems and spoils.”
At this moment a short, wiry little man wearing a chauffeur’s cap came round the well and spoke to young Cecil Lindsey.
Baron stared at him for a moment, and then hastened towards him. “Gosh, it’s Griffin!” he exclaimed.
The little man turned his head, and a broad grin overspread his face as his eyes met Baron’s. He clicked his heels and saluted in military fashion.
“Well, well, Griffin,” said Baron as they shook hands, “what on earth are you doing here? How often did I hear you say in the old days that if ever you got out of the army and out of France it would take a mighty big war to bring you back again! And here you are!”
The little man grinned. “What I always says, sir, is it’s a pore heart what never rejoices. So when Miss Clare, that’s the pore Captain’s lady, comes along and says, ‘Griffin,’ she says, ‘’ow’d you like to drive a car for my brother?’ I says, ‘You jes try me, Miss, ’me being on the dole at the time. And then Mr. Cecil, he says, ‘Griffin,’ he says, ‘we’re going to France.’ And I ses, very good, so long as it’s understood that I’m nootral in case we run across a war.”
Clare made room for Pagan on the seat beside her. “Those two will talk war now for the next three hours. Griffin is always cursing the war and everything French, but Cecil said that when they came through Picardy he could hardly tear him away from the battlefields. I suppose you and Dicky are the same. Is that why you came here for a holiday?”
Pagan shook his head. “We discovered that battlefield up there by accident,” he said. “And in any case Baron and I didn’t function as far south as this. No, I have always wanted to see Alsace. One of the spots that have always appealed to me, you know—historic meeting place of square-headed Bosche and cheery old Gaul and all that. I saw the old Belgiques enter Brussels and I would have given a good bit to have been with the poilus when they ambled into Strasbourg.”
“Yes. That must have been a great moment,” she agreed.
“Like the finale of a cinema epic,” he suggested.
She nodded her small, sleek head at him. “I’m glad that you are not too terribly modern to admit that you like that sort of thing,” she said.
Pagan assumed an expression of alarm. “Am I being horribly old-fashioned then?”
“Not only old-fashioned but positively degenerate,” she smiled. “Don’t they tell us that patriotism and nationality are the root of all our evils!”
Pagan grinned. “Oh, you mean those coves who wax sentimental over an unwashed Hottentot but are not above hanging their relations on the nearest lamp-post! Oh yes, I admit I’m old-fashioned. If it comes to a scrap I’d sooner bash a Bashi Bazook than the local butcher any day.”
“And you have a sneaking liking for dramatic pageantry?”
“Well, I mean to say, this country is simply made for it. Strasbourg itself and these old villages with their walls and towers and storks’ nests. Anything might happen in them.”
She gazed thoughtfully up the little street. “I wonder,” she murmured.
“You wait till you have seen them,” said Pagan. “This is only one. But there are dozens.”
“I must certainly see some of them. Cecil is taking me up to Munster the day after to-morrow, and to-morrow if he can spare the time, we thought of going to Riquewihr—it’s quite close, I believe.”
“Quite,” agreed Pagan fishing the map from his pocket. “And as a matter of fact,” he fibbed, “Baron and I thought of going there to-morrow.” He glanced at the map. “It is only in the next valley, and there is a track through the woods over the hill between. It ought to take”—he made a rapid calculation—“take—no more than a couple of hours or so. Lunch there; then saunter back. So if your brother cannot manage it, old Baron and I would be delighted …”
“What will I be delighted about?” demanded Baron breaking suddenly into the conversation.
Pagan kicked him surreptitiously on the leg. “Why, if Miss Lindsey will come with us to-morrow. I was just telling her that we had arranged to walk to Riquewihr to-morrow, and apparently she was thinking of doing the same. But her brother is a doubtful starter.”
Baron looked at Pagan with a face like wood. “Did we say we were going to Riquewihr to-morrow?” he asked innocently.
Pagan delivered another surreptitious kick. “Of course we did,” he cried heartily. “Don’t you remember I said it would only take about a couple of hours and we could lunch there and stroll back afterwards.”
“It seems highly probable that you mentioned lunch somewhere,” conceded Baron. And then he added with a grin, “but highly improbable that you suggested walking anywhere.”
“But what else would one do?” demanded Pagan. “These lovely woods and hills!”
Baron turned to Clare. “Charles is a great lover of nature. You would hardly believe it, but I have known him lie for hours out-of-doors on sunny afternoons, so rapt with nature that even his pipe has gone out. But come with us by all means; and there is one thing I can promise you: that so long as Charles is with us we shall get a good lunch. He loves nature in all her moods.”
CHAPTER FIVE
I
PAGAN and Baron dawdled over their coffee that evening in the little outdoor restaurant of the hotel. It stood at the lower end of the street where the hills swept outwards to the fertile Alsatian plain in two castle-crowned bastions. It was little more than an auberge in spite of the faded gothic letters on its whitewashed gable-end vaunting it as the “Hotel de la Cigogne”; and it
encroached upon the road at right-angles, so that, from their little table under the faded striped awning, they looked westwards straight up the cobbled street to the sun that was sinking slowly behind the thickly wooded hills.
Placed thus, the little outdoor restaurant of the Hotel de la Cigogne, separated from the street only by low, white, wooden palings, allowed its diners to share the life of the village. White fowls clucked soothingly while one ate, and craned their necks between the palings to peck at crumbs from the tables. Ducks waddled over the cobbles and squatted in the open culvert.
A cock was perched importantly upon the running board of a car which stood incongruously among the broad vine leaves that twined about the carved wood pillars of a sun-bleached balcony. A clumsy open framework waggon rumbled slowly and inevitably over the cobbles; beside it trudged a bony peasant from the vineyards, corduroys and battered hat all vivid green from the copper vine spray.
Pagan watched it idly. “Nice girl, Clare,” he said irrelevantly.
Baron blew a cloud of smoke from his pipe and grunted.
“Rather a supercilious young pup, her brother though,” added Pagan.
“Bit of a young cub,” agreed Baron.
Pagan eyed an ancient dame wearing the black Alsatian head-dress, who was waddling towards the church. “You and Clare seem pretty matey. Known her long?”
“Since ’17,” grunted Baron. He took his pipe from his mouth and glanced at Pagan. “You find her worth looking at Charles, eh?”
Pagan pulled his pipe from his pocket and regarded the stork’s nest that was perched like a Tartar cap on top of a peaked gable. “Well, I would rather look at her than at you,” he answered guardedly.
Baron chuckled. “Yes, old Clare is certainly worth looking at,” he agreed. “But you ought to have seen her in the bad old days of the great fracas when she was only seventeen. She was one of the seven wonders of the Great War.” He tapped out his pipe and refilled it thoughtfully. “I hope you are not going to fall for her, old Charles—because, well you see, Clare is not the marrying sort.”
Pagan laughed. “Neither am I,” he said. “Still,” he added a moment later, “she is a woman, therefore may be woo’d!”
“Wooed—but not won,” corrected Baron. He shifted his pipe to the other side of his mouth. “You never knew Vigers, did you?”
Pagan shook his head. “Heard of him though. He got a V. C. or something, didn’t he?”
Baron nodded. “He commanded a company in the battalion I went to at the end of ’17 when I came out of hospital after that knock I got with the old battalion.”
“Oh yes, I had forgotten that,” said Pagan. “Let’s see, where were we then?”
“Up at Arras. Our Lewis guns were in. I got my knock just after that trench raid when poor old G. B. came over and scuppered a lot of A Company.”
“By Jove, yes—though we didn’t know it at the time. Well, about Vigers—he was in this new push you went to?”
Baron nodded. “Yes, he was a dashed good soldier—rather G. B.’s type. And an artistic sort of cove too. He used to carve all sorts of gadgets out of lumps of chalk. Things were pretty quiet just then and it passed the time away. Why, I remember he carved a wonderful Norman arch round the doorway of the mess dug-out—you know, one of those recessed arrangements, all columns and zig-zags. Of course Jerry plastered it with whizz-bang splinters a few days later and we called it Pip-squeak Priory. However …
“Well, it was through Vigers I met Clare. If Clare is a sort of Anglicized version of Helen of Troy, Roger Vigers was her opposite number. But mind you, there was nothing of the kinky-haired flappers’ delight about him. He was the finest-looking fellow I have seen, and of those who knew him, man or woman, I have yet to meet one that did not agree. And he was as fine a fellow as he looked.” He struck a match and held it to the bowl of his pipe. “Clare and he made as good a pair as one could wish to see in a long day’s march. Why I have seen a whole ball-room of people stand and stare, band and all, when they came in together.”
Pagan nodded. “I can well believe it,” he said.
“Well, as I was saying, Clare and Roger made a useful pair, and of course they agreed to make a match of it. It was at the beginning of ’18, on Vigers’ last leave that they fixed it up and became formally engaged. Then came the big Bosche attack of March when poor old Roger went west.” Baron knocked out his pipe and refilled it thoughtfully.
“I shall not forget that show in a hurry. And I think that about the most vivid memory I have of that hectic morning is of my runner stumbling round a traverse with the news that Roger was mortally hit. That was the third officer within an hour, and it left me alone with the company. Later on, as what was left of us went back through the mist, I saw him for a moment in an old sand pit. Funny how some things stand out after all these years and others leave no trace! I can see that sand pit now, with the mist rolling over the edge like smoke. Wounded were being hurried back on stretchers and ground sheets, and I asked old Mac-Morland, our M. O., if Roger were there. He pointed to a crumpled figure covered with a greatcoat. ‘Is he alive?’ I asked. ‘Just,’ he answered. ‘But he can’t live, and he wouldn’t want to if he could.’”
Baron stirred the cold dregs in his coffee cup absent-mindedly. “I knew that Clare would take it badly. She would not make a fuss—she is not that sort—but it would hit her hard. And it did. She was little more than a child in those days, and the years that followed have added, if anything, to her good looks. But although there have been men by the dozen who would have given their eyes to marry her, she has sent them all packing. She and Cecil are orphans, you know, but she has enough to live upon—a couple of hundred of her own and four hundred that old Roger left her. Anyway she won’t have any of them. She is waiting, I fancy, for another like Roger: but there never will be another like Roger, and she must know it. But it has become a sort of religion with her now, if you know what I mean. Roger is her man, and she is his woman—and there it is.”
Pagan nodded as he tapped his pipe upon the white palings. “Sort of wedded to his memory, eh! Poor kid! Still it seems rather a pity.”
Baron shrugged his shoulders. “Women are like that,” he said.
Pagan nodded. He watched an old peasant tether a cow by a halter to a ring outside the little debit du tabac. “I wondered,” he said, after a moment, “whether—well, whether there was ever anything between you and Clare.”
Baron laughed, and shook his head. “Good lord, no! I had other fish to fry—only it didn’t fry.”
“What young …?”
“Yes. Young Gurney’s sister.”
“Sorry, old thing.”
“Not a bit. That’s all finished with. No, Clare and I are just good friends. You see, I was rather a pal of Roger’s—I was going to be their best man, in fact. I form a sort of link with him, that’s all.”
Pagan nodded. “And this comic chauffeur cove—where does he come in?” he asked presently.
“Griffin? Oh, Griffin was Vigers’ servant. He had a bad time after he was demobilized, and apparently Clare ran across him by accident one day and signed him on as chauffeur to young Cecil. Quite a good chap; though as a matter of fact she would stump up half her kingdom to anyone who claimed to be a friend of Roger’s.”
Pagan rubbed the back of his neck. “She appears to be what you call a whole hogger,” he commented. “Vigers was a lucky fellow.”
Baron knocked the ashes from his pipe. “Yes, I suppose he was,” he murmured. “He must have found life pretty good—while it lasted.”
II
Young Cecil decided that he was too busy to go to Riquewihr, but Clare, Pagan and Baron set out soon after breakfast. Baron had the map and acted as guide, and he led them down a narrow cobbled alley between overhanging timbered houses to the bank of the boulder-strewn stream. They climbed the hillside in single file by a narrow path among the vineyards and passed around the back of the castle ruin. Baron halted by a sun blistered notice-board t
hat stood beside the track.
“Put that pipe out, Charles,” he cried sternly. “Or you will have all Alsace in a blaze.”
Pagan, with his large briar pipe jutting from his teeth, and his hat cocked over one eye surveyed the notice which said that smoking was dangerous and forbidden. “I don’t read French very well,” he remarked innocently.
“Don’t be a fool, Charles,” protested Baron. “They probably use some inflammable stuff to spray the vines with.”
“On the other hand, bold Baron, it’s probably just eye-wash—the notice, I mean; not the spray.”
Baron appealed to Clare. “Clare. Will you please make Charles behave. He’d smoke a pipe in heaven and strike matches on his harp if one let him.”
Pagan cocked an eye at her appealingly. She smiled at him from under her close-fitting little hat as she leant upon her stick. She was very graceful, from her small dark head to her small well-shod feet. “Well, Dicky,” she said in her slow, attractive drawl, “I was rather hoping that I myself might be allowed an occasional cigarette in heaven.” Pagan grinned triumphantly. “But,” she went on, “since it says that smoking is forbidden—and dangerous …”
Pagan removed his pipe from his teeth and eyed the nicely glowing bowl with a look of comic resignation. “Parting is such sweet sorrow,” he murmured. “And to think that I had toyed with the idea of becoming a toiler in a vineyard—now it will have to be hops!”
Presently, however, they reached the shade of the woods, and Pagan was able to relight his pipe.
Two hours later they emerged from the woods on the other side of the hill to find themselves upon a narrow, white, grass-bordered road that followed the windings of a narrow valley. Close ahead the road passed under an old stone, gable-topped gateway, which, with its abutting walls, blocked the valley. At intervals above the walls rose low, brown, sandstone towers gable-topped and crumbling with age. The projecting rusty spikes of a portcullis cut across the segment of the arch under which the road ran, and on the worn stone of the low tower above was carved a coat of arms between two long arrow slits. Beyond the first arched gateway was a second with a lofty tower above, gable-topped and shingled, and surmounted by an alarm bell under a high peaked canopy.
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