I shall be unable to dine with you tonight as I promised, but
will meet you later in the Café Américain if you can arrange
it--say between eleven and midnight. JACK.
--it was with scarcely a tremour of surprise. Indeed there was
something in the tone of the scrawl--something, perhaps, in the
penmanship, that gave him a sense of reassurance. The dying Herr
Schlippenbach had affected him oddly. Nearness to him had produced
a sort of emotional nausea, and for some reason which he could not
explain he had experienced a violent antipathy to Captain Lindenwald.
He realized that, surrounding the little company of which he had so
strangely found himself one, there was a mystery which baffled his
understanding. Then the last words of the old German recurred to him,
and again he pondered as to whether they bore any significance or were
merely the murmurings of dementia. As the clock on the mantel-shelf
chimed seven, a knock sounded on the door, and in answer to his
“Entrez!” Johann entered.
“Will Herr Arndt dress for dinner?” he asked. “Herr Captain Lindenwald
is not dressing, and thought perhaps Herr Arndt would dine with him in
the _salle à manger_. Fräulein von Altdorf is indisposed, and is having
some tea and toast in her room.
“No, Johann,” Grey replied, after a moment’s consideration, “I won’t
dress. Give my compliments to the Herr Captain, and say that I’m
feeling a bit seedy and will dine here alone, if he will be so good as
to excuse me.”
Johann bowed and was about to go, but stopped with his hand on the
doorknob.
“Will Herr Arndt order his dinner now?” he queried; and Grey named the
dishes.
His appetite, he all at once discovered, was excellent, and when the
table had been spread and the courses followed one another in leisurely
succession and with admirable service, he found himself eating with
the relish that betokens good digestion. It seemed, too, when he had
finished and lighted a cigarette that he could think more calmly and
coherently. The windows of his room opened upon a narrow balcony, and
placing a chair he stepped out and sat there meditative above the
changeful tide of the boulevard which flowed unceasingly below.
He was no longer exercised over the possible effect of his cables, for
he reflected that Carey Grey, so far as all Paris save one man knew,
was still dead. A message or a messenger to the Hôtel Grammont would
find no such person. His changed appearance, his changed name, and his
changed associates were a disguise that must prove quite impenetrable.
He would therefore have ample time, unhampered by either enemies or
friends, to delve into the perplexing riddle that confronted him.
It would be policy, he argued, to delay his return to America until
he could trace his movements abroad. The difficulties that he must
encounter he did not pretend to belittle. When he strove to lay out a
plan of action he was balked at the very outset. To ask questions was
to betray himself, and yet it must be a very long and tedious, not to
say perilous, procedure to attempt to drift blindly with the current
without either chart or compass to warn him of rocks and shoals.
The twilight deepened into night, and as the stars sparkled into the
darkening canopy above the electric lights flashed into a brighter
brilliancy along the boulevard below. Grey’s cigarette had been tossed
away, and he sat listlessly watching the vari-coloured lamps of the
cabs as they passed to and fro--now a green, now a red, now a yellow.
He had moved his chair to the space of balcony between the windows to
escape an annoying draft, and from where he sat he could neither see
into his room nor be seen from it. The scratching of a match inside,
however, was plainly audible. Someone evidently was lighting his
candles. And then the sound of voices came to him, and he pricked his
ears.
“It is indeed a catastrophe,” he heard. The speaker was Johann. The
accent was unmistakable.
“You have no idea. It is worse, a thousand times worse than you
know----”
Grey, with difficulty, choked back an exclamation.
“Lutz!” he muttered to himself, in astonishment. “By all that’s good!
Lutz! Here in Paris, and with me.”
“Yes,” the valet continued, “Herr Schlippenbach was necessary to Herr
Arndt. Without Herr Schlippenbach, Herr Arndt is another man. He is
mad, Johann, and filled with wild notions. He does not know his own
people. He fancies he is someone else. Herr Schlippenbach was his
balance wheel.”
“So!” murmured Johann. “So!”
“I have a great fear we shall never get him to Kürschdorf at all.”
“But the Herr Captain?”
“Oh, yes, the Herr Captain will do his best, I am sure,” Lutz assented;
“but it will be a mad Prince, and not a sane one, he will have on his
hands.”
The comment that Johann made was not distinguishable. They were going
towards the door, which Grey next heard open and then close sharply,
forced by the draft from the window.