Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07

by The Second Seal

  At a stationer’s De Richleau bought three kinds of notepaper, a guide-book, and a large map. From the last he soon found his bearings, and walked out to the Palace. It had none of the Imperial dignity of Schönbrunn, but was just a large mansion with a pleasant private garden. Not very far from its gates there was a small café, which, at this hour of the afternoon, was almost deserted. Sitting down at one of the tables outside it, he ordered a stein of beer and got into conversation with the waitress. She was a plump, pink-faced little chatter-box and after ten minutes he had as much information about the principal inmates of the Palace as she could give him. The lovely Archduchess had arrived on the preceding Thursday. As far as the girl knew, she was perfectly well. She rode for about two hours most mornings, and had driven out every afternoon in her carriage, usually returning about five o’clock.

  When he had finished his beer De Richleau returned to his pension and, on the notepaper he had bought, using three different pens, forged three references for himself as a guide; afterwards folding and soiling them as though they had long been in use. He then made up four of the gardenias into a small posy. Into its middle he inserted a short note, leaving just a corner of it sticking out so that it should not be overlooked. He had written the note in the painful copper plate hand of a semi-educated man, and it ran:

  Erzherzogin Ilona Theresa,

  Noble lady, I Johann Stein am the best guide in this district. Be pleased to engage me and I will show you our loveliest beauty spots. For this I will make no charge. The honour is enough. God be with you Erzherzogin. Küss die hand.

  He had not dared to write to Ilona, even anonymously. It was certain that her mail would be opened and sorted for her, and his letter would either have gone into the waste-paper basket with the mad, impertinent and unanswerable scrawls which royal personages were always receiving, or, had it reached her at all, have first aroused the most undesirable curiosity of some secretary. But he hoped that the white gardenias would prove a key to their sender, and that if she read the note she would have the wit to act upon it.

  Having completed his preparations he returned to the Palace. A sentry was posted on its gate but no officers were about, so De Richleau addressed him in good German:

  “Tell me, friend, how shall I set about trying to get the Archduchess to take me on as her guide?”

  The soldier shook his head. “Such matters are none of my business. I have no idea.”

  The Duke had not supposed that he would have, and had asked the question only as a lead-in. He went on:

  “I have some pretty flowers here. I thought, perhaps, that if I threw them to her Highness as she passes she might stop to thank me. Then I would have a chance to ask her if she will let me be her guide on some-excursions.”

  “It is forbidden to throw things at the royal carriages,” said the soldier.

  De Richleau had expected as much. For the past half century every royal family in Europe, except that of Britain, had gone about in fear of nihilists. They were desperate and often half-crazy men, belonging to various societies which plotted the murder of royalties quite irrespective of their personal characters, and solely as a spectacular means of drawing attention to the ills of the proletariat. Ilona’s grandmother, the Empress Elizabeth, had been stabbed to death by one sixteen years before, when about to board a steamer on Lake Geneva; and hardly a year passed without a bomb being hurled at one of the Russian Grand Dukes. Actually, De Richleau’s one purpose in talking to the sentry was to convince him that the bouquet was not a bomb, otherwise he might have attempted to prevent its being thrown into the carriage. Exposing the flowers by turning back their tissue paper wrapping, he showed them to the man, and said:

  “See: they are very special flowers and fit even for a Princess. I am a poor man but I bought them at the best shop in the town for her. I paid a lot of money for them. It will be hard on me if they are to be wasted after all.”

  The sentry shrugged. “All right then. But hold them behind you and stand some distance away from me when you throw them, so that they’ll think I couldn’t guess what you meant to do.”

  After thanking the soldier with suitable humility, the Duke took up his position on the far side of the entrance and waited there patiently for some twenty minutes. At length the royal carriage came down the road at a smart trot. Ilona was seated alone, facing the horses: opposite her were the dapper, broad-shouldered Count Adam Grünne and the small, dark, mischievous-eyed Sárolta Hunyády. As the carriage slowed down to turn through the gates, De Richleau took off his hat and neatly pitched his posy into Ilona’s lap.

  Adam Grünne’s mouth dropped open and he instantly dived at it; but as he grabbed the tissue-paper covered missile he must have felt that it contained nothing solid, as he did not throw it out. By that time the carriage was well past De Richleau, so he was unable to see the final outcome of his ruse; but, although he waited hopefully near the gate for over an hour, he was not sent for.

  He spent the evening making an intensive study of the map he had bought and memorizing passages from the guide-book, so that when, at four o’clock next morning, he kept his appointment with the professional guide Herr Pohl had engaged for him, he already had a good working knowledge of the district.

  The Duke, although a little above medium height, was slight of frame, so that as the hours wore on the stamina he displayed was more and more astonishing to his companion. On the guide’s advice, they went up the south valley, towards Laufen, and with only brief infrequent halts, except to eat lunch at a wayside inn, they kept on the move for nearly eleven hours. During that time they made many detours and short climbs to reach some of the best view-points. As a soldier, the Duke had a trained eye for country, and he could not glance out of the window of a train without instinctively thinking that some fold in the hills would make a good battery position, or a sunken road be a good site behind which to entrench infantry. So by the time they got back to Ischl he felt that he had fully mastered the country for ten miles to the south of the town.

  After arranging for his guide to call for him at the same hour the next morning, he had a short rest on his bed. Then he made up four more of the gardenias into another little bouquet and inserted among them a similar note to that of the day before.

  When he arrived at the Palace gate he found a different sentry on duty, so had to repeat his little act about wishing to become the Archduchess’ guide. But the man proved more obdurate than his predecessor, and the Duke had to take his posy to pieces for inspection, then tip the fellow a florin before he would consent to it being thrown, with due precautions, so that he could not afterwards be accused of not having attempted to prevent the act.

  As the carriage approached, De Richleau’s heart began to beat more quickly. When it turned into the entrance he saw that Ilona was again seated alone on the back seat, but today, instead of Sárolta, the flaxen-haired Baroness Paula von Wolkenstein was seated opposite her, beside Adam Grünne. At the moment he pitched the posy Ilona turned to look at him, but there was no sign of recognition in her eyes. Yet this time Adam Grünne caught the flowers and handed them to her. Then she called to her coachman to pull up.

  De Richleau could not guess if his ruse was by way of succeeding, but he ran after the carriage until it halted some thirty yards inside the gates. Then, clutching his hat to his stomach with both hands, as a peasant would have done, he bowed jerkily, and raised his eyes only when Ilona addressed him:

  “Thank you, my good fellow, for the flowers. I am very fond of white gardenias. In the note you threw to me yesterday you said you were the best guide in the district. Is that true?”

  “Küss die hand, Erzherzogin. Only try me and I promise you will be satisfied. But here are my references.” He bowed again and held them out.

  Adam Grünne took the three dirty papers, glanced through them and nodded. Then Ilona said:

  “Very well, then. Be at the gate here at half past two to-morrow afternoon.”

  At a sign from her,
the coachman’s whip tickled the horses, and the carriage rolled on. Ilona’s eyes had remained quite expressionless while she was speaking, and as De Richleau slowly walked away he still had no means of knowing if the gardenias had told her who he was; or if their significance had escaped her, and she had simply decided to give a trial to a new guide who had adopted an original method of bringing himself to her notice. But his uncertainty on that point did little to reduce his elation at having secured a command to attend her next day, and he returned to his pension in a very happy frame of mind. Nevertheless he was now feeling very tired after his long tramp so, instead of waiting for dinner, he asked the cook to slice some rolls and fill them with ham for him, then ate them while drinking a pint of the local white wine in the little lounge, and afterwards went straight to bed.

  By the first light of dawn he was up again and off for another long tramp with his professional guide. This time they took the westward valley towards St. Wolfgang, and returned to Ischl in time for the mid-day meal. But the eight-hour expedition had been long enough for De Richleau to acquaint himself with the best view-points in another wide area of country. Well before half past two, with his four remaining gardenias made up into another little posy, he took up his position outside the Palace gate.

  As a clock in a nearby belfry struck the half-hour, the carriage appeared, and pulled up on reaching him. With an awkward bow he humbly held out the flowers. Ilona took them, gave him an impersonal smile of thanks, and asked: “Where do you propose to take us?”

  “Will the Erzherzogin be so good as to inform me how far she is prepared to walk?”

  “For about an hour. I do not wish to tire myself too much.”

  “Then let us go towards St. Wolfgang. There are some fine views to be had in that direction without much climbing.”

  As she nodded assent, De Richleau nearly made a bad blunder. Sárolta Hunyády was in attendance to-day, and he had assumed that she would move over to the back seat beside her mistress, so that he could sit with Adam Grünne. He was just about to stretch out a hand to open the carriage door, when Grünne said: “Jump up on the box, then, and we’ll be off.”

  The footman moved closer to the coachman, and, scrambling up, the Duke squeezed himself into the vacant space. Then they drove out of the town for about four miles, until they came to a bend in the valley between two thickly-wooded slopes, where De Richleau asked the coachman to pull up.

  Jumping down, he opened the carriage door and said to Ilona: “If the Erzherzogin pleases we will walk up through the woods over the crest, and the carriage can meet us for our return journey on the far side.”

  As he spoke, for the first time he looked her straight in the eyes, but they did not show even a flicker of recognition. When the occupants of the carriage got out, he waited at the roadside track for them to join him, but Count Grünne said a trifle impatiently, “What are you waiting for, my good fellow? Lead on.”

  With a hidden grimace of annoyance, De Richleau did as he was bid. Never having played such a part before, it had not occurred to him that he would be expected to walk some way ahead of the party, and act merely like a pilot tug, while they continued to enjoy their private conversation. Unhappily he began to wonder if he had been to all his trouble in vain, and whether another couple of hours would see him back at the Palace gates without even having had a chance to reveal his identity to Ilona.

  For some twenty minutes they walked through the woods up the easy gradient until they came out into a clearing on the shoulder of the spur. He waited there for the others to catch him up, and for a few moments they stood admiring the panorama above the tree-tops, which dropped steeply to the valley then rose again to further wooded heights beyond.

  Sárolta turned her dark, piquant little face to Adam Grünne and said: “It looks much steeper going down than it was coming up, and I’m awfully bad at steep descents. I wonder if you could find me a good thick stick to lean on.”

  “Of course I will,” he replied at once, and walking off to the edge of the clearing he began to hunt about in the undergrowth.

  In her remark about disliking steep places, De Richleau instantly saw at least a slender chance of getting Ilona to himself, if only for a few moments. Behind them, the spur rose steeply for a hundred feet to another little plateau. Pointing to it with his alpenstock, he said: “If the ascent is not too much for the Erzherzogin, there is a far better view from up there. One can see over the next crest to the lake.”

  Ilona smiled at Sárolta. “It will prove too much for you, my dear, but I think I’ll try it. Adam can keep you company. The guide will look after me.”

  Things had panned out far better than De Richleau had dared to hope. He had thought that if Ilona accepted his suggestion Sárolta might be left behind, in which case he could have got a start with his lady-love before Adam Grünne had a chance to rejoin them. As it was, he was to be spared the Count’s unwelcome company for the next quarter of an hour or more.

  Without looking at him, Ilona said: “I had better go first; then you can catch me if I slip” and set off up the rocky path.

  De Richleau followed her, watching her every step: but she made the ascent without difficulty, and a few minutes later, when they reached the top, she sat down a little breathlessly on a large slab of rock.

  He wished that she had gone a little farther, so that he could have sat down beside her without being seen from below, and was just about to suggest that the view was even better from the far end of the plateau, when she turned a smiling face up to him, and said:

  “I like you with grey hair.”

  He laughed. “So you knew me all the time?”

  “Of course! From the moment I saw the first gardenias. An ordinary peasant would never have bought such flowers for me. He would have picked some in the woods. But we’ve got to be awfully careful.”

  “Do the others suspect anything?”

  “Sárolta knows. I told her. And just now she sent Adam Grünne for that stick in order to get rid of him. If you hadn’t suggested coming up here I’m sure she would have thought up some excuse to leave us on our own for a few minutes.”

  “Bless her! May the Gods reward her a hundredfold for her goodwill.”

  “They are doing so already,” Ilona laughed. “It is not easy for her and Adam to manage to be alone together either, and they are in love.”

  “Then I envy him.”

  She looked up with a frown. “Do—do you then admire Sárolta so much?”

  “I think her charming; but only a tiny star compared with the glorious planet Venus, at whose shrine I worship. I meant that I envy him in having his love returned, for that is more than I can ever dare to hope. I can only aspire to serve the object of my devotion.”

  “Thank you,” she said seriously. Then she lowered her eyes and went on in a low voice. “After I had sent that letter to you I was terribly ashamed. I—I was afraid you might think—”

  “I thought only that you had reconsidered your decision,” he answered quickly, “and that you felt, after all, that you would like to have a friend outside the court circle: someone you could confide in if you wished, and who, perhaps, would be fortunate enough to fill a small place that is now empty in your life.”

  “I do want someone like that,” she admitted after a second. “Apart from Sárolta and a few other girls of whom I am fond, I have no one to whom I can talk about all sorts of things that interest me; and at times I feel terribly lonely. But why did you not come to the Prater?”

  “I left Vienna two days before you, Princess, and I did not receive your letter until my return.”

  “I wish I had known that. I thought you were too angry about the way I had treated you to forgive me.”

  “I would forgive you anything, to see you smile again as you did just now, when we reached this summit.”

  She looked up at him, her blue eyes shining and her lips parted in a dazzling smile. For a moment they remained gazing at one another, then she said; �
�There could have been another explanation, and at times I was inclined to adopt it. To become my friend in secret like this is to court grave danger. After our waltz I could hardly have blamed you, had you felt that the game was not worth the candle.”

  “If you thought me so poor-spirited, that was very wrong of you.”

  Her brows drew together; then she gave a little laugh. “Do you know, I was just on the point of rebuking you. People tactfully express the hope that I may change my opinion, or that I will give a matter further consideration, but it is years since anyone has dared to tell me to my face that I was wrong. But you are right. I should have known that you really are the sort of man who would climb over a garden wall in the middle of the night without thinking twice about it.”

  “You have only to describe the situation of your window, and look out at midnight to-night to find me beneath it.”

  “No, no!” She shook her head hurriedly, so that a little chestnut curl came free and lay tantalizingly on the back of her neck. “You must do no such thing. This masquerading as a guide is bad enough. Heaven knows what a rumpus there would be if the good Grafin Aulendorf got to hear of it. How clever of you, though, to devise such a plan. I laughed so much over that little bit in your note, where you said you were prepared to forgo any payment for your services.”

  He smiled. “I put that bit in as a precaution against anyone other than yourself reading it. But what of the future? May I hope to be taken on as your guide, permanently?”

  “Yes. Providing you promise me to be terribly careful. Of course we don’t really need a guide. I have spent so much of my life at Ischl that I expect I know the country round about far better than you do. But then, I don’t really need eight women to look after my clothes, either. And I can say that having you will save me the trouble of making up my mind every day in which direction we shall go.”