Bellamy stole along the half-lit corridors of the train until he came
to the coupé which had been reserved for Mademoiselle Idiale. Assured
that he was not watched, he softly turned the handle of the door and
entered. Louise was sitting up in her dressing-gown, drinking her
coffee. He held up his finger and she greeted him only with a nod.
“Forgive me, Louise,” he whispered, “I dared not knock, and I was
obliged to see you at once.”
She smiled.
“It is of no consequence,” she said. “One is always prepared here. The
porter, the ticket-man, and at the customs—they all enter. Is anything
wrong?”
“It has happened,” he answered.
She shivered a little and her face became grave.
“Poor fellow!” she murmured.
“He simply sat still and asked for it,” Bellamy declared, still
speaking in a cautious undertone. “He would not be warned. I could have
saved him, if any one could, but he would not hear reason.”
“He was what you call pig-headed,” she remarked.
“He has paid the penalty,” Bellamy continued. “Now listen to me,
Louise. I got into that small coupe next to Von Behrling’s, and I feel
sure, from what I overheard, that they will go on to London, all three
of them.”
“Who is there on the train?” she demanded.
“Baron Streuss, who is head of the Secret Police, Von Behrling and
Adolf Kahn,” Bellamy answered. “Then there are four or five Secret
Service men of the rank and file, but they are all traveling
separately. Von Behrling has the packet. The others form a sort of
cordon around him.”
“But why,” she asked, “does he go on to London? Why not return to
Vienna?”
“For one thing,” Bellamy replied, with a grim smile, “they are afraid
of me. Then you must remember that this affair of Dorward will be
talked about. They do not want to seem in any way implicated. To return
from any one of these stations down the line would create suspicion.”
She nodded.
“Well?”
“I am going to leave the train at the next stop,” he continued. “I find
that I shall just catch the Northern Express to Berlin. From there I
shall come on to London as quickly as I can. You know the address of my
rooms?”
She nodded.
“15, Fitzroy Street.”
“When I get there, let me have a line waiting to tell me where I can
see you. While I am on the train you will find Von Behrling almost
inaccessible. Directly I have gone it will be different. Play with him
carefully. He should not be difficult. To tell you the truth, I am
rather surprised that he has been trusted upon a mission like this. He
was in disgrace with the Chancellor a short while ago, and I know that
he was hurt at not being allowed to attend the conference. The others
will watch him closely, but they cannot overhear everything that passes
between you two. Von Behrling is a poor man. You will know how to make
him wish he were rich.”
Very slowly her eyebrows rose up. She looked at him doubtfully.
“It is a slender chance, David,” she remarked. “Von Behrling is a
little wild, I know, and he pretends to be very much in love with me,
but I do not think that he would sell his country. Then, too, see how
he will be watched. I do not suppose that they will leave us alone for
a moment.”
Bellamy took her hands in his, gripping them with almost unnatural
force.
“Louise,” he declared earnestly, “you don’t quite realize Von
Behrling’s special weakness and your extraordinary strength. You know
that you are beautiful, I suppose, but you do not quite know what that
means. I have heard men talk about you till one would think that they
were children. You have something of that art or guile—call it what you
will—which passes from you through a man’s blood to his brain, and
carries him indeed to Heaven—but carries him there mad. Louise, don’t
be angry with me for what I say. Remember that I know my sex. I know
you, too, and I trust you, but you can turn Von Behrling from a sane,
honorable man into what you will, without suffering even his lips to
touch your fingers. Von Behrling has that packet in his possession.
When I come to see you in London, I will bring you twenty thousand
pounds in Bank of England notes. With that Von Behrling might fancy
himself on his way to America—with you.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. Perhaps she wished to keep hidden
from him the thoughts which chased one another through her brain. He
wished to make use of her—of her, the woman whom he loved. Then she
remembered that it was for her country and his, and the anger passed.
“But I am afraid,” she said softly, “that the moment they reach London
this document will be taken to the Austrian Embassy.”
“Before then,” Bellamy declared, “Von Behrling must not know whether he
is in heaven or upon earth. It will not be opened in London. He can
make up another packet to resemble precisely the one of which he robbed
Dorward. Oh! it is a difficult game, I know, but it is worth playing.
Remember, Louise, that we are not petty conspirators. It is your
country’s very existence that is threatened. It is for her sake as well
as for England.”
“I shall do my best,” she murmured, looking into his face. “Oh, you may
be sure that I shall do my best!”
Bellamy raised her fingers to his lips and stole away. The electric
lamps had been turned out, but the morning was cloudy and the light
dim. Back in his own berth, he put his things together, ready to leave
at Munich. Then he rang for the porter.
“I am getting out at the next stop,” he announced.
“Very good, Monsieur,” the man answered.
Bellamy looked at him closely.
“You are a Frenchman?”
“It is so, Monsieur!”
“I may be wrong,” Bellamy continued slowly, “but I believe that if I
asked you a question and it concerned some Germans and Austrians you
would tell me the truth.”
The man’s gesture was inimitable. Englishmen to him were obviously the
salt of the earth. Germans and Austrians—why, they existed as the
cattle in the fields—nothing more. Bellamy gave him a sovereign.
“There were three Austrians who got in at Vienna,” he said. “They are
in numbers ten and eleven.”
“But yes, Monsieur!” the man assented. “As yet I think they are fast
asleep. Not one of them has rung for his coffee.”
“Where are they booked for?”
“For London, Monsieur.”
“You do not happen,” Bellamy continued, “to have heard them say
anything about leaving the train before then?”
“On the contrary, sir,” the porter answered, “two of the gentlemen have
been inquiring about the boat across to Dover. They were very anxious
to travel by a turbine.”
Bellamy nodded.
“Thank you very much. You will be so discreet as to forget that I have
asked you any questions concerning them. As for me, if one would know,
I am on my way to Berlin.”
The bell rang. The man looked outside and put his head once more in
Bellamy’s coupe.
“It is one of the gentleman who has rung,” he declared. “If anything is
said about leaving the train, I shall report it at once to Monsieur.”
“You will do well,” Bellamy answered.
The porter returned in a few moments.
“Two of the gentlemen, sir,” he announced, “are undressed and in their
pyjamas. They have ordered their breakfast to be served after we leave
Munich.”
Bellamy nodded.
“Further, sir,” the man continued, coming a little closer, “one of them
asked me whether the English gentleman—meaning you—was going through to
London or not. I told them that you were getting out at the next
station and that I thought you were going to Berlin.”
“Quite right,” Bellamy said. “If they ask any more questions, let me
know.”
Mademoiselle Idiale, with the aid of one of the two maids who were
traveling with her, was able to make a sufficiently effective toilette.
At a few minutes before the time for luncheon, she walked down the
corridor and recognized Von Behrling, who was sitting with his
companions in one of the compartments.
“Ah, it is indeed you, then!” she exclaimed, smiling at him.
He rose to his feet and came out. Tall, with a fair moustache and blue
eyes, he was often taken for an Englishman and was inclined to be proud
of the fact.
“You have rested well, I trust, Mademoiselle?” he asked, bowing low
over her fingers.
“Excellently,” replied Louise. “Will you not take me in to luncheon?
The car is full of men and I am not comfortable alone. It is not
pleasant, either, to eat with one’s maids.”
“I am honored,” he declared. “Will you permit me for one moment?”
He turned and spoke to his companions. Louise saw at once that they
were protesting vigorously. She saw, too, that Von Behrling only became
more obstinate and that he was very nearly angry. She moved a few steps
on down the corridor, and stood looking out of the window. He joined
her almost immediately.
“Come,” he said, “they will be serving luncheon in five minutes. We
will go and take a good place.”
“Your friends, I am afraid,” she remarked, “did not like your leaving
them. They are not very gallant.”
“To me it is indifferent,” he answered, fiercely twirling his
moustache. “Streuss there is an old fool. He has always some fancy in
his brain.”
Louise raised her eyebrows slightly.
“You are your own master, I suppose,” she said. “The Baron is used to
command his policemen, and sometimes he forgets. There are many people
who find him too autocratic.”
“He means well,” Von Behrling asserted. “It is his manner only which is
against him.”
They found a comfortable table, and she sat smiling at him across the
white cloth.
“If this is not Sachers,” she said, “it is at least more pleasant than
lunching alone.”
“I can assure you, Mademoiselle,” he declared, with a vigorous twirl of
his moustache, “that I find it so.”
“Always gallant,” she murmured. “Tell me, is it true of you—the news
which I heard just before I left Vienna? Have you really resigned your
post with the Chancellor?”
“You heard that?” he asked slowly.
She hesitated for a moment.
“I heard something of the sort,” she admitted. “To be quite candid with
you, I think it was reported that the Chancellor was making a change on
his own account.”
“So that is what they say, is it? What do they know about it—these
gossipers?”
“You were not allowed at the conference yesterday,” she remarked.
“No one was allowed there, so that goes for nothing.”
“Ah! well,” she said, looking meditatively out upon the landscape, “a
year ago the thought of that conference would have driven me wild. I
should not have been content until I had learned somehow or other what
had transpired. Lately, I am afraid, my interest in my country seems to
have grown a trifle cold. Perhaps because I have lived in Vienna I have
learned to look at things from your point of view. Then, too, the world
is a selfish place, and our own little careers are, after all, the most
important part of it.”
Von Behrling eyed her curiously.
“It seems strange to hear you talk like this,” he remarked.
She looked out of the window for a moment.
“Oh! I still love my country, in a way,” she answered, “and I still
hate all Austrians, in a way, but it is not as it used to be with me, I
must admit. If we had two lives, I would give one to my country and
keep one for myself. Since we have only one, I am afraid, after all,
that I am human, and I want to taste some of its pleasures.”
“Some of its pleasures,” Von Behrling repeated, a little gloomily. “Ah,
that is easy enough for you, Mademoiselle!”
“Not so easy as it may appear,” she answered. “One needs many things to
get the best out of life. One needs wealth and one needs love, and one
needs them while one is young, while one can enjoy.”
“It is true,” Von Behrling admitted,—“quite true.”
“If one is not careful,” she continued, “one lets the years slip by.
They can never come again. If one does not live while one is young,
there is no other chance.”
Von Behrling assented with renewed gloom. He was twenty-five years old,
and his income barely paid for his uniforms. Of late, this fact had
materially interfered with his enjoyments.
“It is strange,” he said, “that you should talk like this. You have the
world at your feet, Mademoiselle. You have only to throw the
handkerchief.”
Her lips parted in a dazzling smile. The bluest eyes in the world grew
softer as they looked into his. Von Behrling felt his cheeks burn.
“My friend, it is not so easy,” she murmured. “Tell me,” she continued,
“why it is that you have so little self-confidence. Is it because you
are poor?”
“I am a beggar,”—bitterly.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Well,” she said, glancing down the menu which the waiter had brought,
“if you are poor and content to remain so, one must presume that you
have compensations.”
“But I have none!” he declared. “You should know that—you,
Mademoiselle. Life for me means one thing and one thing only!”
She looked at him, for a moment, and down upon the tablecloth. Von
Behrling shook like a man in the throes of some great passion.
“We talk too intimately,” she whispered, as the people began to file in
to take their places. “After luncheon we will take our coffee in my
coupe. Then, if you like, we will speak of these matters. I have a
headache. Will you order me some champagne? It is a terrible thing, I
know, to drink wine in the morning, but when one travels, what can one
do? Here come your bodyguard. They look at me as though I had stolen
you away. Remember we take our coffee together afterwards. I am bored
with so much traveling, and I look to you to amuse me.”
Von Behrling’s journey was, after all, marked with sharp contrasts. The
kindness of the woman whom he adored was sufficient in itself to have
transported him into a seventh heaven. On the other hand, he had
trouble with his friends. Streuss drew him on one side at Ostend, and
talked to him plainly.
“Von Behrling,” he said, “I speak to you on behalf of Kahn and myself.
Wine and women and pleasure are good things. We two, we love them,
perhaps, as you do, but there is a place and a time for them, and it is
not now. Our mission is too serious.”
“Well, well!” Von Behrling exclaimed impatiently, “what is all this?
What do I do wrong? What have you to say against me? If I talk with
Mademoiselle Idiale, it is because it is the natural thing for me to
do. Would you have us three—you and Kahn and myself—travel arm in arm
and speak never a word to our fellow passengers? Would you have us
proclaim to all the world that we are on a secret mission, carrying a
secret document, to obtain which we have already committed a crime?
These are old-fashioned methods, Streuss. It is better that we behave
like ordinary mortals. You talk foolishly, Streuss!”
“It is you,” the older man declared, “who play the fool, and we will
not have it! Mademoiselle Idiale is a Servian and a patriot. She is the
friend, too, of Bellamy, the Englishman. She and he were together last
night.”
“Bellamy is not even on the train,” Von Behrling protested. “He went
north to Berlin. That itself is the proof that they know nothing. If he
had had the merest suspicion, do you not think that he would have
stayed with us?”
“Bellamy is very clever,” Streuss answered. “There are too many of us
to deal with,—he knew that. Mademoiselle Idiale is clever, too.
Remember that half the trouble in life has come about through false
women.
“What is it that you want?” Von Behrling demanded.
“That you travel the rest of the way with us, and speak no more with
Mademoiselle.”
Von Behrling drew himself up. After all, it was he who was noble;
Streuss was little more than a policeman.
“I refuse!” he exclaimed. “Let me remind you, Streuss, that I am in
charge of this expedition. It was I who planned it. It was I”—he
dropped his voice and touched his chest—“who struck the first blow for
its success. I think that we need talk no more,” he went on. “I welcome
your companionship. It makes for strength that we travel together. But
for the rest, the enterprise has been mine, the success so far has been
mine, and the termination of it shall be mine. Watch me, if you like.
Stay with me and see that I am not robbed, if you fear that I am not
able to take care of myself, but do not ask me to behave like an
idiot.”
Von Behrling stepped away quickly. The siren was already blowing from
the steamer.