This young girl--this fresh, sweet, laughing, slender little thing a
spy? And yet I had vaguely supposed her to be some sort of political
agent masquerading in my service for purposes occult.
But the sinister agent who lurks at the heels of suspects--the shadow
that haunts marked men--the unseen, unheard presence that lingers by
doors ajar, by unlighted corridors, in the shade of trees!--I had not
thought of Thusis in such a way.
Something of this I think she read in my eyes fixed on her, for she
flushed slightly and made as though to withdraw her hands.
But, still looking at her, I lifted her hands tightly imprisoned between
my own, and touched them lightly with my lips.
"Oh," she said faintly, and I felt her sudden impulsive clasp.
"You _are_ fine, Michael," she whispered. "I ask nothing in the way of
help, only that you give me my chance in this affair."
"Take it," said I. "There are those imbecile kings! Raise the devil
with them if you like. And if you need help----"
"Michael!"
"--You know where to look for it," I ended. "But for goodness' sake be
careful, Thusis. Not that I care about myself. The chances are that
I'll enlist anyway. But they'd intern you here in Switzerland if they
catch you at anything militant. And that would worry me half to death."
"Would it?"
In her laughing voice there was the vaguest hint of a softness I had
never heard there.
"Yes, it would." I drew her a little toward me, but she turned grave,
immediately, and we stood so in silence while her gray eyes regarded me.
Then she gently disengaged herself.
"Be nice to me. Michael, even when I don't deserve it," she said; "even
when"--she laughed almost maliciously--"even when I seem to court
destruction."
"Nevertheless," said I, reddening, "I shall pay court to you."
"Please do."
"And make love to you, Thusis."
"That," she said, "is not even on the knees of the gods: it is
impossible."
*IX*
*REX, REGIS----*
As I descended the stairs to greet my unbidden guests, through my noddle
ran the flippant old time sing-song of earliest schooldays--"Rex, Regis,
Regi, Regem, Rex, Rege"--an ironic declension of the theoretical in
contrast to the actual which I could not very well decline.
Now, as I entered the long lounging room which Smith and I had used as
our living-room, I very easily recognized God's anointed, thanks to
Thusis. Otherwise it never would have occurred to me that what I now
beheld was a bunch of kings in camouflage.
Constantine, the ex-King of Greece, sat near a window drinking a pint of
impossible Greek wine and reading one of last month's New York
newspapers. The ex-Queen of Greece stood with hands linked behind her
well-made back, looking out at the mountains. At another little table
the Tzar of all the Bulgars loomed up majestically. He was eating
coffee-cakes and drinking coffee. I could hear him.
As I entered the room they all turned their heads to look at me. And I
thought I had never gazed upon anything more subtly disturbing than the
Hohenzollern visage of the ex-queen. Indeed she seemed to lack only the
celebrated imperial mustaches to duplicate the sullen physiognomy of her
brother, the Kaiser. That family countenance of a balky horse was
unmistakable; so were the coarse features of Constantine, with his face
of a typical non-commissioned officer. But of all faces I had ever
gazed on the fat, cunning visage of the Bulgarian Bourbon, Ferdinand,
was the most false. A long thin nose split its fatness; under a pointed
beard a little cruel and greasy mouth hid close, while two stealthy eyes
of a wild thing watched over this unpleasant and alarming combination.
Normally these people would not have noticed me; but now, in their roles
of tourists, they recollected themselves.
When I quietly introduced myself Constantine got up, and I went over and
welcomed him, bowed to his wife, and, when Ferdinand, also, concluded to
get up, I greeted him with the same impeccable formality.
"So you are the fortunate Chilean gentleman who has inherited this
valuable property," said the ex-queen, her hard Prussian eyes fixed
intently upon me.
"Yes, madam, I am that unfortunate Mr. O'Ryan," said I smilingly. "The
duties of an inn-keeper are not yet entirely familiar to me but I trust
that my servants can make you comfortable."
The queen remarked indifferently that if she were not comfortable enough
she'd let me know,--and turned her back, paying me no further attention.
Doubtless her scrutiny of me had satisfied her. Possibly the Chilean
flag flying from the flag-pole in front of the house also reassured her.
She gazed out at the Bec de l'Empereur, named from the august nose of
her brother. Constantine's flickering glance rested on the rigid back
of his spouse, shifted toward me uncertainly, but always reverted to
that straight, stiff back as though in awe and unwilling fascination.
I went over to the counter and picked up the guest ledger: "May I
trouble you to register in order that I may fulfill my obligations
toward the Swiss police?" I said pleasantly. For none of them had so
far offered me whatever noms-de-guerre had been decided upon.
At this the queen turned and said something to Constantine in a surly
voice, and he got up with alacrity and swaggered over to the desk.
"M. Constantine Xenos, wine merchant, Zurich, and Madame Xenos," he
wrote, his tongue in his cheek. His shifty eyes flickered toward King
Ferdinand who had again become rather noisy over his coffee and cakes.
Then, apparently remembering his instructions, he wrote:
"Monsieur Bugloss Itchenuff. Investments and business opportunities.
Zurich."
He handed me the pen with a flourish: "There you are, Mr. O'Ryan," he
said with a misleading heartiness in his barrack-room voice contradicted
always by restless and furtive eyes and remarkable royal fingers which
were never still--twitching, wandering, searching, unquiet
fingers,--irresolute, uncertain, timid, prying fingers not to be
depended upon in emergencies, never to be trusted, even in their own
pockets.
"Do you expect to remain over night, Monsieur Xenos?" I inquired,
glancing at the wet signatures on the ledger, and blotting them.
"Oh, yes," he said. "This inn looks like a damn fine place to spend a
few weeks in--doesn't it, Sophy?" appealing to his wife in the loud,
familiar, bluff tone characteristic of him, and which seemed to me
neither genuine nor carelessly frank, but an assumed manner covering
something less confident and good humored.
The Princess of Prussia, so abruptly addressed, turned slowly from her
contemplation of the Bec de l'Empereur:
"We shall remain as long as it suits us," she said coolly. "And if our
suites are ready----"
"Rooms," corrected the King in jocular protest.
"_Suites_," repeated his wife sharply.
Ferdinand, gobbling his slopping coffee, wiped his wet beard:
"If there are any suites in your chalet," he said to me, "I'll take
one--that is, if it isn't too expensive. I can't afford anything very
expensive, and I'll trouble you to remember that."
He got up, continuing to wipe his greasy mouth with the back of a fat,
soft hand, and came toward us,--a massive man, and bulkily impressive
except that his legs were too short for his heavy body, which
discrepancy gave to his gait a curious duck-like waddle.
"I like plenty of privacy," he explained, "that's what I like. I want
to see my rooms and I want to know in advance exactly how much they are
going to cost me and what extras are not included in the----"
"Oh, for God's sake don't begin that hard luck history of yours,"
interjected Constantine in his best barrack-room manner. "Mr. O'Ryan is
a gentleman and he's not going to rob you, Buggy!"
It was instantly evident to me that the Tzar of all the Bulgars did not
like to be called Buggy,--the familiar, affectionate and diminutive, no
doubt, for his first nom-de-guerre, which was Bugloss, and was, in the
Bulgarian language, pronounced Bew-gloss, _not_ Bugg-loss.
The Queen, paying no attention to her loud-mouthed husband or to King
Ferdinand, crossed the room with a firm, quick step, and examined the
ledger and the indifferent penmanship of her royal husband. Then, to
me:
"Be good enough to show me to my suite," she said. "My husband will
occupy separate but connecting apartments."