BAD DREAMS
His first night in London was like a bad dream to him. Lying half awake
on his bed, doggedly, tenaciously awaiting the sleep he needed, at
intervals even on its vision-haunted borderland, but never drifting
across it, he remained always darkly conscious of his errand and of his
sinister predicament.
The ineffaceable scenes of the last three days obsessed him; his mind
seemed to be unable to free itself. The quieter he lay, the more grimly
determined he became that sleep should blot out these tragic memories
for a few hours at least, the more bewildering grew the confusion in his
haunted mind. Continually new details were evoked by his treacherous and
insurgent memory--trifles terrible in their minor significance--the
frightened boy against the wall snivelling against his ragged
shirt-sleeve--the sprawling attitudes of the dead men in the dusty
grass--and how, after a few moments, a mangled arm moved, blindly
groping--and what quieted it.
Incidents, the petty details of sounds, of odours, of things irrelevant,
multiplied and possessed him--the thin gold-rimmed spectacles on the
Burgomaster's nose and the honest, incredulous eyes which gazed through
them at him when he announced checkmate in three moves.
Did that tranquil episode happen years ago in another and calmer
life?--or a few hours ago in this?
He heard again the startling and ominous sounds of raiding cavalry even
before they had become visible in the misty street--the flat slapping
gallop of the Uhlan's horses on the paved way, the tinkling clash of
broken glass. Again the thick, sour, animal-like stench of the unwashed
infantry seemed to assail and sicken him to the verge of faintness; and,
half awake, he saw a world of fog set thick with human faces utterly
detached from limbs and bodies--thousands and thousands of faces
watching him out of thousands and thousands of little pig-like eyes.
His nerves finally drove him into motion and he swung himself out of bed
and walked to the window.
His hotel was the Berkeley, and he looked out across Piccadilly into a
silent, sad, unlighted city of shadows. Only a single line of lighted
lamps outlined the broad thoroughfare. Crimson sparks twinkled here and
there--the lights of cabs.
The great darkened Ritz towered opposite, Devonshire House squatted
behind its grilles and shadowy walls on the right, and beyond the great
dark thoroughfare stretched away into the night, melancholy, deserted
save for the slight stirring of a policeman here and there or the
passage of an automobile running in silence without lights.
He had been standing by the window for ten minutes or so, a lighted
cigarette between his lips, both hands dropped into the pocket of his
pyjamas, when he became aware of a slight sound--a very slight
one--behind him.
He turned around and his eyes fell upon the knob of the door. Whether or
not it was turning he could not determine in the dusk of the room. The
only light in it came through his windows from the starry August
night-sky.
After a moment he walked toward the door, bare-footed across the velvet
carpet, halted, fixed his eyes on the door knob.
After a moment it began to turn again, almost imperceptibly. And, in
him, every over-wrought nerve tightened to its full tension till he
quivered. Slowly, discreetly, noiselessly the knob continued to turn.
The door was not locked. Presently it began to open, the merest fraction
of an inch at a time; then, abruptly but stealthily, it began to close
again, as though the unseen intruder had caught sight of him, and Guild
stepped forward swiftly and jerked the door wide open.
There was only the darkened hallway there, and a servant with a tray who
said very coolly, "Thanky, sir," and entered the room.
"What-do-you-want?" asked Guild unsteadily.
"You ordered whiskey and soda for eleven o'clock, sir."
"I did not. Why do you try to enter my room without knocking?"
"I understood your orders were not to disturb you but to place the tray
on the night-table beside your bed, sir."
Guild regarded him steadily. The servant, clean-shaven, typical,
encountered the young man's gaze respectfully and with no more
disturbance than seemed natural under the circumstances of a not unusual
blunder.
Guild's nerves relaxed and he drew a deep, quiet breath.
"Somebody has made a mistake," he said. "I ordered nothing. And,
hereafter, anybody coming to my door will knock. Is that plain?"
"Perfectly, sir."
"Have the goodness to make it very plain to the management."
"I'm sorry, sir----"
"You understand, now?"
"Certainly, sir."
"Very well.... And, by the way, who on this corridor is likely to have
ordered that whiskey?"
"Sir?"
"Somebody ordered it, I suppose?"
"Very likely the gentleman next door, sir----"
"All right," said Guild quietly. "Try the door while I stand here and
look on."
"Very good, sir."
With equanimity unimpaired the waiter stepped to the next door on the
corridor, placed his tray flat on the palm of his left hand, and, with
his right hand, began to turn the knob, using, apparently, every
precaution to make no noise.
But he was not successful; the glassware on his tray suddenly gave out a
clear, tinkling clash, and, at the same moment the bedroom door opened
from within and a man in evening dress appeared dimly framed by the
doorway.
"Sorry, sir," said the waiter, "your whiskey, sir----"
He stepped inside the room and the door closed behind him. Guild quietly
waited. Presently the waiter reappeared without the tray.
"Come here," motioned Guild.
The waiter said: "Yes, sir," in a natural voice. Doubtless the man next
door could hear it, too.
Guild, annoyed, lowered his own voice: "Who is the gentleman in the next
room?"
"A Mr. Vane, sir."
"From where?"
"I don't know, sir."
"What is he, English?"
"Yes sir, I believe so."
"You don't happen to know his business, do you?"
"No, sir."
"I ask--it's merely curiosity. Wait a moment." He turned, picked up a
sovereign from a heap of coins on his night-table and gave it to the
waiter.
"No need to repeat to anybody what I have asked you."
"Oh, no, sir----"
"All right. Listen very attentively to what I tell you. When I arrived
here this afternoon I desired the management to hire for my use a
powerful and absolutely reliable touring car and a chauffeur. I
mentioned the Edmeston Agency and a Mr. Louis Grätz.
"Half an hour later the management informed me that they had secured
such a car for me from Mr. Louis Grätz at the Edmeston Agency; that I
was permitted sufficient gasoline to take me from here to Westheath,
back here again, and then to the docks of the Holland Steamship Company
next Sunday.
"I've changed my mind. Tomorrow is Wednesday and a steamer sails from
Fresh Wharf for Amsterdam. Tell the management that I'll take that
steamer and that I want them to telephone the Edmeston Agency to have
the car here at six o'clock tomorrow morning."
"Very good, sir."
"Go down and tell them now. Ask them to confirm the change of orders by
telephone."
"Very good, sir."
A quarter of an hour later the bell tinkled in his room: "Are you there,
sir? Thank you, sir. The car is to be here at six o'clock. What time
would you breakfast, Mr. Guild?"
"Five. Have it served here, please."
"Thank you, sir."
Guild went back to bed. Another detail bothered him now. If the man next
door had ordered whiskey and soda for eleven, _to be placed on the
night-table beside the bed_, why was he up and dressed and ready to open
the door when the jingle of glassware awaited him?
Still there might be various natural explanations. Guild thought of
several, but none of them suited him.
He began to feel dull and sleepy. That is the last he remembered, except
that his sleep was disturbed by vaguely menacing dreams, until he awoke
in the grey light of early morning, scarcely refreshed, and heard the
waiter knocking. He rose, unlocked his door, and let him in with his
tray.
When the waiter went out again Guild relocked his door, turned on his
bath, took it red hot and then icy. And, thoroughly awake, now, he
returned to his room, breakfasted, dressed, rang for his account, and a
few minutes later descended in the lift to find his car and chauffeur
waiting, and the tall, many-medalled porter at salute by the door.
"Westheath," he said to the smiling chauffeur. "Go as fast as you dare
and by the direct route."
The chauffeur touched his peaked cap. He seemed an ideal chauffeur,
neat, alert, smiling, well turned out in fact as the magnificent and
powerful touring car which had been as thoroughly and minutely groomed
as a race-horse or a debutante.
When the car rolled out into Piccadilly the waiter who had mistaken the
order for whiskey, watched it from the dining-room windows. Several
floors above, the man who had occupied the next bedroom also watched the
departure of the car. When it was out of sight the man whose name was
Vane went to the telephone and called 150 Fenchurch Street, E. C. It was
the office of the Holland Steamship Company.
And the waiter who had entered the room unannounced, stood listening to
the conversation over the wire, and finally took the transmitter himself
for further conversation while Vane stood by listening, one hand resting
familiarly on the waiter's shoulder.
After the waiter had hung up the receiver, Vane walked to the window,
stood a moment looking out, then came slowly back.
"Gwynn," he said to the waiter, "this man, Guild, seems to be harmless.
He's known at the American Embassy. He's an American in the real estate
business in New York. It's true that Dart telegraphed from Ostend that
Guild came to our lines in a German military automobile under a white
flag. But he told a straight story. I'll run out to Westheath, and if
his business there is clean and above-board, I think we can give him a
clean bill of health."
Gwynn said, slowly: "I don't like the way he questioned me last night.
Besides, a sovereign is too much even for an American."
"He might have been afraid of robbery."
"He was afraid of _something_."
"Very well. We've passage on the boat if necessary. I'll go out to
Westheath anyway. If I don't care for what he is doing out there we can
hold him on the dock."
"Another thing," mused Gwynn. "The Edmeston Agency may be quite all
right, but the man's name is Grätz."
"He's been under scrutiny. He seems to be all right."
"All the same--his name is all wrong. What was that chauffeur's name?"
"Bush."
"_Busch?_"
"He spells it without a _c_. I saw his signature on the Agency rolls."
"Have you his history?"
"He's Canadian. I've sent for it."
"You'll find that his father spelled his name with a _c_," remarked
Gwynn, gloomily. But Vane only laughed.
"I'm off," he said. "Stick around where I can get you on the telephone
if necessary. But I don't think it will be necessary."
"I do," muttered Gwynn.