[Illustration: With her eye for detail Marie observed that the young
officer, instead of imparting information, received it.]
SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE
By RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
1915
TO HOPE DAVIS
CONTENTS
"SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE"
PLAYING DEAD
THE CARD-SHARP
BILLY AND THE BIG STICK
THE BOY SCOUT
THE FRAME-UP
"SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE"
Marie Gessler, known as Marie Chaumontel, Jeanne d'Avrechy, the Countess
d'Aurillac, was German. Her father, who served through the
Franco-Prussian War, was a German spy. It was from her mother she
learned to speak French sufficiently well to satisfy even an Academician
and, among Parisians, to pass as one. Both her parents were dead. Before
they departed, knowing they could leave their daughter nothing save
their debts, they had had her trained as a nurse. But when they were
gone, Marie in the Berlin hospitals played politics, intrigued,
indiscriminately misused the appealing, violet eyes. There was a
scandal; several scandals. At the age of twenty-five she was dismissed
from the Municipal Hospital, and as now--save for the violet eyes--she
was without resources, as a _compagnon de voyage_ with a German doctor
she travelled to Monte Carlo. There she abandoned the doctor for Henri
Ravignac, a captain in the French Aviation Corps, who, when his leave
ended, escorted her to Paris.
The duties of Captain Ravignac kept him in barracks near the aviation
field, but Marie he established in his apartments on the Boulevard
Haussmann. One day he brought from the barracks a roll of blue-prints,
and as he was locking them in a drawer, said: "The Germans would pay
through the nose for those!" The remark was indiscreet, but then Marie
had told him she was French, and any one would have believed her.
The next morning the same spirit of adventure that had exiled her from
the Berlin hospitals carried her with the blue-prints to the German
embassy. There, greatly shocked, they first wrote down her name and
address, and then, indignant at her proposition, ordered her out. But
the day following a strange young German who was not at all indignant,
but, on the contrary, quite charming, called upon Marie. For the
blue-prints he offered her a very large sum, and that same hour with
them and Marie departed for Berlin. Marie did not need the money. Nor
did the argument that she was serving her country greatly impress her.
It was rather that she loved intrigue. And so she became a spy.
Henri Ravignac, the man she had robbed of the blue-prints, was tried by
court martial. The charge was treason, but Charles Ravignac, his
younger brother, promised to prove that the guilty one was the girl, and
to that end obtained leave of absence and spent much time and money. At
the trial he was able to show the record of Marie in Berlin and Monte
Carlo; that she was the daughter of a German secret agent; that on the
afternoon the prints disappeared Marie, with an agent of the German
embassy, had left Paris for Berlin. In consequence of this the charge of
selling military secrets was altered to one of "gross neglect," and
Henri Ravignac was sentenced to two years in the military prison at
Tours. But he was of an ancient and noble family, and when they came to
take him from his cell in the Cherche-Midi, he was dead. Charles, his
brother, disappeared. It was said he also had killed himself; that he
had been appointed a military attaché in South America; that to revenge
his brother he had entered the secret service; but whatever became of
him no one knew. All that was certain was that, thanks to the act of
Marie Gessler, on the rolls of the French army the ancient and noble
name of Ravignac no longer appeared.
In her chosen profession Marie Gessler found nothing discreditable. Of
herself her opinion was not high, and her opinion of men was lower. For
her smiles she had watched several sacrifice honor, duty, loyalty; and
she held them and their kind in contempt. To lie, to cajole, to rob men
of secrets they thought important, and of secrets the importance of
which they did not even guess, was to her merely an intricate and
exciting game.
She played it very well. So well that in the service her advance was
rapid. On important missions she was sent to Russia, through the
Balkans; even to the United States. There, with credentials as an army
nurse, she inspected our military hospitals and unobtrusively asked many
innocent questions.
When she begged to be allowed to work in her beloved Paris, "they" told
her when war came "they" intended to plant her inside that city, and
that, until then, the less Paris knew of her the better.
But just before the great war broke, to report on which way Italy might
jump, she was sent to Rome, and it was not until September she was
recalled. The telegram informed her that her Aunt Elizabeth was ill, and
that at once she must return to Berlin. This, she learned from the code
book wrapped under the cover of her thermos bottle, meant that she was
to report to the general commanding the German forces at Soissons.
From Italy she passed through Switzerland, and, after leaving Basle, on
military trains was rushed north to Luxemburg, and then west to Laon.
She was accompanied by her companion, Bertha, an elderly and
respectable, even distinguished-looking female. In the secret service
her number was 528. Their passes from the war office described them as
nurses of the German Red Cross. Only the Intelligence Department knew
their real mission. With her also, as her chauffeur, was a young Italian
soldier of fortune, Paul Anfossi. He had served in the Belgian Congo, in
the French Foreign Legion in Algiers, and spoke all the European
languages. In Rome, where as a wireless operator he was serving a
commercial company, in selling Marie copies of messages he had
memorized, Marie had found him useful, and when war came she obtained
for him, from the Wilhelmstrasse, the number 292. From Laon, in one of
the automobiles of the General Staff, the three spies were driven first
to Soissons, and then along the road to Meaux and Paris, to the village
of Neufchelles. They arrived at midnight, and in a château of one of the
champagne princes, found the colonel commanding the Intelligence
Bureau. He accepted their credentials, destroyed them, and replaced them
with a _laisser-passer_ signed by the mayor of Laon. That dignitary, the
colonel explained, to citizens of Laon fleeing to Paris and the coast
had issued many passes. But as now between Laon and Paris there were
three German armies, the refugees had been turned back and their passes
confiscated.
"From among them," said the officer, "we have selected one for you. It
is issued to the wife of Count d'Aurillac, a captain of reserves, and
her aunt, Madame Benet. It asks for those ladies and their chauffeur,
Briand, a safe-conduct through the French military lines. If it gets you
into Paris you will destroy it and assume another name. The Count
d'Aurillac is now with his regiment in that city. If he learned of the
presence there of his wife, he would seek her, and that would not be
good for you. So, if you reach Paris, you will become a Belgian refugee.
You are highborn and rich. Your château has been destroyed. But you have
money. You will give liberally to the Red Cross. You will volunteer to
nurse in the hospitals. With your sad story of ill treatment by us, with
your high birth, and your knowledge of nursing, which you acquired, of
course, only as an amateur, you should not find it difficult to join
the Ladies of France, or the American Ambulance. What you learn from the
wounded English and French officers and the French doctors you will send
us through the usual channels."
"When do I start?" asked the woman.
"For a few days," explained the officer, "you remain in this château.
You will keep us informed of what is going forward after we withdraw."
"Withdraw?" It was more of an exclamation than a question. Marie was too
well trained to ask questions.
"We are taking up a new position," said the officer, "on the Aisne."
The woman, incredulous, stared.
"And we do not enter Paris?"
"_You_ do," returned the officer. "That is all that concerns you. We
will join you later--in the spring. Meanwhile, for the winter we
intrench ourselves along the Aisne. In a chimney of this château we have
set up a wireless outfit. We are leaving it intact. The chauffeur
Briand--who, you must explain to the French, you brought with you from
Laon, and who has been long in your service--will transmit whatever you
discover. We wish especially to know of any movement toward our left. If
they attack in front from Soissons, we are prepared; but of any attempt
to cross the Oise and take us in flank, you must warn us."
The officer rose and hung upon himself his field-glasses, map-cases, and
side-arms.
"We leave you now," he said. "When the French arrive you will tell them
your reason for halting at this château was that the owner, Monsieur
Iverney, and his family are friends of your husband. You found us here,
and we detained you. And so long as you can use the wireless, make
excuses to remain. If they offer to send you on to Paris, tell them your
aunt is too ill to travel."
"But they will find the wireless," said the woman. "They are sure to use
the towers for observation, and they will find it."
"In that case," said the officer, "you will suggest to them that we fled
in such haste we had no time to dismantle it. Of course, you had no
knowledge that it existed, or, as a loyal French woman, you would have
at once told them." To emphasize his next words the officer pointed at
her: "Under no circumstances," he continued, "must you be suspected. If
they should take Briand in the act, should they have even the least
doubt concerning him, you must repudiate him entirely. If necessary, to
keep your own skirts clear, it would be your duty yourself to denounce
him as a spy."
"Your first orders," said the woman, "were to tell them Briand had been
long in my service; that I brought him from my home in Laon."
"He might be in your service for years," returned the colonel, "and you
not know he was a German agent."
"If to save myself I inform upon him," said Marie, "of course you know
you will lose him."
The officer shrugged his shoulders. "A wireless operator," he retorted,
"we can replace. But for you, and for the service you are to render in
Paris, we have no substitute. _You_ must not be found out. You are
invaluable."
The spy inclined her head. "I thank you," she said.
The officer sputtered indignantly.
"It is not a compliment," he exclaimed; "it is an order. You must not be
found out!"
Withdrawn some two hundred yards from the Paris road, the château stood
upon a wooded hill. Except directly in front, trees of great height
surrounded it. The tips of their branches brushed the windows;
interlacing, they continued until they overhung the wall of the estate.
Where it ran with the road the wall gave way to a lofty gate and iron
fence, through which those passing could see a stretch of noble turf, as
wide as a polo-field, borders of flowers disappearing under the shadows
of the trees; and the château itself, with its terrace, its many
windows, its high-pitched, sloping roof, broken by towers and turrets.
Through the remainder of the night there came from the road to those in
the château the roar and rumbling of the army in retreat. It moved
without panic, disorder, or haste, but unceasingly. Not for an instant
was there a breathing-spell. And when the sun rose, the three spies--the
two women and the chauffeur--who in the great château were now alone,
could see as well as hear the gray column of steel rolling past below
them.
The spies knew that the gray column had reached Claye, had stood within
fifteen miles of Paris, and then upon Paris had turned its back. They
knew also that the reverberations from the direction of Meaux, that each
moment grew more loud and savage, were the French "seventy-fives"
whipping the gray column forward. Of what they felt the Germans did not
speak. In silence they looked at each other, and in the eyes of Marie
was bitterness and resolve.
Toward noon Marie met Anfossi in the great drawing-room that stretched
the length of the terrace and from the windows of which, through the
park gates, they could see the Paris road.
"This, that is passing now," said Marie, "is the last of our rear-guard.
Go to your tower," she ordered, "and send word that except for
stragglers and the wounded our column has just passed through
Neufchelles, and that any moment we expect the French." She raised her
hand impressively. "From now," she warned, "we speak French, we think
French, we _are_ French!"
Anfossi, or Briand, as now he called himself, addressed her in that
language. His tone was bitter. "Pardon my lese-majesty," he said, "but
this chief of your Intelligence Department is a _dummer Mensch_. He is
throwing away a valuable life."
Marie exclaimed in dismay. She placed her hand upon his arm, and the
violet eyes filled with concern.
"Not yours!" she protested.
"Absolutely!" returned the Italian. "I can send nothing by this knapsack
wireless that they will not learn from others; from airmen, Uhlans, the
peasants in the fields. And certainly I will be caught. Dead I am dead,
but alive and in Paris the opportunities are unending. From the French
Legion Etranger I have my honorable discharge. I am an expert wireless
operator and in their Signal Corps I can easily find a place. Imagine
me, then, on the Eiffel Tower. From the air I snatch news from all of
France, from the Channel, the North Sea. You and I could work together,
as in Rome. But here, between the lines, with a pass from a village
_sous préfet_, it is ridiculous. I am not afraid to die. But to die
because some one else is stupid, that is hard."
Marie clasped his hand in both of hers.
"You must not speak of death," she cried; "you know I must carry out my
orders, that I must force you to take this risk. And you know that
thought of harm to you tortures me!"
Quickly the young man disengaged his hand. The woman exclaimed with
anger.
"Why do you doubt me?" she cried.
Briand protested vehemently.
"I do not doubt you."
"My affection, then?" In a whisper that carried with it the feeling of a
caress Marie added softly: "My love?"
The young man protested miserably. "You make it very hard,
mademoiselle," he cried. "You are my superior officer, I am your
servant. Who am I that I should share with others--"
The woman interrupted eagerly.
"Ah, you are jealous!" she cried. "Is that why you are so cruel? But
when I _tell_ you I love you, and only you, can you not _feel_ it is the
truth?"
The young man frowned unhappily.
"My duty, mademoiselle!" he stammered.
With an exclamation of anger Marie left him. As the door slammed behind
her, the young man drew a deep breath. On his face was the expression of
ineffable relief.
In the hall Marie met her elderly companion, Bertha, now her aunt,
Madame Benet.
"I heard you quarrelling," Bertha protested. "It is most indiscreet. It
is not in the part of the Countess d'Aurillac that she makes love to her
chauffeur."
Marie laughed noiselessly and drew her farther down the hall. "He is
imbecile!" she exclaimed. "He will kill me with his solemn face and his
conceit. I make love to him--yes--that he may work the more willingly.
But he will have none of it. He is jealous of the others."
Madame Benet frowned.
"He resents the others," she corrected. "I do not blame him. He is a
gentleman!"
"And the others," demanded Marie; "were they not of the most noble
families of Rome?"
"I am old and I am ugly," said Bertha, "but to me Anfossi is always as
considerate as he is to you who are so beautiful."
"An Italian gentleman," returned Marie, "does not serve in Belgian Congo
unless it is the choice of that or the marble quarries."
"I do not know what his past may be," sighed Madame Benet, "nor do I
ask. He is only a number, as you and I are only numbers. And I beg you
to let us work in harmony. At such a time your love-affairs threaten our
safety. You must wait."
Marie laughed insolently. "With the Du Barry," she protested, "I can
boast that I wait for no man."
"No," replied the older woman; "you pursue him!"
Marie would have answered sharply, but on the instant her interest was
diverted. For one week, by day and night, she had lived in a world
peopled only by German soldiers. Beside her in the railroad carriage, on
the station platforms, at the windows of the trains that passed the one
in which she rode, at the grade crossings, on the bridges, in the roads
that paralleled the tracks, choking the streets of the villages and
spread over the fields of grain, she had seen only the gray-green
uniforms. Even her professional eye no longer distinguished regiment
from regiment, dragoon from grenadier, Uhlan from Hussar or Landsturm.
Stripes, insignia, numerals, badges of rank, had lost their meaning.
Those who wore them no longer were individuals. They were not even
human. During the three last days the automobile, like a motor-boat
fighting the tide, had crept through a gray-green river of men, stained,
as though from the banks, by mud and yellow clay. And for hours, while
the car was blocked, and in fury the engine raced and purred, the
gray-green river had rolled past her, slowly but as inevitably as lava
down the slope of a volcano, bearing on its surface faces with staring
eyes, thousands and thousands of eyes, some fierce and bloodshot, others
filled with weariness, homesickness, pain. At night she still saw them:
the white faces under the sweat and dust, the eyes dumb, inarticulate,
asking the answer. She had been suffocated by German soldiers, by the
mass of them, engulfed and smothered; she had stifled in a land
inhabited only by gray-green ghosts.
And suddenly, as though a miracle had been wrought, she saw upon the
lawn, riding toward her, a man in scarlet, blue, and silver. One man
riding alone.
Approaching with confidence, but alert; his reins fallen, his hands
nursing his carbine, his eyes searched the shadows of the trees, the
empty windows, even the sun-swept sky. His was the new face at the door,
the new step on the floor. And the spy knew had she beheld an army corps
it would have been no more significant, no more menacing, than the
solitary _chasseur à cheval_ scouting in advance of the enemy.
"We are saved!" exclaimed Marie, with irony. "Go quickly," she
commanded, "to the bedroom on the second floor that opens upon the
staircase, so that you can see all who pass. You are too ill to travel.
They must find you in bed."
"And you?" said Bertha.
"I," cried Marie rapturously, "hasten to welcome our preserver!"
The preserver was a peasant lad. Under the white dust his cheeks were
burned a brown-red, his eyes, honest and blue, through much staring at
the skies and at horizon lines, were puckered and encircled with tiny
wrinkles. Responsibility had made him older than his years, and in
speech brief. With the beautiful lady who with tears of joy ran to greet
him, and who in an ecstasy of happiness pressed her cheek against the
nose of his horse, he was unimpressed. He returned to her her papers
and gravely echoed her answers to his questions. "This château," he
repeated, "was occupied by their General Staff; they have left no
wounded here; you saw the last of them pass a half-hour since." He
gathered up his reins.
Marie shrieked in alarm. "You will not leave us?" she cried.
For the first time the young man permitted himself to smile. "Others
arrive soon," he said.
He touched his shako, wheeled his horse in the direction from which he
had come, and a minute later Marie heard the hoofs echoing through the
empty village.
When they came, the others were more sympathetic. Even in times of war a
beautiful woman is still a beautiful woman. And the staff officers who
moved into the quarters so lately occupied by the enemy found in the
presence of the Countess d'Aurillac nothing to distress them. In the
absence of her dear friend, Madame Iverney, the châtelaine of the
château, she acted as their hostess. Her chauffeur showed the company
cooks the way to the kitchen, the larder, and the charcoal-box. She,
herself, in the hands of General Andre placed the keys of the famous
wine-cellar, and to the surgeon, that the wounded might be freshly
bandaged, intrusted those of the linen-closet. After the indignities she
had suffered while "detained" by _les Boches_, her delight and relief at
again finding herself under the protection of her own people would have
touched a heart of stone. And the hearts of the staff were not of stone.
It was with regret they gave the countess permission to continue on her
way. At this she exclaimed with gratitude. She assured them, were her
aunt able to travel, she would immediately depart.
"In Paris she will be more comfortable than here," said the kind
surgeon. He was a reservist, and in times of peace a fashionable
physician and as much at his ease in a boudoir as in a field hospital.
"Perhaps if I saw Madame Benet?"
At the suggestion the countess was overjoyed. But they found Madame
Benet in a state of complete collapse. The conduct of the Germans had
brought about a nervous breakdown.
"Though the bridges are destroyed at Meaux," urged the surgeon, "even
with a detour, you can be in Paris in four hours. I think it is worth
the effort."
But the mere thought of the journey threw Madame Benet into hysterics.
She asked only to rest, she begged for an opiate to make her sleep. She
begged also that they would leave the door open, so that when she
dreamed she was still in the hands of the Germans, and woke in terror,
the sound of the dear French voices and the sight of the beloved French
uniforms might reassure her. She played her part well. Concerning her
Marie felt not the least anxiety. But toward Briand, the chauffeur, the
new arrivals were less easily satisfied.
The general sent his adjutant for the countess. When the adjutant had
closed the door General Andre began abruptly:
"The chauffeur Briand," he asked, "you know him; you can vouch for him?"
"But, certainly!" protested Marie. "He is an Italian."
As though with sudden enlightenment, Marie laughed. It was as if now in
the suspicion of the officer she saw a certain reasonableness. "Briand
was so long in the Foreign Legion in Algiers," she explained, "where my
husband found him, that we have come to think of him as French. As much
French as ourselves, I assure you."
The general and his adjutant were regarding each other questioningly.
"Perhaps I should tell the countess," began the general, "that we have
learned--"
The signal from the adjutant was so slight, so swift, that Marie barely
intercepted it.
The lips of the general shut together like the leaves of a book. To show
the interview was at an end, he reached for a pen.
"I thank you," he said.
"Of course," prompted the adjutant, "Madame d'Aurillac understands the
man must not know we inquired concerning him."
General Andre frowned at Marie.
"Certainly not!" he commanded. "The honest fellow must not know that
even for a moment he was doubted."
Marie raised the violet eyes reprovingly.
"I trust," she said with reproach, "I too well understand the feelings
of a French soldier to let him know his loyalty is questioned."
With a murmur of appreciation the officers bowed and with a gesture of
gracious pardon Marie left them.
Outside in the hall, with none but orderlies to observe, like a cloak
the graciousness fell from her. She was drawn two ways. In her work
Anfossi was valuable. But Anfossi suspected was less than of no value;
he became a menace, a death-warrant.
General Andre had said, "We have learned--" and the adjutant had halted
him. What had he learned? To know that, Marie would have given much.
Still, one important fact comforted her. Anfossi alone was suspected.
Had there been concerning herself the slightest doubt, they certainly
would not have allowed her to guess her companion was under
surveillance; they would not have asked one who was herself suspected to
vouch for the innocence of a fellow conspirator. Marie found the course
to follow difficult. With Anfossi under suspicion his usefulness was for
the moment at an end; and to accept the chance offered her to continue
on to Paris seemed most wise. On the other hand, if, concerning Anfossi,
she had succeeded in allaying their doubts, the results most to be
desired could be attained only by remaining where they were.
Their position inside the lines was of the greatest strategic value. The
rooms of the servants were under the roof, and that Briand should sleep
in one of them was natural. That to reach or leave his room he should
constantly be ascending or descending the stairs also was natural. The
field-wireless outfit, or, as he had disdainfully described it, the
"knapsack" wireless, was situated not in the bedroom he had selected for
himself, but in one adjoining. At other times this was occupied by the
maid of Madame Iverney. To summon her maid Madame Iverney, from her
apartment on the second floor, had but to press a button. And it was in
the apartment of Madame Iverney, and on the bed of that lady, that
Madame Benet now reclined. When through the open door she saw an officer
or soldier mount the stairs, she pressed the button that rang a bell in
the room of the maid. In this way, long before whoever was ascending the
stairs could reach the top floor, warning of his approach came to
Anfossi. It gave him time to replace the dust-board over the fireplace
in which the wireless was concealed and to escape into his own bedroom.
The arrangement was ideal. And already information picked up in the
halls below by Marie had been conveyed to Anfossi to relay in a French
cipher to the German General Staff at Rheims.
Marie made an alert and charming hostess. To all who saw her it was
evident that her mind was intent only upon the comfort of her guests.
Throughout the day many came and went, but each she made welcome; to
each as he departed she called "_bonne chance_." Efficient, tireless,
tactful, she was everywhere: in the dining-room, in the kitchen, in the
bedrooms, for the wounded finding mattresses to spread in the gorgeous
salons of the champagne prince; for the soldier-chauffeurs carrying
wine into the courtyard, where the automobiles panted and growled, and
the arriving and departing shrieked for right of way. At all times an
alluring person, now the one woman in a tumult of men, her smart frock
covered by an apron, her head and arms bare, undismayed by the sight of
the wounded or by the distant rumble of the guns, the Countess
d'Aurillac was an inspiring and beautiful picture. The eyes of the
officers, young and old, informed her of that fact, one of which already
she was well aware. By the morning of the next day she was accepted as
the owner of the château. And though continually she reminded the staff
she was present only as the friend of her schoolmate, Madame Iverney,
they deferred to her as to a hostess. Many of them she already saluted
by name, and to those who with messages were constantly motoring to and
from the front at Soissons she was particularly kind. Overnight the
legend of her charm, of her devotion to the soldiers of all ranks, had
spread from Soissons to Meaux, and from Meaux to Paris. It was noon of
that day when from the window of the second story Marie saw an armored
automobile sweep into the courtyard. It was driven by an officer, young
and appallingly good-looking, and, as was obvious by the way he spun
his car, one who held in contempt both the law of gravity and death.
That he was some one of importance seemed evident. Before he could
alight the adjutant had raced to meet him. With her eye for detail Marie
observed that the young officer, instead of imparting information,
received it. He must, she guessed, have just arrived from Paris, and his
brother officer either was telling him the news or giving him his
orders. Whichever it might be, in what was told him the new arrival was
greatly interested. One instant in indignation his gauntleted fist beat
upon the steering-wheel, the next he smiled with pleasure. To interpret
this pantomime was difficult; and, the better to inform herself, Marie
descended the stairs.
As she reached the lower hall the two officers entered. To the spy the
man last to arrive was always the one of greatest importance; and Marie
assured herself that through her friend, the adjutant, to meet with this
one would prove easy.
But the chauffeur commander of the armored car made it most difficult.
At sight of Marie, much to her alarm, as though greeting a dear friend,
he snatched his kepi from his head and sprang toward her.
"The major," he cried, "told me you were here, that you are Madame
d'Aurillac." His eyes spoke his admiration. In delight he beamed upon
her. "I might have known it!" he murmured. With the confidence of one
who is sure he brings good news, he laughed happily. "And I," he cried,
"am 'Pierrot'!"
Who the devil "Pierrot" might be the spy could not guess. She knew only
that she wished by a German shell "Pierrot" and his car had been blown
to tiny fragments. Was it a trap, she asked herself, or was the handsome
youth really some one the Countess d'Aurillac should know. But, as from
his introducing himself it was evident he could not know that lady very
well, Marie took courage and smiled.
"_Which_ 'Pierrot'?" she parried.
"Pierre Thierry!" cried the youth.
To the relief of Marie he turned upon the adjutant and to him explained
who Pierre Thierry might be.
"Paul d'Aurillac," he said, "is my dearest friend. When he married this
charming lady I was stationed in Algiers, and but for the war I might
never have met her."
To Marie, with his hand on his heart in a most charming manner, he
bowed. His admiration he made no effort to conceal.
"And so," he said, "I know why there is war!"
The adjutant smiled indulgently, and departed on his duties, leaving
them alone. The handsome eyes of Captain Thierry were raised to the
violet eyes of Marie. They appraised her boldly and as boldly expressed
their approval.
In burlesque the young man exclaimed indignantly: "Paul deceived me!" he
cried. "He told me he had married the most beautiful woman in Laon. He
has married the most beautiful woman in France!"
To Marie this was not impertinence, but gallantry.
This was a language she understood, and this was the type of man,
because he was the least difficult to manage, she held most in contempt.
"But about you, Paul did not deceive me," she retorted. In apparent
confusion her eyes refused to meet his. "He told me 'Pierrot' was a most
dangerous man!"
She continued hurriedly. With wifely solicitude she asked concerning
Paul. She explained that for a week she had been a prisoner in the
château, and, since the mobilization, of her husband save that he was
with his regiment in Paris she had heard nothing. Captain Thierry was
able to give her later news. Only the day previous, on the boulevards,
he had met Count d'Aurillac. He was at the Grand Hôtel, and as Thierry
was at once motoring back to Paris he would give Paul news of their
meeting. He hoped he might tell him that soon his wife also would be in
Paris. Marie explained that only the illness of her aunt prevented her
from that same day joining her husband. Her manner became serious.
"And what other news have you?" she asked. "Here on the firing-line we
know less of what is going forward than you in Paris."
So Pierre Thierry told her all he knew. They were preparing despatches
he was at once to carry back to the General Staff, and, for the moment,
his time was his own. How could he better employ it than in talking of
the war with a patriotic and charming French woman?
In consequence Marie acquired a mass of facts, gossip, and guesses. From
these she mentally selected such information as, to her employers across
the Aisne, would be of vital interest.
And to rid herself of Thierry and on the fourth floor seek Anfossi was
now her only wish. But, in attempting this, by the return of the
adjutant she was delayed. To Thierry the adjutant gave a sealed
envelope.
"Thirty-one, Boulevard des Invalides," he said. With a smile he turned
to Marie. "And you will accompany him!"
"I!" exclaimed Marie. She was sick with sudden terror.
But the tolerant smile of the adjutant reassured her.
"The count, your husband," he explained, "has learned of your detention
here by the enemy, and he has besieged the General Staff to have you
convoyed safely to Paris." The adjutant glanced at a field telegram he
held open in his hand. "He asks," he continued, "that you be permitted
to return in the car of his friend, Captain Thierry, and that on
arriving you join him at the Grand Hôtel."
Thierry exclaimed with delight.
"But how charming!" he cried. "To-night you must both dine with me at La
Rue's." He saluted his superior officer. "Some petrol, sir," he said.
"And I am ready." To Marie he added: "The car will be at the steps in
five minutes." He turned and left them.
The thoughts of Marie, snatching at an excuse for delay, raced madly.
The danger of meeting the Count d'Aurillac, her supposed husband, did
not alarm her. The Grand Hôtel has many exits, and, even before they
reached it, for leaving the car she could invent an excuse that the
gallant Thierry would not suspect. But what now concerned her was how,
before she was whisked away to Paris, she could convey to Anfossi the
information she had gathered from Thierry. First, of a woman overcome
with delight at being reunited with her husband she gave an excellent
imitation; then she exclaimed in distress: "But my aunt, Madame Benet!"
she cried. "I cannot leave her!"
"The Sisters of St. Francis," said the adjutant, "arrive within an hour
to nurse the wounded. They will care also for your aunt."
Marie concealed her chagrin. "Then I will at once prepare to go," she
said.
The adjutant handed her a slip of paper. "Your _laisser-passer_ to
Paris," he said. "You leave in five minutes, madame!"
As temporary hostess of the château Marie was free to visit any part of
it, and as she passed her door a signal from Madame Benet told her that
Anfossi was on the fourth floor, that he was at work, and that the coast
was clear. Softly, in the felt slippers she always wore, as she
explained, in order not to disturb the wounded, she mounted the
staircase. In her hand she carried the housekeeper's keys, and as an
excuse it was her plan to return with an armful of linen for the
arriving Sisters. But Marie never reached the top of the stairs. When
her eyes rose to the level of the fourth floor she came to a sudden
halt. At what she saw terror gripped her, bound her hand and foot, and
turned her blood to ice.
At her post for an instant Madame Benet had slept, and an officer of the
staff, led by curiosity, chance, or suspicion, had, unobserved and
unannounced, mounted to the fourth floor. When Marie saw him he was in
front of the room that held the wireless. His back was toward her, but
she saw that he was holding the door to the room ajar, that his eye was
pressed to the opening, and that through it he had pushed the muzzle of
his automatic. What would be the fate of Anfossi Marie knew. Nor did she
for an instant consider it. Her thoughts were of her own safety; that
she might live. Not that she might still serve the Wilhelmstrasse, the
Kaiser, or the Fatherland; but that she might live. In a moment Anfossi
would be denounced, the château would ring with the alarm, and, though
she knew Anfossi would not betray her, by others she might be accused.
To avert suspicion from herself she saw only one way open. She must be
the first to denounce Anfossi.
Like a deer she leaped down the marble stairs and, in a panic she had
no need to assume, burst into the presence of the staff.
"Gentlemen!" she gasped, "my servant--the chauffeur--Briand is a spy!
There is a German wireless in the château. He is using it! I have seen
him." With exclamations, the officers rose to their feet. General Andre
alone remained seated. General Andre was a veteran of many Colonial
wars: Cochin-China, Algiers, Morocco. The great war, when it came, found
him on duty in the Intelligence Department. His aquiline nose, bristling
white eyebrows, and flashing, restless eyes gave him his nickname of
_l'Aigle_.
In amazement, the flashing eyes were now turned upon Marie. He glared at
her as though he thought she suddenly had flown mad.
"A German wireless!" he protested. "It is impossible!"
"I was on the fourth floor," panted Marie, "collecting linen for the
Sisters. In the room next to the linen closet I heard a strange buzzing
sound. I opened the door softly. I saw Briand with his back to me seated
by an instrument. There were receivers clamped to his ears! My God! The
disgrace. The disgrace to my husband and to me, who vouched for him to
you!" Apparently in an agony of remorse, the fingers of the woman laced
and interlaced. "I cannot forgive myself!"
The officers moved toward the door, but General Andre halted them. Still
in a tone of incredulity, he demanded: "When did you see this?"
Marie knew the question was coming, knew she must explain how she saw
Briand, and yet did not see the staff officer who, with his prisoner,
might now at any instant appear. She must make it plain she had
discovered the spy and left the upper part of the house before the
officer had visited it. When that was she could not know, but the chance
was that he had preceded her by only a few minutes.
"When did you see this?" repeated the general.
"But just now," cried Marie; "not ten minutes since."
"Why did you not come to me at once?"
"I was afraid," replied Marie. "If I moved I was afraid he might hear
me, and he, knowing I would expose him, would kill me--and so _escape
you!_" There was an eager whisper of approval. For silence, General
Andre slapped his hand upon the table.
"Then," continued Marie, "I understood with the receivers on his ears he
could not have heard me open the door, nor could he hear me leave, and
I ran to my aunt. The thought that we had harbored such an animal
sickened me, and I was weak enough to feel faint. But only for an
instant. Then I came here." She moved swiftly to the door. "Let me show
you the room," she begged; "you can take him in the act." Her eyes, wild
with the excitement of the chase, swept the circle. "Will you come?" she
begged.
Unconscious of the crisis he interrupted, the orderly on duty opened the
door.
"Captain Thierry's compliments," he recited mechanically, "and is he to
delay longer for Madame d'Aurillac?"
With a sharp gesture General Andre waved Marie toward the door. Without
rising, he inclined his head. "Adieu, madame," he said. "We act at once
upon your information. I thank you!"
As she crossed from the hall to the terrace, the ears of the spy were
assaulted by a sudden tumult of voices. They were raised in threats and
curses. Looking back, she saw Anfossi descending the stairs. His hands
were held above his head; behind him, with his automatic, the staff
officer she had surprised on the fourth floor was driving him forward.
Above the clenched fists of the soldiers that ran to meet him, the eyes
of Anfossi were turned toward her. His face was expressionless. His eyes
neither accused nor reproached. And with the joy of one who has looked
upon and then escaped the guillotine, Marie ran down the steps to the
waiting automobile. With a pretty cry of pleasure she leaped into the
seat beside Thierry. Gayly she threw out her arms. "To Paris!" she
commanded. The handsome eyes of Thierry, eloquent with admiration,
looked back into hers. He stooped, threw in the clutch, and the great
gray car, with the machine gun and its crew of privates guarding the
rear, plunged through the park.
"To Paris!" echoed Thierry.
In the order in which Marie had last seen them, Anfossi and the staff
officer entered the room of General Andre, and upon the soldiers in the
hall the door was shut. The face of the staff officer was grave, but his
voice could not conceal his elation.
"My general," he reported, "I found this man in the act of giving
information to the enemy. There is a wireless--"
General Andre rose slowly. He looked neither at the officer nor at his
prisoner. With frowning eyes he stared down at the maps upon his table.
"I know," he interrupted. "Some one has already told me." He paused,
and then, as though recalling his manners, but still without raising his
eyes, he added: "You have done well, sir."
In silence the officers of the staff stood motionless. With surprise
they noted that, as yet, neither in anger nor curiosity had General
Andre glanced at the prisoner. But of the presence of the general the
spy was most acutely conscious. He stood erect, his arms still raised,
but his body strained forward, and on the averted eyes of the general
his own were fixed.
In an agony of supplication they asked a question.
At last, as though against his wish, toward the spy the general turned
his head, and their eyes met. And still General Andre was silent. Then
the arms of the spy, like those of a runner who has finished his race
and breasts the tape exhausted, fell to his sides. In a voice low and
vibrant he spoke his question.
"It has been so long, sir," he pleaded. "May I not come home?"
General Andre turned to the astonished group surrounding him. His voice
was hushed like that of one who speaks across an open grave.
"Gentlemen," he began, "my children," he added. "A German spy, a woman,
involved in a scandal your brother in arms, Henri Ravignac. His honor,
he thought, was concerned, and without honor he refused to live. To
prove him guiltless his younger brother Charles asked leave to seek out
the woman who had betrayed Henri, and by us was detailed on secret
service. He gave up home, family, friends. He lived in exile, in
poverty, at all times in danger of a swift and ignoble death. In the War
Office we know him as one who has given to his country services she
cannot hope to reward. For she cannot return to him the years he has
lost. She cannot return to him his brother. But she can and will clear
the name of Henri Ravignac, and upon his brother Charles bestow
promotion and honors."
The general turned and embraced the spy. "My children," he said,
"welcome your brother. He has come home."
Before the car had reached the fortifications, Marie Gessler had
arranged her plan of escape. She had departed from the château without
even a hand-bag, and she would say that before the shops closed she must
make purchases.
Le Printemps lay in their way, and she asked that, when they reached it,
for a moment she might alight. Captain Thierry readily gave permission.
From the department store it would be most easy to disappear, and in
anticipation Marie smiled covertly. Nor was the picture of Captain
Thierry impatiently waiting outside unamusing.
But before Le Printemps was approached, the car turned sharply down a
narrow street. On one side, along its entire length, ran a high gray
wall, grim and forbidding. In it was a green gate studded with iron
bolts. Before this the automobile drew suddenly to a halt. The crew of
the armored car tumbled off the rear seat, and one of them beat upon the
green gate. Marie felt a hand of ice clutch at her throat. But she
controlled herself.
"And what is this?" she cried gayly.
At her side Captain Thierry was smiling down at her, but his smile was
hateful.
"It is the prison of St. Lazare," he said. "It is not becoming," he
added sternly, "that the name of the Countess d'Aurillac should be made
common as the Paris road!"
Fighting for her life, Marie thrust herself against him; her arm that
throughout the journey had rested on the back of the driving-seat
caressed his shoulders; her lips and the violet eyes were close to his.
"Why should you care?" she whispered fiercely. "You have _me_! Let the
Count d'Aurillac look after the honor of his wife himself."
The charming Thierry laughed at her mockingly.
"He means to," he said. "I _am_ the Count d'Aurillac!"
PLAYING DEAD
To fate, "Jimmie" Blagwin had signalled the "supreme gesture." He had
accomplished the Great Adventure. He was dead.
And as he sat on his trunk in the tiny hall bedroom, and in the
afternoon papers read of his suicide, his eyes were lit with pleasurable
pride. Not at the nice things the obituaries told of his past, but
because his act of self-sacrifice, so carefully considered, had been
carried to success. As he read Jimmie smiled with self-congratulation.
He felt glad he was alive; or, to express it differently, felt glad he
was dead. And he hoped Jeanne, his late wife, now his widow, also would
be glad. But not _too_ glad. In return for relieving Jeanne of his
presence he hoped she might at times remember him with kindness. Of her
always would he think gratefully and tenderly. Nothing could end his
love for Jeanne--not even this suicide.
As children, in winter in New York, in summer on Long Island, Jimmie
Blagwin and Jeanne Thayer had grown up together. They had the same
tastes in sports, the same friends, the same worldly advantages.
Neither of them had many ideas. It was after they married that Jeanne
began to borrow ideas and doubt the advantages.
For the first three years after the wedding, in the old farmhouse which
Jimmie had made over into a sort of idealized country club, Jeanne lived
a happy, healthy, out-of-door existence. To occupy her there were
Jimmie's hunters and a pack of joyous beagles; for tennis, at week-ends
Jimmie filled the house with men, and during the week they both played
polo, he with the Meadow Brooks and she with the Meadow Larks, and the
golf links of Piping Rock ran almost to their lodge-gate. Until Proctor
Maddox took a cottage at Glen Cove and joined the golf-club, than Jeanne
and Jimmie on all Long Island no couple were so content.
At that time Proctor Maddox was the young and brilliant editor of the
_Wilderness_ magazine, the wilderness being the world we live in, and
the Voice crying in it the voice of Proctor Maddox. He was a Socialist
and Feminist, he flirted with syndicalism, and he had a good word even
for the I.W.W. He was darkly handsome, his eyeglasses were fastened to a
black ribbon, and he addressed his hostess as "dear lady." He was that
sort. Women described him as "dangerous," and liked him because he
talked of things they did not understand, and because he told each of
them it was easy to see it would be useless to flatter _her_. The men
did not like him. The oldest and wealthiest members of the club
protested that the things Maddox said in his magazine should exclude him
from the society of law-abiding, money-making millionaires. But Freddy
Bayliss, the leader of the younger crowd, said that, to him, it did not
matter what Maddox said in the _Wilderness_, so long as he stayed there.
It was Bayliss who christened him "the Voice."
Until the Voice came to Glen Cove all that troubled Jeanne was that her
pony had sprained a tendon, and that in the mixed doubles her eye was
off the ball. Proctor Maddox suggested other causes for discontent.
"What does it matter," he demanded, "whether you hit a rubber ball
inside a whitewashed line, or not? That energy, that brain, that
influence of yours over others, that something men call--charm, should
be exerted to emancipate yourself and your unfortunate sisters."
"Emaciate myself," protested Jeanne eagerly; "do you mean I'm taking on
flesh?"
"I said 'emancipate,'" corrected Maddox. "I mean to free yourself of the
bonds that bind your sex; for instance, the bonds of matrimony. It is
obsolete, barbarous. It makes of women--slaves and chattels."
"But, since I married, I'm _much_ freer," protested Jeanne. "Mother
never let me play polo, or ride astride. But Jimmie lets me. He says
cross saddle is safer."
"Jimmie _lets_ you!" mocked the Voice. "_That_ is exactly what I mean.
Why should you go to him, or to any man, for permission? Are you his
cook asking for an evening out? No! You are a free soul, and your duty
is to keep your soul from bondage. There are others in the world besides
your husband. What of your duty to them? Have you ever thought of them?"
"No, I have not," confessed Jeanne. "Who do you mean by 'them'?
Shop-girls, and white slaves, and women who want to vote?"
"I mean the great army of the discontented," explained the Voice.
"And should I be discontented?" asked Jeanne. "Tell me why."
So, then and on many other occasions, Maddox told her why. It was one of
the best things he did.