WHO IS THIS MAN?
“Your taste, my dear Osbert, is unimpeachable,” Galabin remarked as
they left the farm; “the Fräulein is delightful. And yet----”
“And yet, Mr. Secret-Agent? A new mystery?”
“Perhaps. For I do not quite make out your friends. Herr Harlberg comes
for sport, here to a wild farmhouse, yet he does not shoot, nor does
he seem very keen about it. For I made a point of talking sport and he
yawned; he was as bored as a man can well be. Then their connexion with
our amiable friend from Rozsnyo.”
“What do you make out of that?” Von Tressen asked eagerly.
“Nothing,” was the blunt answer; “nothing as yet, that is. But I
shall hope to unriddle that little enigma before long. For I fancy
there is some peculiar bond between them. They are rather more than
acquaintances or even friends, or my faculty of observation is less
than I take it to be.”
“What reason have you for that idea?”
“Merely certain signs that came under my observation, slight enough in
themselves, but together quite significant. I am accustomed to putting
two and two together, and I don’t want to boast, but if I had been a
dense numskull, who could not take in what was going on before his
eyes, why, our Chancellor would hardly have chosen me for the business.
I can tell you one thing, my friend. The Count looked black when he
heard you had strolled off with the young lady. Yes; there was murder
in his eye, for all the grin on his lips.”
“And he immediately came after us?”
“Like a panther. I called him back, just for the fun of the thing, and
as he turned impatiently I saw the face without the grin. It was not
pretty.”
The subject was broken off by an exclamation from Von Tressen.
“Look! Is not that yonder our friend of last night?”
From the glade along which they were sauntering a track led up to
a small eminence, beyond which was a space of lawn and underwood
extending to the house they had just left. On the summit, at the edge
of the wood, leaning against a tree, stood a man; the same, they felt
sure, whom they had seen at Rozsnyo in the darkness. He held a gun by
his side, the butt resting on the ground, and by his attitude he seemed
to be watching the farm. His face was set in that direction as he
stood motionless, except that once or twice he moved his head as though
following some object with his eyes, or to get a better view.
For a while the two friends stood observing him, then by a common
impulse they stepped back out of the line of the path, so that if the
man turned he should not see that he was being watched.
“What is he doing there?”
“Watching the farm.”
“Why should he watch it?”
The question was not to be so easily answered. For a few moments
neither man spoke. Then Galabin said--
“We must inquire into this, and find out who the fellow is. It is
absurd to continue in our present ignorance without making an effort to
dispel it.”
Von Tressen nodded his agreement. “Let us accost him now, eh?”
“Yes; but not from behind. Don’t let him suspect we have been watching
him. We had better stalk him round and come upon him along the ridge of
the hill.”
“We may frighten him away.”
“I hardly think so. In that case we must follow him up or wait for
another opportunity.”
Galabin’s anticipation was correct. When they had reached the high
ground by a detour, they could see through the trees the man still
standing there in his watchful attitude.
“Now,” Von Tressen murmured, “let us get almost up to him without
attracting his attention, and then show ourselves. It will be too late
for him to run away then.”
The plan was carried out with perfect success. The man was evidently
too absorbed in his watching to be aware of their approach; giving
no sign of alertness or of moving from his station. Only when they
suddenly emerged into the open did he withdraw his gaze from the farm
lying below in the valley, and turn it quickly, with a kind of fierce
suspicion, on the figures which had come within its focus. He made a
quick movement and instinctively lifted his gun from the ground, only
to replace it and resume his attitude, as watching till the two should
have passed on.
But that was scarcely their intention.
“Good-day, mein Herr,” Galabin said as they both saluted the man. “You
are a sportsman like ourselves. May we hope that you have been more
successful than we?”
They rather expected a churlish reply; but, as Galabin spoke, the
somewhat fierce, stern expression on the man’s face relaxed, and he
answered almost laughingly--
“We are companions in ill-luck. I, too, have nothing to show. Perhaps
in my case it has been bad markmanship, want of skill rather than of
luck. What I have hit has not been worth the picking up. But then the
forest is so beautiful that it repays one for bad sport.”
He made a sweep with his hand towards the valley stretching away below
them.
“You are staying in the forest, mein Herr?” Galabin enquired with
careless politeness. “At the Schloss Rozsnyo, perhaps?”
The man darted a keen glance at him. “At Rozsnyo? No. My quarters are
at a little inn. A wretched place frequented only by woodcutters and
charcoal burners. But what would you have?” he added with a shrug.
“Sport does not always go with comfort.”
“Its absence makes the zest for sport all the keener,” Von Tressen
remarked.
“If that is your opinion,” the stranger returned, “I shall not perhaps
be wrong in hazarding a guess that the tent I have seen hereabouts
forms your shooting quarters.”
“You are quite right,” Galabin replied. “We follow our pleasure gipsy
fashion. If you would stroll back with us and join our mid-day meal we
should be honoured. Our little encampment is but a stone’s throw from
here, and your inn must be some distance.”
The man bowed with an excess of courtesy. “The honour is mine,”
he responded. “I shall be charmed, if I am not putting you to
inconvenience. My inn is far from here, and, apart from that, to a
lonely man the chance of a chat in congenial company is not to be
despised.”
He shouldered his gun and they turned down the hill again. Walking
with a quick, impatient stride, their new acquaintance seemed now a
restless, energetic man, and this made his late motionless, patient
attitude the more unaccountable.
“The Schloss Rozsnyo,” he said presently, in his abrupt quick way, “it
is a fine place, but in a curious situation here in this wild forest.
You know it?”
“We have been there,” Galabin answered.
“Inside?”
“We spent a couple of hours there yesterday.”
“Ah, then you know Count Zarka?”
The man turned with a fierce eagerness to him as he put the question.
“We know him slightly from a casual meeting in the forest.”
“So!” He said no more, for they were within a few yards of the tent.
But after luncheon, when they were sitting with their cigars and
coffee in the open, their guest, who had told them his name was Abele
d’Alquen, brought up the subject again, as, indeed, both men felt sure
he would.
“This Rozsnyo,” he began, waving his hand in the direction of the
Schloss, “it is a very wonderful place?”
They gave him a simple description of its principal objects of
interest. He listened with a sort of sharp curiosity, and seemed
particularly struck by their account of the underground armoury.
“An extraordinary place,” he exclaimed. “Quite a curiosity; you are
fortunate to have seen it. I suppose there are other rooms dug out in
the rock, eh?”
“There may be,” Von Tressen replied. “We did not see any.”
“Unheard-of labour to construct them, eh?” D’Alquen continued, in the
fierce abrupt way which seemed more natural to him than the tone of
somewhat exaggerated courtesy he had used when they had originally
accosted him. “You think, though, there might be other apartments down
there?”
“Possibly,” Galabin replied. “Why? Are you particularly interested in
underground dwellings?” he added with a laugh.
“Oh, no--yes, I am fond of engineering,” the other answered. “Did you
see doors or passages in the rock?”
His two hosts glanced at each other, repressing a smile. Galabin
replied: “I noticed nothing of the sort; did you, Von Tressen?”
“Nothing,” the Lieutenant corroborated.
For a few moments their guest was silent. Then he suddenly asked: “You
went all over the Schloss?”
“Hardly all over; but we saw everything which, according to the Count,
was worth seeing. I do not think we told you of the beautiful private
chapel in the----”
A loud laugh from D’Alquen made him stop short. It was a curious laugh
of derision on a single sustained note, and it rang through the forest,
so as to be almost startling in the silence around.
“A chapel!” he exclaimed in reply to their stare of astonishment. Their
guest was every moment becoming more of a puzzle. “A chapel! That is a
comical idea. The Count is pious, then?”
“We can hardly answer for that.”
D’Alquen laughed again, this time not so loudly, but with a jarring,
sarcastic note.
“No; we can answer for no man outside our own skin, not even for the
honourable Count Zarka. And if my estimate of that nobleman is not
wrong, the man would be rash indeed who would answer for his piety.”
“You know him, then?” Galabin asked, still more mystified.
D’Alquen threw out his arms with a gesture of protest. “Not I. Only by
sight, that is, unless I have set down the wrong man for the Count. A
dark man, handsome, yes, if it were not for a sinister expression and
the grin of a wolf. He rides a roan horse often in the forest.”
“That is the Count,” Von Tressen assented.
“I saw him,” the other continued, “this morning, shortly before I had
the pleasure of meeting you gentlemen. He rode over to that old house
in the valley.”
“Yes; we saw him there.”
“Ah!” The intense, fierce curiosity seemed to surge back into their
guest’s face. “You were there, at that curious house? You have friends
there?”
Galabin hesitated a moment, then, judging it safest to be
straight-forward, he answered: “We happen to know the people who are
staying there.”
“Ah, yes?” The man’s curiosity was insatiable; it seemed to increase
with every fresh point it seized upon. “An old gentleman and a young
lady. May one without offence ask who they are?”
He had suddenly checked the vehemence of his manner, and the last
question was put almost carelessly.
“I do not suppose there is any harm in my mentioning their name,”
Galabin replied. “It is Harlberg.”
“Harlberg? So! Harlberg. Herr and Fräulein Harlberg? The lady is his
daughter?”
“Yes.” D’Alquen had repeated the name curiously. There was hardly
offence in his intonation, but it brought a frown to Von Tressen’s face.
“They live here? No?”
“Herr Harlberg stays in the forest for sport.”
“For sport? Indeed?” The exclamation was almost offensive in its
suggested incredulity. “He is a great friend of the Count Zarka--or the
lady is, eh?”
“I really cannot tell you, mein Herr,” Von Tressen answered sharply,
with rising irritation as the other’s inquisitiveness now touched him
more nearly. “I made the acquaintance of Herr Harlberg and his daughter
only a few days ago, and my curiosity is hardly as keen as yours.”
For an instant D’Alquen seemed as though he would be provoked to a hot
retort; his eyes had an angry gleam, but he checked the impulse, and
his expression changed to a smile as he made a deprecating wave of his
hand.
“Pardon, Lieutenant. I did not intend that my curiosity should exceed
the bounds of good taste. I cannot afford”--he gave a laugh--“to risk
giving you offence. Only here in this wild part everything seems so
strange that one feels bound to ask questions of the rare human beings
one meets. Let me not abuse your hospitality by asking another.”
Von Tressen could but make a good-humoured reply, even though he felt
the guest’s explanation was hardly convincing, and after a little
desultory chat D’Alquen rose and took his leave, saying he had a long
walk to his inn, but would hope to meet and shoot with them on the
morrow or the day after.
“I cannot make him out,” Galabin said when they were alone, in answer
to Von Tressen’s question. “He is another enigma added to our stock
awaiting solution. But of one thing I am quite certain.”
“What is that?”
“It is that our new acquaintance had as little thought of sport when he
came to the forest as had Herr Harlberg or even I myself.”