The journal and letters end abruptly here. Were they married? In all
probability, Checkers gave Polly away, with the lovely blackhaired
Sybil as maid of honor, while Aunt, subdued and chagrined, watched
them submissively from her front pew. But yet I should like to hear
about it from the little lady of the air raid of that Good Friday
night, and I should like to be able to give her love letters back to
her.
If the Red Cross badge found in the bag points a correct surmise A. D.
must have left the diplomatic service as he intended, and finally
entered the Red Cross during the war. The following clipping allows
another assumption which is, that lively Polly followed the bent that
allowed her to discover the author of the anonymous letter in Rome,
Carlo’s gardener’s daughter, as well as to detect the Prince in his
forgeries and thefts, and to develop during the war, into a very
clever secret service agent.
This was the clipping from an American paper also found in the bag.
“It has been said that in our land we do not use women spies as much
as they do in some other countries, but we cannot stop them if they
wish to work along this dangerous line, and we can only admire them
for what they accomplish. A case has just come to our attention of a
beautiful American woman trapping in Paris a clever and
long-sought-for spy.
“He was a Russian Prince, well-known in diplomatic circles, though
after his father’s death, his German mother returned to her native
land to bring up her boy and instil German sympathies in him. For a
number of years he was obscurely connected with the Turkish
Government.
“During the War this popular bachelor Prince had an apartment in
Paris. He was supposed to be just over the age limit for the army, so
he interested himself and worked for the betterment of the Russian
prisoners, being privileged therefore to send material across the
border into Germany. No one suspected him, and in the evenings he gave
gay little suppers in his quarters, which were well attended and much
enjoyed.
“Women of all kinds accepted his hospitality, often bringing their
husbands or lovers, generally just back from the front. They gathered
in his rooms like bees about a honey-pot and much war news was
exchanged or discussed. For some time a leak in high circles was
suspected, but it took a pretty American woman, who, it seems, had had
earlier reasons to distrust him, to get a dictagraph installed in his
rooms. Soon it was discovered that when indiscreet remarks were
dropped in his salon, the burden of them was mysteriously conveyed
into Germany through packages of food to Russian prisoners. She
surmised this first; later it was proved. The Prince was lunching at a
restaurant with the American lady when he was arrested.”
So the Polly whom I helped dress at the hotel and who gave me the bag
must surely be Polly of the letters but I did not place her in the
dark during the air raid although I, too, just a few days before the
fatal Good Friday, had been lunching at the same hostelry the very
hour the Prince was arrested. Suddenly there was a complete silence
in the room. I looked up. All heads were turned toward the table where
a blue-eyed man of Slavic type sat facing a fashionably dressed little
blonde. The excitement was intense; the scene, dramatic, as if they
were holding their pose for a tableau. He still sat there, the
gendarmes at his side, his expression unchanging, looking intently at
the woman opposite, while she returned his gaze not a whit less
steadily. Neither spoke. Suddenly he leaped to his feet and might have
gotten away had she not been too quick for him, and had flung herself
in front of him. He threw her off roughly but it was too late. The
gendarmes slipped on the handcuffs, and the woman followed them out,
her lips white with pain and her right arm hanging helplessly by her
side.
Then the dining room doors shut behind them and the room buzzed as if
invaded by a swarm of flies. I inquired of the head waiter what it was
all about, and he answered excitedly, “They have arrested a Russian
Prince! The police think he is a spy--but surely there is some
mistake.” Then he added, “Why, the Prince has been here on and off
for years--we know him well!”
“Who is the lady with him?” I inquired.
“I do not know,” he answered. “They say she is an American, but she
has never been at the restaurant before.”
“Is this the first thing of its kind that ever happened here?”
“No, once a few months ago we had an arrest--but this time the police
have surely made a mistake.” Shrugging his shoulders, he continued,
“Our police are sometimes stupid. We shall see the Prince here again
in a few days, you may be sure.”
But Boris never came back. After reading the letters and surmising who
he was, I became greatly interested and tried to trace him through the
interminable processes of the law. Everywhere I was baffled by blank
stares, and “Pardon, madame,” or “We do not recollect this case,
madame.” Perhaps he was swiftly and secretly executed. Who knows?
Surely he was Polly’s suitor in the Roman days of years ago. How they
renewed their friendship, I cannot surmise. Possibly the little
blonde lady may be in hiding for military reasons; perhaps our last
meeting was the hour of her death. But I am left a reluctant legatee
of her lover’s letters and those written by her gay young self.