WE SPLIT THE SCENT
Nikka's plan was simple enough.
"When I was a boy and traveled with the tribe," he said, "and we
wished to cross a frontier without being bothered by the Customs
officers or the Royal foresters, we divided into two parties and
struck off for our destination by two different routes."
Hugh nodded.
"I see. You split the scent."
"Exactly. Our trailers are experts, as I told you chaps they would
be. If you will take my advice, you will adopt Gypsy tactics against
them. Confuse them, string out their pursuit--and then, perhaps, we
can baffle them."
"I think you're right," answered Hugh. "What do you say, Jack?"
"Suits me," I agreed. "Nikka obviously knows more about this kind of
game than we do."
"I've had experience," replied Nikka simply. "Besides, it's in my
blood. Ever since we embarked on this expedition I have felt the old
Gypsy strain in me clamoring for the open road. Toutou's gang are
using Gypsies. Very well, let us use Gypsies."
"But how can we?" interrupted Hugh.
"My name still means something to my people," said Nikka with that
mediæval sang-froid which had amazed me once before. "My father's
tribe will fight for me. But in the first place, this is what I
suggest. Instead of sailing for Constantinople by the Messageries
Maritime from Marseilles, let us take the train to Brindisi. Our
trailers will expect us either to sail on the Messageries packet or
else go by rail to Belgrade and connect with the Orient Express for
Constantinople.
"By going to Brindisi we shall surprise them, and perhaps disarrange
their plans. Mind you, I don't expect to throw them off; but they
will be uncertain. At Brindisi we can connect with a boat for
Piræus. When we board that boat they will begin to believe that they
understand our plans, because at Piræus one finds frequent sailings
for Constantinople. And we shall book passage from Piræus for
Constantinople, as they expect. But after we have gone aboard with
our baggage, Jack and I will leave the boat by stealth."
"How are you going to manage all that?" I interrupted.
"You can always bribe a steward," returned Nikka. "It will be for
Hugh and Watkins to keep the enemy's attentions occupied. They can
engage in conversations with us through the door of our stateroom,
and that sort of thing."
"But what then?" demanded Hugh. "You divide forces. That makes each
party half as strong as we are now."
"There'll be no harm in that," Nikka reassured him. "Our shadows
will soon find out that Jack and I are not on the Constantinople
boat, and they won't venture to touch you and Watkins until they have
located us--which I assure you they won't be able to do."
"Why not?"
"Jack and I are going to take another boat for Salonika, and from
Salonika we shall go by train to Seres in the eastern tip of Greek
Macedonia. At Seres--and I don't expect them to be able to trail us
there--Jack and I will disappear. We shall cease to exist. There
will be two additional members in the band of Wasso Mikali, my
mother's brother, and that band will be traveling to Constantinople
with horses from the Dobrudja to trade with officers of the Allied
detachments in the city."
"And Watty and I?" questioned Hugh.
"You go to the Pera Palace Hotel. Meet this Miss King and her
father, but don't let anybody suspect that you expected to meet them.
Remember, you will be watched all the time. Your rooms and your
baggage will be searched. I think they will investigate the Kings,
too. Yes, that is likely. You must have Miss King hide the copy of
the Instructions you sent her. Not in her trunks--ah, I have it!
Let her place it in an envelope, addressed to herself, Poste
restante. She can go to the Post Office and collect it whenever we
need it.
"You and Watkins will not be in any danger. Toutou's people will be
too busy trying to find Jack and me. They will be suspecting that
you are simply bait to distract their attention--which will be quite
correct. But you must be careful not to venture around the city
without plenty of company. Take an Allied officer with you whenever
you can. You might use the daylight hours to find the site of the
Bucoleon."
"Professor King can help them there," I interrupted. "He knows old
Constantinople quite well."
"Excellent," applauded Nikka. "But remember, Hugh, I said 'daylight
hours.' Don't venture around indiscriminately, and don't go
anywhere, even in the daylight, without several other people. The
larger your party, the safer you will be against accidents--and it is
an accident, rather than a deliberate attack, you will have to guard
against."
"But how are we going to get in touch with you?" asked Hugh.
"Leave that to us," replied Nikka, with his quiet grin. "Make it a
custom to lounge in front of the Pera Palace every morning after
breakfast for half an hour; and keep a watch out for Gypsies. You'll
be seeing them all the time, of course, but don't let on that you're
interested in them. Some morning two especially disreputable fellows
will come by, and one of them will contrive to get a word with you.
Follow them."
"That's a corking plan," Hugh approved warmly. "Well, lads, we'll be
in Marseilles early in the morning. Shall we nap a bit?"
If we were followed in Marseilles, we didn't know it. We only left
the railroad station to get breakfast and dispatch a telegram from
Nikka to his uncle--or, rather, to an address in Seres which acted as
a clearing-house for the operations of this particular Gypsy band.
Then we took the train for Milan, and stopped off over-night to
secure some sleep. The Italian railways were never very comfortable,
and the War did not improve them.
We figured, too, that by stopping at Milan we might additionally
confuse our shadows, as the city was a natural point of departure for
Belgrade. But the first person I saw in the Southern Express
restaurant-car was Hélène de Cespedes. She had discarded her black
dress for a modish costume with furs, and sat by herself in dignified
seclusion, looking at once smartly aristocratic and innocently
lovely. She greeted me with a smile, and crooked her finger.
"Don't you 'ave nothing to do with 'er, Mister Jack," breathed
Watkins explosively from the rear of our group. "That's _'er_!"
"Is that the pretty lady?" whispered Hugh. "My word, Watty, I'll
forgive you! Jack, you hound, introduce us. She looks better than
she did the other night!"
I looked at Nikka.
"It's a good plan to know your enemies," he said. "They already know
us. It can't do any harm for us to know them."
Hélène gave us a charming smile.
"I'm delighted to meet you boys," she said. "And dear old Watkins!
We're quite friends, aren't we, Watkins?"
Watkins mumbled something that I fear was scarcely courteous.
"You can introduce me as the Countess de Cespedes, if you like, Mr.
Nash," she continued. "I wonder if you knew Cespedes, Mr. Zaranko?
He was a rotten old duffer, but he took me off the stage."
"I've heard of him," said Nikka, smiling. "Didn't he leave you
anything to keep you going?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Other girls had the pickings before I met him. There was nothing
left for me but the name."
"Is that the only one you use?" asked Hugh.
"Oh, come, now," she remonstrated. "There's a flag of truce up.
Really, though, if you mention our opposition, I ought to compliment
you on your work so far. I believe you might elude any mob but ours."
"We'll leave the decision on that point to the future," smiled Nikka.
"By the way, how did you come to get into this game?"
She shrugged her shoulders again. She was an odd mixture of Latin
grace and American ease.
"It's the sort of thing I do best. My folks were Wops of some kind.
I was born in New York. I went with crooks after I left school.
Then I joined the Follies, and a broker cottoned to me. He educated
me, music, languages, all that stuff. I went to Paris with him.
When we broke off, I tried the stage there. It was just before the
War. I was only a kid still, and Cespedes fell for me. After he
croaked I tried a bit of everything. For a while I worked for the
Austrians--"
"Spy?" questioned Nikka.
"Sure. There's no harm in mentioning it now, and anyway, I was never
caught. That was how I happened to meet Serge and Sandra; they were
in Toutou's mob. I needed money; he needed brains and a doll-baby
face."
"You seem to have a grip on him," I said. "But I don't see how you
can stand the beast. He gives me the creeps."
She eyed me curiously.
"I'm not afraid of him," she answered indifferently. "Most women are
attracted by him, you know. You haven't seen his other side."
"I don't want to."
"I hope you don't," she agreed. "Say, did you know you made quite a
hit with Sandra, Mr. Nash?"
Hugh and Nikka laughed. I flushed.
"Oh, you needn't flare up," she said. "I can see why you did. You
boys are a good bunch of sports. I wish we didn't have to trim you."
"Why do it, then?" asked Hugh.
"I don't sell out," she answered curtly. "Get that straight, Lord
Chesby. Since I was a kid, I've had to fight my own way. As near as
I can make out, the kind of people who are called respectable and
honest are only cleverer crooks than the rest of us. I'm out to make
all I can in my own way, and I play according to the rules of my mob."
"You called us good sports," Nikka pointed out.
It was her turn to flush.
"Call it a woman's soft heart," she returned. "Honestly, I get fed
up on this life once in a while. If I could have married a decent
Wop back in New York, and had a few kids and worked my fingers off--
Well, I wouldn't have been able to get along without corsets and put
it over you the way I did in the Marseilles train the other night,
Lord Chesby."
"That may be true," Hugh agreed. "You are the first--ah--"
"Crook," she flashed, with a show of white teeth.
"Thanks for the word. You are the first of your species I've had the
pleasure of meetin'. I don't quite see the attraction of the life
for you."
"You wouldn't," she replied. "I'm what you English call a wrong 'un.
Maude Hilyer thinks that if she and Montey could cash in they would
chuck this life and go straight. But I know she's dead wrong. If
you're once wrong, you're always wrong. The best thing you can do is
to play safe and steer clear of the cops. That's me."
"But I say!" Hugh objected. "You say everybody is crooked, and next
you say--"
"Never mind what I say," she interrupted. "You aren't going to
reform me. And I'm against you. And if I can trim you I'll do it,
and if Toutou wants to knife you, and it won't interfere with the
game, why, I'll let him go ahead. And with it all, I like you. Now,
do you understand me?"
"Yes," said Hugh, smiling. "I once met a very gallant Bavarian
gentleman between two sets of barbed wire to arrange about burying
some dead soldiers, and we found we liked each other very much. But
afterward we tried hard to kill each other, and I am afraid I
succeeded."
"You've got me," she assented. "Well, you must be hungry, boys. You
don't want to save a lot of trouble, and maybe your lives, by giving
up that treasure secret, I suppose?"
"No, thanks, Countess," laughed Hugh. "We'll give you a bit of a run
for your money yet."
She laughed back with that pleasant, well-bred trill of a carefree
schoolgirl, and we bowed and left her.
The next time we saw her she was standing by the gangplank of the
steamer at Brindisi.
"Aren't you going on with us?" I hailed her.
"No, Mr. Nash. I'm leaving you in competent hands. Good lord, boy,
you can't dodge us. We've got a system--well, the late well-known
Czar might have been proud to own it. Be good, and give up before
you get hurt."
"That goes for your people, too," I replied a trifle grimly, for I
was growing tired of threats.
She waved her hand impatiently, and stepped over to my side. Hugh
and the others already were passing up the gangplank.
"Say, boy, I don't want you to get hurt. Neither does Sandra. If
anything goes wrong, watch your step. We'll do what we can, but--"
She pivotted on her heel and melted into the crowd. I climbed the
gangplank with my chin on my shoulder, and was met with a shower of
joshes by Hugh and Nikka.
"Doin' a little missionary work?" inquired Hugh.
"Do you flatter yourself you're aroused the lady's disinterested
affection?" asked Nikka.
"No, to both of you," I retorted. "But she--what's the words the
novelists use?--oh, yes, she intrigues me."
"She'll intrigue you out of everything you know, if you're not
careful," Nikka warned me.
"Remember what she did to Watty," cautioned Hugh.
"The 'ussey!" grunted Watkins, who could never bear to hear her
mentioned.
Hugh predicted that we would yet meet her on board, but a diligent
search of the vessel failed to reveal anyone, in or out of trousers,
who remotely resembled her, and we took account of several blonde
northern peasants in our canvass. Also, whoever she had delegated to
watch us kept themselves severely in the background. We were not
conscious of any espionage.
At Piræus we had a choice of several steamers sailing for
Constantinople, none of them Greek, however, as Greece was at war
with the Kemalist government which had been set up in Anatolia.
Nikka pitched upon a French boat that lay across the wharf from a
Greek liner plying to Salonika and the Greek islands of the Ægean.
The Frenchman was sailing at dawn the next morning; the Salonika boat
was due to cast off several hours later.
We booked two cabins on the Frenchman, and hired a clerk at the
British consulate to reserve a cabin and passage for two on the
Salonika boat. This arrangement made, we mustered our scanty
baggage, and boarded the Frenchman just before dinnertime. We dined
together ostentatiously in the saloon, having publicly concluded a
treaty with the purser that we might spend the night on board and so
avoid the inconvenience of an early morning start. And after dinner,
with many yawns and protestations of weariness, we betook ourselves
to bed.
Our cabins were next to each other, and as a matter of fact, we
played poker until long past midnight. Then Nikka and I said good-by
to Hugh and Watty, and sneaked out into the companionway. Several
sleepy stewards eyed us, but there were no passengers about. The
quartermaster on guard at the gangway we handed a Napoleon, telling
him we were obliged to land in order to dispose of some forgotten
business. The watchman on the pier was conciliated in the same way.
And finally, the deck-guard of the Greek liner, once his fingers were
greased and our tickets shown to him, offered no objection to
escorting us to our cabin.
At dawn we were awakened by the whistling of the Frenchman as he
backed out from the pier, and from a porthole we watched him
disappear in the mist of the harbor. At noon the _Epaminondas_
likewise cast off, and Nikka and I thankfully abandoned our battles
with the cockroaches that fought with us for possession of the bunks,
and ascended to the deck.
Nikka sniffed the air as we stepped from the saloon companionway.
"It's good to be out of that stink below," I remarked with feeling.
"I am trying to smell an enemy," he answered curtly.
"To smell--" I hastily checked my temptation to ridicule him,
remembering that occasionally Nikka was startlingly metamorphosed in
to a creature of primordial instincts. "Oh," I said lamely,
"and--er--do you?"
"No," he said seriously. "It is as Hugh said. We have split the
scent. They are at fault."