_THE GREATER GAME_
Trent was annoyed next morning to learn from Hentzi that he was to
accompany Pauline and the count to the links. The only redeeming thing
about the expedition was that he himself could get a few strokes in the
demonstration.
The count was in high good spirits and gracious to them all.
"Ah, Arlfrit," he cried, "this is my last game for two weeks. Yes, I
shall be too busy playing another and a greater game. And you, too, will
be busy. Tell me you know the roads to Fiume, Zengg and Agram well?"
"I could set them to music," Trent said forgetting that it was Alfred
Anthony who was answering his august employer. He waited until the count
drove. He saw that the autocrat broke every rule of the many which go to
make a perfect drive yet sent his ball every inch of two hundred yards.
Never had Count Michæl done such a thing before.
"Let us see you beat that," he said dramatically.
Trent pressed. He wanted to outdrive the other by fifty yards and
ordinarily would have done so. He took too much earth and sent a
rocketting ball skyward which dropped full fifty yards behind the
other.
"That was very tactful of you," Pauline whispered. "His Excellency will
be in a good temper the whole day."
"Do you think I tried to do that?" he asked.
"Why not?" she asked, "I only know you are of a timid disposition. I
hate timid men."
"I can't help being timid," he said grinning genially, "it's my nature."
So gratified was the count by his unusual showing at the game that he
did not notice how close Pauline kept to Alfred Anthony. It was nervous
work for Anthony and he answered the girl abruptly trying to keep her
attention on the game.
"You are two men," she said presently when Hentzi and his employer were
a little ahead of them. For a moment Trent was thoroughly alarmed. What
did she know?
He had always known that it was a fallacy to assume because he had seen
none on his midnight wanderings that he had been unobserved. In a vast
house such as Castle Radna there were nooks and crannies where
frightened servants or timid guests might hide from him momentarily only
to denounce him later.
"What do you mean?" he asked teeing up her ball. He had not answered her
immediately.
"That you are two men. There may be three of you but I have seen two
already. There is the timid, servile creature accepting a coin or a blow
and eating with the servants as among his equals. I hate that man. The
other is a creature that every now and then looks out of your eyes like
a bird of prey. It is the man who drives the great car over the mountain
passes as though it were on a smooth boulevard. It is the man who beat
big Peter Sissek to the earth with tight lips and eyes that flashed.
That is a man I could love."
He could feel her arm brush against his own. There was a caressing
tenderness in her voice.
"Tell me, which is the real you?"
Anthony Trent looked straight ahead of him.
"If you slice your ball," he said, "you'll get into the rough. Golf,
like other things is largely a matter of self control."
"I could kill you," she said, her eyes blazing.
"Think of my wife and children," he answered with a grin.
"That is why," she retorted. "The count is right. One should have only
contempt for lackeys. I honor you too much as it is."
"Fine!" Trent observed, "suits me all right. How many quarterings of
nobility have you Mademoiselle Pauline?"
"I at least am an _artiste_," she flung back at him. "To be the most
graceful skater in the world and to have earned more in a week than you
in a year is something which puts me as far above you as Count Michæl
Temesvar."
"Absolutely," Trent agreed, "take your mashie here and go back slowly
and don't look up for three seconds after hitting the ball."
Pauline was certainly a splendidly athletic woman. She held herself
magnificently and was at her best this morning but merely to be with her
bored the pseudo-chauffeur who had thoughts only for Daphne. Daphne
could have given her two strokes a hole and a beating, he reflected.
Gloom seized on him as he wondered if ever again he would see her. He
was in peril in Castle Radna even as an honest worker. Peter Sissek had
sworn to pay him for the beating. Half of Trent's energies were consumed
in going over his car to make sure the bolts and nuts were tight and had
not been loosened maliciously.
And in his position as an emissary of the Earl of Rosecarrel he was in
danger of the most vivid kind. He was a spy in a house which sheltered a
princeling who might yet force Europe into war. If it were discovered he
possessed this secret nothing could save him. It was a sinister, dour
pile of stone, this Castle Radna utterly unlike the Cornish castle with
its rose gardens, its fountains and the charm of country life. He could
well believe that in his present dwelling tragedies has been enacted of
which no knowledge had filtered through to the larger world. Oddly
enough it was during the day when he was peacefully employed as Alfred
Anthony that he was most obsessed by despondency. When the servants were
long abed and asleep and the silences of the early hours hung about the
great corridors and halls Anthony Trent came into his own. His
rubbershod feet were noiseless in the stone passages and his two pass
keys opened every locked door. He was possessed of all secrets it seemed
to him. Here he was free to wander like a ghost in banquet hall and
corridor. None walked so silently as he.
Pauline did not talk to him any more that morning but the count was
affable.
"Ah, Arlfrit," he cried, "tomorrow your work commences. Yes. You leave
for Fiume at daybreak and meet the Ungarisch-Kroatische boat. This time
you will go alone as you will have a passenger beside you as you return.
You will wait at the _Hotel de l'Europe_. The boat gets to her dock at
eleven and my guests will drive immediately to the motor. Make speed
back for you must go to Agram and back before dinner."
"That will be going some!" Trent commented.
"For what reason do you suppose I buy a Lion car and a chauffeur if not
to do what my other automobiles and chauffeurs cannot do? Why do you
imagine I introduce a Londoner into my servants hall, a brawling man who
assaults good Peter Sissek if not because he must travel fast and
safely?"
But the count was not angry. He was in that good humor which comes to
all men who having been in the habit of taking seven for a last hole
make it in four. Pauline had taken six and he had not permitted his
record to be clouded by allowing Trent (as Pauline suggested) to see
what he could do it in.
Anthony Trent started on his trip when it was as yet hardly light. He
was singularly carefree. The repulsive Sissek was not at his side and
he was free to wander about the seaport town, locate the cable offices
and make certain arrangements that might contribute to future safety.
That he was invariably able to make such good time was due mainly to the
absence of traffic along the Maria Louisa road. Not yet had the old
prosperity come back to Europe and there were more automobiles in
Allenhurst, New Jersey, than all Croatia.
He was bound to admit that the group of people he took from the _Hotel
de l'Europe_ lived up to all the traditions of mysterious fiction. There
were two men, middle aged and plainly used to power, and a very pretty
vivacious dark woman of five and thirty to whom her escorts paid
profound attention. The seat beside Trent was occupied by the lady's
maid. The black morocco dressing case she held inexorably upon her knees
was marked with a coronet. The woman was hard-faced, elderly and
uncommunicative. Trent noticed that her mistress was in that deep
mourning which European women affect.
Trent tried the maid in English but she made no answer at all. He
strained his ears to catch what language was being talked behind him but
the Lion was a car of tremendous wheel base and the passengers were
removed too far from him.
Once or twice in the old days, particularly in the case of the Sinn Fein
plot Anthony Trent had found his lack of knowledge of German a handicap.
This linguistic failing was now remedied. He had studied the tongue
carefully; and as languages were easily acquired by him had some fair
proficiency in it.
He was not certain whether it was a trap or a genuine desire to know
that made the woman after a whispered talk with the lady in black say to
him suddenly, "_Wenn wir nur nicht unwerfen; die Strassen sind nicht
besonders hier zu Lande._"
It was his first impulse to tell her that she would not be upset and
that they would soon get on to the better roads. Then he remembered
Alfred Anthony knew but little of any tongue but his own. He smiled at
her and shrugged his shoulders.
"Try it in English," he commanded smiling. "No speak Dutch."
She did not take the trouble to answer. It was, he decided, a trap to
find if he understood. Perhaps it was counted in his favor, this
ignorance of continental tongues.
At Agram he fetched six other people. He found that Sissek and another
chauffeur had been busy also. Hentzi, always desirous of impressing
those beneath him in rank, told Trent he was to be guest tonight at a
table which would hold some of the great ones of the country.
"Will Pauline be among those present?" Trent asked.
"Pauline!" Hentzi sneered, "there will be gracious, high-born ladies at
the table and among these our Pauline has no part. She knows that."
"What time do you dine?" Trent asked. It was now seven o'clock and
Hentzi was not in evening dress.
"At half past eight. There is one among us who likes the late dinners of
the English and his likings must be obeyed even by Count Michæl."
"An Englishman?" Trent queried.
"My friend," Hentzi said impressively, "if he could take all the British
and all the Americans and sink them in mid-ocean he would be entirely
happy. I do not think you understand world politics, eh?"
"I follow the racing and footer news," Trent confessed. "I'm not so much
on politics. A set of grafters if you ask me."
Trent spent an hour on his car. He filled the tanks with gasoline and
saw that his spare tires were ready and made the little adjustments that
only sensitive fingers may perform. As a rule he drove the car straight
into the garage and backed out. Tonight he backed into it. There might
be the sudden need to utilize every moment.
Hentzi's news was good. A dinner of state commencing at half past eight
would be continued long after dark. Of necessity the count would be
there and undoubtedly the officer and his royal master would grace the
board. Entrance could easily be made through their room and over the
courtyard to the Count Michæl's apartment. There would be time for a
thorough search.
The kitchens were full of bustling maids assisting the cooks. There was
so much confusion that Trent helped himself amply to what food he
desired and strolled out to the garage to eat it. More than half was
stowed away in his car. If he were able to get away that night, as he
hoped, it might come in handily for breakfast.
His plan was to place the treaty draft in an envelope already addressed
and stamped and mail it at Fiume. After that he would take the car into
Italy if possible and make for Venice whence he could come easily to
England.
The servants saw him take a candle and walk wearily to his room. They
remembered he had been up before dawn broke. Not one of them had any
suspicions that he was aught but what he represented himself to be.
At half past ten Anthony Trent, looking through the carved oaken
musicians gallery twenty feet above the floor of the banqueting hall,
beheld a notable company assembled. When he saw that the prince had at
his side the vivacious dark lady, he remembered that the weekly
pictorial papers had often presented her to their readers. She was the
daughter of a royal house lately at war with his country. To her
diplomatic skill and love of intrigue was due many checks to allied
plans. It was said she ruled her husband absolutely and loved him
little.
Trent recognized the two men he had brought with him. They were in
evening dress as was Count Michæl and decorated with many orders, of St.
Stephen of Hungary among others. The military attaché bristled with
medals and there were others in brilliant uniforms.
No other woman was present but the princess. Her jewels made Trent's
mouth water. No doubt the maid had carried them at his side for several
hours and would, for all he had to do with it, carry them back. Not for
a moment dare he think of taking them. It was obvious that the count
would make no outcry about the loss of the draft if that alone were
taken. He would piece things together and understand the riddle of
Alfred Anthony. But were the valuables of his guests taken it might be a
police matter.
So great was the buzz of conversation that Trent could catch no
memorable phrase. Here and there was a name he had heard of but that was
all. He noticed that Hentzi was not a guest despite his boasting. This
in itself was awkward for the secretary might be even now in the big
room to which the master criminal was bound. He was relieved presently
to observe Hentzi hovering on the outskirts of the room directing the
servants, a sort of super-major-domo.
It was exactly eleven when he crossed the dark courtyard and opened one
of the long French windows of Count Michæl's room. It was in darkness. A
little water driven power plant supplied some of the chief rooms of
Castle Radna with electric light and he was able, after screening the
windows to flood the room with light. It was an apartment the
counterpart in size and decoration of the one occupied by the prince,
across the courtyard.
Almost the first thing Anthony Trent saw was the safe. And as he looked
on it he knew his hopes were in vain and the draft of the treaty could
remain there indefinitely for all his skill availed or all the knowledge
of the greatest "petemen" would aid, had he possessed it.
Count Michæl Temesvar was not one of those who entrusted precious things
to insecure keeping. It was a Chubbwood burglar proof safe of a type
Trent had heard of but never before seen. The double-dialled cannon ball
safe of the American maker was the nearest approach to this gleaming
mocking thing which faced him. There was no chance that any forcing
screw or wedge could damage the bolts. The locks were so protected that
drilling was impossible and no nitro-glycerine could be used. The
oxy-acetylene blowpipe, high explosives or electric arc were useless
here. It was the last word of a safemaking firm which had been in the
business for more than a century. Trent did not doubt, as he gazed at
it, that there would be developed by the need of it craftsmen who could
open even this. But the time was not yet.
Count Michæl Temesvar had been wise in buying the only safe in the world
whose patent had been extended by the Privy Council of Great Britain.
With his gloved hands Trent touched the thing lightly. The millionth
chance that it might not be locked was against him. He was wasting his
time. Quickly he made a methodical search of the room but found nothing
that interested him.
On his own bed he sat for an hour wondering what to do. He had been so
certain when speaking to Lord Rosecarrel that his professional skill
would accomplish what others had failed to do that this disappointment
was bitter indeed.
He had wondered why the count had taken so little caution in permitting
a foreigner of the same supposed nationality as Lord Rosecarrel to live
in Castle Radna. It was, plainly, because the count knew perfectly well
that the Chubbwood safe preserved his treasures inviolate.
Probably no living crook could break into it even though he had a year
in which to work. It was undrillable, unscathed by fire and could repose
at the bottom of the sea without its contents becoming damaged.
Trent's first thought of compelling the count to give up the combination
by force promised an unhappy ending. Surrounded by servants and friends
he would assuredly be interrupted before he could be forced to give up
his secret.
Hentzi would never be entrusted with the combination. None would know it
but Count Michæl. For a moment he wondered if Pauline might be dragged
into it to exercise her Delilah arts on her protector.
"There must be some way out of it," Trent murmured a hundred times as he
sat on his bed's edge.
Dawn was breaking as he closed his eyes. His expression was calm and
untroubled. He had found his solution.