I RECEIVE VISITORS
She was indeed attended by faithful slaves.
* * * * * * * *
The east wing of the castle was as still as a mouse on the day my house
party arrived. Grim old doors took on new padlocks, keyholes were
carefully stopped up; creaking floors were calked; windows were picketed
by uncompromising articles of furniture deployed to keep my ruthless
refugee from adventuring too close to the danger zone; and adamantine
instructions were served out to all of my vassals. Everything appeared
to be in tip-top shape for the experiment in stealth.
And yet I trembled. My secret seemed to be safely planted, but what
would the harvest be? I knew I should watch those upper windows with
hypnotic zeal, and listen with straining ears for the inevitable squall
of a child or the bark of a dog. My brain ran riot with incipient
subterfuges, excuses, apologies and lies with which my position was
to be sustained.
There would not be a minute during the week to come when I would be
perfectly free to call my soul my own, and as for nerves! well, with
good luck they might endure the strain. Popping up in bed out of a
sound sleep at the slightest disturbance, with ears wide open and
nerves tingling, was to be a nightly occupation at uncertain intervals;
that was plain to be seen. All day long I would be shivering with
anxiety and praying for night to come so that I might lie awake and
pray for the sun to rise, and in this way pass the time as quickly as
possible. There would be difficulty in getting my visitors to bed
early, another thing to test my power at conniving. They were bridge
players, of course, and as such would be up till all hours of the
morning overdoing themselves in the effort to read each other's
thoughts.
I thanked the Lord that my electric lighting system would not be
installed until after they had departed. Ordinarily the Lord isn't
thanked when an electric light company fails to perform its work on
schedule time, but in this case delay was courted.
We were all somewhat surprised and not a little disorganised by the
appearance of four unexpected servants in the train of my party. We
hadn't counted on anything quite so elaborate. There were two lady's
maids, not on friendly terms with each other; a French valet who had
the air of one used to being served on a tray outside the servants'
quarters; and a German attendant with hands constructed especially for
the purpose of kneading and gouging the innermost muscles of his master,
who it appears had to be kneaded and gouged three times a day by a
masseur in order to stave off paralysis, locomotor ataxia or something
equally unwelcome to a high liver.
We had ample room for all this physical increase, but no beds. I
transferred the problem to Poopendyke. How he solved it I do not know,
but from the woe-be-gone expression on his face the morning after the
first night, and the fact that Britton was unnecessarily rough in
shaving me, I gathered that the two of them had slept on a pile of
rugs in the lower hall.
Elsie Hazzard presented me to her friends and, with lordly generosity,
I presented the castle to them. Her husband, Dr. George, thanked me
for saving all their lives and then, feeling a draft, turned up his
coat collar and informed me that we'd all die if I didn't have the
cracks stopped up. He seemed unnecessarily testy about it.
There was a Russian baron (the man who had to be kneaded) the last
syllable of whose name was vitch, the first five evading me in a
perpetual chase up and down the alphabet. For brevity's sake, I'll
call him Umovitch. The French valet's master was a Viennese gentleman
of twenty-six or eight (I heard), but who looked forty. I found myself
wondering how dear, puritanic, little Elsie Hazzard could have fallen
in with two such unamiable wrecks as these fellows appeared to be at
first sight.
The Austrian's name was Pless. He was a plain mister. The more I saw
of him the first afternoon the more I wondered at George Hazzard's
carelessness. Then there were two very bright and charming Americans,
the Billy Smiths. He was connected with the American Embassy at Vienna,
and I liked him from the start. You could tell that he was the sort
of a chap who is bound to get on in the world by simply looking at his
wife. The man who could win the love and support of such an attractive
creature must of necessity have qualifications to spare. She was very
beautiful and very clever. Somehow the unforgetable resplendency of
my erstwhile typist (who married the jeweller's clerk) faded into a
pale, ineffective drab when opposed to the charms of Mrs. Betty Billy
Smith. (They all called her Betty Billy.)
After luncheon I got Elsie off in a corner and plied her with questions
concerning her friends. The Billy Smiths were easily accounted for.
They belonged to the most exclusive set in New York and Newport. He
had an incomprehensible lot of money and a taste for the diplomatic
service. Some day he would be an Ambassador. The Baron was in the
Russian Embassy and was really a very nice boy.
"Boy?" I exclaimed.
"He is not more than thirty," said she. "You wouldn't call that old."
There was nothing I could say to that and still be a perfect host. But
to you I declare that he wasn't a day under fifty. How blind women can
be! Or is silly the word?
From where we sat the figure of Mr. Pless was plainly visible in the
loggia. He was alone, leaning against the low wall and looking down
upon the river. He puffed idly at a cigarette. His coal black hair
grew very sleek on his smallish head and his shoulders were rather
high, as if pinched upward by a tendency to defy a weak spine.
"And this Mr. Pless, who is he?"
Elsie was looking at the rakish young man with a pitying expression
in her tender blue eyes.
"Poor fellow," she sighed. "He is in great trouble, John. We hoped
that if we got him off here where it is quiet he might be able to
forget--Oh, but I am not supposed to tell you a word of the story! We
are all sworn to secrecy. It was only on that condition that he
consented to come with us."
"Indeed!"
She hesitated, uncomfortably placed between two duties. She owed one
to him and one to me.
"It is only fair, John, that you should know that Pless is not his
real name," she said, lowering her voice. "But, of course, we stand
sponsor for him, so it is all right."
"Your word is sufficient, Elsie."
She seemed to be debating some inward question. The next I knew she
moved a little closer to me.
"His life is a--a tragedy," she whispered. "His heart is broken, I
firmly believe. Oh!"
The Billy Smiths came up. Elsie proceeded to withdraw into herself.
"We were speaking of Mr. Pless," said I. "He has a broken heart."
The newcomers looked hard at poor Elsie.
"Broken fiddle-sticks," said Billy Smith, nudging Elsie until she made
room for him beside her on the long couch. I promptly made room for
Betty Billy.
"We ought to tell John just a little about him," said Elsie defensively.
"It is due him, Billy."
"But don't tell him the fellow's heart is broken. That's rot."
"It isn't rot," said his wife. "Wouldn't your heart be broken?"
He crossed his legs comfortably.
"Wouldn't it?" repeated Betty Billy.
"Not if it were as porous as his. You can't break a sponge, my dear."
"What happened to it?" I inquired, mildly interested.
"Women," said Billy impressively.
"Then it's easily patched," said I. "Like cures like."
"You don't understand, John," said Elsie gravely. "He was married to
a beautiful--"
"Now, Elsie, you're telling," cautioned Betty Billy.
"Well," said Elsie doggedly, "I'm determined to tell this much: his
name isn't Pless, his wife got a divorce from him, and now she has
taken their child and run off with it and they can't find--what's the
matter?"
My eyes were almost popping from my head.
"Is--is he a count?" I cried, so loudly that they all said "sh!" and
shot apprehensive glances toward the pseudo Mr. Pless.
"Goodness!" said Elsie in alarm. "Don't shout, John."
Billy Smith regarded me speculatively. "I dare say Mr. Smart has read
all about the affair in the newspapers. They've had nothing else lately.
I won't say he is a count, and I won't say he isn't. We're bound by
a deep, dark, sinister oath, sealed with blood."
"I haven't seen anything about it in the papers," said I, trying to
recover my self-possession which had sustained a most tremendous shock.
"Thank heaven!" cried Elsie devoutly.
"Do you mean to say you won't tell me his name?" I demanded.
Elsie eyed me suspiciously. "Why did you ask if he is a count?"
"I have a vague recollection of hearing some one speak of a count
having trouble with his young American wife, divorce, or something of
the sort. A very prominent New York girl, if I'm not mistaken. All
very hazy, however. What is his name?"
"John," said Mrs. Hazzard firmly, "you must not ask us to tell you.
Won't you please understand?"
"The poor fellow is almost distracted. Really, Mr. Smart, we planned
this little visit here simply in order to--to take him out of himself
for a while. It has been such a tragedy for him. He worshipped the
child." It was Mrs. Billy who spoke.
"And the mother made way with him?" I queried, resorting to a suddenly
acquired cunning.
"It is a girl," said Elsie in a loud whisper. "The _loveliest_ girl. The
mother appeared in Vienna about three weeks or a month ago and--whiff!
Off goes the child. Abducted--kidnapped! And the court had granted him
the custody of the child. That's what makes it so terrible. If she is
caught anywhere in Europe--well, I don't know what may happen to her. It
is just such silly acts as this that make American girls the laughing
stocks of the whole world. I give you my word I am almost ashamed to
have people point me out and say: 'There goes an American. Pooh!'"
By this time I had myself pretty well in hand.
"I daresay the mother loved the child, which ought to condone one among
her multitude of sins. I take it, of course, that she was entirely to
blame for everything that happened."
They at once proceeded to tear the poor little mother to shreds,
delicately and with finesse, to be sure, but none the less completely.
No doubt they meant to be charitable.
"This is what a silly American nobody gets for trying to be somebody
over here just because her father has a trunkful of millions," said
Elsie, concluding a rather peevish estimate of the conjugal effrontery
laid at the door of Mr. Pless's late wife.
"Or just because one of these spendthrift foreigners has a title for
sale," said Billy Smith sarcastically.
"He was deeply in love with her when they were married," said his wife.
"I don't believe it was his fault that they didn't get along well
together."
"The truth of the matter is," said Elsie with finality, "she couldn't
live up to her estate. She was a drag, a stone about his neck. It was
like putting one's waitress at the head of the table and expecting her
to make good as a hostess."
"What was her social standing in New York?" I enquired.
"Oh, good enough," said Betty Billy. "She was in the smartest set, if
that is a recommendation."
"Then you admit, both of you, that the best of our American girls fall
short of being all that is required over here. In other words, they
can't hold a candle to the Europeans."
"Not at all," they both said in a flash.
"That's the way it sounds to me."
Elsie seemed repentant. "I suppose we are a little hard on the poor
thing. She was very young, you see."
"What you mean to say, then, is that she wasn't good enough for Mr.
Pless and his coterie."
"No, not just precisely that," admitted Betty Billy Smith. "She made
a bid for him and got him, and my contention is that she should have
lived up to the bargain."
"Wasn't he paid in full?" I asked, with a slight sneer.
"What do you mean?"
"Didn't he get his money?"
"I am sure I don't see what money has to do with the case," said Elsie,
with dignity. "Mr. Pless is a poor man I've heard. There could not
have been very much of a marriage settlement."
"A mere million to start with," remarked Billy Smith ironically. "It's
all gone, my dear Elsie, and I gather that father-in-law locked the
trunk you speak of and hid the key. You don't know women as well as
I do, Mr. Smart. Both of these charming ladies professed to adore Mr.
Pless's wife up to the time the trial for divorce came up. Now they've
got their hammers and hat-pins out for her and--"
"That isn't true, Billy Smith," cried Elsie in a fierce whisper. "We
stood by her until she disobeyed the mandate--or whatever you call
it--of the court. She did steal the child, and you can't deny it."
"Poor little kiddie," said he, and from his tone I gathered that all
was not rosy in the life of the infant in this game of battledore and
shuttlecock.
To my disgust, the three of them refused to enlighten me further as
to the history, identity or character of either Mr. or Mrs. Pless, but
of course I knew that I was entertaining under my roof, by the most
extraordinary coincidence, the Count and Countess of Something-or-other,
who were at war, and the child they were fighting for with motives of
an entirely opposite nature.
Right or wrong, my sympathies were with the refugee in the lonely east
wing. I was all the more determined now to shield her as far as it lay
in my power to do so, and to defend her if the worst were to happen.
Mr. Pless tossed his cigarette over the railing and sauntered over to
join us.
"I suppose you've been discussing the view," he said as he came up.
There was a mean smile on his--yes, it was a rather handsome face--and
the two ladies started guiltily. The attack on his part was particularly
direct when one stops to consider that there wasn't any view to be had
from where we were sitting, unless one could call a three-decked
plasterer's scaffolding a view.
"We've been discussing the recent improvements about the castle, Mr.
Pless," said I with so much directness that I felt Mrs. Billy Smith's
arm stiffen and suspected a general tension of nerves from head to
foot.
"You shouldn't spoil the place, Mr. Smart," said he, with a careless
glance about him.
"Don't ruin the ruins," added Billy Smith, of the diplomatic corps.
"What time do we dine?" asked Mr. Pless, with a suppressed yawn.
"At eight," said Elsie promptly.
We were in the habit of dining at seven-thirty, but I was growing
accustomed to the over-riding process, so allowed my dinner hour to
be changed without a word.
"I think I'll take a nap," said he. With a languid smile and a little
flaunt of his hand as if dismissing us, he moved languidly off, but
stopped after a few steps to say to me: "We'll explore the castle
to-morrow, Mr. Smart, if it's just the same to you." He spoke with a
very slight accent and in a peculiarly attractive manner. There was
charm to the man, I was bound to admit. "I know Schloss Rothhoefen
very well. It is an old stamping ground of mine."
"Indeed," said I, affecting surprise.
"I spent a very joyous season here not so many years ago. Hohendahl
is a bosom friend."
When he was quite out of hearing, Billy Smith leaned over and said to
me: "He spent his honeymoon here, old man. It was the girls' idea to
bring him here to assuage the present with memories of the past. Quite
a pretty sentiment, eh?"
"It depends on how he spent it," I said significantly. Smith grinned
approvingly. Being a diplomat he sensed my meaning at once.
"It was a lot of money," he said.
At dinner the Russian baron, who examined every particle of food he
ate with great care and discrimination, evidently looking for poison,
embarrassed me in the usual fashion by asking how I write my books,
where I get my plots, and all the rest of the questions that have
become so hatefully unanswerable, ending up by blandly enquiring
_what_ I had written. This was made especially humiliating by the
prefatory remark that he had lived in Washington for five years and
had read everything that was worth reading.
If Elsie had been a man I should have kicked her for further confounding
me by mentioning the titles of all my books and saying that he surely
must have read them, as everybody did, thereby supplying him with the
chance to triumphantly say that he'd be hanged if he'd ever heard of
any one of them. I shall always console myself with the joyful thought
that I couldn't remember his infernal name and would now make it a
point never to do so.
Mr. Pless openly made love to Elsie and the Baron openly made love to
Betty Billy. Being a sort of noncommittal bachelor, I ranged myself
with the two abandoned husbands and we had quite a reckless time of
it, talking with uninterrupted devilishness about the growth of American
dentistry in European capitals, the way one has his nails manicured
in Germany, the upset price of hot-house strawberries, the relative
merit of French and English bulls, the continued progress of the weather
and sundry other topics of similar piquancy. Elsie invited all of us
to a welsh rarebit party she was giving at eleven-thirty, and then
they got to work at the bridge table, poor George Hazzard cutting in
occasionally. This left Billy Smith and me free to make up a somewhat
somnolent two-some.
I was eager to steal away to the east wing with the news, but how to
dispose of Billy without appearing rude was more than I could work
out. It was absolutely necessary for the Countess to know that her
ex-husband was in the castle. I would have to manage in some way to
see her before the evening was over. The least carelessness, the
smallest slip might prove the undoing of both of us.
I wondered how she would take the dismal news. Would she become
hysterical and go all to pieces? Would the prospect of a week of
propinquity be too much for her, even though thick walls intervened
to put them into separate worlds? Or, worst of all, would she reveal
an uncomfortable spirit of bravado, rashly casting discretion to the
winds in order to show him that she was not the timid, beaten coward
he might suspect her of being? She had once said to me that she loathed
a coward. I have always wondered how it felt to be in a "pretty kettle
of fish," or a "pickle," or any of the synonymous predicaments. Now
I knew. Nothing could have been more synchronous than the plural
howdy-do that confronted me.
My nervousness must have been outrageously pronounced. Pacing the
floor, looking at one's watch, sighing profoundly, putting one's hands
in the pockets and taking them out again almost immediately, letting
questions go by unanswered, and all such, are actions or conditions
that usually produce the impression that one is nervous. A discerning
observer seldom fails to note the symptoms.
Mr. Smith said to me at nine-sixteen (I know it was exactly nine-sixteen
to the second) with polite conviction in his smile: "You seem to have
something on your mind, old chap."
Now no one but a true diplomat recognises the psychological moment for
calling an almost total stranger "old chap."
"I have, old fellow," said I, immensely relieved by his perspicuity.
"I ought to get off five or six very important letters to--"
He interrupted me with a genial wave of his hand. "Run along and get
'em off," he said. "Don't mind me. I'll look over the magazines."
Ten minutes later I was sneaking up the interminable stairways in the
sepulchral east wing, lighting and relighting a tallow candle with
grim patience at every other landing and luridly berating the drafts
that swept the passages. Mr. Poopendyke stood guard below at the
padlocked doors, holding the keys. He was to await my signal to reopen
them, but he was not to release me under any circumstance if snoopers
were abroad.
My secretary was vastly disturbed by the news I imparted. He was so
startled that he forgot to tell me that he wouldn't spend another night
on a pile of rugs with Britton as a bed-fellow, an omission which gave
Britton the opportunity to anticipate him by _almost_ giving notice that
very night. (The upshot of it was the hasty acquisition of two brand new
iron beds the next day, and the restoration of peace in my domestic
realm.)
Somewhat timorously I knocked at the Countess's door. I realised that
it was a most unseemly hour for calling on a young, beautiful and
unprotected lady, but the exigencies of the moment lent moral support
to my invasion.
After waiting five minutes and then knocking again so loudly that the
sound reverberated through the empty halls with a sickening clatter,
I heard some one fumbling with the bolts. The door opened an inch OF
two.
The Countess's French maid peered out at me.
"Tell your mistress that I must see her at once."
"Madame is not at home, m'sieur," said the young woman.
"Not at home?" I gasped. "Where is she?"
"Madame has gone to bed."
"Oh," I said, blinking. "Then she _is_ at home. Present my compliments
and ask her to get up. Something very exasperating has hap--"
"Madame has request me to inform m'sieur that she knows the Count is
here, and will you be so good as to call to-morrow morning."
"What! She knows he's here? Who brought the information?"
"The bountiful Max, m'sieur. He bring it with _dejeuner_, again with
_diner_, and but now with the hot water, m'sieur."
"Oh, I see," said I profoundly. "In that case, I--I sha'n't disturb
her. How--er--how did she take it?"
She gave me a severely reproachful look.
"She took it as usual, m'sieur. In that dreadful little tin tub old
Conrad--"
"Good heavens, girl! I mean the news--the news about the Count."
"Mon dieu! I thought m'sieur refer to--But yes! She take it beautifully.
I too mean the news. Madame is not afraid. Has she not the good, brave
m'sieur to--what you call it--to shoulder all the worry, no? She is
not alarm. She reads m'sieur's latest book in bed, smoke the cigarette,
and she say what the divil do she care."
"What!"
"Non, non! I, Helene Marie Louise Antoinette, say it for Madame. Pardon!
Pardon, m'sieur! It is I who am wicked."
Very stiffly and ceremoniously I advised caution for the next twelve
hours, and saying good night to Helene Marie Louise Antoinette in an
unintentionally complimentary whisper, took myself off down the stairs,
pursued by an equally subdued _bon soir_ which made me feel like a
soft-stepping Lothario.
Now it may occur to you that any self-respecting gentleman in possession
of a castle and a grain of common sense would have set about to find
out the true names of the guests beneath his roof. The task would have
been a simple one, there is no doubt of that. A peremptory command
with a rigid alternative would have brought out the truth in a jiffy.
But it so happens that I rather enjoyed the mystery. The situation was
unique, the comedy most exhilarating. Of course, there was a tragic
side to the whole matter, but now that I was in for it, why minimise
the novelty by adopting arbitrary measures? Three minutes of stern
conversation with Elsie Hazzard would enlighten me on all the essential
points; perhaps half an hour would bring Poopendyke to terms; a half
a day might be required in the brow-beating of the frail Countess.
With the Schmicks, there was no hope. But why not allow myself the
pleasure of enjoying the romantic feast that had been set before me
by the gods of chance? Chance ordered the tangle; let chance unravel it.
Somewhat gleefully I decided that it would be good fun to keep myself
in the dark as long as possible!
"Mr. Poopendyke," said I, after that nervous factotum had let me into
my side of the castle with gratifying stealthiness, "you will oblige
me by not mentioning that fair lady's name in my presence."
"You did not stay very long, sir," said he in a sad whisper, and for
the life of me I couldn't determine what construction to put upon the
singularly unresponsive remark.
When I reached the room where my guests were assembled, I found Mr.
Pless and the Baron Umovitch engaged in an acrimonious dispute over
a question of bridge etiquette. The former had resented a sharp
criticism coming from the latter, and they were waging a verbal battle
in what I took to be five or six different tongues, none of which
appeared to bear the slightest relationship to the English language.
Suddenly Mr. Pless threw his cards down and left the table, without
a word of apology to the two ladies, who looked more hurt than appalled.
He said he was going to bed, but I noticed that he took himself off
in the direction of the moonlit loggia. We were still discussing his
defection in subdued tones--with the exception of the irate baron--when
he re-entered the room. The expression on his face was mocking, even
accusing. Directing his words to me, he uttered a lazy indictment.
"Are there real spirits in your castle, Mr. Smart, or have you flesh
and blood mediums here who roam about in white night dresses to study
the moods of the moon from the dizziest ramparts?"
I started. What indiscretion had the Countess been up to?
"I don't quite understand you, Mr. Pless," I said, with a politely
blank stare.
Confound his insolence! He winked at me!