Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  Poor Ellis was thunderstruck. I do not know that I was so much surprised, for it was something of this kind that I had foreseen. I remembered Taylor’s case. Taylor had been our Minister at Cassel. He had incurred Napoleon’s enmity, he had had to withdraw and had done so by way of Prussia at a time when Prussia still pretended to independence. Yet the government had not ventured to allow him to stop in Berlin, but had shepherded him through the country, a virtual prisoner.

  It was plain that there was nothing for it but to submit, though it went against the grain. Ellis rode the high horse a while, threatened to appeal to Berlin, threatened to appeal to Hardenberg, the Prussian Minister. But the officer only shrugged his shoulders, and half an hour after we had entered the place we left it, Perceval sallow with rage, and walked down the street to the post-house. The postmaster asked, civilly enough, if we proposed to go farther that day, but my companion in a sulky mood declined to say — he would tell him when we had dined. Poor fellow, he was angry with all the world, and not least with me — my predictions had been a little too near the truth.

  The post-house was but a poor place, with one common room, sunk below the street, and ill-lighted, but as we were late we had it to ourselves. We occupied a small table before the window; Klatz and Kaspar were at the long table in the middle of the room. As we sat waiting impatiently for a rechauffe, Perceval unfolded the coarse napkin that lay before him, and “ Hallo!” he muttered, “ What’s this?”

  I looked across at him, my attention caught by his tone. “What is it? “I asked.

  He did not answer. He was staring at the table. When he raised his eyes it was to look, not at me, but at our two attendants. He saw that they had their backs to us and with a warning glance he slid something across the table. “It was in my napkin,” he muttered.

  It was a scrap of paper. On it was scrawled in German letters, “Beware of Klatz and the Elster.”

  “Oh, the devil!” I murmured.

  “It was in my napkin,” he repeated.

  “Umph!” I grunted, and I reversed the bit of coarse yellowish paper. There was nothing on the other side, and having made sure of this I slipped it into my pocket as a stout country wench approached our table with the Kalbsbraten.

  “What do you make of it?” Ellis asked, when she had withdrawn to fetch the wine I had ordered.

  “Well,” I said sapiently, “it comes from a friend — or an enemy.”

  “That does not take us far,” he grunted. Following on what had happened in the office, the thing was disturbing.

  “No,” I answered. “ But the whole thing depends on that; on whether it is a friend’s warning, or an enemy’s snare. That is clear.”

  “Kaspar can write.”

  “It is not his writing.”

  “He may have got someone—”

  “To write it? Possibly,” I allowed. “ I don’t think so.”

  “Well, whoever it is, and whatever it is,” with decision, “ I shall pay no attention to it.”

  I agreed. “Probably that will be the wiser course,” I said. But I felt no surprise when Perceval’s next words betrayed doubt.

  “Is there another road,” he asked, “ that does not pass through Elsterwerde?”

  “I will inquire,” I said, “ if you will keep Klatz by you after we have done dinner. In any case, I would not go on to-day. We are safe here. That blatant Prussian knows who we are and cannot deny us; and we shall gain the evening to think it over. If Klatz presses you to go on this evening, say that you are not well.”

  He nodded. “At the same time I don’t believe a word of it,” he maintained.

  “Nor I — so far. Klatz has served us well and we have every reason to think him faithful. But—”

  “But what?”

  “Well, everything is possible.”

  “But — the Office detailed him, did it not?”

  “Certainly. The man has been in the service at least six years. He was one of the messengers attached to Berlin when I was there in’3. I knew him there. Oh, no doubt his record is all right.”

  “Then I shall pay no attention to this.”

  But the seeds of suspicion, once sown, are hard to root up, and H.E. made no demur when I presently sauntered out and with as careless an air as I could assume, lounged towards the inn yard. A wagon had just come in, laden with wounded soldiers, and with it a couple of post carriages, and there was much bustle. I marked, however, an ostler who seemed to be unemployed, and who was standing near the entrance, in talk with a sallow down-looking man, with remarkably black eyebrows. I thought that he would do, and I was approaching the pair when I recognized with a shock that the sallow man with the black eyebrows wore the uniform of a French army postilion, and I sheered off. The man, whether he had remarked my approach or not, moved off also. Still, I saw that it would be wiser to make my inquiries elsewhere, and I strolled down the street.

  It was the ordinary street of a small German town, cobble-paved, with a gutter running down the middle, and firewood stacked here and there against the gabled houses. There were a dozen signs swinging over the roadway, their varied hues, with the lines of green shutters, giving a cheerful air to the street. I picked out a saddler’s sign and saw a man with an apron twisted about his waist and a dirty leather nightcap on his head lounging at the door. I asked him what sort of a road it was to Elsterwerde, and if the other road to Berlin — I tacitly assumed that there was one — was much longer.

  “By Wittenberg? So! It is about six hours longer, mein Herr.”

  “People go that way?”

  “Oh, yes, it is as you please. But it adds six hours.”

  I thanked him, and after strolling a little farther as if to satisfy my curiosity, I turned back to the post-house. I found Ellis looking out of the low window, Klatz at his elbow. “Klatz wishes us to start,” he said.

  I yawned. “We could do no more than a couple of German miles,” I remarked. “It seems hardly worth while.”

  Klatz interposed. “Just so, sir,” he said, “ but with His Excellency’s permission that will take us to Elsterwerde. And the Lamb is a good house. This is — it is unfitting His Excellency’s position to stay here.”

  Ellis looked undecided. “ What do you say, Cartwright?”

  “Oh, I say, stay here,” I replied. “Klatz works us too hard. Remember we got off at six. And as we are now but Herren Eils and Wagenmacher of Hamburg we may put up with a little roughness for once. It is in character.”

  “But the Lamb — such quarters, sir!” Klatz waved his fat hands, “ The Lamb to-night and so to Herzberg for dinner to-morrow. If His Excellency will be guided by me—”

  “No, Klatz,” Perceval answered, his mind made up, I’ve no doubt, by the other’s urgency. “We stay here to-night. Arrange it so, and send Kaspar to the barrier to say that we remain.”

  I could not be sure — but did I surprise a gleam in Klatz’s blue eyes, a trifle out of character with the little man’s wonted good humour. If so, it was gone as soon as seen, and might have expressed only the annoyance of one who saw his visions of a rich, greasy supper at his beloved Lamb set aside for a whim. In either case he made no further demur, but left us alone.

  “Well, I have discovered,” I said, “ that there is another road — by Wittenberg. It is six hours longer.”

  “We are certainly,” peevishly, “not going to waste six hours.”

  “It is as you decide, Chief, of course.”

  “Why, for all we know, that may be the very road they wish us to take!”

  “Precisely.”

  “Then why—”

  “The point is — friend or enemy?” I rejoined. “As I said at the beginning. As I still say. A warning or a trap?”

  “I don’t believe a word of it!” obstinately. “And I think that we are ill-advised to stay here. But as you have settled it, so let it be. Only, I must press on you, my good fellow, not to see an enemy in every bush!” After that it may be believed that we did not spend a very
cheerful or companionable evening. The post-house, filling up after nightfall with a noisy brawling company, we were forced to share a bedroom, and Perceval, always touchy on the point of dignity, took this ill, and was for blaming me. While I, reflecting that the journey with its drawbacks and risks was not of my choosing, and that the gain if any would be his, was in no mood to take his grumbling with patience.

  Moreover I was — I confess it — anxious. The warning, so short and so explicit, troubled me. Did it come from friend or foe? Was it really a warning? Or a snare? Ought we to take the advice or reject it?

  The answers to these questions — and everything, the safety of the despatches and our own lives, hung on their accuracy — depended on our reading of Klatz. Was the messenger faithful, or was he plotting against us? His record was good, I could not gainsay that; so good indeed that before the evening was out Ellis would not hear the matter argued. Having given way so far as to stay over the night, and suffering for his complaisance, he was now convinced that he had been a fool to give way. Every fresh hardship, every petty annoyance, aggravated his peevishness.

  And I had nothing to cite to the contrary, except the momentary gleam which I had fancied that I discerned in the man’s eyes; and what is more difficult than to convey to another an impression of this kind? Ellis pooh-poohed my idea as pure fancy, hinted that I was scaring myself into a panic, and ended by asking me who it was that I thought was warning us. If it was not Kaspar —

  “I don’t know,” I said. “ I can’t say. If I could —— — —”

  “But who can it be?” he persisted. He was an obstinate fellow and had an annoying trick of harping on a point once he had got hold of it. “Who can it be?”

  “Well, possibly, the Prussian police.”

  “My dear fellow! Absurd! Perfectly absurd! Why should they?”

  “Well, they may wish to avoid trouble and yet be unwilling to oppose their French masters. There may be orders out to seize us, and for their own reasons — we cannot suppose that they love the French — they may not wish the orders to be executed.”

  However, he would not hear of this. It was too farfetched, it was fanciful. I was letting my fears run away with me. He laughed at the notion and presently turning his back on me, after a groan or two at the shortness of the bed, he went to sleep. I would fain have done the same but my brain was at work, and I could not sleep so easily. The problem obsessed me. I had an uneasy feeling that a net was closing about us, and I lay so long turning it this way and that, that in the end I overslept myself, and Perceval had dressed and gone down when I opened my eyes.

  I followed him as quickly as I could. I was still in two minds about the matter, but was convinced that it would be useless to argue with him. There were only three or four persons in the common room when I entered, but they were three or four too many, for they were smoking and spitting, and the stale smell of beer pervaded the place. Ellis was at the table by the window, and I saw at once that something more had occurred to disturb him.

  “What is it?” I murmured, as I cast an eye through the latticed window at the roadway, which was on a higher level than the floor of the room, and disclosed the passers-by only up to the waist.

  “I have had another of those confounded papers!” he replied. “It was in my napkin — as before. He pushed the thing across to me under cover of a plate. looked at it. The paper, the writing, the words, all were the same.

  “Umph!” I said, and shrugged my shoulders. “Pleasant!”

  “What’s to be done?”

  He was evidently shaken, and I made up my mind. “I should take the advice and go by Wittenberg,” I said.

  He looked sadly out of temper, but he did not answer at once. A minute later, seeing Kaspar standing in the doorway he beckoned to him. ‘‘Send Herr Klatz to me,” he said. And when the little man, his gills rosy, his eyes twinkling with good-humour, appeared, “Klatz,” he said, “ Mr. Cartwright wishes to see Wittenberg.”

  “The home of Dr. Martinus,” I said, playing up to him with a smile. “ It is possible, I suppose? It is not much out of our way?”

  The little man’s hands went up in piteous remonstrance. “ Unmoglich!” he exclaimed. “Impossible, Excellency! Impossible! It is many hours out of the way — a long day and no nearer Berlin when we are there! And,” glancing warily behind him to make sure that he had no listeners, “ it is the road to Magdeburg, and on that road there are French troops. The road of the Elbe, you understand, Excellency! Oh, it would not do at all! I could not reconcile it with my conscience to take His Excellency that way. When peace comes,” looking benevolently at me, “Mr. Cartwright may visit it. It is of interest, oh, colossal! But at present, no.”

  “How far should we have to follow the Elbe road?” Ellis inquired.

  “A long way, and there are French garrisons in Magdeburg on the one side and in Torgau on the other. Oh, it would not do at all, Excellency.”

  “But there may be French troops in the Elster direction also?” I suggested.

  “Going — whither, sir?”

  “Oh, to Berlin, say.”

  He cast a compassionate glance at me. “But the French have withdrawn from Berlin. His Excellency knows that. For Custine, Glogau, Dantzig — they would not go this way.”

  “Just so,” said Ellis, nodding. “ Well, that will do for the present, Klatz. You can go.”

  “At what hour will His Excellency be ready?”

  “At eight. But be within call in the meantime.” When he was gone, “H’m,” said Perceval, “ that settles it, I think? What he says sounds reasonable.”

  “I’m hanged if I know,” I replied, though the man’s arguments had seemed fair enough.

  He raised his eyebrows. “You are hard to persuade,” he said.

  I was, and for an odd reason, though I did not think it worth while to advance it. It rested on Klatz. While he had stood talking to us, I had become aware of a contradiction in him. He was a man peculiarly fitted to go anywhere without arousing suspicion; a cheery, innocent, roundabout little chap, mild as milk, and in a word as much like a German cherub as it is possible to imagine. Yet I knew that the inner Klatz must be something quite different, or he would not have been capable of risking his life, coolly and imperturbably, as we knew that he had risked it over and over again in his perilous journeys across the country. Clearly then there were two Klatzs, and the inner one, the real man, might, it occurred to me, be as clever at deceiving us as at deceiving those among whom he moved unsuspected.

  I was so strongly impressed by the discrepancy that I presently burned my boats. “ Look here, Ellis,” I said, rising, and speaking, I have no doubt with some heat, “ be guided by me — for once! Make up your mind, and go by Wittenberg! Go by Wittenberg, no matter what Klatz says.”

  He stared at me. “ Why, my dear man, what’s taken you?” he exclaimed. “This is not like you.”

  “I don’t know, but I beg you to do as I say. I am sure that we shall be wise to do so. If it is only to oblige me, Ellis, go that way. Give Klatz any reason you like.”

  “I can’t make you out,” he said. “You believe this — this rubbish, then?” flicking with his finger the paper which lay beside him under cover of a plate. “You think it is genuine? A warning? Yet you were not used to be nervous, Cartwright?”

  “Well, I am nervous now,” I answered, “and I don’t mind confessing it. I may be a fool, but if it is only to oblige me, Ellis, don’t go by the Elster.”

  He sat, drumming with his fingers on the table; and I could see that he was more than a little put out. But at length—” Well, if you put it that way,” he said, “of course, I’ll give way. We’ll go by Wittenberg. But I tell you frankly that I think we are doing a foolish thing. I think, more likely than not, that we are running the very risk you wish to avoid. We’ve many reasons for trusting Klatz and no reason to trust your unknown advisers — that is clear. Still, I’ll do it, as you feel so strongly about it. Only I warn you, you must stand t
he blame if anything happens.”

  “I will,” I said stoutly, though my heart misgave me. “ Whatever comes of it I will be responsible.”

  He shrugged his shoulders, and went out, his face grim. What he said to Klatz, or what reason he gave for the change, I don’t know. But I will say that for Perceval, he had a way with him. He could ride the high horse when he chose, and play the Envoy; and though when he returned he was in no good temper, and made no attempt to hide it, he said nothing more to me. Klatz, too, when I next came upon him, superintending the packing of the carriage in the street before the inn, said no word, and soon after eight we got away on the Wittenberg road.

  CHAPTER III

  AT WITTENBERG

  IT was another dull oppressive morning, and before we had driven a German mile from Grossenhayn we encountered two things which did not lighten my responsibility; a responsibility that weighed on me the more heavily, as I had assumed it on the strength of an idea at best fanciful. The first thing was a travel-stained calash which we overtook and passed on the outskirts of the town. It was as dingy and ramshackle as the ruck of German post-carriages, and contained two persons, an over-dressed woman, coarsely handsome, and a lad, half-man, half-boy, with a big head, for whom, brief as my view of him was, I took a strange distaste. But that which gave to this carriage an air of ill omen was the fact that it was conducted by the postilion in the French uniform whom I had remarked in the inn-yard.

  Then, a little later, we came up with a party of French infantry, small dark men, not particularly soldierly to the eye, but marching, in their baggy red trousers, with that ugly lounging gait which looks slow yet carries the men over more ground than any other troops can cover in the time. The road, where we came up with them, was narrow, with a ditch on either side, and the officer riding at the rear waved to us to keep back. The result was that for half a league we crawled along in their dust until a welcome cross-road enabled us to pass them. The men eyed us inquisitively — no doubt our two carriages travelling together attracted attention that we could well have spared; and for a moment I feared that the officer was going to stop us. However, he only addressed a question which we could not hear to the leading postboy and, content with the answer, suffered us to proceed.