THE FIREFLY OF FRANCE

by Marion Polk Angellotti

TO

THE MEMORY OF

THE HEROIC GUYNEMER

"THE ACE OF THE ACES"

 PREPARER'S NOTE

 This text was prepared from a 1918 edition, published by The Century Co. , New York. 

THE FIREFLY OF FRANCE

CHAPTER I

ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS

The restaurant of the Hotel St. Ives seems, as I look back on it, an oddspot to have served as stage wings for a melodrama, pure and simple. Yeta melodrama did begin there. No other word fits the case. The innsof the Middle Ages, which, I believe, reeked with trap-doors andcutthroats, pistols and poisoned daggers, offered nothing weirder thanmy experience, with its first scene set beneath this roof. The foodthere is superperfect, every luxury surrounds you, millionaires andtraveling princes are your fellow-guests. Still, sooner than passanother night there, I would sleep airily in Central Park, and if I hada friend seeking New York quarters, I would guide him toward some otherplace. 

It was pure chance that sent me to the St. Ives for the night before mysteamer sailed. Closing the doors of my apartment the previous week andbidding good-bye to the servants who maintained me there in bachelorstate and comfort, I had accompanied my friend Dick Forrest on afarewell yacht cruise from which I returned to find the first two hotelsof my seeking packed from cellar to roof. But the third had a free room, and I took it without the ghost of a presentiment. What would or wouldnot have happened if I had not taken it is a thing I like to speculateon. 

To begin with, I should in due course have joined an ambulance sectionsomewhere in France. I should not have gone hobbling on crutches for apainful three months or more. I should not have in my possessionfour shell fragments, carefully extracted by a French surgeon from myfortunately hard head. Nor should I have lived through the dreadfulmoment when that British officer at Gibraltar held up those papers, neatly folded and sealed and bound with bright, inappropriately cheerfulred tape, and with an icy eye demanded an explanation beyond human powerto afford. 

All this would have been spared me. But, on the other hand, I could notnow look back to that dinner on the Turin-Paris _rapide_. I should neverhave seen that little, ruined French village, with guns booming in thedistance and the nearer sound of water running through tall reeds andover green stones and between great mossy trees. Indeed, my life wouldnow be, comparatively speaking, a cheerless desert, because I shouldnever have met the most beautiful--Well, all clouds have silver linings;some have golden ones with rainbow edges. No; I am not sorry I stoppedat the St. Ives; not in the least!

At any rate, there I was at eight o'clock of a Wednesday evening in arestaurant full of the usual lights and buzz and glitter, among womenin soft-hued gowns, and men in their hideous substitute for thesame. Across the table sat my one-time guardian, dear old PeterDunstan, --Dunny to me since the night when I first came to him, a verytearful, lonesome, small boy whose loneliness went away forever with hiswelcoming hug, --just arrived from home in Washington to eat a farewelldinner with me and to impress upon me for the hundredth time that I hadbetter not go. 

"It's a wild-goose chase, " he snapped, attacking his entree savagely. Heaven knows it was to prove so, even wilder than his dreams couldpaint; but if there were geese in it, myself included, there was also tobe a swan. 

"You don't really mean that, Dunny, " I said firmly, continuing mydinner. It was a good dinner; we had consulted over each item fromcocktails to liqueurs, and we are both distinctly fussy about food. 

"I do mean it!" insisted my guardian. Dunny has the biggest heart in theworld, with a cayenne layer over it, and this layer is always thickestwhen I am bound for distant parts. "I mean every word of it, I tellyou, Dev. " Dev, like Dunny, is a misnomer; my name is Devereux--DevereuxBayne. "Don't you risk your bones enough with the confounded games youplay? What's the use of hunting shells and shrapnel like a hero in amovie reel? We're not in this war yet, though we soon will be, praisethe Lord! And till we are, I believe in neutrality--upon my soul I do. "

"Here's news, then!" I exclaimed. "I never heard of it before. Well, your new life begins too late, Dunny. You brought me up the other way. The modern system, you know, makes the parent or guardian responsiblefor the child. So thank yourself for my unneutral nature and for the warmedals I'm going to win!"

Muttering something about impertinence, he veered to another tack. 

"If you must do it, " he croaked, "why sail for Naples instead of forBordeaux? The Mediterranean is full of those pirate fellows. Youread the papers--the headlines anyway; you know it as well as I. It'ssuicide, no less! Those Huns sank the _San Pietro_ last week. I say, young man, are you listening? Do you hear what I'm telling you?"

It was true that my gaze had wandered near the close of his harangue. I like to look at my guardian; the fine old chap, with his height andstraightness, his bright blue eyes and proud silver head, is a sight forsore eyes, as they say. But just then I had glimpsed something that waseven better worth seeing. I am not impressionable, but I must confessthat I was impressed by this girl. 

She sat far down the room from me. Only her back was visible and asomewhat blurred side-view reflected in the mirror on the wall. Even somuch was, however, more than welcome, including as it did a smooth whiteneck, a small shell-like ear, and a mass of warm, crinkly, red-brownhair. She wore a rose-colored gown, I noticed, cut low, with a string ofpearls; and her sole escort was a staid, elderly, precise being, ratherof the trusted family-lawyer type. 

"I haven't missed a word, Dunny, " I assured my vis-a-vis. "I was justwondering if Huns and pirates had quite a neutral sound. You know I haveto go via Rome to spend a week with Jack Herriott. He has been pesteringme for a good two years--ever since he's been secretary there. "

Grumbling unintelligible things, my guardian sampled his Chablis; and I, crumbling bread, lazily wishing I could get a front view of the girl inrose-color, filled the pause by rambling on. 

"Duty calls me, " I declared. "You see, I was born in France. Shabbytreatment on my parents' part I've always thought it; if they hadhurried home before the event I might have been President and declaredwar here instead of hunting one across the seas. In that case, Dunny, I should have heeded your plea and stayed; but since I'm ineligible forchief executive, why linger on this side?"

He scowled blackly. 

"I'll tell you what it is, my boy, " he accused, with lifted forefinger. "You like to pose--that's what is the matter with you! You like to actstolid, matter-of-fact, correct; you want to sit in your ambulance andsmoke cigarettes indifferently and raise your eyebrows superciliouslywhen shrapnel bursts round. And it's all very well now; it lookspicturesque; it looks good form, very. But how old are you, eh, Dev?Twenty-eight is it? Twenty-nine?"

"You should know--none better--that I am thirty, " I responded. "Haven'tyou remembered each anniversary since I was five, beginning with ahobby-horse and working up through knives and rifles and ponies to thelatest thing in cars?"

Dunny lowered his accusing finger and tapped it on the cloth. 

"Thirty, " he repeated fatefully. "All right, Dev. Strong and fit as anox, and a crack polo-player and a fair shot and boxer and not bad withboats and cars and horses and pretty well off, too. So when you lookbored, it's picturesque; but wait! Wait ten years, till you take onflesh, and the doctor puts you on diet, and you stop hunting chances tokill yourself, but play golf like me. Then, my boy, when you look stolidyou won't be romantic. You'll be stodgy, my boy. That's what you'll be!"

Of all words in the dictionary there is surely none worse than this one. The suggestions of stodginess are appalling, including, even at best, hints of overweight, general uninterestingness, and a disposition to sitat home in smoking-jacket and slippers after one's evening meal. As myguardian suggested, my first youth was over. I held up both my hands intoken that I asked for grace. 

"_Kamerad_!" I begged pathetically. "Come, Dunny, let's be sociable. After all, you know, it's my last evening; and if you call me suchnames, you will be sorry when I am gone. By the way, speaking ofHuns--it was you, the neutral, who mentioned them, --does it strike youthere are quite a few of them on the staff of this hotel? I hope theywon't poison me. Look at the head waiter, look at half the waitersround, and see that blond-haired, blue-eyed menial. Do you think he sawhis first daylight in these United States?"

The menial in question was a uniformed bellboy winding in and out amongtables and paging some elusive guest. As he approached, his chant grewplainer. 

"Mr. Bayne, " he was droning. "Room four hundred and three. "

I raised a hand in summons, and he paused beside my seat. 

"Telephone call for you, sir, " he informed me. 

With a word to my guardian, I pushed my chair back and crossed the room. But at the door I found my path barred by the _maitre d'hotel_, who, atthe sight of my progress, had sprung forward, like an arrow from a bow. 

"Excuse me, sir. You're not leaving, are you?" The man was actuallybreathing hard. Deferential as his bearing was, I saw no cause for theinquiry, and with some amusement and more annoyance, I wondered if hesuspected me of slipping out to evade my bill. 

"No, " I said, staring him up and down; "I'm not!" I passed down the hallto the entrance of the telephone booths. Glancing back, I could seehim still standing there gazing after me; his face, I thought, wore arelieved expression as he saw whither I was bound. 

The queer incident left my mind as I secluded myself, got my connection, and heard across the wire the indignant accents of Dick Forrest, myformer college chum. Upon leaving his yacht that morning, I had promisedhim a certain power of attorney--Dick is a lawyer and is called agood one, though I can never quite credit it--and he now demanded inunjudicial heat why it had not been sent round. 

"Good heavens, man, " I cut in remorsefully, "I forgot it! The thingis in my room now. Where are you? That's all right. You'll have it bymessenger within ten minutes. " Hastily rehooking the receiver, I boltedfrom my booth. 

In the restaurant door against a background of paneled walls the _maitred'hotel_ still stood, as if watching for my return. I sprang into anelevator just about to start its ascent, and saw his mouth fall open andhis feet bring him several quick steps forward. 

"The man is crazy, " I told myself with conviction as I shot up fourstories in as many seconds and was deposited in my hall. 

There was no one at the desk where the floor clerk usually kept vigil, gossiping affably with such employees as passed. The place seemeddeserted; no doubt all the guests were downstairs. Treading lightly onthe thick carpet, I went down the hall to Room four hundred and three, and found the door ajar and a light visible inside. 

My bed, I supposed, was being turned down. I swung the door open, andhalted in my tracks. With his back to me, bent over a wide-open trunkthat I had left locked, was a man. 

Stepping inside, I closed the door quietly, meanwhile scrutinizing myunconscious visitor from head to foot. He wore no hotel insignia--wasneither porter, waiter, nor valet. 

"Well, how about it? Anything there suit you?" I inquired affably, withmy back against the door. 

Exclaiming gutturally, he whisked about and faced me where I stood quiteprepared for a rough-and-tumble. Instead of a typical housebreaker offiction, I saw a pale, rabbit-like, decent-appearing little soul. Hewas neatly dressed; he seemed unarmed save for a great ring of assortedkeys; and his manner was as propitiatory and mild-eyed as that of anymouse. There must be some mistake. He was some sober mechanic, not arobber. But on the other hand, he looked ready to faint with fright. 

"_Mein Gott_!" he murmured in a sort of fishlike gasp. 

This illuminating remark was my first clue. 

"Ah! _Mein Herr_ is German?" I inquired, not stirring from my place. 

The demand wrought an instant change in him--he drew himself up, perhapsto five feet five. 

"Vat you got against the Germans?" he asked me, almost with menace. Itwas the voice of a fanatic intoning "Die Wacht am Rhein"--of a zealotspeaking for the whole embattled _Vaterland_. 

The situation was becoming farcical. 

"Nothing in the world, I assure you, " I replied. "They are a simple, kindly people. They are musical. They have given the world Schiller, Goethe, the famous _Kultur_, and a new conception of the possibilitiesof war. But I think they should have kept out of Belgium, and I feel thesame way about my room--and don't you try to pull a pistol or I may feelmore strongly still. "

"I ain't got no pistol, _nein_, " declared my visitor, sulkily. Hisresentment had already left him; he had shrunk back to five feet three. 

"Well, I have, but I'll worry along without it, " I remarked, witha glance at the nearest bag. As targets, I don't regard myfellow-creatures with great enthusiasm and, moreover, I could easilyhave made two of this mousy champion of a warlike race. Illogically, I was feeling that to bully him was sheer brutality. Besides this, mydinner was not being improved by the delay. 

"Look here, " I said amiably, "I can't see that you've taken anything. Speak up lively now; I'll give you just one chance. If you care to tellme how you got through a locked door and what you were after, I'll letyou go. I'm off to the firing line, and it may bring me luck!"

Hope glimmered in his eyes. In broken English, with a childlikeingenuousness of demeanor, he informed me that he was a first-classlocksmith--first-glass he called it--who had been sent by the managementto open a reluctant trunk. He had entered my room, I was led to infer, by a mistake. 

"I go now, _ja_?" he concluded, as postscript to the likely tale. 

"The devil you do! Do you take me for an utter fool?" I asked, excusablynettled, and stepping to the telephone, I took the receiver from itshook. 

"Give me the manager's office, please, " I requested, watching myvisitor. "Is this the manager? This is Mr. Bayne speaking, Room fourhundred and three. I've found a man investigating my trunk--a foreigner, a German. " An exclamation from the manager, and from the listeningtelephone-girl a shriek! "Yes; I have him. Yes; of course I can holdhim. Send up your house detective and be quick! My dinner is spoiling--"

The receiver dropped from my hand and clattered against the wall. Thelittle German, suddenly galvanized, had leaped away from the trunk, nottoward me and the door beyond me, but toward the electric switch. Hisfingers found and turned it, plunging the room into the darkness of thegrave. Taken unaware, I barred his path to the hall, only to hear himfling up the window across the room. Against the faint square of lightthus revealed, I saw him hang poised a moment. Then with a desperatenoise, a moan of mixed resolve and terror, he disappeared. 

CHAPTER II

DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALLES

Standing there staring after him, I felt like a murderer of the deepestdye. It is one thing to hand over to the police their natural prey, athief taken red-handed, but quite another, and a much more harrowingone, to have him slip through your fingers, precipitate himself intomid-air, and drop four stories to the pavement, scattering his brainsfar and wide. There was not a vestige of hope for the poor wretch. 

Unnerved, I groped to the window and peered downward for his remains. My first glance proved my regrets to be superfluous. Beneath my window, which, owing to the crowded condition of the hotel, opened on a sidestreet, a fire-escape descended jaggedly; and upon it, just out of arm'sreach, my recent guest clung and wobbled, struggling with an attack ofnatural vertigo before proceeding toward the earth. 

By this time my rage was such that I would have followed that littlethief almost anywhere. It was not the dizziness of the yawning void thatstayed me. I should have climbed the Matterhorn with all cheerfulness tocatch him at the top. But sundry visions of the figure I would cut, thecrowd that might gather, and the probable ragging in the morning papers, were too much for me, and I sorrowfully admitted that the game was notworth the price. 

The little man's nerves, meanwhile, seemed to be steadying. Feelingeach step, he began cautiously to work his way down. To my wrath heeven looked up at me and indulged in a grimace--but his triumph wasill-timed, for at that very instant I beheld, strolling along the streetbelow, humming and swinging his night-stick, as leisurely, complacent, and stalwart a representative of the law as one could wish to see. 

"Hi, there! Officer!" I shouted lustily. My hail, if not my words, reached him; he glanced up, saw the figure on the ladder, and was seizedinstantaneously with the spirit of the chase. 

Yelling something reassuring, the gist of which escaped me, heconstituted himself a reception committee of one and started for theladder's foot. But our doughty Teuton was a resourceful person. Rousedto the urgency of his plight, he looked wildly up at me, down at theofficer, and, hastily pushing up the nearest window, hoisted himselfacross its sill, and again took refuge in the St. Ives Hotel. 

With a bellow of rage, the policeman dashed toward the porte-cochere, while I ducked back into the room, rapidly revolving my chances ofcutting off the man's retreat below. If the system of numbering was thesame on every floor, my thief must, of course, emerge from Room 303. Butthis similarity was problematical, and to invade apartments at random, disturbing women at their opera toilets and maybe even waking babies, was too desperate a shift to try. 

It reminded me to wait with what patience I could summon for the housedetective. And where was he, by the way? I had turned in my alarm a goodfive minutes before. 

In an unenviable humor I stumbled across the room, tripping and barkingmy shins over various malignant hassocks, tables, and chairs. Findingthe switch at last, I flooded the room with light, and saw myself in themirror, with tie and coat askew. 

"Now, " I muttered, straightening them viciously, "we'll see what hetook away. " But the trunk seemed undisturbed when I examined it, and myvarious bags and suitcases were securely locked. I had found Forrest'spower of attorney and was storing it in my pocket when voices roseoutside. 

A group of four was approaching, comprised of a spruce, dress-coatedmanager; a short thick-set, broad-faced man who was doubtless thelong-overdue detective; a professional-appearing gentleman with ablack bag, obviously the house-physician; and the policeman that I hadsummoned from his stroll below. The latter, in an excited brogue, wasrecounting his late vision of the thief, "hangin' between hivin andearth, no less, " while the detective scornfully accused him of havingbeen asleep or jingled, on the ground of my late telephone to the effectthat I was holding the man. 

The manager, as was natural, took the initiative, bustling past me intomy room and peering eagerly around. 

"I needn't say, Mr. Bayne, " he orated fluently, "how sorry I am thatthis has happened--especially beneath our roof. It is our first case, I assure you, of anything so regrettable. If it gets into the papers itwon't do us any good. Now the important thing is to take the fellowout by the rear without courting notice. Why, where is he?" he askedhopefully. "Surely he isn't gone?"

"Sure, and didn't I tell ye? 'Tis without eyes ye think me!" Thepoliceman was resentful, and so, to tell the truth, was I. The wholemaddening affair seemed bent on turning to farce at every angle; thedoctor, as a final straw, had just offered _sotto voce_ to mix me asoothing draft!

"Gone! Of course he's gone, man!" I exclaimed with some natural temper. "Did you expect him to sit here waiting all this time? What on earthhave you been doing--reading the papers--playing bridge? A dozen thievescould have escaped since I telephoned downstairs!"

"But you said, " he murmured, apparently dazed, "that you could holdhim. " A tactless remark, which failed to assuage my wrath!

"So I could, " I responded savagely. "But I didn't expect him to turninto a conjuring trick, which is what he did. He went out that windowhead foremost, down the ladder, and into the room below. Let's be afterhim--though we stand as much chance of catching him as we do of findingthe King of England!" and I turned toward the doorway, where themanager, the doctor and the detective were massed. 

The manager put his hand upon my arm. I looked down at it with raisedeyebrows, and he took it away. 

"Excuse me, sir, " he said, adopting a manner of appeal, "but if you'llreflect for a moment you'll see how it is, I know. People don't care forhouses where burglars fly in and out of windows; it makes them nervous;you wouldn't believe how easily a hotel can get a bad name and lose itsclientele. Besides, from what you tell me, the fellow must be well awayby this time. You'd do me a favor--a big one--by dropping the matterhere. "

"Well, I won't!" I snapped indignantly. "I'll see it through--or startsomething still livelier. Are you coming down with me to investigatethe room beneath us or do you want me to ring up police headquarters andfind out why?"

In the hall the policeman looked at me across the intervening headsand dropped one slow, approving eyelid. "If the gintleman says so--" heremarked in heavy tones fraught with meaning, and fixed a cold, blue, appraising gaze on the detective, who thereupon yielded withunexpectedly good grace. 

"Aw, what's eating you?" was his amiable demand. "Sure, we was goingright down there anyhow--soon's we found out how the land lay up here. "

The five of us took the elevator to the lower floor. An unfriendlyatmosphere surrounded me. I was held a hotel wrecker without reason. Wefound the corridor empty, the floor desk abandoned--a state of thingsrather strikingly the duplicate of that reigning overhead--and in duecourse paused before Room 303, where the manager, figuratively speaking, washed his hands of the affair. 

"Here is the room, Mr. Bayne, for which you ask. " If I would persist inmy nefarious course, added his tone. 

The detective, obeying the hypnotic eye of the policeman, knocked. Therewas silence. The bluecoat, my one ally, was crouching for a spring. Thenlight steps crossed the room, and the door was opened. There stood agirl, --a most attractive girl, the girl that I had seen downstairs. Straight and slender, spiritedly gracious in bearing, with gray eyesquestioning us from beneath lashes of crinkly black, she was a radiantfigure as she stood facing us, with a coat of bright-blue velvet thrownover her rosy gown. 

"Beg pardon, miss, " said the policeman, brightly, "this gintleman's beenrobbed. "

As her eyebrows went up a fraction, I could have murdered him, for howelse could she read his statement save that I took her for the thief?

"I am very sorry, " I explained, bowing formally, "to disturb you. Weare hunting a thief who took French leave by my fire-escape. I must havebeen mistaken--I thought that he dodged in again by this window. Youhave not seen or heard anything of him, of course?"

"No, I haven't. But then, I just this instant came up from dinner, "she replied. Her low, contralto tones, quite impersonal, were yetdelightful; I could have stood there talking burglars with her tilldawn. "Do you wish to come in and make sure that he is not in hiding?"With a half smile for which I didn't blame her, she moved a step aside. 

"Certainly not!" I said firmly, ignoring a nudge from the policeman. "He left before you came--there was ample time. It is not of the leastconsequence, anyhow. Again I beg your pardon. " As she inclined her head, I bowed, and closed the door. 

"I trust Mr. Bayne, that you are satisfied at last. " This was the St. Ives manager, and I did not like his tone. 

"I am satisfied of several things, " I retorted sharply, "but before Ishare them with you, will you kindly tell me your name?"

"My name is Ritter, " he said with dignity. "I confess I fail to see whatbearing--"

"Call it curiosity, " I interrupted. "Doctor, favor me with yours. "

The doctor peered at me over his glasses, hesitated, and then revealedhis patronym. It was Swanburger, he informed me. 

"But, my dear sir, what on earth--"

"Merely, " said I, with conviction, "that this isn't an Allies' night. Itis _Deutschland uber Alles_; the stars are fighting for the Teuton race. Now, let's hear how you were christened, " I added, turning to the housedetective, who looked even less sunny than before if that could be. 

"See here, whatcher giving us?" snarled that somewhat unpolished worthy. "My name's Zeitfeld; but I was born in this country, don't you forgetit, same as you. "

"A great American personality, " I remarked dreamily, "has declared thatin the hyphenate lies the chief menace to the United States. Andwhat's your name?" I asked the representative of law and order. "Is itSchmidt?"

"No, sir, " he responded, grinning; "it's O'Reilly, sorr. "

"Thank heaven for that! You've saved my reason, " I assured him as Ileaned against the wall and scanned the Germanic hordes. 

"Mr. Ritter, " said I, addressing that gentleman coldly, "when I am nextin New York I don't think I shall stop with you. The atmosphere here istoo hectic; you answer calls for help too slowly--calls, at least, inwhich a guest indiscreetly tells you that he has caught a German thief. It looks extremely queer, gentlemen. And there are some other points aswell--"

But there I paused. I lacked the necessary conviction. After all I wasthe average citizen, with the average incredulity of the far-fetched, the melodramatic, the absurd. To connect the head waiter's panic at mydeparture with the episode in my room, to declare that the floor clerkshad been called from their posts for a set purpose, and the hallsdeliberately cleared for the thief, were flights of fancy that werebeyond me. The more fool I!

By the time I saw the last of the adventure I began that night--it wasall written in the nth power, and introduced in more or less importantroles the most charming girl in the world, the most spectacular hero ofFrance, the cleverest secret-service agent in the pay of the fatherland, and I sometimes ruefully suspected, the biggest imbecile of the UnitedStates in the person of myself--I knew better than to call any ideaimpossible simply because it might sound wild. But at the moment myeducation was in its initial stages, and turning with a shrug from threescowling faces, I led my friendly bluecoat a little aside. 

"I've no more time to-night to spend thief-catching, Officer, " I toldhim. I had just recalled my dinner, now utterly ruined, and Dunny, probably at this instant cracking walnuts as fiercely as if each onewere the kaiser's head. "But I'm an amateur in these affairs, and youare a master. Before I go, as man to man, what the dickens do you makeof this?"

Flattered, he looked profound. 

"I'm thinking, sorr, " he gave judgment, "ye had the rights of it. Seein'as how th' thafe is German, ye'll not set eyes on him more--for divila wan here but's of that counthry, and they stick together somethingfierce!"

"Well, " I admitted, "our thoughts run parallel. Here is something todrink confusion to them all. And, O'Reilly, I am glad I'm going to sailto-morrow. I'd rather live on a sea full of submarines than in thishotel, wouldn't you?"

Touching his forehead, he assented, and wished me good-night and agood journey; part of his hope went unfulfilled, by the way. That oceanvoyage of mine was to take rank, in part at least, as a first-classnightmare. The Central powers could scarcely have improved on it bytorpedoing us in mid-ocean or by speeding us upon our trip with a cargoof clock-work bombs. 

CHAPTER III

ON THE RE D'ITALIA

The sailing of the _Re d'Italia_ was scheduled for 3 P. M. Promptly, butbeing well acquainted with the ways of steamers at most times, above allin these piping times of war, it was not until an hour later than I leftthe St. Ives, where the manager, by the way, did not appear to bid mefarewell. 

The thermometer had been falling, and the day was crisp and snappy, witha light powdering of snow underfoot and a blue tang and sparkle in theair. Dunny accompanied me in the taxicab, but was less talkative thanusual. Indeed, he spoke only two or three times between the hotel andthe pier. 

"I say, Dev, " was his first contribution to the conversation, "d' you remember it was at a dock that you and I first met? It wasnight, blacker than Tophet, and raining, and you came ashore wet as arag. You were the lonesomest, chilliest, most forlorn little tike I eversaw; but, by the eternal, you were trying not to cry!"

"Lonesome? I rather think so!" I echoed with conviction. "Wynne and hiswife brought me over; he played poker all the way, and she read novelsin her berth. And I heard every one say that I was an orphan, and it wasvery, very sad. Well, I was never lonely after that, Dunny. " My hand methis half-way. 

The next time that he broke silence was upon the ferry, when he urged onme a fat wallet stuffed with plutocratic-looking notes. 

"In case anything should happen, " ran his muttered explanation. I havenever needed Dunny's money, --his affection is another matter, --but hecan spare it, and this time I took it because I saw he wanted me to. 

As we approached the Jersey City piers, he seemed to shrink and growtired, to take on a good ten years beyond his hale and hearty age. Withevery glance I stole at him a lump in my throat grew bigger, and in theend, bending forward, I laid a hand on his knee. 

"Look here, Dunny, " I demanded, not looking at him, "do you mean halfof what you were saying last evening--or the hundredth part? After all, there'll be a chance to fight here before we're many months older. Ifyou just say the word, old fellow, I'll be with you to-night--and hangthe trip!"

But Dunny, though he wrung my hand gratefully and choked and glared outof the window, would hear of no such arrangement, repudiated it, indeed, with scorn. 

"No, my boy, " he declared. "I don't say it for a minute. I like yourgoing. I wouldn't give a tinker's dam for you, whatever that is, if youdidn't want to do something for those fellows over there. I won't evensay to be careful, for you can't if you do your duty--only, don't you betoo all-fired foolhardy, even for war medals, Dev. "

"Oh, I was born to be hanged, not shot, " I assured him, almostprophetically. "I'll take care of myself, and I'll write you now andthen--"

"No, you won't!" he snorted, with a skepticism amply justified by thepast. "And if you did, I shouldn't answer; I hate letters, always did. But you cable me once a fortnight to let me know you're living--and sendan extra cable if you want anything on earth!"

The taxi, which had been crawling, came to a final halt, and a hungryhorde, falling on my impedimenta, lowered them from the driver's seat. 

"No, I'll not come on board, Dev, " said my guardian. "I--I couldn'tstand it. Good-by, my dear boy. "

We clasped hands again; then I felt his arm resting on my shoulder, andflung both of mine about him in an old-time, boyish hug. 

"_Au revoir_, Dunny. Back next year, " I shouted cheerily as the driverthrew in his clutch and the car glided on its way. 

Preceded by various porters, I threaded my way at a snail's pace throughthe dense crowd of waiting passengers, swarthy-faced sons of Italy, apparently bound for the steerage. The great gray bulk of the _Red'Italia_ loomed before me, floating proudly at her stern the green, white, and red flag blazoned with the Savoyard shield. 

"Wave while they let you, " I apostrophized it, saluting. "When we getoutside the three-mile limit and stop courting notice, you'll not flylong. "

At the gang-plank I was halted, and I produced my passport and exhibitedthe _vise_ of his excellency, the Italian consul-general in New York. I strolled aboard, was assigned to Cabin D, and informed by my stewardthat there were in all but five first-class passengers, a piece of newsthat left me calm. Stodgy I may be, --it was odd how that term of Dunny'srankled, --but I confess that I find chance traveling acquaintancesboring and avoid them when I can. Unlike most of my countrymen, Isuppose I am not gregarious, though I dine and week-end punctiliously, send flowers and leave cards at decorous intervals, and know people allthe way from New York to Tokio. 

My carefully limited baggage looked lonely in my cabin; I missed theparaphernalia with which one usually begins a trip. Also, as I rummagedthrough two bags to find the cap I wanted, I longed for Peters, myfaithful man, who could be backed to produce any desired thing at amoment's notice. When bound for Flanders or the Vosges, however, onemust be a Spartan. I found what I sought at last and went on deck. 

The scene, though cheerful, was not lacking in wartime features: Arow of life-boats hung invitingly ready; a gun, highly dramatic inappearance, was mounted astern, with every air of meaning businessshould the kaiser meddle with us en route. Down below, the Italians, talking, gesticulating, showing their white teeth in flashing, boyishsmiles, were being herded docilely on board, while at intervals one oranother of the few promenade-deck passengers appeared. 

The first of these, a shrewd-faced, nervous little man, borrowed anunneeded match of me and remarked that it was cold weather for spring. The next, a good-looking young foreigner, --a reservist, I surmised, recalled to the Italian colors in this hour of his country'sneed, --rather harrowed my feelings by coming on board with a familyparty, gray-haired father, anxious mother, slim bride-like wife, and twobrothers or cousins, all making pathetic pretense at good cheer. Soonafter came a third man, dark, quiet, watchful-looking, and personableenough, although his shoes were a little too gleamingly polished, hiswatch and chain a little too luminously golden, the color scheme of hishose and tie selected with almost too much care. 

"This, " I reflected resignedly, "is going to be a ghastly trip. By Jove, here comes another! Now where have I seen her before?"

The new arrival, as indicated by the pronoun, was a woman; though whyone should tempt Providence by traveling on this route at this juncture, I found it hard to guess. Standing with her back to me, enveloped in acoat of sealskin with a broad collar of darker fur, well gloved, smartlyshod, crowned by a fur hat with a gold cockade, she made a delightfulpicture as she rummaged in a bag which reposed upon a steamer-chair, andwhich, thus opened, revealed a profusion of gold mountings, bottles andbrushes, hand-chased and initialed in an opulent way. 

There was a haunting familiarity about her. She teased my memory asI strolled up the deck. Then, snapping the bag shut, she turned andstraightened, and I recognized the girl to whose door my thief-chase hadled me at the St. Ives. 

It seemed rather a coincidence my meeting her again. 

"I shouldn't mind talking to you on this trip, " I reflected, mollified. "The mischief of it is you'll notice me about as much as you notice theship's stokers. You're not the sort to scrape acquaintance, or else Imiss my shot!"

I did not miss it. So much was instantly proved. As I passed her, on themere chance that she might elect to acknowledge our encounter, I letmy gaze impersonally meet hers. She started slightly. Evidently sheremembered. But she turned toward the nearest door without a bow. 

The dark, too-well-groomed man was emerging as she advanced. Insteadof moving back, he blocked her path, looking--was it appraisingly, expectantly?--into her eyes. There was a pause while she waited ratherhaughtily for passage; then he effaced himself, and she disappeared. 

Striking a match viciously, I lit a cigarette and strolled forward. Either the fellow had fancied that he knew her or he had behaved ina confoundedly impertinent way. The latter hypothesis seemed, on thewhole, the more likely, and I felt a lively desire to drop him over therail. 

"But I don't know what a girl of your looks expects, I'm sure, " Igrumbled, "setting off on your travels with no chaperon and no companionand no maid! Where are your father and mother? Where are your brothers?Where's the old friend of the family who dined with you last night? Ifchaps who have no right to walk the same earth with you get insolent, who is going to teach them their place, and who is going to take care ofyou if a U-boat pops out of the sea? Oh, well, never mind. It isn't anyof my business. But just the same if you need my services, I think I'lltackle the job. "

Time was passing; night had fallen. Consulting my watch, I found that itwas seven o'clock. I had been aboard more than two hours. An afternoonsailing, quotha! At this rate we would be lucky if we got off by dawn. 

The dinner gong, a welcome diversion, summoned us below to lights andwarmth. At one table the young Italian entertained his relatives, and atanother the captain, a short, swart-faced, taciturn being, had groupedhis officers and various officials of the steamship company at afarewell feast. The little sharp-faced passenger was throned elsewherein lonely splendor, but when I selected a fourth table, he jumped up, crossed over and installed himself as my vis-a-vis. Passing me the salt, which I did not require, he supplied with it some personal data of whichI felt no greater need. His name was McGuntrie, he announced; he wassales agent for the famous Phillipson Rifles and was being dispatched tosecure a gigantic contract on the other side. 

"And if inside six months you don't see three hundred thousand Italiansoldiers carrying Phillipson's best, " he informed me, "I'll take a backseat and let young Jim Furman, who thinks I'm a has-been and he's theone white hope, begin to draw my pay. You can't beat those rifles. Whenthe boys get to carrying them, old Francis Joseph's ghost'll weep. Pity, ain't it, we didn't get on board by noon?" he digressed sociably. "Icould've found something to do ashore the four hours I've been twiddlingmy thumbs here, and I guess you could too. Hardest, though, on ourfriends the newspaper boys. Did you know they were out there waiting totake a flashlight film? Fact. They do it nowadays every time a big linerleaves. Then if we sink, all they have to do is run it, with 'DoomedShip Leaving New York Harbor' underneath. "

To his shocked surprise I laughed at the information. My appetitewas unimpaired as I pursued my meal. Trains in which others ride maytelescope and steamers may take one's acquaintances to watery graves, but to normal people the chance of any catastrophe overtaking thempersonally must always seem gratifyingly far-fetched and vague. 

"Think it's funny, do you?" my new friend reproached me. "Well, I don't;and neither did the folks who had cabins taken and who threw them uplast week when they heard how the _San Pietro_ went down on this sameroute. We're five plumb idiots--that's what we are--five crazy lunatics!I'd never have come a step, not with wild horses dragging me if ithadn't been for Jim Furman being pretty near popeyed, looking for achance to cut me out and sail. We've got fifteen hundred reservistsdownstairs, and a cargo of contraband. What do you know about that as aprize for a submarine?"

"Well, " I said vaingloriously. "I can swim. "

My eyes were wandering, for the girl in the fur coat had entered, withthe dark, watchful-eyed man--was it pure coincidence?--close behind. Thesteward ushered her to a table; the man followed at her heels. I daresay I glared. I know my muscles stiffened. The fellow was going to speakto her. What in blazes did he mean by stalking her in this way?

"Excuse me, " he was saying, "but haven't we met before?"

The girl straightened into rigidness, looking him over. Her manner washaughty, her ruddy head poised stiffly, as she answered in a cold tone:

"No. "

He was watching her keenly. 

"My name's John Van Blarcom, " he persisted. 

Again she gave him that sweeping glance. 

"You are mistaken, " she said indifferently. "I have not seen youbefore. "

He nodded curtly. 

"My mistake, " he admitted. "I thought I knew you, " and turning from her, he sat down at the one table still unoccupied. 

"So his name's Van Blarcom, " whispered my ubiquitous neighbor. "And theItalian chap over there is Pietro Ricci. The steward told me so. And thecaptain's name is Cecchi; get it? And I know your name, too, Mr. Bayne, "he added with a grin. "The steward didn't know what was taking you over, but I guess I've got your number all right. Say, ain't you a flying manor else one of the American-Ambulance boys?"

I mustered the feeble parry that I had stopped being a boy of any sortsome time ago. Then lest he wring from me my age, birthplace, and theamount of my income tax, I made an end of my meal. 

On deck again I wondered at my irritation, my sense of restlessness. The little salesman was not responsible, though he had fretted me likea buzzing fly. It was rather that I had taken an intense dislike to theman calling himself Van Blarcom; that the girl, despite her haughtiness, had somehow given me an impression of uneasiness--of fear almost--as shesaw him approach and heard him speak; and above all, that I shouldhave liked to flay alive the person or persons who had let her sailunaccompanied for a zone which at this moment was the danger point ofthe seas. 

My matter-of-fact, conservatively ordered life had been given a crazytwist at the St. Ives. As an aftermath of that episode I wasprobably scenting mysteries where there were none. Nevertheless, Iwondered--though I called myself a fool for it--if any more queerthings would happen before this ship on which we five bold voyagers wereconfined should reach the other side. 

They did. 

CHAPTER IV

"EXTRA"

Toward nine o'clock to my relief it became obvious that the _Red'Italia_ was really going to sail at last. The first and secondwhistles, sounding raucously, sent the company officials and the familyof the young officer of reserves ashore. The plank was lowered; betweenthe ship and the looming pier a thread of black water appeared and grew;a flash and an explosion indicated that the possibly doomed liner hadbeen filmed according to schedule. "_Evviva l'Italia_!" yelled thereturning braves in the steerage--a very decent set of fellows, itstruck me, to leave so cheerfully their vocations of teamster, waiter, fruit vender, and the like, and go, unforced, to wear the gray-greencoats of Italy, the short feathers of the mountain climbers, thebersagliere's bunch of plumes, and to stand against their hereditaryfoes the Austrians, up in the snowy Alps. 

The details of departure were an old tale to me. As we swung farther andfarther out, I turned to a newspaper, a twentieth extra probably, whichI had heard a newsboy crying along the dock a little earlier, and hadbribed a steward to secure. Moon and stars were lacking to-night, butthe deck lights were good reading-lamps. Moving up the rail to one ofthem, I investigated the world's affairs. 

From the first sheet the usual staring headlines leaped at me. Therewere the inevitable peace rumor, the double denial, the eternal bulletinof a trench taken here, a hill recaptured there. A sensational rumor wasexploited to the effect that Franz von Blenheim, one of the star secretagents of the German Empire, was at present incognito at Washington, having spent the past month in putting his finger in the Mexicanpie much to our disadvantage. On the last column of the page was thephotograph of a distinguished-looking young man in uniform, with anannouncement that promised some interest, I thought. 

"War Scandal Bursts in France, " "Scion of Oldest Noblesse Implicated, ""Duke Mysteriously Missing, " I read in the diminishing degrees ofthe scare-head type. Then came the picture, with a mien attractivelydebonair, a pleasantly smiling mouth, and a sympathetic pair of eyes, and in due course, the tale. I clutched at the flapping ends of thepaper and read on:

Of all the scandals to which the present war has given birth, nonehas stirred France more profoundly than that implicatingJean-Herve-Marie-Olivier, Count of Druyes, Marquis of Beuil andSantenay, and Duke of Raincy-la-Tour. This young nobleman, head of afamily that has played its part in French history since the days of theNorthmen and the crusaders, bears in his veins the bluest blood of theold regime, and numbers among his ancestors no fewer than seven marshalsand five constables of France. 

A noted figure not only by his birth, his wealth, and his varioushistoric chateaux, but also by his sporting proclivities, his daringautomobile racing, his marvelous fencing, and his spectacular huntingtrips, the Duke of Raincy-la-Tour has long been in addition an amateuraviator of considerable fame, and it was to the French Flying Corps thathe was attached when hostilities began. Here he distinguished himselffrom the first by his coolness, his extraordinary resource, and hisutter contempt for danger, and became one of the idols of the Frencharmy and a proverb for success and audacity, besides attaining tothe rank of lieutenant, gaining, after his famous night flight acrossMulhausen for bomb-dropping purposes, the affectionate sobriquet of theFirefly of France, and winning in rapid succession the military Medal, the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, and the Cross of War with palms. 

According to rumor, the duke was lately intrusted with a mission ofexceptional peril, involving a flight into hostile territory and thecapture of certain photographs of defenses much needed for the plansof the supreme command. With his wonted brilliancy, he is said to haveaccomplished the errand and to have returned in safety as far as theFrench lines. Here, however, we enter the realm of conjecture. The dukehas disappeared; the plans he bore have never reached the generalissimo;and rumor persistently declares that at some point upon his returnjourney he was intercepted by German agents and induced by bribes orcoercion to deliver up his spoils. By one version he was later capturedand summarily executed by the French; while his friends, denying this, pin their hopes to his death at the hands of the enemy, as offering thebest outcome of the unsavory event. 

The family of the Duke of Raincy-la-Tour has been noted in the past forits pronouncedly Royalist tendencies, the attitude of his father andgrandfather toward the republic having been hostile in the extreme. It is believed that this fact may have its significance in the presentepisode. The occurrence is of special interest to the United States inview of the recent (Continued on Page Three)

Before proceeding, I glanced at the pictured face. The Duke ofRaincy-la-tour looked back at me with cool, clear eyes, smiling halfaloofly, a little scornfully, as in the presence of danger the trueFrenchman is apt to smile. 

"I don't think, Jean-Herve-Marie-Olivier, " I reflected, "that you evertalked to the Germans except with bombs. They probably got you, poorchap, and you're lying buried somewhere while the gossips make a holidayof the fact that you don't come home. Confound 'current rumors' anyhow, and yellow papers too!"

"I beg your pardon, " said a low contralto voice. 

The girl in the fur coat was standing at my shoulder. I turned, liftingmy cap, wondering what under heaven she could want. I was not muchpleased to tell the truth; a goddess shouldn't step from her pedestalto chat with strangers. Then suddenly I recognized a distinct oddness inher air. 

"Would you lend me your paper, " she was asking, "for just a moment? Ihaven't seen one since morning; the evening editions were not out when Icame on board. "

Her manner was proud, spirited, gracious; she even smiled; but she wasfrightened. I could read it in her slight pallor, in the quickening ofher breath. 

My extra! What was there in the day's news that could upset her? I wasnonplussed, but of course I at once extended the sheet. 

"Certainly!" I replied politely. "Pray keep it. " Lifting my cap a secondtime, I turned to go. 

Her fingers touched my arm. 

"Wait! Please wait!" she was urging. There was a half-imperious, half-appealing note in her hushed voice. 

I stared. 

"I'm afraid, " I said blankly, "that I don't quite--"

"Some one may suspect. Some one may come, " urged this most astonishingyoung woman. "Don't you see that--that I'm trusting you to help me?Won't you stay?"

Wondering if I by any chance looked as stunned as I felt, I bowedformally, faced about, and waited, both arms on the rail. My ideas asto my companion had been revolutionized in sixty seconds. I had believedher a girl with whom I might have grown up, a girl whose brother andcousins I had probably known at college, a girl that I might have metat a friend's dinner or at the opera or on a country-club porch if I hadhad my luck with me. Now what was I to think her--an escaped lunatic orsomething more accountable and therefore worse? If I detest anything, it is the unconventional, the stagy, the mysterious. Setting my teeth, I resolved to wait until she concluded her researches; after that, politely but firmly, I would depart. 

And then, beside me, the paper rustled. I heard a little gasp, a tinylow-drawn sigh. Stealing a glance down, I saw the girl's face shiningwhitely in the deck light. Her black lashes fringed her cheeks as herhead bent backward; her eyes were as dark as the water we were slippingthrough. I had no idea of speaking, and yet I did speak. 

"I am afraid, " I heard myself saying, "that you have had bad news. "

She was struggling for self-control, but her voice wavered. 

"Yes, " she agreed; "I am afraid I have. "

"If there is anything I can do--" I was correct, but reluctant. How Iwould bless her if she would go away!

But obviously she did not intend to. Quite the contrary!

"There is something, " she was murmuring, "that would help me very much. "

There, I had done it! I was an ass of the common or garden variety, whofirst resolved to keep out of a queer business and then, because a girllooked bothered, plunged into it up to my ears. I succeeded in hiding myfeelings, in looking wooden. 

"Please tell me, " I responded, "what it is. "

"But--I can't explain it. " Her gloved hands tightened on the railing. "And if I ask without explaining, it will seem so--so strange. "

"Doubtless, " I reflected grimly. But I had to see the thing through now. "That doesn't matter at all, " I assured her civilly through clenchedteeth. 

She came closer--so close that her fur coat brushed me, and her breathtouched my cheek; her eyes, like gray stars now that they were lessanxious, went to my head a little, I suppose. Oh, yes, she was lovely. Of course that was a factor. If she had been past her first youth andskimpy as to hair, and dowdy, I don't pretend that I should ever havemixed myself up in the preposterous coil. 

"This paper, " she whispered, holding out the sheet, "has something init. It is not about me; it is not even true. But if it stays aboardthe ship, --if some one sees it, it may make trouble. Oh, you see how itsounds; I knew you would think me mad!"

"Not in the least. " What an absurd rigmarole she was uttering! Yet suchwas the spell of her eyes, her voice, her nearness that I merely feltlike saying, "Tell me some more. "

"I can't destroy it myself, " she went on anxiously. "He--they--mustn'tsee me do anything that might lead them to--to guess. But no one willthink of you, nobody will be watching you; so by and by will you weightthe paper with something heavy and drop it across the rail?"

My head was whirling, but a graven image might have envied me myimpassivity. I bowed. "I shall be delighted, " I announced banally, "todo as you say. "

Her face flushed to a warm wild-rose tint as she heard me promise it, and her red lips, parting, took on a tremulous smile. 

"Thank you, " she murmured in frank gratitude. "I thought--I knew youwould help me!" Then she was gone. 

My trance broken I woke to hear myself softly swearing. I consignedmyself to my proper home, an asylum; I wished the girl at Timbuktu, Kamchatka, Land's End--anywhere except on this ship. As I had told theagent of the Phillipson Rifles, I am no boy. One can scarcely knockabout the world for thirty years without gaining some of its wisdom; andof all the appropriate truisms I spared myself not one. 

Resentfully I reminded myself that mysteries were suspicious, thathonest people seldom had need of secrecy, that idiots who, like me, consented to act blindfold would probably repent their blindnessin sackcloth and ashes before long. But what use were these sagereflections? I had given my word to her. I was in for the consequences, however unpleasant they proved. 

Without further mental parley I went down to my cabin, where I routedout from among my traps a bronze paper-weight as heavy as lead. Wrappingthe mysterious sheet about it, I brought the package back on deck. Therewas not a soul in sight; it was a propitious hour. 

To right and to left the coast lights were slipping past, making goldenpaths on the black water as our tug pulled us out to sea. The reservistsdown below were singing "_Va fuori, o stranier_!" I dropped my packageoverboard, watched it vanish, and turned to behold the sphinx-likeVan Blarcom, sprung up as if by magic, regarding me placidly from theshelter of the smoking-room door. 

CHAPTER V

MR. VAN BLARCOM. U. S. A. 

For a trip that had begun with such rich promise of the unusual, myvoyage on the _Re d'Italia_ proved a gratifying anticlimax during itsfirst few days. The weather was bad. We plowed forward monotonously, flagless, running between dark-gray water and a lowering, leaden sky. Screws throbbed, timbers creaked, and dishes crashed as the Gulf Streamtook us, and great waves reared themselves round us like myriads ofthreatening Alps. 

After that first night the girl kept discreetly to her stateroom. I wasrelieved; but I thought of her a good deal. I had little else to do. Pacing a drunken deck and smoking, I wove unsatisfactory theories, asking myself what was her need of secrecy, what the item she wantedhidden, what the errand that had made her sail on the vessel a weekafter the spectacular torpedoing of a sister-ship? Did she know this VanBlarcom or did she merely dread any notice? And above all, who was theman and had he been watching when I tossed that wretched extra acrossthe rail?

I saw something of him, of course, as time went on. Naturally we fourbold spirits, the ubiquitous McGuntrie, Van Blarcom, the young reservistPietro Ricci, --a very good sort of fellow, --and I were herded togetherbeyond escape. Also, a foursome at bridge seemed divinely indicated byour number, and to avert a sheer paralysis of ennui we formed the habitof winning each other's money at that game. 

As we played I studied Van Blarcom, but without results. It wasruffling; I should have absorbed in so much intercourse a fairlydefinite impression of his personality, profession, and social grade. But he was baffling; reticent, but self-assured, authoritative even, and, in a quiet way, watchful. He smoked a good cigar, mixed a gooddrink, seemed used to travel, but produced a coarse-grained effect, made grammatical errors, and on the whole was a person from whom, onceashore, I should flee. 

At six o'clock on the seventh night out our voyage entered its secondlap; all the electric lights were simultaneously extinguished as weentered the danger zone. We made a sketchy toilet by means of tapers, groped like wandering ghosts down a dim corridor, and dined by the faintrays of candles thrust into bottles and placed at intervals alongthe festive board. I went on deck afterward to find the ship plungingthrough blackness on forced draft, with port-holes shrouded and withnot even a riding-light. If not in Davy Jones's locker by that time, weshould reach Gibraltar the next evening; afterward we should head forNaples, a two days' trip. 

The following morning found our stormy weather over. The sea throughwhich we were speeding had a magic color, the dark, rich, Mediterraneanblue. Ascending late, I saw gulls flying round us and seaweed driftingby, and Mr. McGuntrie in a state of nerves, with a life belt about him, walking wildly to and fro. 

"Well, Mr. Bayne, " he greeted me, "never again for mine! If I eversee the end of this trip, --if you call it a trip; I call it merryhades, --believe me, I'll sell something hereafter that I can sell onland. I'm a crackerjack of a salesman, if I do say it myself. Once I gotstarted talking I could get a man down below to buy a hot toddy and aset of flannels--and I wish I'd gone down there and done it before Iever saw this boat. "

Unmoved, I leaned on the railing and watched the blue swells break. McGuntrie took a turn or two. In the ship's library he had discovered amanual entitled "How to Swim, " and he was now attempting between lamentsto memorize its salient points. 

"The first essay is best made in water of not less than fifty degreesFahrenheit, and not more than four feet in depth, " he gabbled, andthen broke off to gaze at the sea about us, chilly in temperature, andcountless fathoms deep. "Oh, what's the use? What the blue blazes doesit matter?" he cried hysterically. "I tell you that U-boat that sank the_San Pietro_ is laying for us. In about an hour you'll see a periscopebob up out there. Then we'll send out an S. O. S. , and the next thing youknow we'll sink with all on board. "

We had as yet escaped this doom when toward six o'clock we approachedGibraltar, running beneath a crimson sunset and between misty purpleshores. On one hand lay Africa, on the other the Moorish country, both shrouded in a soft haze and edged with snowy foam. Down belowthe soldiers of Italy were singing. A merchantman of belligerentnationality, our ship proudly flew its flag again. Indeed, had it failedto do so, the British patrol-boats would long since have known thereason why. 

It was growing dark when I turned to find Van Blarcom at my elbow. 

"I didn't see you, " I commented rather shortly. I don't like people tocreep up beside me like cats. 

"No, " he responded. "I've been waiting quite a while. I didn't want todisturb you, but the fact is I'd like a word with you, Mr. Bayne. "

I eyed him with curiosity. He was inscrutable, this quiet, alert, efficient-looking man. Take, for instance, his present manner, halfself-assured, half respectfully apologetic--what grade in life did itfit?

"Well, here I am, " I said briefly as I struck a match. 

"I've thought it over a good bit, " he went on, apparently inself-justification. "I don't know how you will take it, but I'll chanceit just the same. If I don't give you a hint, you don't get a squaredeal. That's my attitude. Did you ever hear of Franz von Blenheim, Mr. Bayne?"

"Eh?" The question seemed distinctly irrelevant--and yet where had Iheard that name, not very long ago?

"The German secret-service agent. The best in the world, they say. " Asort of reluctant admiration showed in Van Blarcom's face. "Thereisn't any one that can get him; he does what he wants, goes where helikes--the United States, England, France, Russia--and always gets awaysafe. You'd think he was a conjurer to read what he does sometimes. A whole country will be looking for him, and he takes some one else'spassport, puts on a disguise, and good-by--he's gone! That's Franzvon Blenheim. No; that's just an outline of him. And on pretty goodauthority, he's in Washington now. "

Mr. Van Blarcom, I reflected, was surely coming out of his shell; thiswas quite a monologue with which he was favoring me. It was dark now;our lights were flaring. Being in a friendly port's shelter, we burnedelectricity to-night. 

"You seem to know a whole lot about this fellow, " I remarked idly in thepause. 

"Yes, I do. " He smiled a trifle grimly. "In fact, I once came neargetting him; it would have made my fortune, too. But he slipped throughmy fingers at the last minute, and if I ever--You see, I'm in thesecret-service myself, Mr. Bayne. "

I turned to stare at him. 

"The United States service?" I asked. 

"Yes. "

I nodded. All that had puzzled me was fairly clear in this new light. Not at all the type of the star agents, those marvelous beings whofigure so romantically in fiction and on the boards, he was yet, Ifancied, a good example of the ruck of his profession, those who didthe every-day detective work which in such a business must be done. But--Franz von Blenheim? What was my association with the name? Then Irecalled that in the extra I had read as we left harbor there had beensome account of the man's activities in Mexico. 

"What I wanted to say was this, " Van Blarcom continued in his usualmanner--the manner that I now recognized to be a subtler form of thepoliceman's, respectful to those he held for law-abiding, alert andwatchful to detect gentry of any other kind. "This line we're travelingon now is one the spies use quite a bit. They used to go to Londonstraight or else to Bordeaux and Paris; but the English and French gota pretty strict watch going, and now it's easier for them to slip intoFrance through Italy, by Modane. They sail for Naples mostly, do yousee? And--you won't repeat this?--it's fairly sure that when Franzvon Blenheim sends his government a report of what he's done in Mexicoagainst us, he'll send it by an agent who travels on this line and landsin Italy and then slips into Germany by way of Switzerland. "

We were drifting slowly into the harbor of Gibraltar, the rock loomingover us through the blackness, a gigantic mountain, a mass of tiered andserried lights. Search-lights, too, shot out like swords, focused on us, and swept us as we crept forward between dimly visible, anchoredcraft. The throbbing of our engines ceased. A launch chugged toward us, bringing the officers of the port. I watched, pleased with the scene, and rather taken with my companion's discourse. It was not unlike a dimenovel of my youth. 

"Do you mean you've been sent on this line to watch for one ofBlenheim's agents?" I inquired. 

"No. I'm sent for some work on the other side--and I'm not telling youwhat it is, either, " he rejoined. "What I meant was that a man has tobe careful, traveling on these ships. They watch close. They have to. Haven't you noticed that whenever two or three of us get to talking, asteward comes snooping round? Well, I suppose you wouldn't, it not beingyour business; but I have. We're watched all the time; and if we'rewise, we'll mind our step. Take you, for instance. You're a goodAmerican, eh? And yet some spy might fool you with a cute story and getyour help and maybe play you for a sucker on the other side. I saw thathappen once. It was a nice young chap, and a pretty girl fooled him--gothim into a peck of trouble. What you want to remember is that good spiesnever seem like spies. "

If I looked as I felt just then, the search-light that swept me musthave startled him. I could feel my face flushing, my hands clenching asI caught his drift. I swung round. 

"What's this about?" I demanded sharply. But I knew. 

"Well, " said the secret-service man discreetly, "I saw something prettyfunny the first night out, Mr. Bayne. It was safe enough with me; I cantell a gentleman from a spy; but if an officer had seen it, the thingwouldn't have been a joke. Suppose we put it this way. There's a personon board I think I know. I haven't got the goods, I'll own, but Idon't often make mistakes. My advice to you, sir, is to steer clear ofstrangers. And if I were you, I--"

"That'll do, thanks!" I cut him short. "I can take care of myself. Idon't say your motives are bad, --you may think this is a favor, --but Icall it a confounded piece of meddling, and I'll trouble you to let itend. "

He looked hurt and indignant. 

"Now, look here, " he remonstrated, "what have I done but give you afriendly hint not to get in bad? But maybe I was too vague about it; youjust listen to a few facts. I'll tell you who that young lady is and whoher people are and what she wants on the other side--"

"No, you won't!" I declared. My voice sounded savage. I was recallinghow she had begged the extra of me, and how it had contained a fullaccount of Franz von Blenheim, the kaiser's man. "The young lady's nameand affairs are no concern of mine. If you know anything you can keep itto yourself. "

As we glared at each other like two hostile catamounts, a stewardrelieved the tension by running toward us down the deck. 

"_Signori, un momento, per piacere_!" he called as he came. The Britishofficers were on board, he forthwith informed us, and were demanding, in accordance with the martial law now reigning at Gibraltar, a sight ofeach passenger and his passport before the ship should proceed. 

CHAPTER VI

THUMBSCREWS

The salon of conversation, as the mirrored, gilded, and highly varnishedapartment was grandiloquently termed, had been the very spot chosen forour presumably not very terrible ordeal. Things were well under way. At the desk in the corner one officer was jotting down notes as to theclearance papers and the cargo; while at a table in the foreground sathis comrade, in a lieutenant's uniform, with the captain of the _Red'Italia_ at his right, swart-faced and silent, and the list of thepassengers lying before the pair. 

As I entered a few moments behind Van Blarcom, I perceived that theinterrogation had already run a partial course. Pietro Ricci, thereservist, had, no doubt, emerged with flying colors and now stoodagainst the wall beside the doughty agent of the Phillipson Rifles, whohad apparently satisfied his inquisitor, too. Near the door a group ofstewards had clustered to watch with interest; and as I stood waiting, the girl in furs came in. 

I put myself a hypothetical query. 

"If a girl, " I thought, "materializes from the void, asks anincriminating favor, and vanishes, does that put one on bowing termswith her when one meets her again?" Evidently it did, for she smiledbrightly and graciously and bent her ruddy head. But she was pale, Inoticed critically; there was apprehension in her eyes. Wasn't it oddthat the prospect of a few simple questions from an officer shoulddisconcert her when she had possessed the courage, or the foolhardiness, to sail on this line at this time?

Really I could not deny that all I had seen of her was most suspicious. For aught I knew, the secret-service man might be absolutely right. Ihad treated him outrageously. I owed him an apology, doubtless. ButI still felt furious with him, and when she looked anxiously at thoseofficers, I felt furious with them too. 

Van Blarcom, his brief questioning ended, was turning from the table. Ashe passed, I made a point of smiling companionably at the girl. 

"Now for the rack, the cord, and the thumbscrews, " I murmured to her, making way. 

The lieutenant was a tall, lean, muscular young man with a shrewd tannedface in which his eyes showed oddly blue, and he half rose, civillyenough, as the girl advanced. 

"Please sit down, " he said with a strong English accent. "I'll have tosee your passport if you will be so good. " She took it from the bag shecarried, and he glanced at it perfunctorily. 

"Your name is Esme Falconer?"

"Yes, " she replied. 

It was the name of the little Stuart princess, the daughter of Charlesthe First, whose quaint, coiffed, blue-gowned portrait hangs in a dark, gloomy gallery at Rome. I was subconsciously aware that I liked itdespite its strangeness, the while I wondered more actively if thatPaul Pry of a Van Blarcom had imparted to the ship's authorities thesuspicions he had shared with me. 

"You are an American, Miss Falconer? You were born in the States?You are going to Italy--and then home again?" The questions came in areassuringly mechanical fashion; the man was doing his duty, nothingmore. 

"I may go also to France. " Her voice was steady, but I saw that she hadclenched her hands beneath the table. 

I glanced at Van Blarcom, to find him listening intently, his neckthrust forward, his eyes almost protruding in his eagerness not to missa word. But there was to be nothing more. 

"That is satisfactory, Miss Falconer, " announced the Englishman; with alittle sigh of relief, she stood back against the wall. 

"If you please, " said the officer to me in another tone. 

As I came forward, his eyes ran over me from head to foot. Sodid Captain Cecchi's; but I hardly noticed; these uniforms, theseformalities, these war precautions, were like a dash of comic opera. Iwas not taking them seriously in the least. The Britisher gestured metoward a seat, but it seemed superfluous for so brief an interview, andI remained standing with my hands resting on a chair. 

"I'll have your passport!" There was something curt in his manner. "Ah!And your name is--?"

"My name is Devereux Bayne. "

"How old are you?"

"Thirty. "

"Where do you live?"

"In New York and Washington. " If he could be laconic, so could I. 

"You were born in America?"

"No. I was born in Paris. " By this time questions and answers were likethe pop of rifle-shots. 

"That was a long way from home. Lucky you chose the country of one ofour Allies. " Was this sarcasm or would-be humor? It had an unpleasantring. 

"Glad you like it, " I responded, with a cold stare, "but I didn't pickit. "

"Well, if you weren't born in the States, are you an American citizen?"he imperturbably pursued. 

"If you'll consult my passport, you'll see that I am. "

"Did either your father or your mother have any German blood?"

I could hear a slight rustle back of me among the passengers, none ofwhom, it was plain, had been subjected to such cross-questioning. I wasgrowing restive, but I couldn't tell him it was not his business; ofcourse it was. 

"No; they didn't, " I briefly replied. 

"About your destination now. " He was making notes of all my answers. "You are going to Italy, and then--"

"To France. "

"Roundabout trip, rather. The Bordeaux route is safer just now andquicker, too. Why not have gone that way? And how long are you planningto stop over on this side?"

"It depends upon circumstances. " What on earth ailed the fellow? He wasas annoying as a mosquito or a gnat. 

"I beg your pardon, but your plans seem rather at loose ends, don'tthey? What are you crossing for?"

"To drive an ambulance!" I answered as curtly as the words could besaid. 

I saw his face soften and humanize at the information. For once I hadmade a satisfactory response, it seemed. But on the heels of my answerthere rose the voice of Mr. McGuntrie, sensational, accusing, pitchedalmost at a shriek. 

"Look here, lieutenant, " he was crying, "don't you let that fellow foolyou. I asked him the first night out if he was an ambulance boy, andhe denied it to me, up and down. I thought all along he was too smart, hooting like he did at submarines. Guess he knew one would pick him upall right if the rest of us did sink. "

"How about that, Mr. Bayne?" asked the Englishman, his uncordial selfonce more. 

It was maddening. One would have thought them all in league to prove mean atrocious criminal. 

"Simply this, " I replied with the iciness of restrained fury, "that thisgentleman has been the steamer's pest ever since the night we sailed. IfI had answered his questions, every one, down to the ship's cat, wouldhave shared his knowledge within the hour. I did not deny anything; Isimply did not assent. You are an officer in authority; I am answeringyou, though I protest strongly at your manner; but I don't tell myaffairs to prying strangers because we are cooped up on the same boat. "

"H'm. If I were you I would keep my temper. " He regarded methoughtfully, and then with rapier-like rapidity shot two questionsat my head. "I say, Mr. Bayne, you're positive about your parents nothaving German blood, are you? And you are quite sure you were born inParis, not in--well, Prussia, suppose we say?"

"What the--" I opportunely remembered the presence of Miss EsmeFalconer. "What do you mean?" I substituted less sulphurously, but witha glare. 

He bent forward, tapping his forefinger against the desk, and his eyeswere like gimlets boring into mine. 

"I mean, " he enlightened me, his voice very hard of a sudden, "that aGerman agent is due to sail on this line, about this time, with certainpapers, and that from one or two indications I'm not at all sure you arenot the man. "

With sudden perspicacity, I realized that he took me for an emissary ofthe great Blenheim. Exasperation overwhelmed me; would these farcicalcomplications never cease?

"Good heavens, man, " I exclaimed with conviction, "you are crazy! Lookat me! Use your common-sense! What on earth is there about me to suggesta spy?"

"In a good spy there never is anything suggestive. "

By Jove, that was the very thing the secret-service man had said!

"You admit you were born abroad. You claim to be bound for France, butyou sail for Italy. And you are rather a soldier's type, tall, wellset-up, good military carriage. You'd make quite a showing in a fielduniform, I should say. "

"In a fiddlestick!" I snapped, weary of the situation. "So would you--sowould our friend the Italian reservist there. I'm an average American, free, white, and twenty-one, with strong pro-Ally sympathies and apassport in perfect shape. This is all nonsense, but of course thereis something back of it. What has been your real reason for deviling meever since I entered this room?"

The lieutenant was studying my face. 

"Mr. Bayne, " he said slowly, "do you care to tell me the nature of thepackage you threw across the rail the first night out?"

I heard a gasp from the group behind me, a squeal of joy fromMcGuntrie, a quick, low-drawn breath that surely came from the girl. Preternaturally cool, I thought rapidly. 

"What's that you say? Package?" I repeated, trying to gain time. 

"Yes, package!" said the Englishman, sharply. "And we'll dispense withpretense, please. These are war-times, and from common prudence theAllies keep an eye on all passengers who choose to sail instead ofstaying at home as we prefer they should. Captain Cecchi here reportsto me that one of his stewards saw you drop a small weighted objectoverboard. He has asked me to interrogate you, instead of doing ithimself, so that you may have the chance to defend yourself in English, which he doesn't speak. "

"_E vero_. It ees the truth, " confirmed the captain of the _Red'Italia_--the one remark, by the way, that he ever addressed to me. 

"Well?" It was the Englishman's cold voice. "We are waiting, Mr. Bayne!What was this object you were so anxious to dispose of? A message fromsome confederate, too compromising to keep?"

Heretofore I had carefully avoided looking at Miss Falconer, but at thispoint, turning my head a trifle, I gave her a casual glance. Her eyeshad blackened as they had done that night on the deck; her face hadpaled, and her breath was coming fast. But as I looked, her gaze fell, and her lashes wavered; and I knew that whatever came she did not meanto speak. 

CHAPTER VII

THE TIGHTENING WEB

I did not, of course, want her to. I was no "Injun giver, " and havingonce pledged my word to help her, I was prepared to keep it till all wasblue or any other final shade. Still, it was not to be denied thatmy position looked incriminating. She might be as honest as thedaylight, --I believed she was; I had to or else abandon her, --but shehad managed to plunge me into a confounded mess. 

Naturally I was exasperated at the net results of my piece of gallantry. I didn't care to be suspected; I wasn't anxious to have to lie. Allthe same, a plausible explanation, offered without delay, appearedessential. I should have wanted as much myself had I been guardingGibraltar port. 

"Well, Mr. Bayne?"

"Well!" I retorted coolly. "I was just wondering if I should answer. This is an infernal outrage, you know. You don't really think I'm a spy. What you are doing is to give me a third degree on general principles. If you'll excuse my saying so I think you ought to have more sense!"

"Oh, of course we ought to take you on trust, " he agreed sardonically. "But we can't I'm afraid. The fact is, we have had an experience or twoto shake our faith. The last time this steamer stopped here we caught apair of spies who didn't look the part any more than you do; and sincethen we have rather stopped taking appearances as guarantees. "

"All right, then, " I responded. "I'll stretch a point since it iswar-time. I give you my word that I threw overboard a small bronzepaper-weight that was cluttering up my traps. There was nothingsurreptitious about it; the whole steamer might have seen me. Do youcare to take the responsibility of having me shot for that?"

"And I want to say, sir, that the gentleman is giving it to youstraight. " An unexpected voice addressed the lieutenant at my back. "Iwas standing at the door behind him that night, though he didn't knowit, and I can take my oath that what he says is gospel truth. "

My unlooked-for champion was Mr. John Van Blarcom. I stared at him, ata loss to know why, on the heels of our row on deck and my rejection ofhis friendly warning, he should perjure himself for me in so obliginga fashion. He had, I was aware, been too far off that night to knowwhether I had thrown away a paper-weight or a sand-bag. Moreover, the object had been swathed beyond recognition in the extra thatwas primarily responsible for all this fuss. "He is sorry for me, "I decided. "He thinks the girl has made a fool of me. " Instead ofexperiencing gratitude, I felt more galled and wrathful than before. 

"Is that so? How close were you?" the lieutenant asked alertly. "Aboutten feet? You are quite sure? Well--it's all right, I suppose, then, " headmitted in a very grudging tone. 

"No, it isn't, " I declared tartly. I was by no means satisfied withso half-hearted a vindication; nor did I care to owe my immunity toa patronizing lie on Mr. Van Blarcom's part. "You have accused me ofspying. Do you think I'll let it go at that? I insist that you have mybaggage brought up here and that you search it and search me. "

The face of the Englishman really relaxed for once. 

"That's a good idea. And it's what any honest man would want, Mr. Bayne, " he approved. "Since you demand it--certainly, we'll do it, " andhe glanced at the captain, who promptly ordered two stewards to fetch mytraps from below. 

Things move rapidly on shipboard. My traveling impedimenta appeared inthe salon almost before I could have uttered the potent name of JackRobinson, had I cared to try. With cold aloofness I offered my keys, and the head steward knelt to officiate, while the crowd gaped and thesecond English officer abandoned his corner and his papers, standingforth to watch with the lieutenant and the captain, thus forming anintent and highly interested committee of three. 

The investigation began, very thorough, slightly harrowing. I had notrealized the embarrassing detail of such a search. An extended storeof collars suitable for different occasions; neat and glossy pilesof shirts, both dress and plain; black silk hose mountain high, andneckties as numerous as the sea sands. Noting the rapt attention thatMcGuntrie in particular gave to these disclosures, I felt that todeserve so inhuman a punishment my crime must have been black indeed. Shoes on their trees; articles of silk underwear; brushes, combs, gloves, cards, boxes of cigarettes, an extra flask; some lightliterature. And so on and so on, ad nauseam, till I grew dullyapathetic, and roused only to praise Allah when we left the boxes forthe trunk. 

Hardened by this time, I brazenly endured the exhibition of my pajamas, not turning a hair when they were held up and shaken out before theattentive crowd. In a similar spirit I bore the examination of my coatsand trousers, the rummaging of my vests, the investigation of my hats. "Courage!" I told myself. "Nothing in the world is endless. " Indeed, thelast garment was now being lifted, revealing nothing beneath it save aleather wallet carefully tied. 

"Just look through that, will you?" I requested with chilling sarcasm. "Otherwise you may get to thinking later that I had a note for thekaiser there. In point of fact, those are simply some letters ofintroduction that I am taking to--" I broke off abruptly. "Good Lorddeliver us!" I blankly exclaimed. "What's that?"

The lieutenant, complying with my request, had unbound the wallet andwas flirting out its contents in fan-like fashion like a hand of cards. I saw the imposing army of letters presented me by Dunny, who knowseverybody, headed by one to his old friend, the American ambassador toFrance. So far, so good. But beneath them, with a sickening sense ofbeing in a bad dream, I beheld a thin sheaf of papers, neatly folded, bound with red tape and sealed with bright red wax, --an object which, tomy certain knowledge, had no more business among my belongings thanthe knives and plates that the conjurer snatches from the surroundingatmosphere, or the hen which he evolves, clucking, from an erstwhileempty sleeve. 

Standing there with the impersonal calm of utter helplessness, I watchedthe Britisher break the seal and unfold the sheets. They were thin andthey were many and they were covered with closely jotted hieroglyphics, row upon row. But the sphinx-like quality of the contents afforded meno gleam of hope. If they had proclaimed as much in the plainest Englishprinting, I could have been no surer that they were the papers of Franzvon Blenheim; nor, as I learned a good while afterward, was I mistakenin the belief. 

I was vaguely aware that the spectators were being ordered from thesalon. Captain Cecchi's eyes were dark stilettos; the gaze of theEnglishman was like a narrow flash of blue steel. He was going to saysomething. I waited apathetically. Then the words came, falling likeicicles in the deadness of the hush. 

"If you wish, sir, " he stated, "to explain why you are traveling withcipher papers, Captain Cecchi and I will hear what you have to say. "

CHAPTER VIII

WHAT A THIEF CAN DO

In sheer desperation I achieved a ghastly levity of demeanor. 

"Please don't shoot me yet, " I managed to request. "And if I sit downand think for a moment, don't take it for a confession. Any innocent manwould be shocked dumb temporarily if his traps gave up such loot. "

I sat down in dizzy fashion, my judges watching me. Through my mind, ina mad phantasmagoria, danced the series of events that had begun in theSt. Ives restaurant and was ending so dramatically in the salon of thisship. Or perhaps the end had not yet arrived, I thought ironically. Bya slight effort of imagination I could conjure up a scene of the sortrendered familiar by countless movie dramas--a lowering fortress wall, myself standing against it, scornfully waving away a bandage, and drawnup before me a highly efficient firing-squad. 

To all intents and purposes I was a spy, caught red-handed; but with duerespect for circumstantial evidence, I did not mean to remain one long. That part of it was too absurd. There must be a dozen ways out of it. Come! The fact that so strange an experience had befallen me in a NewYork hotel on the eve of my sailing could not be pure coincidence. Therelay the clue to the mystery. Let me work it out. 

And then, as my wits began groping, comprehension came to me--a suddencomprehension that left me stunned and dazed: The open trunk, the thief, the descent by the fire-escape, the girl's calm denial, turning us fromthe suspected floor. Yes, the girl! Heavens, what a blind dolt I hadbeen! No wonder that Van Blarcom had felt moved to say a helping wordfor me, as for a congenital idiot not responsible for his acts!

"When you are ready--" the lieutenant was remarking. I pulled myselftogether as hastily as I could. 

"First, " I began, with all the resolution I could muster, "I want tosay that I am as much at a loss as you are about this thing. I never seteyes upon those papers until this evening. Why, man alive, I insistedon the search! I asked you to examine the wallet! Do you think I did allthat to establish my own guilt?"

"We'll keep to the point, please. " His very politeness was ill omened. "The papers were in your baggage. Can you explain how they came there?"

"I am going to try, " I answered coolly. "To begin with, I can vouch forit that they were not there two weeks ago when my man packed the trunk. That I can swear to, for I glanced through the letters before handinghim the wallet; and when he had finished packing I locked the trunk andwent yachting for five days. "

"And your luggage? Did it go with you?" queried the Englishman. 

"No; it didn't. It remained in the baggage-room of my apartment house;but when I landed and found hotel quarters, I had it sent to me at theSt. Ives. "

"So you stayed there!" He was eyeing me with ever-growing disfavor. "You didn't know, of course, that it was a nest of agents, a sort ofrendezvous for hyphenates, and that the last spy we caught on this linehad made it his headquarters in New York?"

"I did not, " I replied stiffly. "But I can believe the worst of it. Now, here's what befell me there. " I recounted my adventure briefly, beginning with the summons from restaurant to telephone. 

It was strange how, as I talked, each detail fell into its place, howeach little circumstance, formerly so mystifying, grew clear. The alarmof the _maitre d'hotel_ over my sudden departure, his relief when Ientered the booths, his corresponding horror when, emerging, I tookthe elevator for my room, puzzled me no longer. The deserted halls, theflight of the little German intruder, the determined lack of interest ofthe hotel management, were merely links in the chain. 

I told a straight, unvarnished story with one exception. When I cameto the point I couldn't bring in Miss Esme Falconer's name. I saidnon-committally that a lady had occupied the room where the thief tookrefuge; and I left it to be inferred that I had never seen her before orsince. 

The lieutenant heard my tale out with impassivity. "Is that all, Mr. Bayne?" he asked shortly, as I paused. 

"Yes, " I lied doggedly. "And if you want more, I call you insatiable. I've told you enough to satisfy any man's appetite for the abnormal, haven't I?"

"Your defense, then, " he summed it up, "is that under the protection ofa German management a German agent entered your room, opened your trunk, concealed these papers in it, and repacked it. You believe that, eh?"

It sounded wild enough, I acknowledged gloomily as I sat staring at thecarpet with my elbows on my knees. 

"You've been a pretty fool, a pretty fool, a pretty fool!" the refrainsang itself unceasingly in my ears. I was disgusted with the episode, more disgusted yet with my own role. Why was I lying, why making myselfby my present silence as well as by my former density the flagrantconfederate of a clever spy?

I shrugged my shoulders. 

"Oh, what's the use?" I muttered. "No, of course I don't believe it, andyou won't either if you are sane. It is too ridiculous. I might aswell suggest that if the thief hadn't been gone when they arrived, themanager and the detective would have shanghaied me, or the house doctordrugged me with a hypodermic till the fellow could get away. Let's endall this! I'm ready to go ashore if you want to take me. In your placeI know I should laugh at such a story; and I think that on generalprinciples I should order the man who told it shot. "

"Not necessarily, Mr. Bayne, " was the cool response of the Englishman. "The trouble with you neutrals is that you laugh too much at Germanspies. We warn you sometimes, and then you grin and say that it'shysteria. But by and by you'll change your minds, as we did, and knowthe German secret service for what it is--the most competent thing, themost widely spread, and pretty much the most dangerous, that the worldhas to fight to-day. "

"You don't mean, " I inquired blankly, "that you believe me?"

It looks odd enough as I set it down. Ordinarily I expect my word to beaccepted; but then, as a general thing I don't suddenly discover that Ihave been chaperoning a set of German code-dispatches across the seas. 

"I mean, " he corrected with truly British phlegm, "that I can't saypositively your story is untrue. Here's the case: Some one--probablyFranz von Blenheim--wants to send these papers home by way of Italyand Switzerland. Your hotel manager tells him you are going to sail forNaples; you are an American on your way to help the Allies; it's ten toone that nobody will suspect you and that your baggage will go throughuntouched. What does he do? He has the papers slipped into your wallet. Then he sends a cable to some friend in Naples about a sick aunt, orcandles, or soap. And the friend translates the cable by a private codeand reads that you are coming and that he is to shadow you and learnwhere you are stopping and loot your trunk the first night you spendashore!"

"I don't grasp, " I commented dazedly; "why they should weave suchcircles. Why not let one of their own agents bring over the papers?"

The lieutenant smiled a faint, cold, wintry smile. 

"Spies, " he informed me, "always think they are watched, and generallythey're not wrong in thinking so. If they can send their documents by aninnocent person, they had better. For my part, I call it a very cleverscheme. "

"I believe I am dreaming, " I muttered. "Somebody ought to pinch me. You found those infernal things nestling among my coats and hose andtrousers--and you don't think I put them there?"

"I didn't say that, " he denied as unresponsively as a brazen Vishnu. "Isimply say that I wouldn't care to order you shot as things stand now. But you'll remember that I have only your word that all this happened orthat you are really an American or even that this passport is yours andthat your name is--ah--Devereux Bayne. We'll have to know quite a bitmore before we call this thing settled. How are you going to satisfy hisMajesty the King?"

I plucked up spirit. 

"Well, " I suggested, "how will this suit you? I'll go down to mystateroom and stop there until we land in Italy; and, if you like, justto be on the safe side with such a desperado as I am, you can put aguard outside my door. But first, you'll send a sheaf of marconigramsfor me in both directions. You're welcome to read them, of course, before they go. Then when we get to Naples, my friend, Mr. Herriott, will meet the steamer. He is second secretary at the United Statesembassy, and his identification will be sufficient, I suppose. Anyhow, if it isn't, I dare say the ambassador will say a word for me. I haveknown him for years, though not so well. "

"That would be quite sufficient as to identification. " He stressed thelast word significantly, and I thanked heaven for Dunny and the forceswhich I knew that rather important old personage could set to work. 

"Also, " I continued coolly, "there will be various cablegrams fromUnited States officials awaiting us, which will convince you, I hope, that I am not likely to be a spy. There will be a statement from thefriend who dined with me at the St. Ives. There will be the declarationof the policeman who saw the German climb down the fire-escape andbolt into the room beneath. " "And hang the expense!" I added inwardly, computing cable rates, but assuming a lordly indifference to them whichonly a multimillionaire could really feel. 

The Englishman and the captain consulted a moment. Then the formerspoke:

"That will be satisfactory, sir, to Captain Cecchi and to me. Write outyour cables, if you please. They shall be sent. And I say, Mr. Bayne, --Ihope you drive that ambulance. I'm not stationed here to be a partizan, but you've stood up to us like a man. "

An hour later as I finished my solitary dinner, the electric lightsflickered and died, and the engines began their throb. Under cover ofthe darkness we were slipping out of Gibraltar. I leaned my arms on thetable and scanned the remains of my feast by the light of my one sadcandle, not thinking of what I saw, or of the various calls for help Ihad been dispatching, or of the sailor grimly mounting guard outside mydoor. I was remembering a girl, a girl with ruddy hair and a wild-roseflush and great, gray, starry eyes, a girl that by all the rules of thegame I should have handed over to those who represented the countriesshe was duping, a girl that I had found I had to shield when I came faceto face with the issue. 

CHAPTER IX

THE BLACK BUTTERFLIES

The Turin-Paris express--the most direct, the Italians call it--wastoo popular by half to suit the taste of morose beings who wished forsolitude. With great trouble and pains I had ferreted out a singlevacant compartment; but as four o'clock sounded and the whistle blew fordeparture, a belated traveler joined me--worse still, an acquaintancewho could not be quite ignored. 

The unwelcome intruder was Mr. John Van Blarcom, my late fellow-voyager, and he accepted the encounter with a better grace than I. 

"Why, hello!" he greeted me cheerfully. "Going through to France? Gladto see you--but you're about the last man that I was looking for. I gotthe idea somehow you were planning to stop a while in Rome. "

I returned his nod with a curtness I was at no pains to dissemble. ThenI reproached myself, for it was undeniable that on the _Re d'Italia_ hehad more than once stood my friend. He had offered me a timely warning, which I had flouted; he had obligingly confirmed my statement in mygrueling third degree. Yet despite this, or because of it, I didn't likehim; nor did I like his patronizing, complacent manner, which seemedfairly to shriek at me, "I told you so!"

"Changed my plans, " I acknowledged with a lack of cordiality that failedto ruffle him. He had hung up his overcoat and installed himself facingme, and was now making preparations for lighting a fat cigar. 

"Well, " he commented, with a chuckle of raillery, after this operation, "the last time I saw you you were in a pretty tight corner, eh? Youcan't say it was my fault, either; I'd have put you wise if you'dlistened. But you weren't taking any--you knew better than I did--andyou strafed me, as the Dutchies say, to the kaiser's taste. "

"Good advice seldom gets much thanks, I believe, " was my grumpy comment, which he unexpectedly chose to accept as an apology and with a large, fine, generous gesture to blow away. 

"That's all right, " he declared. "I'm not holding it against you. We'veall got to learn. Next time you won't be so easy caught, I guess. Itmakes a man do some thinking when he gets a dose like you did; and thosechaps at Gibraltar certainly gave you a rough deal!"

"On the contrary, " I differed shortly, --I wasn't huntingsympathy, --"considering all the circumstances, I think they wereextremely fair. "

"Not to shoot you on sight? Well, maybe. " He was grinning. "But I guessyou weren't hunting for a chance to spend two days cooped up in a cabinthat measured six feet by five. "

"It had advantages. One of them was solitude, " I responded dryly. "Andit was less unpleasant than being relegated to a six-by-three grave. Seehere, I don't enjoy this subject! Suppose we drop it. The fact is, I'venever understood why you came to my rescue on that occasion, you didn'towe me any civility, you know, and you had to--well--we'll say draw onyour imagination when you claimed you saw what I threw overboard thatnight. "

"Sure, I lied like a trooper, " he admitted placidly. "Glad to do it. Youdidn't break any bones when you strafed me, and anyhow, I felt sorry foryou. It always goes against me to see a fellow being played!"

Thanks to my determined coolness, the conversation lapsed. I buriedmyself in the Paris "Herald, " but found I could not read. Simmering withwrath, I lived again the ill-starred voyage his words recalled tome, breathed the close smothering air of the cabin that had held meprisoner, tasted the knowledge that I was watched like any thief. Anarmed sailor had stood outside my door by day and by night; and a dozentimes I had longed to fling open that frail partition, seize the man bythe collar, and hurl him far away. 

Glancing out at the landscape, I saw that Turin lay back of us and thatour track was winding through dark chestnut forests toward the heights. Confound Van Blarcom's reminiscences and the thoughts they had setstirring! In ambush behind my paper I gloomily relived the past. 

Our ship, following sealed instructions, had changed her course atGibraltar, conveying us by way of the Spanish coast to Genoa instead ofNaples. From my port-hole I had gazed glumly on blue skies and bright, blue waters, purple hills, and white-walled cities, and fishing boatswith patched, gaudy sails and dark-complexioned crews. Then Genoa rosefrom the sea, tier after tier of pink and green and orange houses andshimmering groves of olive trees; and I was summoned to the salon, toface the captain of the port, the chief of the police of the city, andtheir bedizened suites. 

Surrounded by plumes and swords and gold lace, I maintained my innocenceand heard Jack Herriott, on his opportune arrival, pour forth in weird, but fluent, Italian an account of me that must have surrounded me in theeyes of all present with a golden halo, and that firmly establishedme in their minds as the probable next President of the UnitedStates. Thanks to these exaggerations and to various confirmatorycablegrams--Dunny had plainly set the wires humming on receiving myS. O. S. , --I found myself a free man, at price of putting my signatureto a statement of it all. I shook the hand of the ever non-committalCaptain Cecchi, and left the ship. And an hour after good old Jack wasgazing at me in wrath unconcealed as I informed him that I was in themood for neither gadding, nor social intercourse, and had made up mymind to proceed immediately to duty at the Front. 

"You've been seasick; that's what ails you, " he said, diagnosing mycondition. "Oh, I don't expect you to admit it--no man ever did that. But you wait and see how you feel when we've had a few meals at theGrand Hotel in Rome!"

This culinary bait leaving me cold, he lost his temper, expressed a hopethat the Germans would blow my ambulance to smithereens, and assured methat the next time I brought the Huns' papers across the ocean I mightextricate myself without his assistance from what might ensue. However, though he has a bark, Jack possesses no bite worth mentioning. He evensaw me off when I left by the north-bound train. 

Leaning moodily forward, I looked again from the window and wished Imight hurry the creaking, grinding revolution of the wheels. We wereclimbing higher and higher among the mountains. The chestnuts, growingscanter, were replaced by dark firs and pines. Streams came winding downlike icy crystal threads; the little rivers we crossed looked blue andglacial; pale-pink roses and mountain flowers showed themselves as weapproached the peaks. A polite official, entering, examined our papers;and with snow surrounding us and cold clear air blowing in at thewindow, we left Bardonnecchia, the last of the frontier towns. 

I was speeding toward France; but where was the girl of the _Red'Italia_? To what dubious rendezvous, what haunt of spies, had shehurried, once ashore? The thought of her stung my vanity almost beyondendurance. She had pleaded with me that night, swayed against metrustingly, appealed to me as to a chivalrous gentleman and, havingcompetently pulled the wool over my eyes, had laughed at me in hersleeve. 

I had held myself a canny fellow, not an easy prey to adventurers;a fairly decent one, too, who didn't lie to a king's officer or helptreasonable plots. Yet had I not done just those things by my silenceon the steamer? And for what reason? Upon my soul I didn't know, unlessbecause she had gray eyes. 

"Hang it all!" I exclaimed, flinging my unlucky paper into a corner, andbecoming aware too late that Van Blarcom was observing me with a grin. 

"I've got the black butterflies, as the French say, " I explainedsavagely. "This mountain travel is maddening; one might as well be asnail. "

"Sure, a slow train's tiresome, " agreed Van Blarcom. "Specially ifyou're not feeling overpleased with life anyway, " he added, with aknowing smile. 

An angry answer rose to my lips, but the Mont Cenis tunnel opportunelyenveloped us, and in the dark half-hour transit that followed I regainedmy self-control. It was not worth while, I decided, to quarrel with thefellow, to break his head or to give him the chance of breaking mine. After all, I thought low-spiritedly, what right had I to look down onhim? We were pot and kettle, indistinguishably black. It was true thathe had perjured himself upon the liner; but so, in spirit if not inwords, had I!

Thus reflecting, I saw the train emerge from the tunnel, felt it jarto a standstill in the station of Modane, and, in obedience to staccatoFrench outcries on the platform, alighted in the frontier town. Followedby Van Blarcom and preceded by our porters, I strolled in leisurelyfashion towards the customs shed. The air was clear, chilly, invigorating; snowy peaks were thick and near. And the scene waspicturesque, dotted as it was with mounted bayonets and blue territorialuniforms--reminders that boundary lines were no longer jests and thatstrangers might not enter France unchallenged in time of war. 

Van Blarcom's elbow at this juncture nudged me sharply. 

"Say, Mr. Bayne, " he was whispering, "look over there, will you? What doyou know about that?"

I looked indifferently. Then blank dismay took possession of me. Acrossthe shed, just visible between rows of trunks piled mountain high, stoodMiss Esme Falconer, as usual only too well worth seeing from fur hat tomodish shoe. 

"Ain't that the limit, " commented the grinning Van Blarcom; "us threeturning up again, all together like this? Well, I guess she won't haveto call a policeman to stop you talking to her. You know enough thistime to steer pretty clear of her. Isn't that so?"

But I had wheeled upon him; the coincidence was too striking!

"Look here!" I demanded, "are you following that young lady? Is thatyour business on this side?"

"No!" he denied disgustedly, retreating a step. "Never saw her from thetime we docked till this minute; never wanted to see her! Anyhow, what'sthe glare for? Suppose I was?"

"It's rather strange, you'll admit. " I was regarding him fixedly. "Youseemed to have a good deal of information about her on the ship. Yetwhen that affair occurred at Gibraltar, you were as dumb as an oyster. Why didn't you tell the captain and the English officers the things youknew?"

"Well, I had my reasons, " he replied defiantly. "And at that, I don'tsee as you've got anything on me, Mr. Bayne. You're no fool. You puttwo and two together quick enough to know darned well who planted thosepapers in your baggage; so if you thought it needed telling, why didn'tyou tell it yourself?"

"I don't know who put them there, " I denied hastily, "except that he wasa pale little runt of a German, pretending to be a thief, who will wishhe had died young if I ever see him again. "

An inspector had just passed my traps through with bored indifference. I turned a huffy back on Van Blarcom and went to stand in line beforea door which harbored, I was told, a special commission for theexamination of passports and the admission of travelers into France. 

Reaching the inner room in due course, I saluted three uniformed menwho sat round an unimposing wooden table, exhibited the _vise_ that JackHerriott had secured for me at Genoa, and was welcomed to the land. ThenI stepped forth on the platform, retrieved my porter and my baggage, andplaced myself near the door to wait until the girl should come. 

I must have been a grim sort of sentinel as I stood there watching. Iknew what I had to do, but I detested it with all my heart. There wasone thing to be said for this Miss Falconer--she had courage. She waspressing on to French soil without lingering a day in Italy, thoughshe must be aware that by so swift a move she was risking suspicion, discovery, death. 

As moment after moment dragged past, I grew uneasy. Would she come outat all? Could she win past those trained, keen-eyed men? The more Ithought of it, the more desperate seemed the game she was playing. Thislittle Alpine town, high among the peaks, surrounded by pines and snow, had been a setting for tragedies since the war began. These territorialswith their muskets were not mere supers, either. But no! She wasemerging; she was starting toward the _rapide_. There, no doubt, areserved compartment was awaiting her, and once inside its shelter, shewould not appear again. 

I drew a deep breath in which resolve and distaste were mingled. She hadcrossed the frontier, but she was not in Paris yet. I couldn't shirk thething twice, knowing as I did her charm, her beauty, her air of proud, spirited graciousness--all the tools that equipped her. I couldn't, ifI was ever again to hold my head before a Frenchman, let her pass on, sodaring and dangerous and resourceful, to do her work in France. 

As she approached, I stepped in front of her, lifting my hat. 

"This is a great surprise, Miss Falconer, " said I. 

CHAPTER X

DINNER FOR TWO

I was prepared for fear, for distress, for pleading as I confrontedMiss Falconer; the one thing I hadn't expected was that she shouldseem pleased at the meeting, but she did. She flushed a little, smiledbrightly, and held out her gloved hand to me. 

"Why, Mr. Bayne! I am so glad!" she exclaimed in frankly cordial tones. 

The crass coolness of her tactics, with its implied rating of myintelligence, was the very bracer I needed for a most unpleasant task. Iaccepted her hand, bowed over it formally, and released it. Then I spokewith the most impersonal courtesy in the world. 

"And I, " I declared coolly, "am delighted, I assure you. It is greatluck meeting you like this; and I will not let you slip away. I supposethat when we board the train they will serve us a meal of some sort. Won't you give me the pleasure of having you for my guest?"

The brightness had left her face as she sensed my attitude. She drewback, regarding me in a rebuffed, bewildered way. 

"Thank you, no. I am not hungry. "

By Jove, but she was an actress! I should have sworn I had hurt her if Ihadn't known the truth. 

"Don't say that!" I protested. "Of course it is unconventional to dinewith a stranger; but then so is almost everything that is happening toyou and me. Think of those lord high executioners in there round thetable. See this platform with its guards and bayonets and guns. And thenremember our odd experiences on the _Re d'Italia_. Won't you risk onemore informality and come and dine?"

She hesitated a moment, watching me steadily; then, with proudreluctance, she walked beside me toward the train. 

"You helped me once, " she said, her eyes averted now, "and I haven'tforgotten. I don't understand at all, --but I shall do as you say. "

The passengers were being herded aboard by eager, bustling officials. I saw my baggage and the girl's installed, disposed of the porters, andguided my companion to the _wagon_ restaurant. The horn was sounding aswe entered, and at six-thirty promptly, just as I put Miss Falconer inher chair, we pulled out of the snowy station of Modane. 

As I studied the menu, the girl sat with lowered lashes, all thingsabout her, from her darkened eyes and high head to her pallor, proclaiming her feeling of offense, her sense of hurt. She knew hergame, I admitted, and she had first-class weapons. Though she could notweaken my resolution, she made my beginning hard. 

"We are going to have a discouraging meal, " I gossipedprocrastinatingly. "But, since we are in France, it will be a littleless horrible than the usual dining-car. The wine is probably hopeless;I suggest Evian or Vichy. These radishes look promising. Will you havesome?"

"No. I am not hungry, " she repeated briefly. "Won't you please tell mewhat you have to say?"

Though I didn't in the least want them, I ate a few of the radishes justto show that I was not abashed by her haughty, reproachful air. Otherpassengers were strolling in. Here was Mr. John Van Blarcom, who, at thesight of Miss Falconer and myself to all appearances cozily establishedfor a tete-a-tete meal, stopped in his tracks and fastened on me thehard, appraising scrutiny that a policeman might turn on a hithertorespectable acquaintance discovered in converse with some notoriouscrook. For an instant he seemed disposed to buttonhole me andremonstrate. Then he shrugged his stocky shoulders, the gestureindicating that one can't save a fool from his folly, and establishedhimself at a near-by table, from which coign of vantage he kept us understeady watch. 

Given such an audience, my outward mien must be impeccable. 

"There is something, " I admitted cautiously, "that I want to say to you. But I wish you would eat something first. People are watching us, " Iadded beneath my breath as the soup appeared. 

She took a sip under protest, and then replaced her spoon and sat withfingers twisting her gloves and eyes fixed smolderingly on mine. Ishifted furtively in my seat. This was a charming experience. I wasbeing, from my point of view, almost quixotically generous; yet with oneglance she could make me feel like a bully and a brute. 

"I am sure, " I stumbled, fumbling desperately with my serviette, "thatyou came over without realizing what war conditions are. Strangersaren't wanted just now. Travel is dangerous for women. You may think meall kinds of a presumptuous idiot, --I shan't blame you, --but I am goingto urge you most strongly to go home. "

Whatever she had looked for, obviously it was not that. 

"Mr. Bayne, " she exclaimed, regarding me wonderingly, "what do youmean?"

"Just this, Miss Falconer, " I answered with almost Teutonicruthlessness. Confound it! I couldn't sit here forever bullying her;sheer desperation lent me strength. "The _Espagne_ sails from Bordeauxon Saturday, I see by the Herald, and if I were you, I should mostcertainly be on board. In fact, if you lose the chance, I am sure you'llregret it later. The French police authorities are--er--very inquisitiveabout foreigners; and if you stop in France in these anxious times, Ithink it likely that they may--well--"

She drew a quick, hard breath as I trailed off into silence. Her eyes, darkened, horrified, were gazing full into mine. 

"You wouldn't tell them about me! You couldn't be so cruel!" The wordscame almost fiercely, yet with a sound like a stifled sob. 

By its sheer preposterousness the speech left me dumb a moment, and thengave me back the self-possession I had been clutching at throughoutthe meal. For the first time since entering I sat erect and squared myshoulders. I even confronted her with a rather glittering smile. 

"I am very sorry, " I said, with a cool stare, "if I appear so; but I amconsideration itself compared with the people you would meet in Paris, say. That's the very point I'm making--that you can't travel nowin comfort. I'm simply trying to spare you future contretemps, MissFalconer; such as I had on the _Re d'Italia_, you may recall. "

She leaned impulsively across the table. 

"Oh, Mr. Bayne, I knew it! You are angry about that wretched extra, andyou have a right to be. Of course you thought it cowardly of me--yes, and ungrateful--to stand there without a word and let those officersquestion you. Mr. Bayne, if the worst had come to the worst, I shouldhave spoken, I should, indeed; but I had to wait. I had to give myselfevery chance. It meant so much, so much! You had nothing to hidefrom them. You were certain to win through. And then, you seemed soundisturbed, so unruffled, so able to take care of yourself; I knew youwere not afraid. It was different with me. If they began to suspect, ifthey learned who I was, I could never have entered France. This routethrough Italy was my one hope! I am so sorry. But still--"

Hitherto she had been appealing; but now she defied frankly. That tintof hers, like nothing but a wild rose, drove away her pallor; her grayeyes flamed. 

"But still, " she flashed at me, "you won't inform on me just for that?I asked you to help me; you were free to refuse--and you agreed! Becauseit inconvenienced you a little, are you going to turn police agent?" Herred lips twisted proudly, scornfully. "I don't believe it, Mr. Bayne!"

I laughed shortly. She was indeed an artist. 

"I wasn't thinking of that particular episode--" I began. 

"But you did resent it. I saw it when you first joined me. And I wasso glad to see you--to have the chance of thanking you!" she broke in, smoldering still. 

"No, I didn't resent it. I didn't even blame you. If I blamed any one, Miss Falconer, it would certainly be myself. I've concluded I oughtnot to go about without a keeper. My gullibility must have amused youtremendously. " I laughed. 

"I never thought you gullible, " she denied, suddenly wistful. "I thoughtyou very generous and very chivalrous, Mr. Bayne. "

This was carrying mockery too far. 

"I am afraid, " I said meaningly, "that the authorities at Gibraltarwould take a less flattering view. For instance, if those Englishmenlearned that I had refrained from telling them of our meeting at the St. Ives, I should hear from them, I fancy. "

Again her eyes were widening. What attractive eyes she had!

"The St. Ives?" she repeated wonderingly. "Why should that interestthem? What do you mean?" Then, suddenly, she bent forward, proppedher elbows on the table, and amazed me with a slow, astonished, comprehending smile. "I see!" she murmured, studying me intently. "Youthought that I screened the man who hid those papers, that I crossed theocean on--similar business, perhaps even that on this side I was to takethe documents from your trunk?"

"Naturally, " I rejoined stiffly. "And I congratulate you. It was abrilliant piece of work; though, as its victim, I fail to see it in therosiest light. "

"I understand, " she went on, still smiling faintly. "You thought Iwas--well--Look over yonder. "

Her glance, seeking the opposite wall unostentatiously, directed myattention to a black-lettered, conspicuously posted sign:

BE SILENT!

BE MISTRUSTFUL!

THE EARS OF THE ENEMY ARE LISTENING!

Thus it shouted its warning, like the thousands of its kind that arescattered about the trains, the boats, the railroad stations, and allthe public places of France. 

"You thought I was the ears of the enemy, didn't you?" the girl wasasking. "You thought I was a German agent. I might have guessed! Well, in that case it was kind of you not to hand me over to the Modanegendarmes. I ought to thank you. But I wasn't so suspicious when theysearched your trunk and found the papers--I simply felt that they mustbe crazy to think you could be a spy. "

I achieved a shrug of my shoulders, a polite air of incredulity; but, totell the truth, I was a little less skeptical than I appeared. There wassomething in her manner that by no means suggested pretense. And shehad said a true word about the occurrences on the _Re d'Italia_. Ifappearances meant facts, I myself had been proved guilty up to the hilt. 

"Mr. Bayne, " she was saying soberly, "I should like you to believeme--please! I am an American, and I have had cause lately to hate theGermans; all my bonds are with our own country and with France. There issome one very dear to me to whom this war has worked a cruel injustice. I have come to try to help that person; and for certain reasons--I can'texplain them--I had to come in secret or not at all. But I have donenothing wrong, nothing dishonorable. And so"--again her eyes challengedme--"I shall not sail from Bordeaux on the _Espagne_ on Saturday; andyou shall choose for yourself whether you will speak of me to the Frenchpolice. "

It was not much of an argument, regarded dispassionately; yet it shookme. With sudden craftiness I resolved to trap her if I could. 

"I ought to tell them on the mere chance that they would send you home, "I grumbled irritably. "You have no business here, you know, helpingpeople and being suspected and pursued and outrageously annoyed byfools like me. Yes, and by other fools--and worse, " I added with feignedsulphurousness, indicated Van Blarcom. "Miss Falconer, would you mindglancing at the third man on the right--the dark man who is staring atus--and telling me whether or not you ever saw him before you sailed?"

"I am sure I never did, " she declared, knitting puzzled brows; "and yeton the _Re d'Italia_ he insisted that we had met. It frightened me alittle. I wondered whether or not he suspected something. And every timeI see him he watches me in that same way. "

I was thawing, despite myself. 

"There's one other thing, " I ventured, "if you won't think me tooimpertinent: Did you ever hear of a man named Franz von Blenheim?"

"No, " she said blankly; "I never did. Who is he?"

No birds out of that covert! If this was acting it was marvelous; therehad not been the slightest flicker of confusion in her face. 

"Oh, he isn't anybody of importance--just a man, " I evaded. "Look here, Miss Falconer, you'll have to forgive me if you can. You shall stay inParis, and I'll be as silent as the grave concerning you; but I'd liketo do more than that. Won't you let me come and call? Really, youknow, I'm not such a duffer as you have cause to think me. After we gotacquainted you might be willing to trust me with this business, whateverit is. And then, if it's not too desperate, I have friends who could beof help to you. " Such was the sop I threw to conscience, the bargainI struck between sober reason and the instinct that made me trust heragainst all odds. My theories must have been moonshine. Everything wasall right, probably. But for the sake of prudence I ought to keep trackof her. Besides, I wanted to. 

Gratitude and consternation, a most becoming mixture, were in her eyes. She drew back a little. 

"Oh, thank you, but that's impossible, " she said uncertainly. "I havefriends, too; but they can't help me. Nobody can. "

"Well, " I admitted sadly, "I know the rudiments of manners. I canrecognize a conge, but consider me a persistent boor. Come, MissFalconer, why mayn't I call? Because we are strangers? If that's it, youcan assure yourself at the embassy that I am perfectly respectable; andyou see I don't eat with my knife or tuck my napkin under my chin orspill my soup. "

Again that warm flush. 

"Mr. Bayne!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Did I need an introduction tospeak to you on the ship, to ask unreasonable favors of you, to makepeople think you a spy? If you are going to imagine such absurd things, I shall have to--"

"To consent? I hoped you might see it that way. "

"Of course, " she pondered aloud, "I may find good news waiting. If I do, it will change everything. I could see you once, at least, and let youknow. I really owe you that, I think, when you've been so kind to me. "

"Yes, " I agreed bitterly, with a pang of conscience, "I've been verykind--particularly to-night!"

"Well, perhaps to-night you were just a little difficult. " She wassmiling, but I didn't mind; I rather liked her mockery now. "Still, evenwhen you thought the worst of me, Mr. Bayne, you kept my secret. And--doyou really wish to come to see me?"

"I most emphatically do. "

She drew a card from her beaded bag, rummaged vainly for a pencil, endedby accepting mine, and scribbled a brief address. 

"Then, " she commanded, handing me the bit of pasteboard, "come to thisnumber at noon to-morrow and ask for me. And now, since I'm not to go toprison, Mr. Bayne, I believe I am hungry. This is war bread, I suppose;but it tastes delicious. And isn't the saltless butter nice?"

"And here are the chicken and the salad arriving!" I exclaimedhopefully. "And there never was a French cook yet, however unspeakableotherwise, who failed at those. "

What had come to pass I could not have told; but we were eatingcelestial viands, and my black butterflies having fled away, a swarm oftheir gorgeous-tinted kindred were fluttering radiantly over Miss EsmeFalconer's plate and mine. 

CHAPTER XI

IN THE RUE ST. -DOMINIQUE

Arriving in Paris at the highly inconvenient hour of 8 A. M. , our_rapide_ deposited its breakfastless and grumpy passengers on theplatform of the Gare de Lyon, washed its hands of us with the finalformality of collecting our tickets, and turned us forth into a gray, foggy morning to seek the food and shelter adapted to our pursesand tastes. Every one, of course, emerged from seclusion only at theultimate moment; and, far from holding any lengthy conversation withMiss Falconer, I was lucky to stumble upon her in the vestibule, helpher descend, find a taxi for her at the exit, and see her smile back atme where I stood hatless as she drove away. 

While I waited for my own cab I found myself beside Mr. John VanBlarcom, who eyed me with mingled hostility and pity, as if I werea cross between a lunatic and a thief. I returned his stare coolly;indeed, I found it braced me. Left to myself, I had experienced acreeping doubt as to the girl's activities and my own intelligence; butas soon as this fellow glared at me, all my confidence returned. 

"Well, Mr. Bayne, " he remarked sardonically, breaking the silence, "Isuppose you're worrying for fear I'll give you another piece of goodadvice. Don't you fret! From now on you can hang yourself any way youwant to. I'd as soon talk to a man in a padded cell and a strait-jacket. Only don't blame me when the gendarmes come for you next week. "

"Oh, go to the devil!" I retorted curtly. It was a relief; I hadbeen wanting to say it ever since we had first met. His jaw shot outmenacingly, and for an instant he squared off from me with the look ofthe professional boxer; but, rather to my disappointment, he thoughtbetter of it and turned a contemptuous back. 

Upon leaving Genoa I had reserved a room at the Ritz by telegraph. Idrove there now, and refreshed myself with a bath and breakfast, castingabout me meanwhile for some mode of occupying the hours till noon. Therewere various tasks, I knew, that should have claimed me; a visit to thepolice to secure a _carte de sejour_, the presentation of my credentialsas an ambulance-driver, a polite notification to friends that I hadarrived. These things should have been my duty and pleasure, but somehowthey were uninviting. Nothing appealed to me, I realized with suddenenlightenment, except a certain appointment that I had already made. 

I went out, to find that the fog was lifting and spring was in the air. Since my dinner the previous night I had felt an odd exhilaration, apleasure quickened by the staccato sparkle of the French tongue againstmy ears, the pale-blue uniforms, and gay French faces glimpsed as thetrain had stopped at various lighted stations. Saluting Napoleon'sstatue, I strolled up the rue de la Paix, took a table on a cafepavement, and, ordering a glass of something fizzy for the form of it, sat content and happy, watching the whole gigantic pageant of Paris inwar-time defile before my eyes. 

The Cook's tourists and their like, bane of the past, had disappeared;but all nationalities that the world holds seemed to be about. At thenext table two Russian officers, with high cheek-bones and wide-seteyes, were drinking, chatting together in their purring, unintelligibletongue. Beyond them a party of Englishmen in khaki, cool-mannered, clearof gaze, were talking in low tones of the spring offensive. The uniformsof France swarmed round me in all their variety, and close at hand ageneral, gorgeous in red and blue and gold, sat with his hand restingaffectionately on the knee of a lad in the horizon blue of a simplepoilu, who was so like him that I guessed them at a glance for fatherand son. 

A cab drew up before me, and a Belgian officer with crutches was helpedout by the cafe starter, who himself limped slightly and wore two medalson his breast. First one troop and then another defiled across the Placel'Opera: a company of infantry with bayonets mounted, a picturesqueregiment of Moroccans, turbaned, of magnificently impassive bearing, sitting their horses like images of bronze. Men of the Flying Corps, in dark blue with wings on their sleeves, strolled past me; and once, roused by exclamations and pointing fingers, I looked up to see amonoplane, light and graceful as a darting bird, skimming above ourheads. 

Even the faces had a different look, the voices a different ring. It wasanother country from that of the days of peace. Superb and dauntless, tried by the most searing of fires and not found wanting, France wasstanding girt with her shining armor, barring the invader from hercities, her villages, her homes. 

Deep in my heart--too deep to be talked of often--there had lain alwaysa tenderness for this heroic France. "A man's other country, " some wiseperson had christened it; and so it was for me, since by a chance I hadbeen born here, and since here my father and then my mother had died. Iwas glad I had run the gauntlet and had reached Paris to do my part ina mighty work. An ambulance drove heavily past me, and with a thrill Iwondered how soon I should bend over such a steering wheel, within soundof the great guns. 

Leaving the cafe at last, I beckoned a taxi and settled myself on itscushions for a drive. Each new vista that greeted me was enchanting. Thepavements, the river, the buildings, the stately bridges, --all held thesame soft, silvery tint of pale French gray. In the Place de la Concordethe fountains played as always, but--heart-warming change--the Strasburgstatue, symbol of the lost Lorraine and Alsace, no longer drooped underwreaths of mourning, but sat crowned and garlanded with triumphantflowers. 

Like diminishing flies, the same eternal swarm of cabs and motors filledthe long vista of the Champs-Elysees between the green branches of thechestnut trees. At the end loomed the Arc de Triomphe, beneath which thehordes of the kaiser, in their first madness of conquest, had swornto march. Farther on, in the Bois, along the shady paths and about thelakes, the French still walked in safety, because on the frontier theirsoldiers had cried to the Teutons the famous watchword, "You do notpass!" Noon was approaching, and at the Porte Maillot I consulted MissFalconer's card. 

"Number 630, rue St. -Dominique, " I bade the driver, the address fallingcomfortably on my ears. I knew the neighborhood. Deep in the FaubourgSt. -Germain, it was a stronghold of the old noblesse, suggesting eminentrespectability, ancient and honorable customs, and family connections ofa highly desirable kind. It would be a point in Miss Falconer's favorif I found her conventionally established--a decided point. Along mostlines I was in the dark concerning her, but to one dictum I daredto hold: no girl of twenty-two or thereabouts, more than ordinarilyattractive, ought to be traveling unchaperoned about this wicked world. 

I felt very cheerful, very contented, as my taxi bore me into old Paris. The ancient streets, had a decided lure and charm. Now we passed aquaint church, now a dim and winding alley, now a house with mansardwindows or a portal of carved stone. On all sides were buildings that inthe old days had been the _hotels_ of famous gentry, this one shelteringa Montmorency, that one a Clisson or Soubise. It was just the settingfor a romance by Dumas. And, with a chuckle, I felt myself in suddensympathy with that writer's heroes, none of whom had, it seemed to me, been enmeshed in a mystery more baffling or involved than mine. 

"They've got nothing on my affair, " I decided, "with their masks andpoisoned drinks and swords. For a fellow who leads a cut-and-driedexistence generally, I've been having quite a lively time. And now, tocap the climax, I'm going to call on a girl about whom I know just onething--her name. By Jove, it's exactly like a story! I've got the data. If I had any gray matter I could probably work out the facts. 

"Take the St. Ives business. It's plain enough that some one wishedthose papers on me, intending to unwish them in short order once we gotacross. The logical suspect, judging by appearances, was Miss Falconer. The little German went out through her room; she was the one personI saw both at the hotel and on the _Re d'Italia_; and she acted in asuspicious manner that first night aboard the ship. But she says shedidn't do it, and probably she didn't; it seemed infernally odd, allalong, for her to be a spy. 

"Still, if she is innocent, who can be responsible? And if that affairdidn't bring her over here, what the dickens did? Something mysterious, something dangerous, something that the French police wouldn'tappreciate, but that her conscience sanctions--that is all she deigns tosay. And why on earth did she ask me to destroy that extra? I thoughtit was because she was Franz von Blenheim's agent and the paper hadan account of him that might have served as a clue to her. She says, though, that she never heard of him. And I may be all kinds of a fool, but it sounded straight. 

"Then, there's Van Blarcom, hang him! He seemed to take a fancy tome. He warned me about the girl, but he kept a still tongue to CaptainCecchi and the rest. He lied deliberately, for no earthly reason, toshield me in that interrogation; yet when those papers materialized inmy trunk, though he must have thought just what I thought as to MissFalconer's share in it, he didn't breathe a word. He claimed that he hadmet her. She said she had never seen him. And then--rather strong for acoincidence--we all three met again on the express. What is he doingon this side? Shadowing her? Nonsense? And yet he seemed almighty keenabout her--Oh, hang it! I'm no Sherlock Holmes!"

The taxi pausing at this juncture, I willingly abandoned my attempt atsleuthing and got out in the highest spirits compatible with a strictlycorrect mien. I dismissed my driver. If asked to remain to _dejeuner_, Ishould certainly do so. Then, with feelings of natural interest, I gazedat the house before which I stood. 

In the outward seeming, at least, it was all that the most fastidiouscould have required; a gem of Renaissance architecture in its turrets, its quaint, scrolled windows, and the carving of its stone facade. Age and romance breathed from every inch of it. For not less than fourhundred years it had watched the changing life of Paris; and even toa lay person like myself a glance proclaimed it one of those ancestral_hotels_, the pride of noble French families, about which many romanticstories cling. 

At another time it would have charmed me hugely, but to-day, as I stoodgazing, somehow, my spirits fell. Was it the almost sepulchral silenceof the place, the careful drawing of every shutter, the fact that thegrilled gateway leading to the court of honor was locked? I did notknow; I don't know yet; but I had an odd, eerie feeling. It seemed likea place of waiting, of watching, and of gloom. 

This was unreasonable; it was even down-right ridiculous. I began tothink that late events were throwing me off my base. "It's a house likeany other, and a jolly fine old one!" I assured myself, approaching thegrilled entrance and producing one of my cards. 

An entirely modern electric button was installed there, beneath a nowmerely ornamental knocker in grotesque gargoyle form. I pressed it, peering through the iron latticework at the stately court. The answerwas prompt. Down the steps of the hotel came a white-headed majordomo, gorgeously arrayed, and so pictorial that he might have been a familyretainer stepping from the pages of an old tale. 

There was something queer about him, I thought, as he crossed thecourtyard; just as there was about the house, I appended doggedly, withgrowing belief. His air was tremulous, his step slow, his gaze far-offand anxious. 

"For Miss Falconer, who waits for me, " I announced in French, offeringhim my card through the grille. 

He bowed to me with the deference of a Latin, the grand manner of anambassador; but he made no motion to let me in. 

"Mademoiselle, " he replied, "sends all her excuses, all her regrets tomonsieur, but she leaves Paris within the hour and, therefore may notreceive. "

I had feared it for a good sixty seconds. None the less, it was a blowto me. My suspicions, never more than half laid, promptly raised theirheads again. 

"Have the kindness, " I requested, with a calm air of command that I hadknown to prove hypnotic, "to convey my card to mademoiselle, and to saythat I beg of her, before her departure, one little instant of speech. "

But the old fellow's faded blue eyes were gazing past me, hopelesslysad, supremely mournful. What the deuce ailed him? I wondered angrily. The thing was almost weird. Of a sudden, with irritation, yet withdread, too, I felt myself on the threshold of a house of tragedy. Theman might, from the look of him, have been watching some loved youngmaster's bier. 

"Mademoiselle regrets greatly, " he intoned, "but she may not receive. Mademoiselle sends this letter to monsieur that he may understand. " Hepassed me, through the locked grille, a slender missive; then he salutedme once more and, still staring before him with that fixed, uncannylook, withdrew. 

CHAPTER XII

THE GRAY CAR

I was divided between exasperation and pity. The old fellow was in abad way; I felt sorry for him. Dunny had an ancient butler, a householdinstitution, who had presided over our destinies since my childhood andwould, I fancied, look something like this if he should hear that I wasdead. But in heaven's name, what was wrong here, and was nothing in theworld clear and aboveboard any longer? On the chance that the lettermight enlighten me I tore open the envelope and read with mixed feelingsthe following note:

DEAR Mr. BAYNE:

The news that I found waiting for me was not good, as I had hoped. Itwas bad, very bad--as bad as news can be. I must leave Paris at once, and I can see no one, talk to no one, before I go. Please believe thatI am sorry, and that I shall never forget the kindness you showed me onthe ship. 

Sincerely yours, ESME FALCONER. 

That was all. Well, the episode was ended--ended, moreover, with a gooddeal of cavalierness. She had treated me like a meddlesome, pertinaciousidiot who had insisted on calling and had to be taught his place. Thiswas a Christian country where the formalities of life prevailed; I couldnot--unless escorted and countenanced by gendarmes--seize upon a cluband batter down that grille. 

I was resentful, wrathful, in the very deuce of a humor. Black gloomsettled over me. I admitted that Van Blarcom had been right. I recalledthe girl's vague explanations as we sat over our dinner; her denials, unbolstered save by my willingness to accept them; all the chain ofincriminating circumstances that I had pondered over in the cab. Hercharm and the mystery that enveloped her had thrilled and stirred me;she had seen it. To gain a few hours' leeway she had once again dupedme; and this hotel, with its deceptive air of family and respectability, was a blind, a rendezvous, another such setting for intrigue as the St. Ives. 

Her work might be already accomplished. Perhaps she had left Paris. Itold myself with some savageness that I did not know and did not care. From the first my presence in this luridly adventurous galley had beenincongruous; I would get back with all despatch to the Ritz and theorderly world it typified. 

I had gone perhaps twenty feet when a grating noise attracted me. Glancing back across my shoulder, I saw that the old majordomo wasunlocking and setting wide the gate. The hum of a self-starter reachedme faintly, and a moment later there rolled slowly forth a dark-bluetouring-car of luxurious aspect, driven by a chauffeur whose coat andcap and goggles gave him rather the appearance of a leather brownie, andbearing in the tonneau Miss Falconer, elaborately coated and veiled. 

She was turning to the right, not the left; she would not pass me. Istood transfixed, watching from my post against the wall. As the carcrept by the old majordomo, he saluted, and she spoke to him, bendingforward for a moment to rest her fingers on his sleeve. 

"Be of courage, Marcel, my friend! All will be well if _le bon Dieu_wills it, " I heard her say. Then to the chauffeur she added: "_En avant, Georges! Vite, a_ Bleau!" The motor snorted as the car gained speed, andthey were gone. 

The ancient Marcel, reentering, locked the grille behind him. I was leftalone, more astounded than before. The girl's kind speech to the oldservant, her gentle tones, her womanly gesture, had been bewildering. Despite all the accusing features her case offered, I should have saidjust then, as I watched Miss Esme Falconer, that she was nothing more orless than a superlatively nice girl. 

"Honk! Honk! Honk!"

I swung round, startled. A moment earlier the length and breadth of thestreet had stretched before me, empty; yet now I saw, sprung apparentlyout of nowhere, a long, lean, gray car, low-built like a racer, carryingfour masked and goggled men. Steadily gaining speed as it came, it boredown upon me and, after grazing me with its running-board and nearlydeafening me with the powerful blast of its horn, flew on down thestreet and vanished in Miss Falconer's wake. 

Trying to clarify my emotions, I stared after this Juggernaut. Wasit merely the sudden appearance of the thing, its look, so lean andsnake-like and somber-colored, and the muffled air of its occupants thathad struck me as sinister when it went flashing by? I wasn't sure, but Ihad formed the impression that these men were following Miss Falconer. Apatently foolish idea! And yet, and yet--

My experiences at the St. Ives and on the _Re d'Italia_ had contributedto my education. I could no longer deny that melodrama, howeverunwelcome, did sometimes intrude itself into the most unlikely lives. The girl was bound somewhere on a secret purpose. Could these four menbe her accomplices? Were they going too?

"_A_ Bleau!"

Those had been her words to the chauffeur; for Bleau, then, she wasbound. But where did such a place exist? I had never heard of it;and yet I possessed, I flattered myself, through the medium ofmotor-touring, a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the map of France. 

The affair was becoming a veritable nightmare. It seemed incredible thata few minutes earlier I had resolved to wash my hands of it all. If thegirl had a disloyal mission, it was my plain duty to intercept her. I could not denounce her to the police. I didn't analyze the why andwherefore of my inability to take this step; I simply knew and acceptedit. If I interfered with what she was doing, I must interfere quietly, alone. 

Ordinarily I have as much imagination as a turnip, but now I indulgedin a sudden and surprising flight of fancy. Might it be, I found myselfwondering, that the men in the gray care were not Miss Falconer'saccomplices, but her pursuers? In that case, high as was her courage, keen as were her wits, --I found myself thinking of them with a sort ofpride, --she was laboring under a handicap of which she could not dream. 

Again, where had that long, lean, pursuing streak sprung from? Could ithave lurked somewhere in the neighborhood, spying on the hotel that MissFalconer had just left, waiting for her to emerge? I was aware of myabsurdity, but I couldn't put an end to it; with each instant that wentby my uneasiness seemed to grow. So I yielded, not without qualms asto whether the quarter would take me for a gibbering idiot. Grimly anddoggedly I stalked the length of the rue St. -Dominique, and the statelyhouses on both sides seemed to scorn me, their shutters to eye mepityingly, as I peered to right and left for the possible cache of thecar. 

And within four hundred feet I found it. Against all reason andprobability, there it was. At my left there opened unostentatiously oneof those short, dark, neglected blind alleys so common in the older partof Paris, with the houses meeting over it and forming an arched roof. Running back twenty feet or so, it ended in a blank wall of stone; and, amid the dust and debris that covered its rough paving, I distinctlymade out the tracks of tires, with between them, freshly spilt, a tiny, gleaming pool of oil. 

At this psychological moment a taxicab came meandering up the street. Itwas unoccupied, but its red flag was turned down. The driver shook hishead vigorously as I signaled him. 

"I go to my _dejeuner_, Monsieur!" he explained. 

"On the contrary, " said I fiercely, "you go to the tourist bureauof Monsieur Cook in the Place de l'Opera, at the greatest speed the_sergents de ville_ allow!"

I must have mesmerized him, for he took me there obediently, castinghunted glances back at me from time to time when the traffic momentarilyhalted us, as if fearing to find that I was leveling a pistol at hishead. 

It being noon, the office of the tourist bureau was almost deserted, a single, bored-looking, young French clerk keeping vigil behindthe travelers' counter. With the sociable instinct of his nation hebrightened up at my appearance. 

"I want, " I announced, "to ask about trains to Bleau. "

For a moment he looked blank; then he smiled in understanding. 

"Monsieur is without doubt an artist, " he declared. 

I was not, decidedly; but the words had been an affirmation and not aquestion. It seemed clear that for some cryptic reason I ought to havebeen an artist. Accordingly, I thought it best to bow. 

He seemed childishly pleased with his acumen. 

"Monsieur will understand, " he explained, "that before the war we soldtickets to many artists, who, like monsieur, desired to paint the oldmill on the stream near Bleau. It has appeared at the Salon many times, that mill! Also, we have furnished tickets to archaeologists who desiredto see the ruins of the antique chapel, a veritable gem! But monsieurhas not an archaeologist's aspect. Therefore, monsieur is an artist. "

"Perfectly, " I agreed. 

"As to the trains, " he continued contentedly, "there is but one a day. It departs at two and a half hours, upon the Le Moreau route. Monsieurwill be wise to secure, before leaving Paris, a safe-conduct from the_prefecture_; for the village is, as one might say, on the edge of thezone of war. With such a permit monsieur will find his visit charming;regrettable incidents will not occur; undesirable conjectures aboutmonsieur's identity will not be roused. I should strongly advise thatmonsieur provide himself with such a credential, though it is not, perhaps, absolutely _de rigueur_. "

Back in my room at the Ritz, I consulted my watch. It was a quarter oftwo; certainly time had marched apace. Should I, like a sensible man, descend to the restaurant and enjoy a sample of the justly famouscuisine of the hotel? Or should I throw all reason overboard and postoff on--what was it Dunny had called my mission--a wild-goose chase?

I glanced at myself in the mirror and shook a disapproving head. "You'reno knight-errant, " I told my impassive image. "You're too correct, tooindifferent-looking altogether. Better not get beyond your depth!" Idecided for luncheon, followed by a leisurely knotting of the threadsof my Parisian acquaintance. Then, as if some malign hypnotist hadprojected it before me, I saw again a vision of that flashing, lean, gray car. 

"I'm hanged if I don't have a shot at this thing!"

The words seemed to pop out of my mouth entirely of their own accord. By no conscious agency of my own, I found myself madly hurling collars, handkerchiefs, toilet articles, whatever I seemed likeliest to need in abrief journey, into a bag. Lastly I realized that I was standing, hatin hand, overcoat across my arm, considering my revolver, and wonderingwhether taking it with me would be too stagy and absurd. 

"No more so than all the rest of it, " I decided, shrugging. Dropping thething into my pocket, I made for the _ascenseur_. 

"I shan't be back to-night, " I informed the hall porter woodenly. "Orperhaps to-morrow night. But, of course, I'm keeping my room. "

With his wish for a charming trip to speed me, I left the Ritz, andluckily no vision was vouchsafed me of the condition in which I shouldreturn: Two crutches, a bandaged head, an utterly disreputable aspect;my bedraggled state equaled--and this I would maintain with swords andpistols if necessary--that of any poilu of them all. 

As I drove toward the station, various headlines stared at me from thekiosks. "Franz von Blenheim Rumored on Way to France, " ran one of them. Hang Franz. I had had enough of him to last the rest of my life. "Dukeof Raincy-la-Tour Still Missing, " proclaimed another. I knew somethingabout him, too; but what? Ah, to be sure, he was the Firefly of France, the hero of the Flying Corps, the young nobleman of whose suspectedtreason I had read in that extra on the ship. In that damned extra, Iamended, with natural feeling. For it was like Rome; everything seemedto lead its way. 

CHAPTER XIII

AT THE THREE KINGS

"What's the best hotel in the place?" I inquired somewhat dubiously. Theman in the blouse, who had performed the three functions of opening mycompartment-door, carrying my bag to the gate, and relieving me of myticket, achieved a thoroughly Gallic shrug. 

"Monsieur, " said he, "what shall I tell you? The best hotel, the worsthotel--these are one. There is only the Hotel des Trois Rois in the townof Bleau. Let monsieur proceed by the street of the Three Kings and hewill reach it. Formerly there was an omnibus, but now the horses aretaken. And if they remained, who could drive them with all the men atthe war?"

Carrying my bag and feeling none too amiable, I set off along theindicated route. In Paris, rushing from the rue St. -Dominique to Cook'soffice, from that office to the hotel, from the hotel to the _gare_, Ihad been a sort of whirling dervish with no time for sober thought. My trip of four hours on a slow, stuffy, crowded train had, however, afforded me ample leisure; and I had spent the time in grimly envisagingthe possibilities that, I decided, were most likely to befall. 

First and foremost disagreeable; that the men in the gray automobilewere helping Miss Falconer in some nefarious business. In this case, itwould be up to me to fight the gentlemen single-handed, rescue the girl, and escort her back to Paris, all without scandal. Easier said thandone!

Second possibility: that Miss falconer, pausing at Bleau only en route, might already have departed, and that I would be left with my journeyfor my pains. 

Third: that the gray car had no connection with her; that she had someentirely blameless errand. I hoped so, I was sure. If this proved true, I was bound to stand branded as a meddling, officious idiot, one who, indefiance of the most elementary social rules, persisted in trailing heragainst her will. Vastly pleasant, indeed!

Fuming, I shifted my bag from one hand to the other and walked faster. Night was falling, but it was not yet really dark, and I formed aclear enough notion of the village as I traversed it. It was one of thehundreds of its kind which make an artists' paradise of France. Entirelyunmodernized, it was the more picturesque for that. If I trippedsometimes on the roughly paved street I could console myself with theknowledge that these cobbles, like the odd, jutting houses rising onboth sides of them, were at least three hundred years old. Green woods, clear against a background of rosy sunset, ran up to the very borders ofthe town. I passed a little, gray old church. I crossed a quaint bridgebuilt over a winding stream lined with dwellings and broken by mossywashing-stones. It was all very peaceful, very simple, and very rustic. Without second sight I could not possibly have visioned the grim littledrama for which it was to serve as setting. 

A blue sign with gilded letters beckoned me, and I paused to read it. The Touring Club of France recommended to the passing stranger the Hotelof the Three Kings. Here I was, then. From the street a dark, arched, stone passage of distinctly _moyen-age_ flavor led me into a courtyardpaved with great square cobbles, round the four sides of which werebuilt the walls of the inn. Winding, somewhat crazy-looking, stonestaircases ran up to the galleries from which the bedroom doorsinformally opened; vines, as yet leafless, wreathed the gray walls andframed the shuttered windows; before me I glimpsed a kitchen with amagnificent oaken ceiling and a medieval fireplace in which a fireroared redly; and at my right yawned what had doubtless been a stableonce upon a time, but with the advent of the motor, had become aprimitive garage. 

I took the liberty of peering inside. Eureka! There, resting comfortablyfrom its day's labors, stood a dark-blue automobile. If this was not themotor that had brought Miss Falconer from the rue St. -Dominique, it wasits twin. 

"You'll notice it's alone, though, " I told myself. "Where's the graycar?"

My mood was grumpy in the extreme. The inn was charming, but I knew fromsad experience that no place combines all attractions, and that a spotso picturesque as this would probably lack running water and electriclight. 

"_Bonsoir, Monsieur!_"

A buxom, smiling, bare-armed woman had emerged from the kitchen door. She was plainly the hostess. I set down my bag and removed my hat. 

"Madame, " I responded, "I wish you a good evening. I desire a room forthe night in the Hotel of the Three Kings. "

"To accommodate monsieur, " she assured me warmly, "will be a pleasure. Monsieur is an artist without doubt?"

I wanted to say "_Et tu, Brute!_" but I didn't. When one came to thinkof it, I had no very good reason to advance for having appeared atBleau. It wasn't the sort of place into which one would drop fromthe skies by pure chance, either. I was lucky to find a ready-madeexplanation. 

"But assuredly, " said I. 

She disappeared into the kitchen, returned immediately with a candle, and led me up the stone staircase on the left of the courtyard, talkingvolubly all the while. 

"We have had many artists here, " she declared; "many friends ofmonsieur, doubtless. Since monsieur is of that fine profession, hisroom will be but four francs daily; his dinner, three francs; his littlebreakfast, a franc alone. "

"Madame, " I responded, "it is plain that the high cost of living, whichterrorizes my country, does not exist at Bleau. "

Equally plain, I thought pessimistically, was the explanation. Mysaddest forebodings were realized; if the name of the hotel meantanything and three kings ever tarried here, that conjunction ofsovereigns had put up with housing of a distinctly primitive sort. Myroom was clean, I acknowledged thankfully, but that was all I could sayfor it. I eyed the bowl and pitcher gloomily, the hard-looking bed, thetiny square of carpeting in the center of the stone floor. 

"Your house, Madame, " I suggested craftily, with a view toreconnoissance, "is, of course, full?"

She heaved a sigh. 

"It is war-time, Monsieur, " she lamented. "None travel now. Yet whyshould I mourn, since I make enough to keep me till the war is endedand my man comes home? There are those who eat here daily at the noonhour--the cure, the mayor, the mayor's secretary, sometimes the notaryof the town, as well. And to-night I have two guests, monsieur and theyoung lady--the nurse who goes to the hospital at Carrefonds with thegreat new remedy for burns and scars. _Au revoir, Monsieur_. In onelittle moment I will send the hot water, and in half an hour monsieurshall dine. "

I closed the door behind her and flung down my bag, fuming. So MissFalconer was a nurse, carrying a panacea to the wounded, doubtless aspecimen of the sensational new remedy just recognized by the medicalauthorities, of which the one newspaper I had glanced through in Parishad been full. The masquerade was too preposterous to gain an instant'scredence. It gave me, as the French say, furiously to think; it resolvedall doubts. 

I felt inexplicably angry, then preternaturally cool and competent. Forthe first time since the Modane episode I was my clear-sighted self. I had been trying futilely to blindfold my eyes, to explain theinexplicable, to be unaware of the obvious. Now with a sort of grimrelief I looked the facts in the face. 

My hot water appearing, I made a sketchy toilet, and then descended tothe courtyard where I lounged and smoked. My state of mind was peculiar. As I struck a match I noticed with a queer pride that my hand wassteady. With a cold, almost sardonic clarity, I thought of MissFalconer. First a prosperous tourist, next a dweller in an aristocraticFrench mansion, then a nurse. She equaled, I told myself, certainheroines of our Sunday supplements, queens of the smugglers, movingspirits of the diamond ring. 

Upstairs in the right-hand gallery a door opened. A light footstepsounded on the winding stairs. The critical moment was upon me; she wascoming. I threw away my cigarette and advanced. 

She was playing her part, I saw, with due regard for detail. Now thather furs were off she stood forth in the white costume, the flowinghead-dress, the red cross--all the panoply of the _infirmiere_. Shecame half-way down the stairs before perceiving me; then, with a lowexclamation, grasping the balustrade, she stood still. 

I didn't even pretend surprise. What was the use of it?

"Good-evening, Miss Falconer, " was all I said. 

It seemed a long time before she answered. Rigid, uncompromising, shefaced me; and I read storm signals in the deep flush of her cheeks, thegray flash of her eyes, the stiffness of her white-draped head. 

"Oh, Lord!" I groaned to myself in cold compassion, "she means to bluffit! Can't she see that the game's played out?"

"This is very strange, Mr. Bayne, " she was saying idly. "I understoodthat you were to drive an ambulance at the Front. "

How young, how lovely, how glowing she looked as she stood there in hersnowy dress. I found myself wondering impersonally what had led her tothese devious paths. 

"So I am, " I responded with accentuated coolness. "My time is valuable;it was a sacrifice to come to Bleau; but I had no choice. What's wrong, Miss Falconer? You don't object to my presence surely? If you go onfreezing me like this, I shall think there's something about my turningup here that worries you--upon my soul I shall!"

She should by rights have been trembling, but her eyes blazed at medisdainfully. I felt almost like a caitiff, whatever that may be. 

"It doesn't worry me, " she denied, with the same crisp iciness, "but itdoes surprise me. Will you tell me, please, what you are doing here?"

Should I return, "And you?" in a voice of obvious meaning? Should I takea leaf from the book of my hostess and say: "I'm a bit of an artist. I've sketched all over Europe, and I've come to have a go at the oldmill that so many fellows try?" Such a claim would just match theassumption of her costume. But no. 

"The fact is, " I said serenely, "I came straight from the rueSt. Dominique to keep the appointment you forgot. "

The announcement, it was plain, exasperated her, for slightly, butundeniably, she stamped one arched, slender, attractively shod foot. 

"Mr. Bayne, " she demanded, "are you a secret-service agent?"

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, startled. "No!"

"Then I'm sorry. That would have been a better reason for following methan--than the only one there is, " she swept on stormily. "You knew Ididn't wish to see any one at present. I said so in the note I left. Yetyou spied on me and you tracked me deliberately, when I had trustedyou with my address. It's outrageous of you. You ought to be ashamed ofdoing it, Mr. Bayne. "

A stunned realization burst on me of the line that she was taking, theposition into which, willy-nilly, she was crowding me. I had trailed herhere, she assumed, to thrust my company on her; and, upon the surface, I had to own that my behavior really had that air. If I had followed herwith equal brazenness along Fifth Avenue, I should have had a chance toexplain my conduct to the first police officer who noticed it, laterto an indignant magistrate. But, heavens and earth! She knew why I hadcome. And knowing, how did she dare defy me? I retained just sufficientpresence of mind to stare back impassively and to mumble with feeblesarcasm:

"I'm very sorry you think so. "

She came down a step. 

"Are you?" she asked imperiously. "Then--will you prove it? Will you goback to Paris by to-night's train?"

I had recovered myself. 

"There isn't any train to-night, " I protested, civil, but adamant. "And--I'm sorry, but if there was I wouldn't take it--not until I'veaccomplished what I came to do!"

The girl seemed to concentrate all the world's disdain in the look thatmeasured me, running from my head to my unoffending feet, from my feetback to my head. 

"Most men would go, Mr. Bayne, " she flung at me, her red lips scornful. "But then, most men wouldn't have come, of course. And all you willaccomplish is to make me dine up here in this--this wretched, stuffyroom. " Before I could lift a hand in protest, she had turned, mountedthe stairs again, and vanished. The door--shall I own it?--slammed. 

CHAPTER XIV

THE PLOT THICKENS

Presently, summoned by the hostess, I went to my lonely meal in a moodthat nobody on earth had cause to envy me. One thing was certain: Shouldit ever be disclosed that Miss Esme Falconer was not a spy, I shouldlack courage to go on living. Remembering the coolly brazen line I hadtaken and the assumptions she had drawn from it, I could think of nodesert wide enough to hide my confusion, no pit sufficiently deep toshelter my utterly crestfallen head. 

In any case, I had not managed my attack at all triumphantly. From thefirst skirmish the adversary had retired with all the honors on herside. Carrying the matter with a high hand, she had dazed me into briefinaction, and then, as I gave signs of rally, had retreated in whatto say the least was a highly strategic way. Well, let her go for themoment! She could scarcely escape me. I would see the thing through, Itold myself with growing stubbornness; but I didn't feel that the doingof a civic duty was what it is cracked up to be. Not at all!

I felt the need of a cocktail with a kick to it. But I did not get one. However, the cabbage soup was eatable, if primitive; and, in fact, nopart of the dinner could be called distinctly bad. 

Having finished my coffee, I went outside feeling more cheerful. It wasdark now. A lantern swinging from the entrance cast flickering dartsof light about the courtyard, the rough paving-stones, the odd oldgalleries and stairs. Upstairs a candle shone through the window of MissFalconer's room. In the kitchen by the great chimney place I could see aleather-clad chauffeur eating, the same fellow that had driven the bluecar from the rue St. -Dominique; and while I watched, madame emerged, bearing the girl's dinner tray, which with much groaning and panting shecarried up the winding stairs. 

It was foolish of Miss Falconer, I thought, to insist on this comedy. She might better have dined with me, heard what I had to say, andyielded with a good grace. However, let her have her dinner in peaceand solitude, I resolved magnanimously. The moon had come out, the starstoo; I would take a stroll and mature my plans. 

Lighting a cigarette, I lounged into the street and addressed myselfforthwith to an unhurried tour of Bleau. I was gone perhaps an hour, nota very lengthy interval, but one in which a variety of things can occur, as I was to learn. My walk led me outside the village, down a water pathbetween trees, and even to the famous mill, which was charming. Had Ibeen of the fraternity of artists, as I had claimed, I should haveasked no better fate than to come there with canvas and brushes andimmortalize the quiet beauty of the scene. 

A rustic bridge invited me, and I stood and smoked upon it, listeningto the ripple of the half-golden, half-shadowy water, watching therevolutions of the green old wheel. I had laid out my plan of action. Onmy return to the inn I would insist on an interview with Miss Falconer, and would tell her that either she must return with me to Paris or thatthe police of Bleau--I supposed it had police--must take a hand. 

My metamorphosis into a hero of adventure, racing about the country, visiting places I had never heard of, coolly assuming the controlof international spy plots, brutally determining to kidnap women ifnecessary, was astounding to say the least. That dinner in the St. Ivesrestaurant rose before me, and I heard again Dunny's charge that Iwas growing stodgy with advancing years. Suppose he should see menow, involved in these insane developments? He might call me variousunflattering things, but not stodgy--not with truth. I chuckledhalf-heartedly, my last chuckle, by the by, for a long time. Unknown tome and unsuspected, the darker, more deadly side of the adventure wassteadily drawing near. 

When I entered the courtyard of the Three Kings, the door of the garagestood open, and the first object my eyes met within it was the pursuinggray car. I stared at the thing, transfixed. In the march of events Ihad forgotten it. I was still gaping at it when madame came hurryingforth. 

"I have been watching, " she informed me, "for monsieur's return. Friendsof his arrived here soon after he left the house. "

"The deuce they did!" I thought, dumb-founded. I judged prudenceadvisable. 

"They have names, these friends?" I inquired warily. 

"Without doubt, Monsieur, " she agreed, "but they did not offer them; andwho am I to ask questions of the officers of France? They are bound on amission, plainly. In time of war those so engaged talk little. They haveeaten, and they have gone to their rooms, off the gallery to thewest. And the fourth of their party--he alone wears no uniform; he isdoubtless of monsieur's land--asked of me a description of my guests, and exclaimed in great delight, saying that monsieur was his old friend, whom he had hoped to find here and with whom he must have speech thevery moment that monsieur should return. I know no more. "

It was enough. 

"He's mistaken, " I said shortly. For the moment I really thought thatthis must be the case. 

Her broad, good-natured face was all astonishment. 

"But, Monsieur, " she burst forth, "he even told me, this gentleman, thatsuch might be monsieur's reply! And in that event he commanded me to begmonsieur to walk upstairs, since he had a thing of importance to revealto monsieur--one best said behind closed doors!"

I stared at her, my head humming like a top. Then, scrutinizingly, I looked about the court. The light in Miss Falconer's room had beenextinguished. Did that have some significance? Was she lying perduebecause these people had come? In the rooms opening from the westgallery above the street entrance I could see moving shadows. The graycar had arrived, and it bore three officers of France for passengers. What could this mean?

Of course, whoever had left the message had mistaken me for aconfederate. I could not know any of the new arrivals; it was equallyimpossible that they could know me. None the less, with a slight, unaccustomed thrill of excitement, I resolved to accept the invitationas if in absolute good faith. It was a first-class chance to get insidethose rooms, to use my eyes, to sound this affair a little, to learnwhether these men were the girl's pursuers. As army officers they couldscarcely be her accomplices. Would they forestall me by arresting her, by taking her back to Paris? It was astonishing how distasteful I foundthe idea of that. 

I told madame that I thought I knew, now, who the gentlemen were. Iclimbed the west staircase with determination and knocked on the door ofthe first room that had a light. A voice from within, vaguely familiar, bade me enter, I did so immediately and closed the door. 

Through an inner entrance I saw three men grouped about a table inthe next room, all smoking cigarettes, all clad in horizon blue. Theyglanced up at me for a moment, and then, politely, they looked away. Buta fourth man, who had stood beside them, came striding out to meet me, and I confronted Mr. John Van Blarcom face to face. 

Officers fresh from the trenches have told me that one can lose throughsheer accustomedness all horror at the grim sights of warfare, allconsciousness of ear-splitting noises, all interest in gas and shrapneland bursting shells. In the same way one can lose all capacity forastonishment, I suppose. I don't think I manifested much surprise atthis unexpected meeting; and I heard myself remarking quite coolly thatthere had been a mistake, that I had been told downstairs that a friendof mine was here. 

"That's right, Mr. Bayne, " cut in Van Blarcom shortly. "I've been afriend of yours clear through, and I'm acting as one now. Just a minute, sir, please!"

He had shut the door between ourselves and the officers, and now hewas drawing the shutters close. Coming back into the room, he seatedhimself, and motioned me toward a chair, which I didn't take. Hisauthoritative manner was, I must say, not unimpressive. And he knewhow to arrange a rather crude stage-setting; the room, with all air andsound excluded, seemed tense and breathless; the one dim candle on thetable lent a certain solemnity to the scene. 

"Look here, Mr. Bayne, " he began bluffly, "last time you spoke to meyou told me to--Well, we'll let bygones by bygones; I guess you rememberwhat you said. You don't like me, and I'm not wasting any love on you;as far as you're personally concerned, I'd just as soon see you hang!But I've got to think of the United States. I'm in the service, and itdoesn't do her any good to have her citizens get in bad with France. "

Standing there, gazing at him with an air of bored inquiry, behind mymask of indifference I racked my brain. What did he want of me? Whatdid he want of Miss Falconer? What was he doing in this military galley?Hopeless queries, without the key to the puzzle!

"Well?" I said. 

"I don't ask you, " he went on crisply, "what you're doing here--"

"You had better not!" I snapped. "What tomfoolery is this? Do you thinkyou are a police officer heckling a crook? And why should you ask mesuch a question any more than I should ask you?"

He grinned meaningly. 

"Well, " he commented, "there might be reasons. I'm here on business, with papers in order, and three French officers to answer for me; butyou're a kind of a funny person to make a bee-line for a place likeBleau. An inn like this doesn't seem your style, somehow. I'd say theRitz was more your type. And while we're at it, did you go to the Paris_Prefecture_ this morning, like all foreigners are told to, and showyour passport, and get your police card? Have you got it with you? Ifyou have you stepped pretty lively, considering you left Paris by threeo'clock. "

"If any one in authority asks me that, " I said, "I'll answer him. Icertainly don't propose to answer you. " My arms were folded; I lookedhaughtily indifferent; but it was pure bluff. The only paper I had withme was my passport. What the dickens could I do if he turned nasty alongsuch lines. 

"As I was saying, " he resumed, unruffled, "I'm not asking you why you'rehere--because I know. I've got to hand it to you that you're a dead-gamesport. Most men's hair would have turned white at Gibraltar after thefuss you had. And here you are again--in the ring for all you're worth!"

"I suppose you mean something, " I said wearily, "but it's too subtle andcryptic. Please use words of one syllable. "

He nodded tolerantly. Leaning back, thumbs in his waistcoat-pockets, swelling visibly, he was an offensive picture of self-satisfaction andcontent. 

"You can't get away with it, Mr. Bayne, " he declared impressively. "You've taken on too much; I'm giving it to you straight. You can do alot with money and good clothes, and being born a gentleman and actinglike one, and having friends to help you; but you can't buck the FrenchGovernment and the French army and the French police. In a little affairof this sort you wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Even your ambassadorwould turn you down cold. He wouldn't dare do anything else. This is thelast call for dinner in the dining-car, for you. Last time I wantedto tell you the facts of the case you wouldn't listen. Will you listennow?"

I considered. 

"Yes, " I said, "I'll listen. Go ahead!"

He foundered for a moment, and then plunged in boldly. 

"About this young lady who's brought you and me to Bleau. Oh, youneedn't lift your eyebrows, much as to say, 'What young lady?' You knowshe's here, and I know it; and she knows I've come and has put her lightout and is shaking in her shoes over there. I can swear to that. Well, Iwant to tell you I never started out to get her; I just stumbled acrossher on the steamer by a fluke. But I kept my eyes open and I saw alot of things; and when I got to Paris to-day I told them at the_Prefecture_. You can see what they thought of the business by my beinghere. I wasn't keen to come. I've got my own work to do. But theywant me to identify her; and they've sent three officers with me--notpolicemen, you'll notice, because this is an army matter, and before wemake an end of it we'll be in the army zone. "

I don't know just what he saw in my eyes; but it seemed to bother him. He fidgeted a little; as he approached the crucial point, his gazeevaded mine. 

"Now, then, we'll come down to brass tacks, Mr. Bayne, " said he. "Idon't know what kind of story the girl told you; but I know it wasn'tthe truth or you wouldn't be here. That's sure. She's a German agent;she's come to get the Germans some papers that they want about as bad asanything under heaven. There's one man who tried the job already. Hegot killed for his pains; but he hid the papers before he died, and sheknows where; and she's on her way to get them and carry the businessthrough. I don't say she hasn't plenty of courage. Why, she's gone upagainst the whole of France; but I guess you're not very anxious to bemixed up in this underhand, spying sort of matter, eh?"

My hands were doubling themselves with automatic vigor. Iwanted--consumedly--to knock the fellow down. However, I controlledmyself. 

"What's your offer?" I asked. 

"It's this. " He was obviously relieved, positively swelling in histolerant, good-humored patronage. "I said once before I was sorry foryou, and that still goes; we won't be hard on you if we have got thewhip-hand, Mr. Bayne. You just stay in your room to-morrow until she'sgone and we're gone, and you needn't be afraid your name will everfigure in this thing. I've made it all right with my friends in the nextroom. They know a pretty girl can fool a man sometimes, and they've gota soft spot for Americans, like all the Frenchies here. Take it from me, you'd better draw out quietly, instead of being arrested, tried, shot, or imprisoned maybe--or being sent home with an unproved charge hangingover you, and having all your friends fight shy of you as a suspectedpro-German. Isn't that so?"

"You certainly, " I agreed, "draw a most uninviting picture. I'll have toconsider this, Mr. Van Blarcom, if you'll give me time?"

"Sure!" with his hearty response. "Take as long as you like to think itover; I know how you'll decide. You don't belong in a thing likethis anyhow; you never did. It's bound to end in a nasty mess for allconcerned. There's a train goes to Paris to-morrow morning at eleven. You just take it, sir, and forget this business, and you'll thank me allyour life. "

CHAPTER XV

GEORGES THE CHAUFFEUR

Upon descending to the courtyard, I took a seat on a bench beneath avine-covered trellis. To stop here for a time, smoking, would seem anatural proceeding, and while I held such a post of recognizance nothingovert could transpire in the environs without my taking note of thefact. Enough had developed already, though, heaven was witness! I lit acigarette and prepared for a resume. 

Like a sleuth noting salient points, I glanced round the rectangularcourt. At my right, off the gallery, was Miss Falconer's room shroudedin darkness; at the left, up another flight of stairs, my own uninvitingdomain. The quarters of Van Blarcom and his uniformed friends openedfrom the gallery above the street passage, facing the main portion ofthe inn which sheltered the kitchen and _salle a manger_. Such was thesimple, homely stage-setting. What of the play?

Bleau, I now felt tolerably sure, was merely a mile-stone on the routeof Miss Falconer. Next morning, at sunrise probably, she would resumeher journey for parts unknown. Would they arrest her before she leftthe inn or merely follow her? The latter, doubtless, since they assertedthat she was on her way to get the papers that they wanted for France. 

Upstairs in the room where Van Blarcom and I had held our conferencethe shutters had been reopened. There was just one light to be seen, aglowing point, which was obviously the tip of a cigar. If I was keepingvigil below, from above he returned the compliment; nor did he meanthat I should hold any secret colloquy with the girl that night. Iswore softly, but earnestly. Considering his rather decent attitude, his efforts from the very first to enlighten me as to the dangers I wasrunning, it was odd that my detestation of the man was so thoroughlyingrained and so profound. 

The mystery of the gray car had been solved with a vengeance. Instead ofbeing freighted with accomplices, as I had at first thought possible, it had carried the representatives of justice, in the persons of threeofficers and my secret-service friend. A queer conjunction, that; butthen, my ignorance of French methods was abysmal. Perhaps this was theusual mode of doing things in time of war. 

Van Blarcom's explanation, though it made me furious, had broughtconviction. There was a certain grim appositeness about it all. Thenight in New York, the events of the steamer, the unsatisfactorycharacter of the girl's actions, all fitted neatly into the plan; andthe mere personnel of the pursuing party was sufficient assurance, forFrench officers, as I well knew, were neither liars nor fools. Neither, I patriotically assumed, were the men of my country's secret-service, however humble their part as cogs in that great machinery, or howeverdistasteful Mr. Van Blarcom, personally, might be to me. And finally, Icould not deny that women, clever, well-born, and beautiful, had servedas spies a thousand times in the world's history, urged to it by somesense of duty, some tie of blood. 

Yes, that was it, I told myself in sudden pity, recalling how MissFalconer had stood on the steps in her nurse's costume, straight andslender, her gray eyes full of fire, her face glowing like a rose. Perhaps she was of the enemy's country. Perhaps those she loved, those who made up her life, had set her feet in this path that shewas treading. If she was a spy, --Lord! How the mere word hurt one!--itwasn't for ignoble motives; it wasn't for pay. 

I came impulsively to the conclusion that there was just one coursefor my taking: to see her and to beg, bully, or wheedle from her theunvarnished truth. Then, if it was as I feared, she should go back toParis if I had to carry her; she should accompany me to Bordeaux, and onthe first steamer she should sail from France. Yes; and the army shouldhave its papers, for she should tell me where they were hidden. Her workshould end; but these men upstairs should not track her and trap her anddrag her off to prison, perhaps to death. 

There was danger in the plan, even if I should accomplish it. I shouldget myself into trouble, dark and deep. Well, if I had to languishbehind bars for a while I could survive it. But she might not. As Ithought of this I knew that I had made up my mind irrevocably. 

It was a problem, nevertheless, to arrange an interview, with VanBlarcom sitting at his window, watching me like a lynx. I couldn't goup the stairs and batter on her door till she opened it; apart from thereception she would give me it would simply amount to making a presentof my intentions to the men across the way. Yet who knew how long theywould keep up their surveillance? Till I retired, probably! "I'd givesomething to choke you and be done with it!" was the benediction Iwafted toward the sentinel above. 

I was owning myself at my wit's end when a ray of hope was vouchsafedme. The kitchen door opened and let out a leather-clad figure whichstrode across the courtyard, lantern in hand, and let itself into thegarage. Despite the dimness, I recognized Miss Falconer's chauffeur, theman she had addressed as Georges when they left the rue St. Dominique. The very link I needed, provided I could get into communication with himin some unostentatious way. 

I rose, stretched myself lazily, and began to pace the court. Perhapsa dozen times I crossed and recrossed it, each turn taking me past thegarage and affording me a brief glance within. The chauffeur, coat flungaside, sleeves rolled up, was hard at work overhauling his engine, withan obvious view to efficiency upon the morrow. Up at the window I couldsee the glowing cigar-tip move now to this side, now to that. Not for aninstant was Van Blarcom allowing me to escape from sight. 

After taking one more turn I halted, yawned audibly for the sentry'sbenefit, and seated myself once more, this time on a bench by thedoor of the garage. Van Blarcom's cigar became stationary again. Thechauffeur, who had satisfied himself as to the engine and was nowpassing critical fingers over the gashes in the tires, looked up at mecasually and then resumed his work. Kneeling there, his tools about him, he was plainly visible in the light of the smoky lantern. He was ayoung man, twenty-three or-four perhaps, strongly built and obviouslyof French-peasant stock, with honest blue eyes and a face not undulyintelligent, but thoroughly frank and open in the cast. The actors in mydrama, I had to own, were puzzling. This lad looked no more fitted thanMiss Falconer for a treacherous role. 

How theatrical it all was! And yet it had its zest. I confess Iexperienced a certain thrill, entirely new to me, as I bent forward withmy arms on my knees and my head lowered to hide my face. 

"_Attention, Georges!_" I muttered beneath my breath. 

The chauffeur started, knocking a tool from the running-board besidehim. His eyes, half-startled, half-fierce, fixed themselves on me; hishand went toward his pocket in a most significant way. In a minutehe would be shooting me, I reflected grimly. And upstairs the verystillness of Van Blarcom shrieked suspicion; he could not have helpedhearing the clatter that the falling tool had made. 

"Don't be a fool, " I muttered, low, but sharply. "I know where you andmademoiselle come from; I know she is upstairs now; if I wished you anyharm I could have had the mayor and the gendarmes here an hour ago! Keepyour head--we are being watched. Have a good look at me first if youfeel you want to. Then take your hand off that revolver and pretend togo to work. "

Throwing my head back, I began blowing clouds of smoke, wondering everyinstant whether a bullet would whiz through my brain. I could feelGeorges' gaze upon me; I knew it was a critical moment. But as his kindare quick, shrewd judges of caste and character, I had my hopes. 

They were justified; for presently I heard him draw a breath of relief. His hand came out of his pocket. 

"Pardon, Monsieur, " he whispered, and began a vigorous pretense ofpolishing the car. 

Again I leaned forward to hide the fact that my lips were moving. 

"When you speak to me, keep your head bent as I do. "

"Monsieur, yes. "

"Now listen. Men of the French army are here, with powers from thepolice. They accuse mademoiselle of serious things, of acts of treason, of being on her way to secure papers for the foes of France. They arewatching. To-morrow, if she departs, they mean to follow and to arresther when they have gained proof of what she is hunting. "

"_Mon Dieu, Monsieur!_ What shall I do?"

There was appeal in his voice. Convinced of my good faith, he wasquite simply shifting the business to my shoulders--the French peasanttrusting the man he ranked as of his master's class. And oddly enoughI found myself responding as if to a trusted person. I smoked a little, wondering whether Van Blarcom could catch the faint mutter of ourvoices. Then I gave my orders in the same muffled tones:

"You will tell the servants that you wish to sleep here to-night, towatch the car. You will stay here very quietly until it is nearly dawn. Then you will creep to mademoiselle's door and whisper what I have toldyou and say that I beg her to meet me before those others have awakenedat five o'clock in--"

Pondering a rendezvous, I hesitated. The room where I had dined, withits stone floor, its beamed ceiling, and dark panels, came first tomy mind. I fancied, though, that some outdoor spot might be safer. Iremembered opportunely that a passage led past this room, and that atits end I had glimpsed a little garden behind the inn. 

"In the garden, " I finished, and risked one straight look at him. "I cantrust you, Georges?"

The young man's throat seemed to close. 

"_Monsieur le duc_ was my foster-brother, _Monsieur_, " he whispered. "Iwould die for him. "

Who the deuce _monsieur le duc_ might be I did not tarry to discover. I had done all I could; the future was on the knees of the gods. Havingsmoked one more cigarette for the sake of verisimilitude, I rose, stretched myself ostentatiously, and crossed the courtyard to thestairs, where madame was descending. She had, she informed me, beenpreparing my bed. 

"And I wish monsieur good repose, " she ended volubly. "Hitherto, noZeppelins have come to Bleau to disturb our dreams. Though, alas, whoknows what they will do, now that we have lost our most gallant hero?Monsieur has heard of the Firefly of France, he who is missing?"

That name again! Odd how it seemed to pursue me. 

"I believe I shall meet that fellow sometime if he's living, " Ireflected as I climbed the stairs. 

In my room, my candle lighted, I resigned myself to a ghastly night. Idon't like discomfort, though I can put up with it when I must. Thebed looked as hard as nails; the bowl made cleanliness a duty, not apleasure. And to think that I might have been sleeping in comfort at theRitz!

Tossing from side to side, pounding a cast-iron pillow, I dozed throughuneasy intervals, and woke with groans and starts. I could not ridmyself of the sense of something ominous hanging over me. The gray carramped through my dreams; so did Van Blarcom; and between sleepingand waking, I pictured my coming interview with the girl, her probableterror, the force and menaces I should have to use, our hurried flight. 

At length I fell into a heavy, exhausted slumber, from which, towardmorning I fancied, I sat up suddenly with the dazed impression of somesound echoing in my ears. Springing out of bed, I groped my way to thewindow. The galleries lay peaceful and empty in the moonlight, and downin the courtyard there was not the slightest sign of life. 

I went back to bed in a state of jangled nerves. Again I dozed, anda dim light was creeping through the window when I woke. I looked outagain. 

"Hello!" I muttered, for though the hotel seemed wrapped in slumber, thedoor of the garage now stood ajar. Was it possible that Miss Falconerhad stolen a march on me, that the automobile could have left thepremises without my being roused? It was only four o'clock, but all wishfor sleep had left me. I decided to investigate without any more ado. 

I made the best toilet that cold water and a cracked mirror permitted, longing the while for a bath, for a breakfast tray, for a hundredcivilized things. Taking my hat and coat, I went quietly down thestaircase. The garage door beckoned me, and all unprepared, I walkedinto the tragedy of the affair. 

In the dim place there were signs of a desperate struggle. The rugs andcushions of Miss Falconer's automobile were scattered far and wide. Thegray car had vanished; and in the center of the floor was Georges, the chauffeur, lying on his back with arms extended, staring up at theceiling with wide, unseeing blue eyes. 

CHAPTER XVI

"I MUST GO ON"

Kneeling by the young man's side, I felt for his pulse; but the momentthat my fingers touched his cold wrist I knew the truth. There flashedinto my mind queerly, as things do at grim moments, an often-heardexpression about rigor mortis setting in. With this poor fellow it hadnot started, but he was dead for all that. The most skilful surgeon inEurope could not have helped him now. 

I never doubted that it was murder. The confusion of the garage wasproof of it; and the instrument, once I looked about me, was not farto seek. Divided between rage, horror, and pity, I saw a sort of sharpstiletto suitable for use as a penknife or letter opener, which, afterdoing its work, had been cast upon the floor. 

I remained on my knees beside the lad, smitten with a keen remorse. I knew no good of him; I had even suspected him; but he had an honestface. Why had I not kept watch all night? The instructions I had given, the plan I had thought so clever, might be responsible for the killing;it must have been some echo of the struggle that had roused me when Ihad wakened and glanced out and gone placidly back to sleep. 

Had Van Blarcom caught our whispered colloquy, or surmised it? Helpedby his precious colleagues, he must have taken Georges unprepared, throttled him to prevent his shouting, and ended his frantic struggleswith one swift, ruthless blow. But why? What sort of soldiers couldthese be who wore the uniform of a brave, chivalrous country and yet didmurder? What sort of mission were they bound upon that for no visiblegain or motive they risked desperate work like this?

And the girl upstairs? The thought was like a knife thrust; it broughtme to my feet, my heart pounding, my forehead cold and wet. I toldmyself that she must be safe, that wholesale killing could not bethe aim of these wretches, that the gray automobile was not what ourone-cent sheets in their tales of gunmen like to call a "murder car. "But what did I know about it? I was in a funk, a funk of the bluestvariety. In that one age-long moment I learned what sheer fright meant. 

Without knowing how I got there, I found myself in the gallery. Thedoors that lined it were rickety and worm-eaten; I stared weakly atthem. A mere twist of practised fingers, and they could be forced openby any one who cared to try. I thought I heard a faint breathing insidethe girl's room, but I was not sure; I was too rattled. Very guardedlyI knocked and got no answer. Then, in utter panic, I knocked louder, atrisk of disturbing the whole house. 

"Georges, _c'est vous_?" It was the drowsiest of murmurs, but few thingshave been so welcome to me in all my life. 

"Yes, Mademoiselle. " Though my knees were wobbling under me I summonedpresence of mind to impersonate the poor huddled mass of flesh in thegarage. 

"_Attendez donc!_"

I could hear her stirring; she believed I had come with some summons, with some news. Well, it was imperative that I should see her. I waitedobediently until the door swung open and revealed her in a loose robeof blue, with her hair in a ruddy mass about her shoulders and the sleepstill lingering in her eyes. 

"Mr. Bayne!"

Such was my relief at finding my fears uncalled for that I couldhave danced a breakdown on that crazy gallery, snapping my fingers incastanet fashion above my head. I had forgotten entirely the strainedterms of our parting; but she remembered. A bright wave of scarlet ranover her face, her neck, her forehead. She gasped, clutched her robeabout her, would have shut the door if I had not foreseen the strategicmovement and inserted a foot in the diminishing crack, just in time. 

"I beg your pardon, " I began hastily. "I am really extremely sorry. Butsomething has occurred that forces me to speak to you. "

"There can be nothing that forces you to come here--nothing!" Her lipswere trembling; her voice wavered; the apparent shamelessness of mybehavior was driving her to the verge of tears. "Is there no place whereI am safe from you? Mr. Bayne, how can you? I shan't listen to a singleword while you keep your foot in the door!"

"And I can't take it away until you listen, " I protested. "It isperfectly obvious that if I did, you would shut me out. But you can seefor yourself that I'm not trying to force an entrance--and I wish thatyou would speak lower; if we waken anybody, there will be the mischiefto pay. "

My voice, I suppose, had an impatient note that was reassuring, orperhaps I looked encouragingly respectable, viewed at closer range. At any rate, she spoke less angrily, though she still stood erect andhaughty. 

"Well, what is it?" she asked, barring the opening with one slender arm. 

"May I ask if you have had a message from me, Miss Falconer?"

"A message? Certainly not!" There was renewed suspicion in her voice. 

"H'm. " Then they had intercepted the man before he reached her. "I'mgoing to ask you to dress as quickly and quietly as possible and comedownstairs. Don't stop in the court, and don't go near the garage, I begof you. Just walk on past the _salle a manger_ to the garden, and waitfor me. "

I expected exclamations, questions, indignant protests, anything but thesudden white calm that fell on her at my request. 

"You mean, " she whispered, "that something dreadful has happened. Is itabout the--the men who came last night?"

"Yes. But please don't worry, " I urged with false heartiness. "I'llexplain when you come down. " To cut the discussion short, I turned togo. 

Once her door had closed, however, I halted at the staircase, retracedmy steps, and, without hesitation, circled the gallery to the rooms ofMr. John Van Blarcom and his friends. I had had enough of uncertainties;henceforth I meant to deal with facts. It was barely possible that Iwas unjustly anathematizing these gentlemen, that, while they werepeacefully sleeping, thieves had broken in below. 

Two knocks, the first rather tentative, the second brisker, netting noresponse, I deliberately tried the knob and felt the door promptly yieldto me; then, with equal deliberation, I dropped my hand into my pocketwhere my revolver lay. If some one sprang at me and tried to crack myhead or stab me, --stabbing was popular hereabouts, --I was in a state ofarmed preparedness. But when I stepped inside I found an empty room, abed in which no one had slept. 

Grown brazen, I strode across to the inner door and opened it. Moreemptiness greeted me; the four men had plainly taken French leave intheir gray car. It was strange that the hum of their departure hadnot roused me; they must, before starting the motor, have pushed theirautomobile from the courtyard and out of ear-shot down the street. 

For a moment I stood in the deserted room, reflecting swiftly. Thesituation was desperate; in another hour the inn would be stirring, andMiss Falconer, I felt sure, could not afford to be found here when thatcame to pass. Murder investigations are searching things. All strangersbeneath this roof would be interrogated narrowly. If any one had asecret, --and she certainly had several, --the chances were heavy that itwould be dragged to light. 

For some reason this prospect was unspeakably frightful to me. Under itsspur I hatched the craziest scheme that man ever thought of, and tooksteps which, as I look back at them, seem almost beyond belief. I mustget Miss Falconer off for Paris, I determined. And since it was possiblethat the villagers would see us leaving, she must appear to go, as shehad come, with her chauffeur. 

I descended, forthwith, to the garage where the murdered man was lying, shook out and folded the rugs that had been scattered in the struggle, picked up the cushions, and replaced them in the car. Then, borrowing aruse from the enemy, I set the door wide open, and, puffing and panting, pushed the blue automobile into the courtyard, through the passage, anda considerable distance down the street. 

What comes next, I ask no one to credit. Retrospectively, I myself havedoubted it. It lives in my memory as a grisly nightmare rather than asa fact. To be brief, I returned to the scene of the crime, shut outany possible audience by closing the door, and disrobed hastily. ThenI removed the leather costume of the victim, donned it, laced on hisboots, which by good fortune were loose instead of tight, and, pickingup his visored cap from the floor where it had fallen, stood forth toall seeming as genuine a member of the proletariate as ever wore gogglesand held a wheel. 

By this time my teeth were clenched as if in the throes of lockjaw. HadI paused to think for a single instant, all my nerve would have oozedaway. But I had no time to spend on thought; I had to work on, to saveMiss Falconer. The whole ghoulish business would be futile if theinn servants found the body. The mere flight of all the guests wouldcertainly stir suspicion; let the murder transpire as well, and at oncewe should be pursued. 

The garage, from the looks of it, was not often put to service. A dustyspot, festooned with cobwebs, it cried to the skies for brooms and mops. In the background, apparently undisturbed since the days of the FirstEmpire, a great pile of straw mixed with junk of various kinds layagainst the wall; and most reluctantly, my every fiber shriekingprotest, I saw what use I might make of this debris--if I could. 

"Go for it!" I told myself inexorably, but miserably. "It's not aquestion of liking it, you know. You've got to do it. " Grimly I wrappedmy discarded clothes about the poor chap's body, dragged it to thestraw, and covered it from head to foot. By this action, I surmised, Iwas rendering myself a probable accessory and a certain suspect; but theone thing I really cared about was my last glimpse of that patient face. 

"Sorry, old man, " was all the apology I could muster. "And if I ever geta chance at the people who did it, you can count on me!"

With a sigh of complete exhaustion, I rose and looked about. All signsof the crime had been obliterated from the garage. "I must be crazy!" Ithought, as the enormity of the thing rushed on me. "I wonder why I didit? And I wonder whether I can forget it some day--maybe after twentyyears?"

As I opened the door to the garden the dim light was growing clearer. Iwas late; the girl, coated and hatted, ready for flitting, was alreadyat the rendezvous. At sight of me in my leather togs she startedbackward; then, resolutely controlled, she drew herself up and faced mesilently, her hands clutching at her furs, her lips a little apart. 

"Won't you sit down?" I began lamely, indicating an iron bench. It wasall so different from the interview I had planned last night! "I want tospeak to you about your chauffeur, Miss Falconer. This morning I foundhim hurt--very badly hurt--"

She drove straight through my pretense. 

"Not dead? Oh, Mr. Bayne, not dead?"

"Yes, " I said gently. "He had been dead some time. I would have likedto take my chances with him; but I came too late. No, please!" She hadmoved forward, and I was barring her passage. "You mustn't go. You can'thelp him, and you wouldn't like the sight. "

How black her eyes were in her white face!

"I don't understand, " she faltered. "You mean that he was murdered? Butwho would have killed Georges?"

"The men who came last night--if you can call them men. At least, appearances point that way, " I said. 

"The men in the gray car?" She swayed a little. "But why?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that. " My tone was grim; there were so manythings about this matter that I couldn't tell. 

Her eyes flashed for an instant. 

"But how cowardly, how cruel! He never hurt anyone; he was just like agood watchdog, the truest, most faithful soul! If they killed him theydid it for some deliberate purpose. And when I think that I brought himhere--oh, oh, Mr. Bayne--"

"Yes, " I broke in hastily; "I should like to see them boil in oil or fryon gridirons or something of the sort, myself. But this is very serious;we must keep calm, Miss Falconer. And I know you are going to help me. You have such splendid self-control. "

Though there were sobs in her throat, she pressed her hands to her lipsand stifled them. Only her pallor and her wet lashes showed the horrorand grief she felt. I wanted desperately to comfort her, but therewas no time for it; and besides, who ever heard of a leather-coatedcomforter in a kitchen garden at 5 A. M. ?

"What I wanted to speak about, " I went on rapidly, "was our plans. Thismay prove a rather nasty mess, I'm sorry to say. The French police, youknow, are--well, they're capable and very thorough; and since you arehere at the scene of a murder in an _infirmiere's_ costume, they willnever rest till they have seen your papers, learned your errand, askedyou a hundred things. Unless your replies are absolutely satisfactory, the whole business will be--er--awkward for you. That is why I put onthese togs. Yes, I know it is ghastly, " I owned as she shuddered. "Andthat is why I want to beg you, very seriously indeed, to let me driveyou back to Paris and put you under your friends' protection. Afterthat, of course, I'll return here to see the thing through and give mytestimony about it all. "

It was not going to be so simple, the course I had outlined airily. WhenI visioned myself explaining to a French _commissaire_ why I had come toBleau at all; why I had set up a false claim to be an artist, --for thatcircumstance was sure to leak out and look darkly incriminating, --andwhat had inspired me to take a murdered man's clothes and conceal hisbody, I can't pretend that I felt much zest. Still, if the police andthe girl came together, worse would follow, I was certain; and it seemedlike a real catastrophe when she slowly shook her head. 

"I can't, " she murmured. "Oh, it's kind of you, and I'm sorry; but Ican't go back to Paris--not yet, Mr. Bayne. You won't understand, ofcourse, but I left there to--to accomplish something. And since poorGeorges can't help me now, I must go on--alone. "

CHAPTER XVII

I BURN MY BRIDGES

If I live to be a hundred, and it is not improbable since I am healthy, I shall never forget that little garden at the inn at Bleau. It was avegetable garden too, which is not in itself romantic. I recall vaguelythat there were beds all about us, which in due course would doubtlesssprout into rows of pale green objects--peas and artichokes, or beansand cabbages maybe; I don't know, I am sure. But then, there was thestream running just outside the wall of masonry; there was the sky, flushing with that faint, very delicate, very lovely pink that an earlyspring morning brings in France; there was the quaint building, wrappedup in slumber, beside us; and in the air a silent, fragrant dimness, thepromise of the dawn. 

And then there was the girl. I suppose that was the main thing. Not thatI felt sentimental. I should have scouted the notion. If I meant to fallin love, --which, I should have said, I had no idea of doing, --I wouldcertainly not begin the process in this unheard-of spot. No; it wassimply that the whole business of caring for Miss Esme Falconer hadsuddenly devolved upon my shoulders; and that instead of my feelingbored, or annoyed, or exasperated at the prospect, my spirits roseinexplicably to face the need. 

Here, if ever, was the time for the questions I had planned lastevening. But I didn't ask them; I knew I should never ask them. In thosefew long unforgetable moments when I stood in the gallery and wonderedwhether she were living, my point of view had altered. I was throughwith suspecting her; I was prepared to laugh at evidence, howeverdamning. As for the men in the gray car and their detailed accusations, I didn't give--well, a loud outcry in the infernal regions for them. Iknew the standards of the land they served, and I had seen their workthis morning. If they were French officers, I would do France a serviceby going after them with a gun. 

The girl had sunk down on the ancient bench beside me. Her eyes, wideand distressed, yet resolute, went to my heart. Not a figure, I thoughtagain, for this atmosphere of intrigue and secrecy and danger. Rather agirl, beautiful, brilliant, spirited, to be shielded from every jostleof existence; the sort of girl whom men hold it a test of manhood toprotect from even the most passing discomfiture!

But time was moving apace. We must settle on something in short order. Ispoke in the most matter-of-fact tones that I could summon, not, heavenknows, out of a feeling of levity concerning what had happened, but totry to lighten the grim business a degree or so and keep us sane. 

"I think, Miss Falconer, " I began, standing before her, "that wehave got to thrash this matter out at last. You think I've behavedunspeakably, trailing you everywhere, and I don't deny I have, accordingto your point of view. But the fact is, I didn't follow you to annoyyou; I'm a half-way decent fellow. You have simply got to trust me untilI've seen you through this tangle. After that, if you like you neednever look at me again. "

Her troubled eyes rested on me, half bewildered. 

"Why, I'd forgotten all that, " she murmured. "I do trust you, Mr. Bayne. Of course I must have misunderstood you to some way last evening, andI'm afraid I was disagreeable. "

"Naturally. You had to be. Now, if that's all right and I'm forgiven, may I ask a question? About those men who arrived last night andapparently killed your chauffeur--can you guess who they are?"

"Yes, " she faltered, looking down at the pebbled walk. "They must havebeen sent by the Government or the army or the police. If the Frenchknew what I was doing, they wouldn't understand my motives. I've beenafraid from the first that they would learn. "

Another of my precious theories was going up in smoke. Not seeing why aset of bonafide officers should gratuitously murder a chauffeur, I hadbeen wondering whether the quartet might not be impostors, tricked outin uniforms to which they had no claim. Still, of course, I couldn'tjudge. If she would only confide in me! I was fairly aching to help her;yet how could I, in this blindfold way?

"I don't wish to be impertinent, " I ventured at length, meekly, "and Igive you my word I'm not trying to find out anything you don't wantme to. Only, assuming I've got some sense, --in case you care to be soamiable, --I'd like to put it at your service. Do you think you couldgive me just a vague outline of your plans?"

She looked at me in a piteous, uncertain manner. I braced myself fora "No. " Then, suddenly, she seemed to decide to trust me--in sheerdesperate loneliness, I dare say. 

"I am going, " she whispered, "to a village in the war zone--where thereis a chateau. There are things in it--some papers; at least I believethere are. It is just a chance, just a forlorn hope; but it meansall the world to certain people. I have to act in secret till I havesucceeded, and then every one in France, every one on earth may know allthat I have done!"

If I had not burned my bridges, this announcement might have worried me;it was too vague, and what little I grasped tallied startlingly with VanBlarcom's rigmarole. However, having bowed allegiance, I didn't blink aneyelid. 

"Yes, " I said encouragingly. "Is it very far?"

Her eyes went past me anxiously, watching the inn and its blank windows, as she fumbled in her coat and brought forth a motor map. 

"Take it, " she breathed, thrusting it toward me. "Look at it. Do yousee? The route in red!"

As I realized the astounding thing I choked down an exclamation. There, beneath my finger, lay the village of Bleau, a tiny dot; and from it, straight into the war zone, the traced line ran through Le Moreau andCroix-le-Valois and St. Remilly; ran to--what was the name? I spelled itout: P-r-e-z-e-l-a-y. 

Though it was early in the game to be a wet blanket, I found myselfgasping. 

"But, " I protested weakly, "you can't do that! It's in the warcountry; it's forbidden territory. One has to have safe-conducts, _laissez-passers_, all sorts of documents to get into that part ofFrance. "

"I didn't come unprepared, " she answered stubbornly. "Before I startedI knew just what I should need. I can get as far as the hospital atCarrefonds; and Carrefonds is beyond Prezelay, ten miles nearer to theFront!"

"But--" The monosyllable was distinctly tactless. 

She straightened, challenging me with brave, defiant eyes. 

"I know, " she flashed. "You mean it looks suspicious. Well, it does;and if I told you everything, it would look more suspicious still. Youshouldn't have followed me; when they learn that we both spent the nighthere they will think you are my--my accomplice. The best advice I cangive you, Mr. Bayne, is to go away. "

"Perhaps we had better, " I agreed stolidly. I had deserved the outburst. "Shall we be off at once, before the servants come downstairs?"

She drew back, her eyes widening. 

"We?" she repeated. 

"Naturally!" I replied, with some temper. "I _must_ have disgustedyou last night. What sort of a miserable, spineless, cowardly, caddishtravesty of a man do you take me for, to think I would let you goalone?"

"Please don't joke, " she urged. "It simply isn't possible. You would getinto trouble with the French Government, and--"

"Do you know, " I grinned, "it is rather exhilarating to snap one'sfingers at governments? Just see what success I made of it with GreatBritain and Italy, on the ship!"

"You don't realize what you are laughing at, " she pleaded. "It isdangerous. "

"I won't disgrace you. I seldom tremble visibly, Miss Falconer, though Ioften shake inside. "

Her great gray eyes were glowing mistily. 

"Mr. Bayne, this is splendid of you. I--I shall go on more bravelybecause you have been so kind. But I won't let you make such a sacrificeor mix in a thing that others may think disloyal, treacherous. You knowhow it looks. Why, on the steamer and on the way up to France and evenlast evening--you see I've guessed now why you followed me--you didn'ttrust me yourself. "

"I know it, " I confessed humbly. "I can't believe I was such an idiot. Somebody ought to perform a surgical operation on my brain. I apologize;I'm down in the dust; I feel like groveling. Won't you forgive me? Ipromise you won't have to do it twice. "

This time it was she who said: "But--" and paused uncertainly. I couldsee she was wavering, and I massed my horse, foot, and dragoons for theattack. 

"You'll please consider me, " I proclaimed firmly, "to be a tyrant. Iam so much bigger than you are that you can't possibly drive me off. Idon't mean to interfere or to ask questions, or to bother you. But I vowI'm coming with you if I cling to the running-board!"

Her lashes fluttered as she racked her brains for new protests. 

"The car is a French make, " she urged, --"which you couldn't drive--"

"I can drive any car with four wheels!" I exclaimed vaingloriously. "It's kismet, Miss Falconer; it's the hand of Providence, no less. Now, we'll leave these notes in the _salle a manger_ to pay for our lodging, which would have been dear at twopence, and be off, if you please, forPrezelay. "

She had yielded. We were standing side by side in the silence of themorning, the dimness fading round us, the air taking a golden tinge. My surroundings were plebeian; my costume was comic; yet I felt oddlyuplifted. 

"Jolly old garden, isn't it?" said I. 

CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE HIGH GEAR

To pass straight from a humdrum, comfortable, conventionally orderedlife into a career of insane adventure is a step that is radical; but itcan be exhilarating, and I proved the fact that day. To dwell on presentdanger was to forget the past hour in the garage, which I had to forgetor begin gibbering. Once committed to the adventure and away from thescene of the murder, I found a positive relief in facing the madness ofthe affair. 

While the girl sat silent and listless, blotted against the cushions, rousing from her thoughts only to indicate the turns of the road, I hadtime for cogitation; and I began to feel like a man who has drunk freelyof champagne. Hitherto I had been a law-abiding citizen. Now I hadkicked over the traces. Like the distinguished fraternity that includesRaffles and Arsene Lupin, I should be "wanted" by the police, thosegood-natured, deferential beings so given to saluting and grinning, with whom, save for occasional episodes not unconnected with the speedlaws, --Dunny says libelously that my progress in an automobile resemblesa fabulous monster with a flying car for the head, a cloud of smoke andgasoline for the body, and a cohort of incensed motor-cycle men for thetail, --I had lived on the most cordial terms. 

I was not certain whether they would accuse me of murder or espionage. There were pegs enough, undeniably, on which to hang either charge. Myself, I rather inclined to the latter; the case was so clear, sodetailed! My rush from Paris to Bleau, --in order, no doubt, that Imight at an unostentatious spot join forces with my confederate, MissFalconer, whom I had been meeting at intervals ever since we left NewYork in company, --my behavior there, and the fashion in which we werevanishing should suffice to doom me as a spy. 

When the French began tracing my movements, when they joined my presentactivities to the fact that only by the skin of my teeth had I escaped acharge of bringing German papers into Italy, there would be the devilto pay. I acknowledged it; then--really, this brand-new, unfounded, cast-iron trust of mine in Miss Falconer was changing me beyondrecognition--I recalled the old recipe for the preparation of Welshrabbit, and light-heartedly challenged the authorities to "catch mefirst. " I had a disguise; if I bore any superior earmarks my leathercoat obliterated them; and I could drive; even Dario Resta could nothave sniffed at my technic. Better still, my French, learned even beforemy English, would not betray me. As nurse and as _mecanicien_, we stooda fair chance in our masquerade. 

I might have to pay my shot, but I was enjoying it. This was a goodworld through which we were speeding; life was in the high gear to-day. The car purred beneath us like a splendid, harnessed tiger; the springair was fresh and fragrant, the country charming, with here a forest, there a valley, farther off the tiled, colored roofs of some littletown. Our road, like a white ribbon, wound itself out endlessly betweenstone walls or brown fields. In my content I forgot food and suchprosaic details till I noticed that the girl looked pale. 

"I say, " I exclaimed remorsefully: "we've been omitting rolls andcoffee! I'm going to get you some at the first town we pass. "

"We are coming to a town now, to Le Moreau. " She was looking anxious. 

"Yes? I'm afraid I don't place it exactly. Ought I to?"

"It is the first town in the war zone. And--and our road passes throughit. "

"Oh!" I was enlightened. "Then they will probably ask to see our papersat the _octroi_?"

"Yes. "

The car was eating up the smooth white road; I could see the little_octroi_ building at the town boundary-line, and a group of gendarmes inreadiness close by. It was a critical moment. Miss Falconer, Irecalled, had said she could get through to Carrefonds; but glitteringgeneralities were not likely to convince these sentries; one neededsafe-conducts, passes, identity cards, and such concrete aids. Shecouldn't give a reasonable account of herself, I felt quite certain; andeven if she did, how was she to account for me?

As I brought the car to a standstill, my conscience clamored, and mycostume seemed to shriek incongruity from every seam. In this dilemmaI trusted to sheer blind luck--a rather thrilling business. As agray-headed sergeant stepped forward to welcome us, I looked himunfalteringly in the eye, though I wondered if he would not say:

"Monsieur, kindly remove that childish travesty with which you aretrying to impose on justice. We know all about you. Your name isDevereux Bayne. You are a German agent and intriguer; you have smuggledpapers; you have murdered a man and concealed his body. Unless you cangive a satisfactory explanation of all your actions since leaving NewYork, your last hour has arrived!"

What he really said was:

"Mademoiselle's papers?" He spoke quite amiably, a catlike pretense, nodoubt. 

Miss Falconer was no longer looking anxious. Her hands were steady; shewas even smiling as she produced two neat little packets that, on beingunfolded, proved to have all the air of permits, _laissez-passers_, andpolice cards. Two nondescript photographs, which might have representedalmost any one, adorned them, and of these our sergeant made aperfunctory survey. 

"Mademoiselle's name, " he recited in a high singsong, "is Marie LeClair. She is a nurse, on her way to the hospital at Carrefonds. Andthis is Jacques Carton, who is her chauffeur?"

A singularly stupid person, on the whole, he must have thought me, hardly fit to be trusted with so superb a car. My mouth, I fancy, waswide open; I can't swear that I wasn't pop-eyed. This last developmenthad complete addled me. Marie Le Clair! Jacques Carton! Who were they?

"I wish, " I remarked into the air as we drove on, "that some one wouldpinch me--hard. "

She smiled faintly. Now it was over, she looked a little tremulous. 

"Oh, no, " she answered, "we were not dreaming. Poor Georges! I wish wewere!"

Such was the incredible beginning of our adventure. And as it began, so it continued. We breakfasted at Le Moreau. Miss Falconer ate in thedining-room of the small hotel; I sought the kitchen and, warmed by ourlate success, I did not shrink from playing my role. Then we resumed ourjourney, and though we showed our papers twenty times at least as thecontrol grew stricter, they were never challenged. I rubbed my eyessometimes. Surely I should wake up presently! We couldn't be here inthe forbidden region, in the war zone, plunging deeper every instant, inperil of our lives. 

Yet the proof was thick about us. In the towns we passed we saw troopsalight from the trains and enter them; we saw farewells and reunions, the latter sometimes tearful, but the former invariably brave. We saw_depots_ where trucks and ambulances and commissary carts were filled, and canteens and soup kitchens where soldiers were being fed. AtCroix-le-Valois we saw the air turn black with the smoke of the munitionfactories that were working day and night. At St. Remilly above thetowers of the old chateau we saw the Red Cross flying, and on theterraces the reclining figures of wounded men. It seemed impossible thatsight-seers and pleasure-seekers had thronged along this road so lately. The signs of the Touring Club of France, posted at intervals, weresurvivals of an era that was now utterly gone. 

With the coming of afternoon, the country grew still more beautiful. Orchards were thick about us, though the trees were leafless now. Thelittle thatched cottages had odd fungi sprouting from their roofs likerosy mushrooms; the trees and streams had a silvery shimmer, like aCorot fairy-land. 

Then, set like sign-posts of desolation in this loveliness, came theravaged villages. We were on the soil where in the first month of thewar the Germans had trod as conquerors, and where, step by step, theFrench had driven them back. We passed Cormizy, burnt to the groundto celebrate its taking; Le Remy, where the heroic mayor had died, transfixed by twenty bayonets; Bar-Villers, a group of ruined housesabout a mourning, shattered church. It was the region where the Huntriumph had spoken aloud, unbridled. Miss Falconer sat white and silentas we drove through it; my hands tightened on the wheel. 

We had lunched at Tolbiac, late and abominably. Then, leaving thehighway, we had taken a country road. Two punctures befell us; onceour carburetor betrayed the trust we placed in it. By the time thesedeficiencies were remedied I had collected dust and grease enough tolook my part. 

It had been, by and large, a singularly speechless day, which myspasmodic efforts at entertainment had failed to cheer. The girl triedto respond, but her eyes were strained, eager, shadowed; her answerscame at random. My talk, I suppose, teased her ears like the troublesomebuzzing of a fly. 

"She is thinking, " I decided at last, "about those papers. Lord, if shedoesn't find them she is going to take it hard!"

I left her in peace after that and drove the faster. Luck was with us!At the end of our journey everything would be all right. 

As evening settled down on us the road grew increasingly lonely. Woodsof oak-trees were about us, their trunks mossy, their branches lacing;on our left was a narrow river thick with rushes and smooth greenstones. So rutty was the earth that our wheels sank into it and ourengine labored. There was a charming sylvan look about the scenery; weseemed to be alone in the universe: I could not recall when we had lastseen a peasant or passed a hut. 

Suddenly I realized that there was a sound in the distance, notcontinuous, but steadily recurrent, a faint booming, I thought. 

"What's that noise off yonder?" I asked, with one ear cocked toward theeast. 

Miss Falconer roused herself. 

"It is the cannonading, " she answered. "We have come a long way, Mr. Bayne. In two hours--in less than that--we could drive to the Front. Andsee!"

The dark was coming fast; a crimson sunset was reddening the river. Alittle below us on the opposite bank, I saw what had been a village onceupon a time. But some agency of destruction had done its work there;blackened spaces and heaped stones and the shells of dwellings rose tieron tier among trees that seemed trying to hide them; only on the crestof the bank, overlooking the wreck like a gloomy sentinel, one buildingloomed intact, a dark, scarred, frowning castle with medieval walls andtowers. I stared at the scene of desolation. 

"The Germans again!" I said. 

"Yes, " the girl assented, gazing across the water. "They came here atthe beginning of the war. They burned the houses and the huts and thelittle church with the image of the Virgin and the tomb of the oldconstable--all Prezelay except the chateau; and they only left thatstanding to give their officers a home. "

With an automatic action of feet and fingers, I stopped the car. Herewas the town that she had shown me on the map that morning when we satlike a pair of whispering conspirators in the garden of the Three Kings. The obstacles which had seemed so great had melted away before us. Thisruined village, this heap of stones cross the river, was our goal, thekey to our mystery, the last scene of our drama--Prezelay. 

CHAPTER XIX

THE CASTLE AT PREZELAY

In the midst of my triumph, which was as intense as if I myself, insteadof pure luck, had engineered our journey, I became aware of a tiny qualmas I sat gazing across the stream. Perhaps the gathering night affectedme, or the air, which was growing chilly, or the remnants of thevillage, which were cheerless, to say the least. But that castle, perched so darkly on its crag, with a strip of blood-red sky framing it, was at the heart of my feeling. If it had been a nice, worldly-looking, well-kept chateau, with poplared walks and a formal garden, I shouldhave welcomed it with open arms; but it wasn't, decidedly! It was thethreatening age-blackened sort of place that inevitably suggests Fulc ofAnjou, strongholds on the Loire, marauding barons, and the good old dayswith their concomitants of rapine and robbery and death. 

It was picturesque, but it was intensely gloomy; the proper spot for acatastrophe rather than a happy denouement. I was not impressionable, of course; but now that I thought of it, our jaunt had been going witha smoothness almost ominous. Could one expect such clock-like regularityto run forever without a break?

Take the utter disappearance of the gray car, for instance. That hadseemed to me reassuring; but was it? Those four men had cared enoughabout Miss Falconer's movements to involve themselves in a murder. Why, then, should they have given up the chase in so mysterious a way?

And the girl herself! When I looked at her I felt horribly worried. Shewas shivering through her furs; yet it was not with the cold, I feltquite sure. With her hands clasped, she sat staring at that confoundedcastle with a look of actual hunger. She cared too much about thisthing; she couldn't stand a great deal more. 

Well, she wouldn't have to, I concluded, my brief misgivings fading. Wewere out of the woods; another hour would see the business closed. Asfor the men in the car, they were victims of their guilty consciences, were no doubt in full flight or hiding somewhere in terror of the law. 

At any rate, there was no point in my sitting here like a graven image;so I roused myself and wrapped the rugs closer about the girl. 

"I'm to drive to the chateau?" I inquired with recovered cheerfulness. Ihad to repeat the words before they broke her trance. 

"Yes, " she answered. Suddenly, impulsively, she turned toward me, her face almost feverish, her eyes astonishingly large and bright. "Ihaven't told you much, " she acknowledged tremulously; "but you won'tthink that I don't trust you. It is only that I couldn't talk of it andkeep my courage; and I must keep it a little longer--until we know thetruth. "

"That's quite all right, Miss Falconer. " I was switching on the lamps. Then I extinguished them; their clear acetylene glare seemed almostweirdly out of place. "We can muddle along without any lights. Notmuch traffic here, " I muttered. I had a feeling, anyhow, thatunostentatiousness of approach might not be bad. 

There was intense silence about us; not even a breeze was stirring. Athin crescent moon was out, silvering the river and the trees. The roadwas atrocious; on one dark stretch the car, rocking into a rut, joltedus viciously and brought my teeth together on the tip of my tongue. 

"Sorry, " I gasped, between humiliation and pain. 

With the silence and the dimness, we were like ghosts, the car like aphantom. An old stone bridge seemed to beckon us, and we crossed to theother side. There, at Miss Falconer's gesture, I drew the automobileoff the road at the edge of the town, halted it beneath some trees, andhelped her to alight. We started up the hill together without a word. 

Two ghosts! More and more, as we climbed through the wreck anddesolation, that was what we seemed. The road was choked with stonesbetween which the grass was sprouting; there was nothing left of thelittle church save a single pointed shaft. We climbed rapidly, the girlalways gazing up at the castle with that same feverish eagerness. Shehad forgotten, I think, that I was there. 

At last we were coming to the hilltop and the chateau. Ratherbreathless, I studied its looming walls, its turrets, its three roundtowers. It looked dark and inexplicably menacing, but I had recovered myform and could defy it. When we halted at a great iron-studded oak gateand Miss Falconer pulled the bell-rope, I was astonished. It had notoccurred to me that the castle would be more inhabited than the town. 

Nor was it, apparently; for no one answered its summons, though I couldhear the bell jingling faintly somewhere within. Miss Falconer rang asecond time, then a third; her face shone white in the moonlight; shewas growing anxious. 

"Did you think, " I ventured finally, "that there was some one here?"

"Yes; Marie-Jeanne, " she answered, listening intently. Then she rousedherself. "I mean the _gardienne_. She never left, not even when theGermans came. They made her cook for them; she said she had been born inthe keeper's lodge, and her grandfather before her, and that she wouldrather die at Prezelay than go to any other place. But of course shemay have walked down the river for the evening. Her son's wife is atSantierre, two miles off. She may be there. "

"That's it, " I agreed hastily, the more hastily because I doubted. "She's sitting over a fire, toasting her toes, and gossiping and havinga cup of tea, or whatever people like that use for an equivalent inthese parts. " I suppressed the unwelcome thought that a woman livinghere alone ran a first-rate chance of getting her throat cut bystrolling vagrants. "Shall we have to wait until she comes back?" Iasked. "Then let's sit down. I choose this stone!"

On my last word, however, something surprising happened. Miss Falconer, in her impatience, put a hand on the bolt of the gate, shook it, andraised it, and, lo and behold! the oak frame swung open. Before I quiterealized the situation, we were inside, in a square courtyard, withthe _gardienne's_ lodge at the right of us, impenetrably barred andshuttered, and before us the portal of the castle, surmounted withquaint stone carvings of men in armor riding prancing steeds. The court, as revealed by the moonlight, was intact, but neglected. Weeds weresprouting between the square blocks of stone that paved it, and in thecenter a wide circular space, charred and blackened, showed where theGerman sentries had built their fires. It was not cheerful, nor was ithomey. I scarcely blamed Marie-Jeanne for flitting. The faint sound ofthe cannonading had begun again in the distance, but otherwise the placewas as silent as a tomb. 

"It seems strange!" Miss Falconer murmured, looking about in puzzledfashion. "Why in the world should she have left the gate open in thiscareless way? Of course there is nothing here for thieves; the Germanssaw to that; but still, as keeper--Oh, well, it doesn't matter. It savesus from waiting till she comes home. "

As I followed her toward the castle entrance, she opened the bag shecarried, and produced a candle, which I hastened to take and light. Inearly said, "The latest thing in the housebreaking line, madame, iselectric torches, not tapers;" but I decided not to. After all, perhapswe were housebreakers. How could I tell?

Hot candle wax splashed my fingers and scorched them, but I scarcelynoticed. My sense of high-gear adventure had reached its zenith now. There was something thrilling, something stimulating in this stealthynight entrance into a deserted castle. It was an experience, at allevents; there was no _concierge_ to stump before one through dimpassages and up winding staircases; no flood of dates and names andanecdotes poured inexorably into one's bored ears to insure a _douceur_when the tour of the chateau should be done. 

The door--faithless Marie-Jeanne!--opened as readily as the outer gate. We were entering. I glimpsed in a dim vista a superb Gothic hall ofmagnificent architecture and most imposing proportions, arched andcarved and stretching off with apparent endlessness into the gloom. Holding up my light, I scanned the place with growing interest. It hadnot been demolished, but neither had it been spared. The furniturewas gone, save for a few scattered chairs and a table; the walls weredefaced with cartoons and scrawled inscriptions; the floor wasstained, and littered with empty bottles and broken plates. From thechimney-place--a medieval-art jewel topped with carved and coloredenamels--pieces had been hacked away by some deliberately destructivehand. I glanced at Miss Falconer, whose eyes had been following mine. 

"They tore down the tapestries, " she said beneath her breath. "Theyslashed the old portraits with their swords and broke the windowsand took away the statues and candlesticks and plate. They cut up thefurniture and had it used for fire-wood; and the German captain and hisofficers had a feast here and drank to the fall of Paris and orderedtheir soldiers to burn the village to the ground. Oh, I don't likethe place any more; too much has happened. And--and I don't likeMarie-Jeanne's not being here, Mr. Bayne. I feel as if there weresomething wrong about it. I believe I am a little--just a littleafraid!"

"Come, now, you don't expect me to believe that, do you?" I counteredpromptly. "Because I won't. Why, it's your pluck that has kept me upall day. Just the same, on general principles, I'll take a look roundif you'll allow me. Here's a chair, and if you will rest a minute, I'llguarantee to find out. "

The chair I mentioned was standing near the chimney, and as I spoke Iwalked over to it and started to spin it round. It resisted me heavily;I bent over it, lifting my candle. Then I uttered an exclamation, stoodpetrified, and stared. 

In the chair, concealed from us until now by the high carved backof wood, was something which at first looked like a huddled mass ofgarments, but which on closer scrutiny resolved itself into a woman ina striped dress, an apron, and a pair of heavy shoes. There was a cuton her cheek, a bruise on her forehead. Locks of graying hair straggledfrom beneath her disarranged white cap, and she glared at me from alean, sallow face with a pair of terrified eyes. 

She must be dead, I thought. No living woman could sit so still andstare so wildly. The scene in the inn garage rushed back upon me, andI must say that my blood turned cold. But she was alive, I saw now; shewas certainly breathing. And an instant later I realized why she stayedso immobile; she was bound hand and foot to the chair she sat in, anda colored handkerchief, her own doubtless, had been twisted across hermouth to form a gag. 

"I think, " I head myself saying, "that we have been maligningMarie-Jeanne. "

A choked, frightened cry from Miss Falconer made me wheel about sharply, to find her staring not a me, but at the further wall. Prepared now foranything under heaven, I followed her gaze. Above us, circling the wholehall, there ran a gallery from which at a distance of some fifteen feetfrom where we stood a wide stone staircase descended; and half-way downthis, as motionless as statues, as indistinct as shadows, I saw four menin the uniform of officers of France. 

For an uncanny moment I wondered whether they were specters. For astupid one, I thought they might be people whom the girl had come hereto meet. Still, if they were, she wouldn't be looking at them in thisparalyzed fashion. I could not see them plainly, --but they must be themen from Bleau. 

"Well, Mr. Bayne, " the foremost was asking, "did you think we haddeserted you? Not a bit of it! We came on ahead and rang up the oldwoman there and commandeered her keys. We've been killing time here fora good half hour, waiting for you. You must have had tire trouble. Andyou don't seem very pleased to see us now that you've come--eh, what?"

At Bleau the previous night, I was recalling dazedly, there had beenonly three men wearing the horizon blue. Who was this fourth figure, whoknew my name and spoke such colloquial English? I raised my candle ashigh as possible and scanned him. Then I stood transfixed. 

"Van Blarcom!" I gasped. "And in a uniform, by all that's holy!"

He grinned. 

"No. You haven't got that quite right, " he told me. "What's the usekeeping up the game now that we're here, all friends together? My nameisn't Van Blarcom. It's Franz von Blenheim, Mr. Bayne. "

CHAPTER XX

INTRODUCING HERR FRANZ VON BLENHEIM

The words of Franz von Blenheim seemed to fill the hall and reechofrom the walls and arches, deafening me, leaving me stunned as if byan earthquake or by a flash of lightning from clear skies. Yet I neverthough of doubting them. Comatose as my state was, slowly as my brainwas working, I recognized vaguely how many features of the mystery, bothpast and present, these words explained. 

It was odd, but never once had it occurred to me that Van Blarcom mightbe a German. He himself, I began to realize, had taken care of that. With considerable acumen he had filled every one of our brief interviewswith vigorous denunciations of somebody else, dark hints as to intriguesthat surrounded me and might enmesh me, and solemn warnings and prudentcounsels, which had brilliantly served his turn. He had kept me so busysuspecting Miss Falconer--at the thought I could have beaten my headagainst the wall in token of my abject shame--that my doubts hadnever glanced in his direction; a most humiliating confession, since Icouldn't deny, reviewing the past in this new light, that circumstanceshad afforded me every opportunity to guess the truth. 

There was no time, however, for dwelling on my deficiencies. The nexthalf hour would be an uncommonly lively one, I felt quite sure. I mightcall the thing bizarre, fantastic; I might dub it an extravaganza; thefact remained that I was shut up in this lonely spot with four entirelyable-bodied Germans and must match wits with them over some affairthat apparently was of international consequence; for if it had beena twopenny business, Herr von Blenheim, the star agent of the kaiser, would never have thought it worth his pains. 

With all my fighting spirit rising to meet the odds against us, I cast aspeculative eye over the Teutons, who had now dissolved their group. Van Blarcom himself--Blenheim, rather--descended in a leisurely fashionwhile one of his friends, remaining on the staircase, fixed me with alook of intentness almost ominous and the other two placed themselvesas if casually before the door. They were stalwart, well set-up men, I acknowledged as I surveyed them. Though not bad at what our Frenchfriends call _la boxe_, I was outnumbered. It was obviously a case ofstrategy--but of what sort?

A much defaced table, flanked with a few battered chairs, stood near me, and with a premonition that I should want two hands presently, I set mycandle there. Then I drew a chair forward and turned to the girl withoutward coolness. 

"Please sit down, Miss Falconer, " I invited. I wanted time. 

She inclined her head and obeyed me very quietly. She was not afraid; Isaw it with a rush of pride. As she sat erect, her head thrown back, on gloved hand resting on the table, she was a picture of spirit andsteadiness and courage. If I had needed strength I should have found itin the fact that her eyes, oddly darkened as always when her errand wasthreatened did not rest on our captors, but turned toward me. 

"We'll all sit down, " Franz von Blenheim agreed most amiably. Itevidently amused him to retain the late Mr. Van Blarcom's dialect andair. "We can fix this business up in no time; so why not be sociable?"He strolled to a chair and sank into it and motioned me to do the same. 

"Thanks, " I returned, not complying. "If you don't mind, I'd like firstto untie that woman. I confess to a queer sort of prejudice againstseeing women bound and gagged. In fact I feel so strongly on the subjectthat it might spoil our whole conference for me. " I took a step towardthe shadowy figure of Marie-Jeanne. 

Blenheim did not move, but his eyes seemed to narrow and darken. 

"Just leave her alone for the present. She is too fond ofshrieking--might interrupt our argument, " he declared. "And seehere, Mr. Bayne, " he added, warned by my manner, "I want to call yourattention to the gentleman on the stairs, my friend Schwartzmann. He'sa crack shot, none better, and he has got you covered. Hadn't you bettersit down and have a friendly chat?"

Though the stairs were dim, I could see something glittering in the handof the person mentioned, who was impersonating for the evening a dashingyoung captain of the general staff. My fingers strayed toward my pocketand my own revolver. Then I pried them away, temporarily, and took aprovisional seat. 

"That's sensible, " Franz von Blenheim approved me blandly. "Now, MissFalconer, you know what I'm here for, isn't that so? Just hand me thosepapers and you'll be as free as air. I'll take myself off; you'll neversee me again probably. That's a fair bargain, isn't it? What do yousay?"

I was sitting close to the girl, so close that her soft furs brushedme and I could feel the flutter of her breath against my cheek. AtBlenheim's proposition I glanced at her. She was measuring him steadily. Then she looked at me, and her eyes seemed to hold some message that Icould not read. 

"Perhaps, Miss Falconer, " I interposed, "you have not quite grasped thesituation. " I was sparring for time; she wanted to convey something tome, I was sure. "It is rather complicated. This gentleman has turnedout to be a well-known agent of the kaiser. He was traveling on the _Red'Italia_, I gather, on a forged passport, and had helped himself to mybaggage as the most convenient way of smuggling some papers to the otherside. "

He grinned assentingly. 

"You owe me one for that, " he owned. "You see, it was my second tripon that line, and I thought they might have me spotted; I had a lot ofthings to carry home, --reports, information, confidential letters, and Iconcluded they would be safer with a nice, innocent young man like you. It didn't work, as things went. It was just a little too clever. But ifyou hadn't mixed yourself up with this young lady, and tossed packagesoverboard for her under the noses of the stewards, and got yourselfsuspected and your baggage searched, I should have turned the trick!"

His share in the tangled episode on board the steamer was unfolding. Iunderstood now why he had sprung to my rescue in the salon when I wasaccused. Naturally he had not wanted my traps searched, considering whatwas in them. 

"As you say, you were a little too clever, " I agreed. 

His eyes glinted viciously. 

"Well, it's no use crying over spilt milk, " he retorted; "and besides, the papers you are going to hand me to-night will even up the score. Itwas a piece of luck, my running across Miss Falconer on the liner. Ofcourse the minute I heard her name I knew what she was crossing for. "The dickens he did! "All I had to do was to follow her, and by the timewe reached Bleau I had guessed enough to come ahead of her. But I'lladmit, Mr. Bayne, now it's all over, it made me nervous to have youpopping up at every turn! I began to think that you suspected me--thatyou were trailing me. If you had, you know, I shouldn't have stood achance on earth. You could have said a word to the first gendarme youmet and had me laid by the heels and ended it. That was why I keptwarning you off. But I needn't have worried. You drank in everything Itold you as innocent as a babe!"

If he wanted revenge for my last remark, he had it. I looked at thegirl beside me, so watchfully composed and fearless, then at thefixed, terrified glare of the motionless Marie-Jeanne. With a littlerudimentary intelligence on my part this situation would have beenspared us. 

"Yes, " I acknowledged bitterly; "I did. "

"Except for that, " he grinned, "it went like clockwork. There wasn'teven enough danger in the thing to give it spice. Do you know, thereisn't a capital in Europe where I can't get disguises, money, passportswithin twelve hours if I want them. Oh, you have a bit to learn aboutus, you people on the other side! I've crossed the ocean fourtimes since the war started; I've been in London, Rome, Paris, Petrograd--pretty much everywhere. I'm getting homesick, though. The_laissez-passer_ I've picked up, or forged, no matter which, takesme straight through to the Front; and I've got friends even in thetrenches. Before the Frenchies know it I'll be across no-man's-land andinside the German lines!"

For a moment, as I listened, I was dangerously near admiring him. He wascertainly exaggerating; but it couldn't all be brag. The life of thisspy of the first water, of international fame, must be rather marvelous;to defy one's enemies with success, to journey calmly through theircapitals, to stroll undetected among their agents of justice--were notthings any fool could do. He carried his life in his hand, this Franzvon Blenheim. He had courage; he even had genius along his speciallines. His impersonation on the liner, shrewd, slangy, coarse-grained, patronizing, had been a triumph. Then, suddenly, I remembered a murderedboy beside whom I had knelt that morning, and my brief flicker of homagedied. 

"You think I can't do it, eh?" He had misinterpreted my expression. "Well, let me tell you I did just a year ago and got over without ascratch. To get across no-man's-land you have to play dead, as youYankees put it; you lie flat on the ground and pull yourself forward afoot at a time and keep your eye on the search-lights so that when theycome your way you can drop on your face and lie like a corpse untilthey move on. It's not pleasant, of course; but in this game we take ourchances. And now I think I'll be claiming my winnings if you please. "

I straightened in my chair, recognizing a crisis. With his last phrasehe had shed the bearing of Mr. John Van Blarcom, and from the disguiseall in an instant there emerged the Prussian, insolent, overbearing, fixing us with a look of challenge, and addressing us with crispcommand. No; the kaiser's agent was not a figure of romance or ofadventure. He was a force as able, as ruthless, as cruel as the land heserved. 

"Miss Falconer, " he demanded briefly, "where are those papers? I am notto be played with, I assure you. If you think I am, just recall thismorning, and your chauffeur. We didn't kill him for the pleasure of it;he had his chance as you have. But when we went for our car he was therein the garage, sleeping; he seemed to think we had designs on him, andtried to rouse the inn. "

"Do you call that an excuse for a murder?" I exclaimed. "Youcold-blooded villain!"

"I don't make excuses. " His voice was hard and arrogant. "I am callingthe matter to your notice as a kind warning, Mr. Bayne. You said alittle while ago that to see a woman gagged and bound distressed you. Well, unless I have those papers within five minutes, you will seesomething worse than that!"

At the moment what I saw was red. There was something beating in mythroat, choking me; I knew neither myself nor the primitive impulses Ifelt. 

"If you lay a finger on Miss Falconer, " I heard myself saying slowly, "Iswear I'll kill you. "

Then through the crimson mist that enveloped me I saw Blenheim laugh. 

"Come, Mr. Bayne, " he taunted me, "remember our friend Schwartzmann. This is your business, Miss Falconer, I take it. What are you going todo?"

The girl flung her head back, and her eyes blazed as she answered him. 

"You can torture me, " she said scornfully. "You can kill me. But I willnever give you the papers; you may be sure of that. "

CHAPTER XXI

IN THE DARK

I thought of a number of things in the ensuing thirty seconds, but theyall narrowed down swiftly to a mere thankfulness that I had been born. Suppose I hadn't; or suppose I had not happened to stop at the St. IvesHotel and sail on the _Re d'Italia_; or that I had remained in Rome withJack Herriott instead of hurrying on to Paris; or had let my quest ofthe girl end in the rue St. -Dominique instead of trailing her to Bleau. If one of these links had been omitted, the chain of circumstance wouldhave been broken, and Miss Falconer would have sat here confrontingthese four men alone. 

It was extremely hard for me to believe that the scene was genuine. The dark hall, the one wavering, flickering candle lighting only theimmediate area of our conference, the bound woman in the chair, thewatchful attitude of our captors. Mr. Schwartzmann's ready weapon--allwere the sort of thing that does not happen to people in our prosaic dayand age. It was like an old-time romantic drama; I felt inadequate, cast for the hero. I might have been Francois Villon, or some suchSothern-like incarnation, for all the civilized resources that I couldsummon. There were no bells here to be rung for servants, no telephonesto be utilized, no police station round the corner from which tocommandeer prompt aid. 

The most alarming feature of the affair, however, was the manner ofFranz von Blenheim, which was not so much melodramatic as businesslikeand hard. At Miss Falconer's defiance he looked her up and down quitecoolly. Then, turning in his seat, he began giving orders to his men. 

"Schwartzmann, " ran the first of these, "I want you to watch thisgentleman. He will probably make some movement presently; if he does, you are to fire, and not to miss. And you"--he turned to the men by thedoor--"pile some wood in the chimney-place and light it. There are somesticks over yonder, --but if you don't find enough, break up a chair. Then when you get a good blaze, heat me one of the fire-irons. Heat itred-hot. And be quick! We are wasting time!"

The color was leaving the girl's cheeks, but she sat even straighter, prouder. As for me, for one instant I experienced a blessed relief. I had been right; it was all impossible. One didn't talk seriously ofred-hot irons. 

"You must think you are King John, " I laughed. "But you're overplaying. Don't worry, Miss Falconer; he won't touch you. There are things thatmen don't do. "

He looked at me, not angrily, not in resentment, but in pure contempt;and I remembered. There were people, hundreds of them, in the burningvillages of Belgium, in the ravaged lands of northern France, who hadonce felt the same assurance that certain things couldn't be done andhad learned that they could. I glanced at the men who were piling woodon the hearth, at their sullen blue eyes, their air of rather stupidarrogance. I had walked, it seemed, into a nightmare; but then, so hadthe world. 

"This isn't a tea party, Mr. Bayne, " said Franz von Blenheim. "It iswar. Those papers belong to my government and they are going back. Ishall stop at nothing, nothing on earth, to get them; so if you have anyinfluence with this young lady, you had better use it now. "

"I am not afraid. " The girl's voice was unshaken, bless her. "I said youcould kill me--and I meant it. But I will not tell. "

"And I will not kill you, Miss Falconer. " The German's tones were level, and his eyes, as they dwelt steadily on her, were as hard and cold assteel. "I don't want you dead; I want you living, with a tongue andusing it; and you will use it. You talk bravely, but you have noconception--how should you have?--of physical pain. When that iron isred-hot, if you have not spoken, I shall hold it to your arm and pressit--"

"Damn you!" The cry was wrenched out of me. "Not while I am here!"

"You will be here, Mr. Bayne, just so long as it suits me. " A sort ofcold ferocity was growing in Blenheim's tones. "And you have yourselfto thank for your position, let me remind you; you would thrust yourselfin. I don't know what you are doing in the business--a ridiculousmountebank in a leather cap and coat! It's a way you Yankees have, meddling in things that don't concern you. You seem to think that youhave special rights under Providence, that you own everything in theuniverse, even to the high seas. Well, we'll settle with your countryfor its munitions and its notes and its driveling talk about atrocitiesa little later, when we have finished up the Allies. And I'll deal withyou to-night if you dare to lift a hand. "

There seemed only one answer possible, and my muscles were stiffeningfor it when suddenly Miss Falconer's handkerchief, a mere wisp of linenwhich she had been clenching between her fingers, dropped to the floor. With a purely automatic movement, I bent to recover it for her; sheleaned down to receive it. Her pale face and lovely dilated eyes wereclose to me for a fleeting second, and though her lips did not move, Iseemed to catch the merest breath, the faintest gossamer whisper thatsaid:

"The stairs!"

Blenheim's gaze, full of suspicion, was upon us as we straightened, buthe could not possibly have heard anything; I had barely heard myself. Iracked my brains. The stairs! But the man Schwartzmann was guarding themwith his revolver. I couldn't imagine what she meant; and then suddenlyI knew. 

Throughout the entire scene, whenever I had glanced at her, I hadnoticed the steady way in which her look met mine and then turned aside. It had seemed almost like a signal or a message she was trying to giveme. And which way had her eyes always gone? Why, down the hall!

I looked in that direction and felt my heart leap up exultantly. Perhapstwenty feet from us, just where the radius of the candle-light mergedoff into the darkness, I glimpsed what seemed the merest ghost of acircular stone staircase, carved and sculptured cunningly, like lacyfoam. Up into the dusk it wound, to the gallery, and to a door. Beholdour objective! I wasted no precious time in pondering the whys and thewherefores. At any rate, once inside with the bolts shot we could counton a breathing-space. 

I cast a final glance at Blenheim where he lolled across the table, andat the shadowy menacing figure of the armed sentinel on the stairs. Themen at the hearth had piled their wood and were bending forward to lightit. 

"Be ready, please!" I said to the girl, aloud. 

As I spoke I bent forward, seized the table by its legs, and raisedit, and concentrated all the wrath, resentment and detestation thathad boiled in me for half an hour into the force with which I dashed itforward against Blenheim's face. He grunted profoundly as it struckhim. Toppling over with a crash, he rolled upon the floor. The candle, falling, extinguished itself promptly, and we were left standing in ahall as black as ink. 

Simultaneously with the blow I had struck there came a spit of flamefrom the staircase, a sharp crack, and as I ducked hastily a bulletspurted past me, within three inches of my head. Miss Falconer wasbeside me. Together we retreated, while a second shot, which this timewent wide, struck the wall beyond us and proved that Schwartzmann, though handicapped, was not giving up the fight. 

So far things had gone better than I had dared to think was possible. Now, however, they took a sudden and most unwelcome turn. One of the menby the chimney-place must have wasted no time in leaping for me; forat this instant, quite without warning, he catapulted on me through thedarkness with the force of a battering-ram. 

The table, which I still held clutched with a view to emergencies, brokethe force of his onslaught. He reeled, stumbled, and collapsed on hisknees. However, he was lacking neither in Teutonic efficiency nor inresource. Putting out a prompt hand, he seized my ankle and jerked myfoot from under me; the table dropped from my grasp with a splinteringuproar, and I fell. 

Before I could recover myself my enemy had rolled on top of me, and Ifelt his fingers at my throat as he clamored in German for a light. Hewas a heavy man; his bulk was paralyzing; but I stiffened every muscle. With a mighty heave I turned half over, rose on my elbow, and delivereda blow at what, I fondly hoped, might prove the point of his chin. 

Dark as it was, I had made no miscalculation. He dropped on me onceagain, but this time as an inert mass. Burrowing out from under him, Isprang to my feet aglow with triumph--and found myself in the clutchof the second gentleman from the chimney-place, who apparently had comehotfoot to his comrade's aid. 

I was fairly caught. His arms went round me like steel girders, pinioning mine to my sides before I knew what he was about. In sheerdesperation I summoned all the strength I possessed and a little more. Ah! I had wrenched my right arm loose; now we should see! I raised itand managed, despite the close quarters at which we were contending, toplant a series of crashing blows on my adversary's face. 

The fellow, I must say, bore up pluckily beneath the punishment. He hungon. There would be a light in a moment, he was doubtless thinking, andwhen once that came to pass, it would be all over with me. But at myfifth blow he wavered groggily, and at my sixth, endurance failed him. He groaned softly. Then his grasp relaxed, and he collapsed quietly onthe floor. 

Throughout the swift march of these events we had heard nothing of Herrvon Blenheim, a fact from which I deduced with thankfulness that he wastemporarily stunned. Unluckily, he now recovered. As I stood victorious, but breathless, my cap lost in the scuffle and my coat torn, I heard himstirring, and an instant later he pulled himself to his feet and flashedon an electric torch. 

By its weird beam I saw that Miss Falconer was close beside me. Goodheavens! Why, I though in anguish, wasn't she already upstairs? But Iknew only too well; she wouldn't desert her champion. It was probablytoo late now. Blenheim, much congested as to countenance, seemed on thepoint of springing; his battered aids were struggling up in menacing, if unsteady, fashion; and Mr. Schwartzmann, at length provided with thelight he wanted, was aiming at me with ominous deliberation from hiscoign of vantage above. 

However, we were at the circular staircase. Again I caught up the tableand held it before us as a shield while we climbed upward, side by side. In the distance my friend Schwartzmann was hopefully potting at us. Abullet, with a sharp ping, embedded itself in the thick wood in harmlessfashion; another struck the shaft beside me, splintering its stone. We were at the last turn--but our pursuers were climbing also. I bentforward and let them have the table, hurling it with all possible force. 

As it catapulted down upon them it knocked Blenheim off his balance, and he in his unforeseen descent swept the others from their feet. Aswearing, groaning mass, a conglomeration of helplessly waving arms andlegs, they rolled downward. Victory! I was about to join Miss Falconerin the doorway when there came a final flash from the oppositestaircase, and I felt a stinging sensation across my forehead and aspurt of blood into my eyes. 

The pain of the slight wound promptly altered my intentions. Insteadof leaving the gallery, I sprang forward to the balustrade. Whipping myrevolver out at last, I aimed deliberately and fired; whereupon I hadthe pleasure of seeing Mr. Schwartzmann rock, struggle, apparentlyregain his equilibrium, and then suddenly crumple up and pitch headlongdown the stairs. 

Below, Blenheim and his friend were extricating themselves from thatblessed table. I passed through the door and thrust it shut and shot thebolts. We were safe for the present. I could not see Miss Falconer, nordid she speak to me; but her hand groped for my arm and rested there, and I covered it with one of mine. 

Then, as we stood contentedly drawing breath, we heard steps mountingthe staircase. Some one struck a vicious blow against the heavy door. Blenheim's voice, hoarse and muffled, reached us through the panels. 

"Can you hear me there?" it asked. 

If tones could kill! I summoned breath enough to answer with cheerfulcoolness. 

"Every syllable, " I responded. "What did you wish to say?"

"Just this. " He was panting, either with exhaustion or fury, and therewere slow, labored pauses between his words. "I will give you half anhour, exactly, to come out--with the papers. After that we will breakthe door down. And then you can say your prayers. "

CHAPTER XXII

THE GUEST OF PREZELAY

The sanctuary into which we had stumbled was as black as Erebus save forone dimly grayish patch, which, I surmised, meant a window. When thoseheavy feet had clumped down the staircase, silence enveloped us again, beatific silence. Instantly I banished the late Mr. Van Blarcom from myconsciousness. With a good stout door between us what importance had histhreats?

The truth was that my blood was singing through my veins and my spiritswere soaring. I would gladly have stood there forever, triumphant in thedark, with Miss Falconer's soft, warm fingers trembling a little, butlying in contented, almost cosy, fashion under mine. Had there ever beensuch a girl, at once so sweet and so daring? To think how she had waitedfor me all through that battle below!

A little breathless murmur came to me through the darkness. 

"Oh, Mr. Bayne! You were so wonderful! How am I ever going to thankyou?" was what it said. 

"You needn't. Let me thank you for letting me in on it!" I exultedhappily. "I give you my word, I haven't enjoyed anything so much inyears. It was all a hallucination, of course; but it was jolly while itlasted. I was only worried every instant for fear the hall and the menwould vanish, like an Arabian Nights' palace or the Great Horn Spoon orAladdin's jinn!"

Very gently she withdrew her fingers, and my mood toppled ludicrously. Why had I been rejoicing? We were in the deuce of a mess! So far I hadsimply won a half hour's respite to be followed by the deluge; for ifBlenheim had been ruthless before, what were his probable intentionsnow?

"We have lost our candle in the fracas, " I muttered lamely. 

"It doesn't matter. I have another, " she answered in a soft, unsteadyvoice. 

As she coaxed the light into being, I made a rapid survey. We were in aroom of gray stone, of no great size and quite bare of furnishing, savefor a few stone benches built into alcoves in the wall. The barenessof the scene emphasized our lack of resources. As a sole ray of hope, Iperceived a possible line of retreat if things should grow too warm forus, a door facing the one by which we had come in. 

With all the excitement, I had forgotten Mr. Schwartzmann's bullet, which, I have no doubt, had left me a gory spectacle. At any rate, I frightened Miss Falconer when the candle-light revealed me. Inan instant she was bending over me, forcing me gently down upon aparticularly cold, hard bench. 

"They shot you!" she was exclaiming. Her voice was low, but it held anastonishing protective fierceness. "They--they dared to hurt you! Oh, why didn't you tell me? Is it very bad?"

"No! no!" I protested, dabbing futilely at my forehead. "It isn't ofthe least importance. I assure you it is only a scratch. In fact, " Igroaned, "nobody could hurt my head; it is too solid. It must be ivory. If I had had a vestige of intelligence, an iota of it, the palestglimmer, I should have known from the beginning exactly who thesefellows were!"

She was sitting beside me now, bending forward, all consoling eagerness. 

"That is ridiculous!" she declared. "How could you guess?"

"Easily enough, " I murmured. "I had all the clues at Gibraltar. Why, yesterday, on my way to your house in the rue St. -Dominique, I went overthe whole case in the taxi, and still I didn't see. I let the fellowconfide in me on the ship and warn me on the train and give me a finalsolemn ultimatum at the inn last night and come on here to frighten youand threaten you--when just a word to the police would have settledhim forever. By George, I can't believe it! I should take a prize at anidiot show. "

She laughed unsteadily. 

"I don't see that, " she answered. "Why should you have suspected himwhen even the authorities didn't guess? You are not a detective. You area--a very brave, generous gentleman, who trusted a girl against all theevidence and helped her and protected her and risked your life forhers. Isn't that enough? And about their frightening me downstairs--theydidn't. You see, Mr. Bayne--you were there. "

A wisp of red-brown hair had come loose across her forehead. Her face, flushed and royally grateful, was smiling into mine. Till that moment Ihad never dreamed that eyes could be so dazzling. I thrust my hands deepinto my pockets; I felt they were safer so. 

"What is it?" she faltered, a little startled, as I rose. 

"Nothing--now, " I replied firmly. "I'll tell you later, to-morrow maybe, when we have seen this thing through. And in the meantime, whateverhappens, I don't want you to give a thought to it. The German doesn'tlive who can get the better of me--not after what you have said. "

The situation suddenly presented itself in rosy colors. I saw how strongthe door was, what a lot of breaking it would take. And if they didforce a way in, then I could try some sharp-shooting. But Miss Falconerwas getting up slowly. 

"Now the papers, Mr. Bayne, " said she. 

To be sure, the papers! I had temporarily forgotten them. 

"They can't be here, " I said blankly, gazing about the room. 

"No, not here. In there. " She motioned toward the inner door. "Thisis the old suite of the lords of Prezelay. We are in the room of theguards, where the armed retainers used to lie all night before the fire, watching. Then comes the antechamber and then the room of the squiresand then the bedchamber of the lord. " Her voice had fallen now as if shethought that the walls were listening. "In the lord's room there is asecret hiding-place behind a panel; and if the papers are at Prezelay, they will be there. "

I took the candle from her, turned to the door, and opened it. 

"I hope they are, " I said. "Let us go and see. "

The antechamber, the room of the squires, the bedchamber of the lord. Such terms were fascinating; they called up before me a whole pictureof feudal life. Thanks to the attentions of the Germans, the rooms weremere empty shells, however, though they must have been rather splendidwhen decked out with furniture and portraits and tapestries before thewar. 

Our steps echoed on the stone as we traversed the antechamber, a quaintround place, lined with bull's-eye windows and presided over by thestatues of four armed men. Another door gave us entrance to the quarterof the squires. We started across it, but in the center of the floor Istopped. In all the other rooms of the castle dust had lain thick, butthere was none here. Elsewhere the windows had been closed and the airheavy and musty, but here the soft night breeze was drifting in. Ona table, in odd conjunction, stood the remains of a meal, a roll ofbandages, and a half-burned candle; and finally, against the wall lay abed of a sort, a mattress piled with tumbled sheets. 

Were these Marie-Jeanne's quarters? I did not know, but I doubted. Iturned to the girl. 

"Miss Falconer, " I said, attempting naturalness, "will you go back tothe guard-room and wait there a few minutes, please? I think--that is, it seems just possible that some one is hiding in yonder. I'd prefer toinvestigate alone if you don't mind. "

I broke off, suddenly aware of the look she was casting round her. Itdid not mean fear; it could mean nothing but an incredulous, dawninghope. These signs of occupancy suggested to her something so wonderful, so desirable that she simply dared not credit them; she was dreadingthat they might slip through her fingers and fade away! I made a valianteffort at understanding. 

"Perhaps, " I said, "you're expecting some one. Did you think that a--afriend of yours might have arrived here before we came?" She did notglance at me, but she bent her head, assenting. All her attention wasfocused raptly on that bed beside the wall. 

"Yes, " she whispered; "a long time before us. A month ago at least. " Hereyes had begun to shine. "Oh, I don't dare to believe it; I've hardlydared to hope for it. But if it is true, I am going to be happier than Iever thought I could be again. "

She made a swift movement toward the door, but I forestalled her. Whatever that room held, I must have a look at it before she went. Iflung the door open, blocked her passage, and stopped in my tracks, forthe best of reasons. A young man was sitting on a battered oak chestbeneath a window, facing me, and in his right hand, propped on hisknees, there glittered a revolver that was pointed straight at my heart. 

I stood petrified, measuring him. He was lightly built and slender. Hehad a manner as glittering as his weapon, and a pair of remarkably cooland clear gray eyes. His picturesqueness seemed wasted on mere fleshand blood it was so perfect. Coatless, but wearing a shirt of the finestlinen, he looked like some old French duelist and ought, I felt, to begazing at me, rapier in hand, from a gilt-framed canvas on the wall. 

In the brief pause before he spoke I gathered some further data. He wasa sick man and he had recently been wounded; at present he was keepingup by sheer courage, not by strength. His lips were pressed in astraight line, his eyes were shadowed, and his pallor was ghastly. Finally, he was wearing his left arm in a sling across his breast. 

"Monsieur, " he now enunciated clearly, "will raise both hands and keepthem lifted. Monsieur sees, doubtless, that I am in no state for awrestling-match. For that very reason he must take all pains not toforget himself--for should he stir, however slightly, I grieve to saythat I must shoot. "

The casualness of his tones made Blenheim's menaces seem childish andfutile. I had not the slightest doubt that he would keep his word. Yet, without any reason whatever, I liked him and I had no fear of him; I didnot feel for a single instant that Miss Falconer was in danger; she wasas safe with him, I knew instinctively, as she was with me. 

I opened my lips to parley, but found myself interrupted. A cry camefrom behind me, a low, utterly rapturous cry. I was thrust aside, andsaw the girl spring past me. An instant later she was by the stranger, kneeling, with her arms about him and her bright head against his cheek. 

"Jean! Dear Jean!" she was crying between tears and laughter. "Wethought you were dead! We thought you were never coming back toRaincy-la-Tour!"

It seemed to me that some one had struck my head a stunning blow. For aninterval I stood dazed; then, painfully, my brain stirred. Things wentdancing across it like sharp, stabbing little flames, guesses, memories, scraps of talk I had heard, items I had read; but they were scattered, without cohesion; like will-o'-the-wisps, they could not be seized. 

There was a young man, a noble of France, who had been a hero. I hadread of him in a certain extra, as my steamer left New York. Hehad disappeared. Certain papers had vanished with him. He had beensuspected, because it was known that the Germans wanted those specialdocuments. All the world, I thought dully, seemed to be hunting papers;the French, the Germans, Miss Falconer, and I. 

Once more I looked at the man on the chest. He had dropped his pistoland was clasping the girl to him, soothing her, stroking her hair. Mybrain began to work more rapidly. The little flashes of light seemed torun together, to crystallize into a whole. I knew. 

Jean-Herve-Marie-Olivier, the Duke of Raincy-la-Tour, the Firefly ofFrance. 

CHAPTER XXIII

THE FIREFLY OF FRANCE

He was very weak indeed; it seemed a miracle that, at the sounds below, he had found strength to drag himself from his bed and crawl inch byinch to the room of the secret panel to mount guard there; and no soonerhad he soothed Miss Falconer than he collapsed in a sort of swoon. Welaid him on the chest, and I fetched a pillow for his head and strippedoff my coat and spread it over him. I took out my pocket-flask, too, andforced a few drops between his teeth. In short I tried to play the game. 

When his eyes opened, however, my endurance had reached its limits. With a muttered excuse, --not that I flattered myself they wanted me tostay!--I left them and stumbled into the room of the squires, takingrefuge in the grateful dark. I don't know how long I sat there, elbowson knees, hands propping my head; but it was a ghastly vigil. In thisround, unlike the battle in the hall, I had not been victor. Instead, Ihad taken the count. 

I knew now, of course, that I was in love with Esme Falconer. Judgingfrom the violence of the sensation, I must have loved her for quite awhile. Probably it had begun that night in the St. Ives restaurant; forwhen before had I watched any girl with such special, ecstatic, almostproprietary rapture? Yes, that was why, ever since, I had been cuttingsuch crazy capers. From first to last they were the natural thing, theprerogative of a man in my state of mind or heart. 

Many threads of the affair still remained to be unraveled. I didn't knowwhat the duke was doing here, what he had been about for a month past, how the girl, far off in America, had guessed his whereabouts and hisneed; nor did I care. His mere existence was enough--that and Esme'slove for him. All my interest in my Chinese puzzle had come to awretched end. 

"Confound him!" I thought savagely. "We could have spared him perfectly. What business has he turning up at the eleventh hour? He didn't crossthe ocean with her. He didn't suspect her unforgivably. He didn't helpher, and disguise himself as a chauffeur for her, and wing Schwartzmann, and bruise up the other chaps and send them rolling in a heap. This ismy adventure. He must have had a hundred. Why couldn't he stick to hishigh-flying and dazzling and let me alone?"

The murmur of voices drifted from the lord's bedchamber. I could guesswhat they had to say to each other, Miss Falconer and her duke. TheFirefly of France! Even I, a benighted foreigner, knew the things thattitle stood for: heroism, in a land where every soldier was a hero;praise and medals and glory; thirty conquered aeroplanes--a record overwhich his ancestors, those old marshals and constables lying effigied ontheir tombs of marble with their feet resting on carved lions, must nodtheir heads with pride. 

"Mr. Bayne!"

It was Miss Falconer's voice. I rose reluctantly and obeyed the summons. The Firefly was sitting propped on the chest, white, but steadier, whileEsme still knelt beside him, holding his hand in hers. 

"I have been telling Jean, Mr. Bayne, how you have helped us. " Theradiance of her face, the lilt of her voice, stabbed me with a jealouspang. I wanted to see her happy, Heaven knew, but not quite in thismanner. "And he wants to thank you for all that you have done. "

The Duke of Raincy-la-Tour spoke to me in English that was correct, butquaintly formal, of a decided charm. 

"Monsieur, " he said, "I offer you my gratitude. And if you willtouch the hand of one concerning whom, I fear, very evil things arebelieved--"

I forced a smile and a hearty pressure. 

"I'll risk it, " I assured him. "The chain of evidence against you seemedfar-fetched to say the least. They pointed out accusingly that yourfather and your grandfather had been royalists, and that therefore--"

He made a gesture. 

"May their souls find repose! Monsieur, it is true that they were. But if they lived to-day, my father and grandfather, they would not betraitors. They would wear, like me, the uniform of France. "

He smiled, and I knew once for all that I could never hate him; thatmere envy and a shame of it were the worst that I could feel. Everythingabout him won me, his simplicity, his fine pride, his clearness of eyeand voice, his look of a swift, polished sword blade. I had never seena man like him. The Duchess of Raincy-la-Tour would be a lucky woman; somuch was plain. 

I found a seat on the window ledge, the girl remained kneeling by him, and he told us his story, always in that quaint, formal speech. Asit went on it absorbed me. I even forgot those clasped hands for anoccasional instant. In every detail, in every quiet sentence, therewas some note that brought before me the Firefly's achievements, themarauding airships he had climbed into the air to meet, the foes he hadswooped from the blue to conquer, his darts into the land of his enemieswhere there was a price upon his head. 

The story had to do with a night when he had left the French linesbehind him. His commander had been quite frank. The mission meant hisprobable death. He was to wear a German uniform; to land inside thelines of the kaiser, to conceal his plane, if luck favored him, amongthe trees in the grounds of the old chateau of Ranceville; to get whatknowledge and sketch what plans he could of defenses against which theFrench attacks had hitherto broken vainly, and to bring them home. 

All had gone well at first. His gallant little plane had winged its wayinto the unknown like a darting swallow; he had landed safely; and afterhe had walked for hours with the Germans about him and death beside him, he had gained his spoils. It was as he rose for the return flight thatthe alarm was given. He got away; but he had five hostile aircraft afterhim. Could he hope to elude them and to land safely at the French lines?

It was in that hour, while the night lingered and the stars still shoneand the cannon of the two armies challenged each other steadily, thatthe Firefly of France fought his greatest battle in the air. Since hiswhole aim was escape, it was bloodless; he had to trust to skill andcunning; he dared manoeuvers that appalled others, dropped plummet-like, looped dizzily, soared to the sheerest heights. He had been wounded. Theframework of his plane was damaged. Still he gained on his foes and wonthrough to the lines of France. 

"But I might not land there, " he explained. "The Germans followed. Amist had closed about us, hiding us from my friends below. I heardonly my propeller; and that, by now, sounded faint to me, for I wasweakening; one shot had hit my shoulder and another had wounded my leftarm. "

The girl swayed closer against him, watching him with eyes of worship. Well, I didn't wonder, though it cut me to the heart. Even afairy prince could have been no worthier of her than thisJean-Herve-Marie-Olivier; of that at least, I told myself dourly, I mustbe glad. 

"As I raced on, " said the duke, "there came a certain thought to me. We had traveled far; we were in the country near Prezelay, my cousin'shouse. The village, I knew, was ruined, but the chateau stood; and ifI could reach it, old Marie-Jeanne would help me. You comprehend, myweakness was growing. I knew I had little more time. "

The shrouding mist had aided him to lose those pursuing vultures. Thelast of them fell off, baffled, --or afraid to go deeper into France. Nowhe emerged again into the clear air and the starlight. The land beneathhim was a scudding blur, with a dark-green mass in its center, theforest of La Fay. 

And then, suddenly, he knew he must land if he were not to loseconsciousness and hurtle down blindly; and with set teeth and sweatbeading his forehead, he began the descent. At the end his strengthfailed him. The plane crashed among the trees. "But Saint Denis, whohelps all Frenchmen, helped me, "--he smiled--"and I was thrown clear. "

From that thicket where his machine lay hidden it was a mile toPrezelay. He dragged himself over this distance, sometimes on his handsand knees. Soon after dawn Marie-Jeanne, answering a discordant ringing, found a man lying outside the gate and babbling deliriously, hermaster's cousin, in a blood-soaked uniform, holding out a bundle ofpapers, and begging her by the soul of her mother to put them in thecastle's secret hiding-place. 

She did it. Then she coaxed the wounded man to the rooms opening fromthe gallery and tended him day and night through the weeks of fever thatensued. From his ravings she learned that he was in danger and fearedpursuers; and with the peasant's instinct for caution, she had not daredto send for help. 

"It was yesterday, " the duke told us, "that my mind came back. I knewthen what must be thought of me, what must be said of me, all overFrance. " He was leaning on the wall now, exhausted and white, butdauntless. "No matter for that--I have the papers. You recall thehiding-place?"

He smiled as he asked the question, and Miss Falconer smiled back athim. Getting to her feet, she ran her fingers across the oak panel overhis head, where for centuries a huntsman had been riding across a forestglade and blowing his horn. The bundle of his hunting-knife protrudedjust a little; and as the girl pressed it, the panel glided silentlyopen, revealing a space, square and dark and cobwebby. 

Something was lying there, a thin, wafer-like packet of papers, thepapers for which the Firefly of France had shed his blood. She held themup in triumph. But the duke was still smiling faintly. He thrust onehand into his shirt and drew out a duplicate package, which he raisedfor us to see. 

"Behold!" he said. "They are copies. All that I sketched that night nearRanceville, all that I wrote--I did not once, but twice. These I carriedopenly, to be found if I were captured. But those you hold went hiddenin the sole of my boot, which was hollowed for them, so that if I weretaken and then escaped, they might go too!"

I had read of such devices, I remembered vaguely. There was a story of ayoung French captain who had tried the trick in Champagne and succeededwith it, a rather famous exploit. Then I thought of something else. Igot up slowly. 

"You have two sets of papers?" I repeated. 

"As you see, Monsieur. "

"Then I'll take one of them, " said I. 

Miss Falconer was looking at me in a puzzled fashion. As for the duke, his brows drew together; his figure straightened; the cool glint grew inhis eyes. 

"Monsieur, " he stated somewhat icily, "such things as these are notsouvenirs. When they leave my possession they will go to the supremecommand. "

"Certainly, " I agreed, unruffled. "That will do admirably for the firstpackage; but about the second--no doubt Miss Falconer told you thatwe have German guests downstairs? Perhaps she forgot to mention theleader's name, though. It is Franz von Blenheim. And I don't care tohave him break down the door and burst in on us, on her specially; Iwould rather, all things considered, interview him in the hall. "

The Firefly's face had altered at the name of the secret agent; hewas now regarding me with intentness, but without a frown. As for MissFalconer, the trouble in her eyes was growing. I should have to becareful. Accordingly I summoned a debonair manner as I went on. 

"If you'll allow me, " I said, "I will take the papers down to him. Hewon't know that they are copies; he will snatch at them, glad of thechance. And since he is in a hurry, he probably won't stop to parley. Hewill simply be off at top speed, and leave us safe. 

"Of course, that is the one unpleasant feature of the affair, hisgoing. " At this point I glanced in a casual manner at the Duke ofRaincy-la-Tour. "It seems a pity to let him walk off scot-free, to planmore trouble for France; but that is past praying for. I could hardlyhope to stop him, except by a miracle. If there is one, I'll be onhand. "

Would the duke guess the hope with which I was going downstairs, Iwondered. I thought he did, for his eyes flashed slightly, and hestirred a little on the chest. 

"Such a miracle, Monsieur, " he remarked, "would serve France greatly. Asa good son of the Church, I will pray for it with all my heart!"

"I hope to come back, " I went on, "and rejoin you. But if I shouldn'tfor any reason, "--with careful vagueness, --"you must stay here, barricaded, till they are gone. Then Miss Falconer can drive her carto the nearest town and bring back help for you. You see, it will beentirely simple, either way. "

The girl, very white now, took a swift step toward me. 

"Simple?" she cried. "They will kill you! They hate you, Mr. Bayne, andthey are four to one. You mustn't go. "

But the duke's hand was on her arm. 

"My dear, " he said, "he has reason. This friend of yours, I perceive, is a gallant gentleman. Believe me, if I had strength to stand, he wouldnot go alone. "

He held out the papers to me, and I took them. Then we clasped hands, the Firefly and I. 

"_Bonne chance, Monsieur_, " he bade me with the pressure. 

"Good luck and good-bye, " I answered. "Miss Falconer, will you come tothe door?"

She took up the candle and came forward to light me, and we went insilence through the room of the squires and through the ante-chamber andinto the room of the guards. She walked close beside me; her eyes shonewet; her lips trembled. There were things I would have given the worldto say, but I suppressed them. To the very end, I had resolved, I wouldplay fair. We were at the outer door. 

"Good-by, Miss Falconer, " I said, halting. "You mustn't worry;everything is going to turn out splendidly, I am sure. Only, now that wehave the papers, it ends our little adventure, doesn't it? So beforeI go I want to thank you for our day together. It has been wonderful. There never was another like it. I shall always be thankful for it, nomatter what I have to pay. "

I stopped abruptly, realizing that this was not cricket. To make up, I put out my hand quite coolly; but she grasped it in both of hers andheld it in a soft, warm clasp. 

"I shall never forget, " she whispered. "Come back to us, Mr. Bayne!"

For a moment I looked at her in the light of the candle, at her lovelyface, at the ruddy hair framing it, at the tears heavy on her lashes. Then I drew the bolt and went out and heard her fasten the door. 

CHAPTER XXIV

THE OBUS

I stood in the gallery for an instant, indulging in a reconnoissance. The hall was now illuminated by an electric torch and three gutteringcandles; at the foot of the staircase lay the table which had done suchyeoman's service, split in two. As for the besiegers, they weregathered near the chimney-place in a worse-for-wear group, one nursinga nosebleed; another feeling gingerly of a loose tooth; Blenheim himselffrankly raging, and decorated with a broad cut across his forehead anda cheek that was rapidly taking on assorted shades of blue, green, andblack; and the redoubtable Mr. Schwartzmann, worst off of all, lying ina heap, groaning at intervals, but apparently quite unaware of what wasgoing on. 

My abrupt sally seemed transfixing. I might have been Medusa. I had awelcome minute in which to contemplate the victims of my prowess andto exult unchristianly in their scars. Then the tableau dissolved, thethree men sprang up, and I took action. As I emerged I had drawn out ahandkerchief and I now proceeded to raise and wave it. 

"Well, Herr von Blenheim, I have come to parley with you, " I announced, "white flag and all. "

He tried to look as if he had expected me, though it was obvious that hehadn't. To give verisimilitude to the pretense, he even pulled out hiswatch. 

"I thought you would. You had just two minutes' grace, " he commented, watching me narrowly. "Suppose you come down. You have brought thepapers, I hope--for your own sake?"

"Oh, yes!" I assured him with all possible blandness. "I have broughtthem. What else was there to do? You had us in the palm of your hand. That door is old and worm-eaten; you could have crumpled it up likepaper. When we thought the situation over we saw its hopelessness atonce; so here I am. "

"That is sensible, " he agreed curtly, though I could see that he waspuzzled. Casting a baffled glance beyond me, he scanned the gallerydoor. It by no means merited my description, being heavy, solid, almostimmovable in aspect. "Well, let's have the papers!" he said, withsuspicion in his tone. 

I descended in a deliberate manner, casting alert eyes about me, for, to use an expressive idiom, I was not doing this for my health. On thecontrary I had two very definite purposes; the first, which I couldprobably compass, was to save Miss Falconer from further intercoursewith Blenheim and to conceal the presence of the wounded, helplessFirefly from his enemies; the second, surprisingly modest, was tomake the four Germans prisoners and hand them over in triumph to thegendarmes of the nearest town, Santierre. 

I was perfectly aware of the absurdity of this ambition. I lackedthe ghost of an idea of how to set about the thing. But the generalcraziness of events had unhinged me. I was forming the habit of trustingto pure luck and _vogue la galere_! I can't swear that I hadn't visionsof conquering all my adversaries in some miraculous single-handedfashion, disarming them, and, as a final sweet touch of revenge, tyingthem up in chairs, to keep Marie-Jeanne company and meditate on theturns of fate. 

"Here they are, " I said, obligingly offering the package. "We foundthem nestling behind a panel--old family hiding place, you know. I can'tvouch for their contents, not being an expert, but Miss Falconer wassatisfied. How about it, now you look at them? Do they seem all right?"

Not paying the slightest attention to my conversational efforts, Blenheim had snatched the papers, torn them hungrily open, and run themthrough. He was bristling with suspicion; but he evidently knew hisbusiness. It did not take him long to conclude that he really had hisspoils. 

Folding them up carefully, he thrust them into his coat and stored them, displaying, however, less triumph than I had thought he would. The truthwas that he looked preoccupied, and I wondered why. For the first timein all the hair-trigger situations that I had seen him face I sensed astrain in him. 

"So much for that. Now, Mr. Bayne, what do you think we mean to do toyou?" he asked. 

"I don't know, I am sure, " I answered rather absently; I was weighingthe relative merits of jiu-jitsu and my five remaining revolver-shots. "Is there anything sufficiently lingering? Let me suggest boiling oil;or I understand that roasting over a slow fire is considered tasty. Either of those methods would appeal to you, wouldn't it?"

"I don't deny it!" Blenheim answered in a tone that was convincing. "Youhaven't endeared yourself to us, my friend, in the last hour. But wecan't spare you yet; our plans for the evening are lively ones and theyinclude you. I told you, didn't I, that we were going to no man's-landvia the trenches, when we finished this affair?"

"You told me many interesting things. I've forgotten some of thedetails. " I was aware of a thrill of excitement. The man was worried; somuch was sure. 

"You will recall them presently, or if you don't, I'll refresh yourmemory. The fact is, Mr. Bayne, you have put a pretty spoke in ourwheel. It stands this way: our papers are made out for a party of fourofficers, and you have eliminated Schwartzmann. Don't you owe us someamends for that? You like disguises, I gather from your costume. Whatdo you say to putting on a new one, a pale-blue uniform, and seeing usthrough the lines?"

He looked, while uttering this wild pleasantry, about as humorous asKing Attila. Could he possibly be in earnest? After all, perhaps he was!War rules were cast-iron things; if his pass called for four men, four he must have or rouse suspicion; and it was certain that HerrSchwartzmann would do no gadding to-night or for many nights to come. That shot of mine from the gallery had upset Blenheim's plans veryneatly. I stared at him, fascinated. 

"Well?" said he. "Do you understand?"

"I understand, " I exclaimed indignantly, "that this is too much! It is, really. I was getting hardened; I could stand a mere impossibility ortwo and not blink; but this! It is beyond the bounds. I shall begin tosee green snakes presently or writhing sea-serpents--"

"No, " Blenheim cut me short savagely, "you are underestimating. Unlessyou oblige us what you will see is the hereafter, Mr. Bayne!"

Yes, he meant it. His very fierceness, eloquent of frazzled nerves, was proof conclusive. With another thrill, triumphant this time, Irecognized my chance. His campaign, instead of going according tospecifications, had been interfered with; his position was dangerous;he had no time to lose; for all he knew, at any point along the roadhis masquerade might have been suspected, the authorities notified, vengeance put on his track. In desperation he meant to risk mydenouncing him, use me till he reached the Front trenches and hisfriends there, and then, no doubt, get rid of me. What he couldn'tguess was that I would have turned the earth upside down to make thisopportunity that he was offering me on a silver tray. 

"Oh, I'll oblige you, " I assured him with what must have seemed insanecheerfulness. "I'll oblige you, Her von Blenheim, with all the pleasurein the world. If you really want me, that is. If my presence won't makeyou nervous. Aren't you afraid, for instance, that I might be temptedto share my knowledge of your name and your profession with the firstFrench soldiers we meet?"

"As to that, we will take our chances. " Blenheim's face was adamant, though my suggestion had produced a not entirely enlivening effect onhis two friends. "You see, Mr. Bayne, in this business the risks willbe mostly yours. There will be no flights of stairs to dart up and notables to over turn and no candles to extinguish; you will sit in thetonneau with a man beside you, a very watchful man, and a pistol againstyour side. You don't want to die, do you? I thought not, since yousurrendered those papers. Well, then, you'll be wise not to say a wordor stir a muscle. And now we are in a hurry. Will you make your toilet, please?"

It was the bizarre curtain scene of what I had called an extravaganza. Blenheim's confederates, taking no special pains for gentleness, stripped off the outer garments of the prostrate Schwartzmann, whomoaned and groaned throughout the process, though he never opened hiseyes. Blenheim urged haste upon us; he was getting more fidgety everyinstant; he bit his lip, drummed with his fingers, kept an ear cocked, as if expecting to hear pursuers at the door. Still, he neglected noprecautions. He demanded my revolver. I surrendered it amiably, andthen doffed my chauffeur's outfit and took, from a social standpoint, agratifying step upward, donning one by one the insignia of France. 

The fit was not perfect by any means. Schwartzmann was a giant, amountain. My feet swished aloud groggily in his burnished putties; hisgarments hung round me in ample, rather than graceful, folds. However, the loose cape of horizon blue resembled charity in covering defects. As a dummy, sitting motionless in the rear of the automobile, my captorsfelt that I would pass. 

By this time I was enchanted with the plans I was concocting. I mightlook like an opera-bouffe hero, --no doubt I did, --but my hour wouldcome. Meanwhile events were marching. My transformation being complete, Blenheim gave a curt order in German, the candles were blown out, andlighted only by the torch, we turned toward the door. There was aninarticulate cry from Schwartzmann, just conscious enough, poor beggar, to grasp the fact of his abandonment in the strategic retreat hisfriends were beating. Then we were out in the courtyard, beneath thestars. 

Down the hill, sheltered behind the stones of a ruined house, the graycar was waiting, and Blenheim climbed into the driver's seat, meanwhilegiving brief directions. There was no noise, no flurry; the affair, Imust say, went with an efficiency in keeping with the proudest Prussiantraditions. I was installed in the tonneau, and I was hardly seatedbefore the motor hummed into life, and we jolted into the moonlit road. 

For perhaps the hundredth time I asked myself if I was dreaming; if thisperson in a French disguise, speeding through the night with a blue-cladGerman beside him, --a German suffering, by the way, from a headache, the last stages of a nosebleed, and a pronounced dislike for me as theagency responsible for his ailments, --was really Devereux Bayne. But theair was cold on my face; a revolver pressed my side; I saw three set, hard profiles. It was not a dream; it was a dash for safety. And it wasengineered by anxious, desperate men. 

Blenheim, hunched over the steering wheel, had settled to his business. Certainly his nerve was going; the mania for escape had caught him;he took startling chances on his curves and turns. Still, he knew thecountry, it seemed. We drove on, fast and furiously, by lanes, bymere paths set among thickets, by narrow brushwood roads. Sometimeswe skirted the river, which shone silver in the moonlight, lined withrushes. Again, we could see nothing but a roof of trees overhead. 

We emerged into a wider road, and I became award of various noises; abooming, clear and regular; the sound of voices; the rumbling ofmany wheels. We must be nearing the Front; we were rejoining the mainhighroad. My guess was proved correct at the next turning, where asentry barred our path. 

The sight of his honest French face was like a tonic to me. In somewelcome way it seemed to hearten me for my task. The pistol of my friendin the tonneau bored through his cape into my side; I sat very quiet. IfI did this four, five, perhaps six times, they might think me cowedand relax their vigilance. Their suspicions would be lulled by mytractability and their contempt. Then my hour would strike. 

Satisfied with the safe-conducts, the sentry gestured us forward, andhis figure slipped out of my vision as the gray car purred on. The manbeside me chuckled. 

"Behold this Yankee! He is as good as gold, my captain. He sits like amouse, " he announced in his own tongue. 

"He'll be wise, " Blenheim announced, "to go on doing so. " The threat wasin English for my benefit and came from between his teeth. 

In front of us the noise was growing. With our next turn we entered thehighroad, taking our place in a long rumbling line of ambulances andsupply-carts and laboring camions, or trucks. We glimpsed faces, heard voices all about us. The change from solitude to this unbrokenprocession was bewildering. But we did not long remain a part of it; weturned again into narrower lanes. 

The control was growing stricter. Four separate times we were halted, and always I sat hunched in my corner as impassive as a stone. Themore deeply we penetrated toward the Front, the more uneasy grew mycompanions. Each time that a sentry halted us they waited in moreanxiety for his verdict. The man beside me, it was true, still menacedme with his pistol point; but the gesture had grown perfunctory. He didnot think I would attempt anything. He believed now that I was afraid. 

Our road crossed a hilltop, and I saw beneath us a valley, streaked atintervals with blinding signal-flashes of red and green. In my ears thethunder of the guns was growing steadily. When we were stopped again, the sentry warned us. The road we were traveling, he said, had beenintermittently under fire for two days. 

It looked, indeed, as if devils had used it for a playground; the treeswere mere blackened stumps; the fields on each side stretched burnt andbare. And then came the climax: something passed us, --high above ourheads, I fancy, though its frightful winds seemed brushing us, --a ghostof the night, an aerial demon, a shrieking thing that made the manbeside me cringe and shudder. It was new to me, but I could not mistakeit. It was what the French call an _obus_, a word that in some subtlemanner seems more menacing and dreadful than our own term of shell. 

As we sped on I leaned against the cushions, outwardly quiet. Inwardly, I was gathering myself together for my attempt. I had not thought Iwould first approach the Front this way; but it was a good way, I hada good object. At the next stop, whatever it was, I meant to make theventure. I did not doubt I should succeed in it. But I could not hope tokeep my life. 

Another _obus_ hurtled over us and shrieked away into the distance; andagain the man beside me flinched, but I did not. I was thinking, withodd lucidity, of many things, among them Dunny and his old housein Washington, into which I should never again let myself with mylatch-key, sure of a welcome at any hour of the day or night. Myguardian's gray head rose before me. My heart tightened. The finest, straightest old chap who ever took a forlorn little tike in out of thewet, and petted him, and frolicked with him, and filled his stocking allthe year round, and made his holidays things of rapture, and taught himhow to ride and shoot and fish and swim and cut his losses and do prettymuch everything that makes life worth living--that was Dunny. 

"This will be a hard jolt for the old chap, " I thought, "but he'll saythat I played the game. "

And Esme Falconer, my own brave, lovely Esme! "She has come down thestaircase now, " I told myself. "She has untied Marie-Jeanne. She hasgone out and started the car. " What would she think of my disappearance?Well, she wouldn't misjudge me, I felt sure; and neither wouldJean-Herve-Marie-Olivier. He would know that I was acting as, in myplace, he would have acted, that I didn't mean to let Franz von Blenheimdefy France and go off untouched. 

The whole world seemed mysteriously to have narrowed to one girl, Esme. How I had lived before I saw her; how, having seen her, I could everhave lived without her, --I didn't know. But the sound of grindingbrakes roused me. We were slowing up in obedience to a signal froma canvas-covered, half-demolished shelter filled with men in blueuniforms; we were coming to a standstill. Blenheim leaned out, and for amoment I saw his face in the beam of light from the sentry's lantern. Itlooked thin and set. He was giving beneath the strain. 

"Behold my comrade!" He thrust our papers into the hands of the sentry. "And make haste, for the love of heaven! We are waited for _la-bas_. "

I cast a quick glance at my body-guard, whose anxious eyes were on thesentinel. His pistol still lay against my side, but his thoughts werefar away. It was the moment. With the rapidity of lightning Iknocked his arm up, caught his wrist, and clung to it, calling outsimultaneously in a voice of crisp command. 

"My friends, " I cried in French, "I order you to arrest these persons!They are agents of the kaiser! They are German spies!"

The pistol, clutched between us, exploded harmlessly into the air. I head shouts, saw men running toward us. Then I caught sight ofBlenheim's face, dark and oddly contorted; he had turned and wasleveling his revolver at me, resting one knee on the driver's seat as hetook deliberate aim. 

"I say, " I cried again, struggling for the weapon, "that this is Franzvon Blenheim, that these are men of the kaiser, spying, in disguise--"

It seemed to me that some one caught Blenheim's arm from behind just ashe fired; but I was not certain. For suddenly that same whistling shrieksounded over us, nearer this time, more ominous; the earth seemedto rock and then to end in a mighty shock and cataclysm. Blacknessenveloped me, and I dropped into a bottomless pit. 

CHAPTER XXV

AT RAINCY-LA-TOUR

When I opened my eyes it was with a peculiarly reluctant feeling, formy eyelids were so heavy that they seemed to weigh a ton. My head wasunspeakably groggy, and I had quite lost my memory. I couldn't, if suddenly interrogated, have replied with one intelligent bit ofinformation about myself, not even with my name. 

Flat on my back I was lying, gazing up at what, surprisingly, seemed tobe a ceiling festooned with garlands of roses and painted with ladiesand cavaliers, idling about a stretch of greensward, decidedly inthe Watteau style. Where was I? What had happened to make me feel sohelpless? It reminded me of an episode of my childhood, a day when mypony had fallen and rolled upon me, and I had been carried home with twocrushed ribs and a broken arm. 

Coming out at that time from the influence of the ether, I had foundDunny at my bedside. If only he were here now! I looked round. Why, there he was, sitting in a brocaded chair by the window, his dear oldsilver head thrown back, dozing beyond a doubt. 

To see him gave me a warm, comforted, homelike feeling. Nor did itsurprise me, but my surroundings did. The room, a veritable Louis Quinzejewel in its paneling, carving, and gilding, might have come directfrom Versailles by parcel post; my bed was garlanded and curtained inrose-color. Where I had gone to sleep last night I couldn't remember;but it hadn't, I was obstinately sure, been here. 

What ailed me, anyhow? I began a series of cautious experiments, designed to discover the trouble. My arms were weak and of a strange, flabby limpness, but they moved. So did my left leg; but when I came tothe right one I was baffled. It wouldn't stir; it was heavily encased insomething. Good heavens! now I knew! It was in a plaster cast. 

The shock of the discovery taught me something further, namely, that myhead was liable to excruciating little throbs of pain. I raised a handto it. My forehead was swathed in bandages, like a turbaned Turk's. Oh, to be sure, in the castle at Prezelay, as we were retreating up thestaircase, Schwartzmann had fired at me; but, then, hadn't that been apin prick, the merest scratch?

The name Prezelay served as a key to solve the puzzle. The wholefantastic, incredible chain of happenings came back to me in a rush;the gray car, the inn, the murder, the night in the castle, Jean-Herve-Marie-Olivier. 

"Dunny!" I heard myself quavering in a voice utterly unlike my own. 

The figure in the chair started up and hurried toward me, and thenDunny's hands were holding my hands, his eyes looking into mine. 

"There, Dev, there! Take it easy, " the familiar voice was soothing me. "Hold on to me, my boy, You are safe now. You're all right!"

My safety, however, seemed of small importance for the time being. 

"Dunny, " I implored, "listen! You have got to find out for me about agirl. How am I to tell you, though? If I start the story, you'll thinkI'm raving. "

"I know all about it, Dev, " my guardian reassured me. "I've seen MissFalconer. She's absolutely safe. "

If that were so, I could relax, and I did with fervent thankfulness. Notfor long, however; my brain had begun to work. 

"See here! I want to know who has been playing football with me, " was mynext demand, which Dunny answered obligingly, if with a slightly dubiousface. 

"That French doctor, nice young chap, said you weren't to talk, " hemuttered, "but if I were in your place I'd want to know a few thingsmyself. It was this way, Dev. A fragment of a shell struck you--"

"A fragment!" I raised weak eyebrows. "I know better. Twenty shells atleast, and whole!"

"--and didn't strike your Teuton friends, " he charged on, suddenlypurple of visage. "It was a true German shell, my boy, the devil lookingafter his own. The man in the seat with you was cut up a bit; the othertwo were thrown clear of the motor. If you hadn't already given thealarm, they would probably have got off scot-free. As it was, the Frenchheld a drumhead court martial a little later, and all three of thefellows--well, you can fill in the rest. "

I was silent for a minute while a picture rose before me: a dank, graydawn; a firing-squad, and Franz von Blenheim's dark, grim face. Nodoubt he had died bravely; but I could not pity him; I had too clear arecollection of the hall at Prezelay. 

"As for you, " Dunny was continuing, "you seem to have puzzledthem finely. There you were in a French uniform, at your last gaspapparently, and with an American passport, that you seem to have clungto through thick and thin, inside your coat. They took a chance on you, though, because you had made them a present of the Franz vonBlenheim; and by the next day, thanks to Miss Falconer and the Duke ofRaincy-la-Tour, you were being looked for all over France. 

"So that's how it stands. You're at Raincy-la-Tour now, at the duke'schateau. The place has been a hospital ever since the war began. Onlyyou're not with the other wounded. You are--well--a rather specialpatient in the pavilion across the lake; and you're by way of being ahero. The day I landed, the first paper I saw shrieked at me how you hadtracked the kaiser's star agent and outwitted him and handed him over tojustice. "

"The deuce it did!" I exclaimed. "You must have been puffed up withpride. "

My guardian's jaw set itself rigidly. "I was too busy, " was his grimanswer. "You see, the end of the statement said there was no hope thatyou could survive. And when I got here I found you with fever, delirium, one leg shot up, four bits of shell in your head, a fine case of brainconcussion. That was nearly three weeks ago, and it seems more likethree years!"

An idea, at this point, made me fix a searching gaze on him. 

"By the way, " I asked accusingly, "how did you happen to arrive soopportunely on this side? It seemed as natural as possible to findyou settled here waiting for my eyes to open; but on second thoughts Isuppose you didn't fly?"

He looked extraordinarily embarrassed. 

"Why, " he growled at length, "I had business. I got a cablegram soonafter you left New York. The thing was confoundedly inconvenient, but Ihad no choice about it. "

"Dunny, " I said weakly, but sternly, "you didn't bring me up to tellwhoppers, not bare-faced ones like that, anyhow, that wouldn't deceivethe veriest child. What earthly business could you have over here inwar-time? Own up, now, and take your medicine like a man. "

His guilty air was sufficient answer. 

"Well, Dev, " he acknowledged, "it was your cable. That Gibraltar messwas a nasty one, and I didn't like its looks. I'm getting old, andyou're all I've got; so I took a passport and caught the _Rochambeau_. Not, of course, that I doubted your ability to take care of yourself, myboy--"

"Didn't you? You might have, " I admitted with some ruefulness, "ifyou had known I was bucking both the Allied governments and the pickedtalent of the Central powers. It was too much. I was riding for a fall, and I got it. But I don't mind saying, Dunny, I'm infernally glad youcame. "

He wiped his eyes. 

"Well, you go to sleep now, " he counseled gruffly. "You've got to getwell in a hurry; there's work for you to do! All sorts of things havebeen happening since that _obus_ knocked you out. Just a week ago, forinstance, the President went before Congress and--"

"What's that you say? Not war?"

"Yes, war, young man! We're in it at last, up to our necks; in it withmen and ships and munitions and foodstuffs and everything else wehave to help with, praise the Lord! You'll fight beneath the Stars andStripes, instead of under the Tricolor. I say, Dev, that's positivelythe last word I'll utter. You've got to rest!"

In a weak, quavering fashion, but with sincere enthusiasm, I tried tocelebrate by singing a few bars of the "Star-Spangled Banner" and alittle of the "Marseillaise. " Dunny was right, however; the conversationhad exhausted me. In the midst of my patriotic demonstration I fellasleep. 

My convalescence was a marvel, I learned from young Dr. Raimbault, thesurgeon from the chateau who came to see me every day. According tohim, I was a patient in a hundred, in a thousand; he never weariedof admiring my constitution, which he described by the various Frenchequivalents of "as hard as nails. " Not a set-back attended the course ofmy recovery. First, I sat propped up in bed; then I attained the dignityof an arm-chair; later, slowly and painfully, I began to drag myselfabout the room. But the day on which my physician's rapture burst allbounds was the great one when I crawled from the pavilion, gained abench beneath the trees, and sat enthroned, glaring at my crutches. Theywere detestable implements; I longed to smash them. And they would, thedoctor airily informed me, be my portion for three months. 

To feel grumpy in such surroundings was certainly black ingratitude. It was an idyllic place. My pavilion was a sort of Trianon, a MarieAntoinette bower, all flowers and gold. Fresh green woods grew aboutit; a lake stretched before it; swans dotted the water where treeswere mirrored, and there were marble steps and balustrades. Across thisglittering expanse rose Raincy-la-Tour, proud and stately, with itsformal gardens and its fountains and its Versailles-like front. Inthe afternoons I could see the wounded soldiers walking there or beingpushed to and fro in wheel-chairs; legless and armless, some of them;wreckage of the mighty battle-fields; timely reminders, poor heroicfellows, that there were people in the world a great deal worse off thanI. 

Yet, instead of being thankful, I was profoundly wretched. I moped andsulked; I fell each day into a deeper, more consistent gloom. I triedgrimly to regain my strength, with a view to seeking other quarters. While I stayed here I was the guest of the Firefly of France; and thoughI admired him, --I should have been a cad, a quitter, a poor loser, everything I had ever held anathema in days gone by, not to doso, --still I couldn't feel toward him as a man should feel toward hishost; not in the least!

On three separate occasions Dunny motored up to Paris, bringing backas the fruits of his first excursion my baggage from the Ritz. I wasclothed again, in my right mind; except for my swathed head, I lookedhighly civilized. The day when I had raced hither and yon, and fought anunbelievable battle in a dark hall, and insanely masqueraded first ina leather coat, then in a pale-blue uniform, seemed dim and far-offindeed. 

"It was a nice hashish dream, " I told my mirrored image. "But it wasn'treal, my lad, for a moment; such things don't happen to folks like you. You're not the romantic type; you don't look like some one in anold picture; you haven't brought down thirty German aeroplanes orthereabouts, and won every war medal the French can give and the name ofAce. No; you look like a--a correct bulldog; and winning an occasionalpolo cup is about your limit. Even if it hadn't been settled before youmet her, you wouldn't have stood a chance. "

There were times when I prayed never to see Esme Falconer again. Therewere other times when I knew I would drag myself round the world--yes, on my crutches!--if at the end of the journey I could see her for aninstant, a long way off. I could see that my despondency was drivingDunny to distraction. He evolved the theory that I was going into adecline. 

Then came the afternoon that made history. I was sitting at my window. The trees seemed specially green, the sky specially blue, the lakespecially bright. I was feeling stronger and was glumly planning a moveto Paris when I saw an automobile speed up the poplared walk towardRaincy-la-Tour. 

Rip-snorting and chugging, the thing executed a curve before thechateau, and then, hugging the side of the lake, advanced, obviouslytoward my humble abode. My heart seemed to turn a somersault. I shouldhave known that car if I had met it in Bagdad. It was a long blue motor, polished to the last notch, deeply cushioned, luxurious, poignantlyfamiliar, the car, in short, that I had pursued to Bleau, and thatlater, in flat defiance of President Poincare or the Generalissimoof France, or whoever makes army rules and regulations, I had guidedthrough the war zone to the castle of Prezelay. 

As the chauffeur halted it near the pavilion, it disgorged threeoccupants, one of who, a young officer, slender of form and gracefullyalert of movement, wore the dark-blue uniform of the French FlyingCorps. I knew him only too well. It was Jean-Herve-Marie-Olivier. But the glance I gave him was most cursory; my attention was focusedhungrily on the two ladies in the tonneau. They had risen and weredivesting themselves in leisurely fashion of a most complicatedarrangement of motor coats and veils. 

From these swathing disguises there first emerged, as if from achrysalis, a black-clad, distinguished-looking young woman whom I hadnever seen before. However, it was the second figure, the one in therosy veils and the tan mantle, that was exciting me. Off came herwrappings, and I saw a girl in a white gown and a flowered hat--theloveliest girl on earth. 

I did not stand on the order of my going. I rocked perilously, andmy crutches made a furious clatter, but I was outside in a trulyinfinitesimal space of time. Yes; there they were, chatting with Dunny, who had hurried to meet them. And at sight of me the Firefly of Franceran forward with hands extended, greeting me as if I were his oldestfriend, his brother, his dearest comrade in arms. 

I took his hands and I pressed them with what show of warmth I couldsummon. It was as peasant as a bit of torture, but it had to be gonethrough. Then I stared past him toward the ladies, who were coming upwith Dunny; and except for that girl in white, I saw nothing in all theworld. 

"Monsieur, " the duke was saying, "I pay you my first visit. Only myweakness has prevented me from sooner welcoming to Raincy-la-Tour sohonored a guest. "

He turned to the lady who stood beside Miss Falconer, a slender, dark-eyed, gracious young woman wearing a simple black gown and a blackhat and a string of pearls. 

"Here is another, " said the Firefly, "who has come to welcome you. Oh, yes, Monsieur, you must know, and you must count henceforth as yourfriends in any need, even to the death, all those who bear the name ofRaincy-la-Tour. Permit that I present you to my wife, who is of yourcountry. "

"Jean's wife is my sister, Mr. Bayne, " Miss Falconer said. 

CHAPTER XXVI

AN UNEXPECTED VISIT

I don't know what they thought of me, probably that I was crazy. For agood minute, a long sixty seconds, I simply stood and stared. The duke'sblue uniform, his wife's black-gowned figure, and the white, radiantblur that was Miss Falconer revolved about me in spinning, starrycircles. I gasped, put out a hand, fortunately encountered Dunny'sshoulder, and, leaning heavily on that perplexed person, at last gotback my intelligence and my breath. 

"Won't you shake hands with me, Mr. Bayne?" smiled the Duchess ofRaincy-la-Tour. 

I was virtually sane again. 

"I do hope, " I said, "that you will forgive me. Not that I see theslightest reason why you should, I am sure. Life is too short to wipeout such a bad impression. I know how you'll remember me all your days;as an idiot with a head done up in layers of toweling, wobbling on twocrutches and gaping at you like a fish. "

But the duchess was still holding my hand in both of hers and smilingup at me from a pair of great, dark, tender eyes, the loveliest pairof eyes in the world, bar one. No, bar none, to be quite fair. TheFirefly's wife, most people would have said, was more beautiful than hersister; but then, beauty is what pleases you, as some wise man remarkedlong ago. 

"I don't believe, Mr. Bayne, " she was saying gently, "that I shallever remember you in any unpleasant way. You see, I know about thosebandages, and I know why you need those crutches. Even if you were vain, you wouldn't mind the things I think of you--not at all. "

I lack any clear recollection of the quarter of an hour that followed. I know that we talked and laughed and were very friendly and verycheerful, and that Dunny's eyes, as they studied me, began to holda gleam of intelligence, as if he were guessing something about thereasons for my former black despondency. I recall that the duke's handwas on my shoulder, and that--odd how one's attitude can change!--Iliked to feel it. We were going to be great friends, tremendous pals, Isuspected. And every time I looked at the duchess she seemed lovelier, more gracious; she was the very wife I would have chosen for such acorking chap. 

This, however, was by the way. None of it really mattered. While I paidcompliments and supplied details as to my convalescence and answeredDunny's chaffing, I saw only one member of the party, the girl in white. She was rather silent; she gave me only fugitive glances. But she wasn'tengaged, at least not to the Firefly. Hurrah!

What an agonizing, heart-rending, utterly unnecessary experience I hadendured, now that I thought of it! I had jumped to conclusions with theagility of a kangaroo. He had kissed her; she had allowed it. Did thatprove that he was her fiance? He might have been anything--her cousinor an old friend of her childhood, or her sister's husband's nephew. Butbrother-in-law was best of all, not too remote or yet too close. In thatrelationship, I decided, he was ideal. 

By this time I was wondering how long we were to stand here exchangingideas and persiflage, an animated group of five. The duke and duchesswere charming, but I had had enough of them; I could have sparedeven good old Dunny; what I wanted, and wanted frantically, was atete-a-tete; just Esme Falconer and myself. When I saw two automobiles, packed imposingly with uniformed figures, speed up the drive to thechateau, hope stirred in me. With suppressed joy, --I trust it wassuppressed, --I heard the duke exclaim that this was General Le Cazeau, due to visit the hospital with his staff and greet the wounded andbestow on certain lucky beings the reward of their valor in the shape ofmedals of war. Obviously, it would have been inexcusable for the masterand mistress of Raincy-la-Tour to ignore a visitor so distinguished. Imade no protest whatever as they turned to go. 

"But, Miss Falconer, " I implored fervently, "you won't desert me, willyou? Pity a poor _blesse_ that no general cares two straws to see!"

She smiled, an omen that encouraged me to send Dunny a look of meaning;but my guardian, bless him, had grasped the situation; he was alreadygone. 

Down by the water among the trees there was a marble bench, and withone accord we turned our steps that way. I emphasized my game legshamelessly; I positively flourished my crutches. My battle scars, Iguessed from the girl's kind eyes, appealed to her compassion, and assoon as I suspected this I thanked my stars for that German shell. 

"Isn't there anything, " she said as we sat down, "that you want to askme? I think I should be curious if I were you. After all we have donetogether there isn't much beyond my name that you know of me, and youknew that in Jersey City the night the _Re d'Italia_ sailed. "

I shook my head. 

"There is just one thing I wanted to know, " I answered cryptically, "andI learned that when your brother-in-law presented me to his wife. Still, there is nothing on earth you can tell me that I shan't be glad tolisten to. Say the multiplication table if you like, or recite cook-bookrecipes. Anything--if you'll only stay!"

Little golden flickers of sunshine came stealing through the branches, dancing, as the girl talked, on her gown and in her hair. I looked morethan I listened. I had been starved for a sight of her. And my eyes musthave told my thoughts; for a flush crept into her cheeks, and her lashesfluttered, and she looked not at me, but across the swan-dotted laketoward the towers of Raincy-la-Tour. 

After all there was little that I had not guessed already; but eachdetail held its magic, because it was she who spoke. If she had said "Ilike oranges and lemons, " the statement would have held me spellbound. I sat raptly gazing while she told me of herself and her sister Enid;of their life, after the death of their parents, with an aunt whose homewas in Pittsburgh, of their travels; and of a winter at Nice, four yearsago, when the blue of the skies and seas and the whiteness of the sandsand the green of the palms had all seemed created to frame the meetingand the love affair of Enid Falconer and the young nobleman who was nowknown to the world as the Firefly of France. 

Their marriage had proved an ideal one, as happy as it was brilliant. Esme, thereafter had spent half her time in Europe with her sister, halfin America with her aunt, who was growing old. Then had come the war. Atfirst it had covered the duke with laurels. But a certain dark day hadbrought a cable from the duchess, telling of his disappearance and thesuspicion that surrounded it; and Esme, despite her aunt's entreaties, had promptly taken passage on the next ship that sailed. 

"I had meant to go within a month, as a Red Cross nurse, " she told me. "I had my passport, and I had taken a course. Well, I came on to NewYork and spent the night there. Aunt Alice telegraphed to her lawyer, the dearest, primmest old fellow, and he dined with me, protesting allthe time against my sailing. I saw you in the St. Ives restaurant. Didyou see us?"

"Let me think. " I pretended to rack my brains. "I believe I do recallsomething, in a hazy sort of way. You had on a rose-colored gown thatwas distinctly wonderful, and when we tracked the German to the door ofyour room, you were wearing an evening coat, bright blue. But the mainthing was your hair!" Here I became lyric. "An oak-leaf in the sunlight, Miss Falconer! Threads of gold!"

But she ignored me, very properly, and shifted the scene from hotelto steamer, where Franz von Blenheim, in the guise of Van Blarcom, hadgiven her a fright. As she exhibited her passport at the gang-plank, hehad read her name across her shoulder; then he had claimed acquaintancewith her, a claim that she knew was false. 

"And he wasn't impertinent. That was the worst of it, " she faltered. "Hedid it--well--accusingly. I had known all along that any one who knew ofJean's marriage would recognize my name. And Jean was suspected, andthe French are strict; if they were warned, they would not let me enterFrance; they would think I had come spying. I was afraid. Then, afterdinner, I went on deck and found you standing by the railing readingthat paper with its staring headlines about Jean. "

"Of course!" I exclaimed. At last I fathomed that puzzling episode. "You thought the paper might speak of the duke's marriage, that it mightmention your sister's name. In that case, if it stayed on board, itmight be seen by the captain or by an officer, and they would guess whoyou were and warn the authorities when we got to shore. "

"Yes. That was why I borrowed it. And I was right, I discovered; just atthe end the account said that Jean had married an American, a Miss EnidFalconer, four years ago. Then I asked you to throw it overboard, Mr. Bayne; and you were wonderful. You must have thought I was mad, but youdidn't flutter an eyelid or even smile. I have never forgotten--and I'venever forgiven myself either. When I think of how the steward sawyou and told the captain, and of how they searched your baggage thatdreadful day--"

"It didn't matter a brass farden!" I hastened to assure her, for she hadpaused and was gazing at me, large-eyed and pale. "Don't think of thatany more. Suppose we skip to Paris! Blenheim followed you there, hopinghe was on the scent of the vanished papers; and when you arrived at therue St. -Dominique, there was still no news of the duke. "

"No news, " she mourned; "not a word. And Enid was ill and hopeless;from the very first she had felt sure that Jean was dead. But I wouldn'tadmit it. I said we must try to find him. All the way over in thesteamer I had been making a sort of plan. 

"You see, one of the papers had described how the French had foundJean's airship lying in the forest of La Fay, as if he had abandoned itfrom choice. That was considered proof of his treason; but of course Iknew that it wasn't. I remembered that the Marquis of Prezelay, Jean'scousin, had a castle on the forest outskirts; I had been to visit itwith Jean and Enid. I wondered if he might be there. 

"The more I thought of it, the likelier it seemed. If he had beenwounded and had wanted to hide his papers, he would have remembered thecastle and the secret panel in the wall. Even if he were--dead, which Iwouldn't believe, it would clear his name if I found the proof of it. SoI told Enid I would go to Prezelay. "

I was resting my arms on my knees and groaning softly. 

"Oh, Lord, oh, Lord!" I murmured, wishing I could stop my ears. When Ithought of that brave venture of the girl's and its perils and whathad nearly come of it I found myself shuddering; and yet I was growingprouder of her with every word. 

"What comes next, " she confessed, "is terrible. I can hardly believeit. As I look back, it seems to me that we were all a little mad. To getthrough the war zone to Prezelay I had to have certain papers; and I gotthem from an American girl, an old friend of Enid's and of mine, MarieLe Clair. The morning I arrived in Paris she came to say good-bye toEnid. She was acting as a Red Cross nurse, and they were sending her tothe hospital at Carrefonds to take the first consignment of the greatnew remedy for burns and scars. Carrefonds is very near Prezelay. It allcame to me in a moment. I told her how matters stood and how Enid wasdying little by little, just for lack of any sure knowledge. She gave methe papers she had for herself and her chauffeur, Jacques Carton, and Iused them for myself and for Georges, Jean's foster-brother, who wasat home from the Front on leave and was staying in his old room at thehouse. "

"Great Caesar's ghost!" I sputtered. "You didn't--you don't mean to saythat--Why, good heavens, didn't you know--?"

Then I petered off into silence; words were too weak for my emotions. She had seen the risk of course, and so had the girl who had helped her;but with the incredible bravery of women, they had acted with open eyes. 

"Yes, " she faltered; "I told you I felt mad, looking back at it. ButMarie is safe now; Jean has worked for her, and his relatives andfriends have helped, and the minister of war. It was the only way. Undermy own name I could never have got leave to enter the war zone whileJean was missing and suspected--What is the matter, Mr. Bayne?" For oncemore I had groaned aloud. 

"Simply, " I cried stormily, "that I can't bear thinking of it! The ideaof your taking risks, of your daring the police and the Germans--you whooughtn't to know what the word danger means! I tell you I can't standit. Wasn't there some man to do it for you? Well, it's over now; and inthe future--See here, Miss Falconer, I can't wait any longer. There issomething I've got to say. "

But I was not to say it yet, for, behold! just as my tongue wasloosened, I became aware of a most distinguished galaxy approaching usround the lake. All save one of its members--Dunny, to be exact--were inuniform; and the personage in the lead, walking between my guardian andthe duke of Raincy-la-Tour, was truly dazzling, being arrayed in a bluecoat and spectacularly red trousers and wearing as a finishing touch ared cap freely braided with gold. Miss Falconer had risen. 

"Why, " she exclaimed, "it is General Le Cazeau!"

"Then confound General Le Cazeau!" was my inhospitably cry. 

He was, I saw when he drew close, a person of stately dignity, asindeed the hero who had saved Merlancourt and broken that last furious, desperate, senseless onslaught of the Boches ought by rights to be. Perhaps his splendor made me nervous. At any rate, my conscience smoteme. I remembered with sudden panic all my manifold transgressions, beginning with the hour when I had chucked reason overboard and haddeliberately concealed a murdered man's body beneath a heap of straw. 

"I believe, " I gasped, "that this is an informal court martial. Nobodycould do the things I have done and be allowed to live. Still, I don'tsee why they cured me if they were going to hang or shoot me. "

I struggled up with the help of my crutches and stood waiting my doom. 

The group had paused before us, and presentations followed, throughoutwhich the master of ceremonies was the Firefly of France. Then thegray-headed general fixed me with a keen, stern gaze rather like aneagle's. 

"Your affair, Monsieur, has been of an irregularity, " he said. 

As with kaleidoscopic swiftness the details of my "affair" passedthrough my memory, it was only by an effort that I restrained anindecorous shout. He was correct. I could call to mind no single featurethat had been "regular, " from the thief who was not a thief and hadflown out of my window like a conjurer, to the fight in Prezelay castlewhere I had vanquished four husky Germans, mostly by the aid of a woodentable, of all implements on earth. 

"It is too true, _Monsieur le General_, " I assented promptly. Myhumility seemed to soften him; he relaxed; he even approached a smile. 

"Of an irregularity, " he repeated. "But also it was of a gallantry. Witha boldness and a resource and a scorn for danger that, permit me to say, mark your compatriots, you have unmasked and handed over to us one ofour most dangerous foes. For such service as you have rendered France isnever ungrateful. And, moreover, there have been friends to plead yourcause and to plead it well. "

As he ended he cast a glance at the Duke of Raincy-la-Tour and one atDunny, whereupon I was enlightened as to the purpose of my guardian'sthree trips to Paris the preceding week. I believe I have said beforethat Dunny knows every one, everywhere; in fact, I have always felt thatshould circumstances conspire to make me temporarily adopt a life ofcrime, he could manage to pull such wires as would reinstate me in thepublic eye. But the general was stepping close to me. 

"Monsieur, " he was saying, "we are now allies, my country and the greatnation of which you are a son. Very soon your troops are coming. Youwill fight on our soil, beneath your own banner. But your first bloodwas shed for France, your first wounds borne for her, Monsieur; and ingratitude she offers you this medal of her brave. "

He was pinning something to my coat, a bronze-colored, cross-shapedsomething, a decoration that swung proudly from a ribbon of red andgreen. I knew it well; I had seen it on the breasts of generals, captains, simple poilus, all the picked flower of the French nation. With a thrill I looked down upon it. It was the Cross of War. 

CHAPTER XXVII

A THUNDERBOLT OF WAR

The great moment had arrived. General Le Cazeau and his staff wereon their way back to Paris. The duke and duchess were at the chateautalking with the _blesses_; for the second time Dunny had tactfullydisappeared. The approach of evening had spurred my faltering courage. As the first rosiness of sunset touched the skies beyond Raincy-la-Tourand lay across the water, I sat at the side of the only girl in theworld and poured out my plea. 

"It isn't fair, you know, " I mourned. "I've only a few minutes. Ishouldn't wonder if we heard your car honking for you in half anhour. To make a girl like you look at a man like me would take days ofeloquence, and, besides, who would think of marrying any one with hishead bound up Turkish fashion as mine is now?"

She laughed, and at the silvery sound of it I plucked up a hint ofcourage; for surely, I thought, she wasn't cruel enough to make gameof me as she turned me down. Still, I couldn't really hope. She was toowonderful, and my courtship had been too inadequate. Despondent, arms onmy knees, I harped upon the same string. 

"I've never had a chance to show you, " I lamented, "that I am civilized;that I know how to take care of you and put cushions behind you andslide footstools under your feet, and--er--all that. We've been too busyeluding Germans and racing through forbidden zones and rescuing papersfrom behind secret panels, for me to wait on you. Good heavens! To thinkhow I've done my duty by a hundred girls I shouldn't know from Eve ifthey happened along this moment! And I've never even sent you a box of_marrons glaces_ or flowers. "

She shot a fleeting glance at me. 

"No, " she agreed, "you haven't! If you don't mind my saying so, Ithink they would have been out of place. At Bleau, for instance, and atPrezelay I hadn't much time for eating bonbons; but after all you did meone or two more practical services, Mr. Bayne. "

"Nothing, " I maintained, my gloom unabated, "that amounted to a row ofpins. Though I might have shone, I'll admit; I can see that, lookingback. The opportunity was there, but the man was lacking. I might havebeen a real movie hero, cool, resourceful, dependable, clear-sighted, atower of strength; and what I did was to muddle things up hopelesslyand waste time in suspecting you and seize every opportunity of trustingpeople who positively spread their guilt before my eyes. "

"I don't know. " She was looking at the lake, not at me, and she wassmiling. "There were one or two little matters that have slipped yourmind, perhaps. Take the very first night we met, when you tracked yourthief to my room and wouldn't let the hotel people come in to search it. Don't you think, on the whole, that you were rather kind?"

"I couldn't have driven them in, " I declared stubbornly, "with apitchfork. I couldn't have persuaded them to make a search if I hadprayed them on my bended knees. Their one idea was to help the fellowin what the best criminal circles call a getaway; and when I think how Imust have been wool-gathering, not to guess--"

"Well, even so, "--Miss Falconer was still smiling--"weren't you verynice on the steamer? About the extra, I mean. And at Gibraltar, too, when they asked you what you had thrown overboard--do you remember howyou kept silent and never even glanced my way?"

"No, " I groaned, "I don't; but I remember our trip to Paris. I remembermarching you into the wagon-restaurant like a hand-cuffed criminal, andsitting you down at a table, and bullying you like a Russian czar. Igave you three days to leave France. Have you forgotten? I haven't. Theone thing I omitted--and I don't see how I missed it--was to call thegendarmes there at Modane and denounce you to them. It's more than kindof you to glide over my imbecilities; I appreciate it. But when Ithink of that evening I want a nice, deep, dark dungeon, somewhereunderground, to hide. "

"I think, " she murmured consolingly, "that you made amends to me later. "Her face was averted, but I could see a distracting dimple in hercheek. "You mustn't forget that I haven't been perfect, either. Whenyou followed me to Bleau, and I came down the stairs and saw you, Imisunderstood the situation entirely and was as unpleasant as I couldbe. "

"Naturally, " I acquiesced with dark meaning. "How could you haveunderstood it? How could any human being have fathomed the mentalprocesses that sent me there? I only wonder that instead of givingme what-for, you didn't murder me. Any United States jury would haveacquitted you with the highest praise. "

She turned upon me, flushed and spirited. 

"Mr. Bayne, you are incorrigible! Why will you insist on belittlingeverything that you have done? I suppose you will claim next that youdidn't risk imprisonment or death every minute of a whole day, just tohelp me, and that at Prezelay you didn't fight like a--a--yes, like apaladin!--to save me from being tortured by Herr von Blenheim and hismen!"

I started up and then sank back. 

"As a special favor, " I begged her, "would you mind not mentioning thatlast phase of the affair? When you do, I go berserker; I'm a crazyman, seeing red; I'm honestly not responsible. It was when our friendBlenheim developed those plans of his that I swore in my soul I'd gethim; and I thank the Lord that I did and that he'll never trouble you orany other woman again. 

"Still, Miss Falconer, what does all that amount to? Any man would havehelped you, wouldn't he? A nice sort of fellow I should have been todo any less! Whereas for a girl like you I ought to have accomplishedmiracles. I ought to have made the sun stop moving, or got you the starsto play with, or whisked the moon out of the skies. "

She was laughing again. 

"Dear me!" she exclaimed. "What fervor! Can this be my Mr. Bayne, theMr. Bayne of our adventure, who never turned a hair no matter what madthings happened, and who was always so correct and conventional and soimmaculately dressed, and so--"

"Stodgy! Say it!" I cried with utter recklessness. "I know I was; Dunnytold me so that evening at the St. Ives. Have as many cracks at me asyou like. I was getting fat; I was beginning to think that the mostimportant thing in the universe was dinner. Well, I'm not stodgy anylonger, Esme Falconer; you've reformed me. But of all the men in all theages who were ever desperately, consumedly, imbecilely in love--"

In the distance two figures were strolling toward the blue car, the dukeand the duchess. When they reached it, the Firefly cast a glance in ourdirection and sounded a warning, most unwelcome honk upon the horn. Theywere going, stony-hearted creatures that they were! They were takingEsme back to Paris. At the thought I abandoned my last pretense atself-command. 

"Esme, dearest, " I implored, "do you think you could put up withme? Could you marry me when I've done my part over here--or evensooner--right away? A dozen better men may love you, but mine is aspecial brand of love--unique, incomparable! Are you going to haveme--or shall I jump into the lake?"

The sunset light was in her hair and in the gray, starry eyes she turnedto me--those eyes that, because their lashes were so long and crinkledso maddeningly, were only half revealed. Her lips curved in a fleetingsmile. 

"Oh, you dear, blind, silly man! Do you think any girl could help lovingyou--after all that has happened to you and me?" she whispered. 

Then I caught her to me; and despite my crutches and my bandaged headand that atrocious horn in the distance honking the signal for ourparting, I was the happiest being in France--or in the world. 

"I knew all along it was a dream, and it is! Such things don't reallyhappen. No such luck!" I cried.