THE CERCLE EXTRANATIONALE
The suite of rooms into which they were ushered appeared to be
furnished in irreproachable taste. Except for the _salon_ at the
further end of the suite, where play was in progress, the charming
apartment might have been a private one; and the homelike simplicity
of the room, where books, flowers, and even a big, grey cat confirmed
the first agreeable impression, accented the lurking smile on
Sengoun's lips.
Doc Curfoot, in evening dress, came forward to receive them, in
company with another man, young, nice-looking, very straight, and with
the high, square shoulders of a Prussian.
"_Bong soire, mussoors_," said Curfoot genially. "_J'ai l'honnoor de
vous faire connaitre mong ami, Mussoor Weishelm._"
They exchanged very serious bows with "Mussoor" Weishelm, and Curfoot
retired.
In excellent French Weishelm inquired whether they desired supper; and
learning that they did not, bowed smilingly and bade them welcome:
"You are at home, gentlemen; the house is yours. If it pleases you to
sup, we offer you our hospitality; if you care to play, the _salon_ is
at your disposal, or, if you prefer, a private room. Yonder is the
buffet; there are electric bells at your elbow. You are at home," he
repeated, clicked his heels together, bowed, and took his leave.
Sengoun dropped into a comfortable chair and sent a waiter for caviar,
toast, and German champagne.
Neeland lighted a cigarette, seated himself, and looked about him
curiously.
Over in a corner on a sofa a rather pretty woman, a cigarette between
her jewelled fingers, was reading an evening newspaper. Two others in
the adjoining room, young and attractive, their feet on the fireplace
fender, conversed together over a sandwich, a glass of the widely
advertised Dubonnet, and another of the equally advertised Bon Lait
Maggi--as serenely and as comfortably as though they were by their own
firesides.
"Perhaps they are," remarked Sengoun, plastering an oblong of hot
toast with caviar. "Birds of this kind nest easily anywhere."
Neeland continued to gaze toward the _salon_ where play was in
progress. There did not seem to be many people there. At a small table
he recognised Brandes and Stull playing what appeared to be bridge
whist with two men whom he had never before seen. There were no women
playing.
As he watched the round, expressionless face of Brandes, who was
puffing a long cigar screwed tightly into the corner of his
thin-lipped mouth, it occurred to him somewhat tardily what Rue Carew
had said concerning personal danger to himself if any of these people
believed him capable of reconstructing from memory any of the stolen
plans.
He had not thought about that specific contingency; instinct alone had
troubled him a little when he first entered the Café des Bulgars.
However, his unquiet eyes could discover nothing of either Kestner or
Breslau; and, somehow, he did not even think of encountering Ilse
Dumont in such a place. As for Brandes and Stull, they did not
recognise him at all.
So, entirely reassured once more by the absence of Ali-Baba and Golden
Beard, and of Scheherazade whom he had no fear of meeting, Neeland ate
his caviar with a relish and examined his surroundings.
Of course it was perfectly possible that the stolen papers had been
brought here. There were three other floors in the building, too, and
he wondered what they were used for.
Sengoun's appetite for conflict waned as he ate and drank; and a
violent desire to gamble replaced it.
"You poke about a bit," he said to Neeland. "Talk to that girl over
there and see what you can learn. As for me, I mean to start a little
flirtation with Mademoiselle Fortuna. Does that suit you?"
If Sengoun wished to play it was none of Neeland's business.
"Do you think it an honest game?" he asked, doubtfully.
"With negligible stakes all first-class gamblers are honest."
"If I were you, Sengoun, I wouldn't drink anything more."
"Excellent advice, old fellow!" emptying his goblet with satisfaction.
And, rising to his firm and graceful height, he strolled away toward
the _salon_ where play progressed amid the most decorous and edifying
of atmospheres.
Neeland watched him disappear, then he glanced curiously at the girl
on the sofa who was still preoccupied with her newspaper.
So he rose, sauntered about the room examining the few pictures and
bronzes, modern but excellent. The carpet under foot was thick and
soft, but, as he strolled past the girl who seemed to be so intently
reading, she looked up over her paper and returned his civil
recognition of her presence with a slight smile.
As he appeared inclined to linger, she said with pleasant
self-possession:
"These newspaper rumours, monsieur, are becoming too persistent to
amuse us much longer. War talk is becoming _vieux jeu_."
"Why read them?" inquired Neeland with a smile.
"Why?" She made a slight gesture. "One reads what is printed, I
suppose."
"Written and printed by people who know no more about the matter in
question than you and I, mademoiselle," he remarked, still smiling.
"That is perfectly true. Why is it worth while for anyone to search
for truth in these days when everyone is paid to conceal it?"
"Oh," he said, "not everyone."
"No; some lie naturally and without pay," she admitted indifferently.
"But there are still others. For example, mademoiselle, yourself."
"I?" She laughed, not troubling to refute the suggestion of her
possible truthfulness.
He said:
"This--club--is furnished in excellent taste."
"Yes; it is quite new."
"Has it a name?"
"I believe it is called the Cercle Extranationale. Would monsieur also
like to know the name of the club cat?"
They both laughed easily, but he could make nothing of her.
"Thank you," he said; "and I fear I have interrupted your
reading----"
"I have read enough lies; I am quite ready to tell you a few. Shall
I?"
"You are most amiable. I have been wondering what the other floors in
this building are used for."
"Private apartments," she replied smiling, looking him straight in the
eyes. "Now you don't know whether I've told you the truth or not; do
you?"
"Of course I know."
"Which, then?"
"The truth."
She laughed and indicated a chair; and he seated himself.
"Who is the dark, nice-looking gentleman accompanying you?" she
enquired.
"How could you see him at all through your newspaper?"
"I poked a hole, of course."
"To look at him or at me?"
"Your mirror ought to reassure you. However, as an afterthought, who
is he?"
"Prince Erlik, of Mongolia," replied Neeland solemnly.
"I supposed so. We of the infernal aristocracy belong together. I am
the Contessa Diabletta d'Enfer."
He inclined gravely:
"I'm afraid I don't belong here," he said. "I'm only a Yankee."
"Hell is full of them," she said, smiling. "All Yankees belong where
Prince Erlik and I are at home.... Do you play?"
"No. Do you?"
"It depends on chance."
"It would give me much pleasure----"
"Thank you, not tonight." And in the same, level, pleasant voice:
"Don't look immediately, but from where you sit you can see in the
mirror opposite two women seated in the next room."
After a moment he nodded.
"Are they watching us?"
"Yes."
"Mr. Neeland?"
He reddened with surprise.
"Get Captain Sengoun and leave," she said, still smiling. "Do it
carelessly, convincingly. Neither of you needs courage; both of you
lack common sense. Get up, take leave of me nicely but regretfully, as
though I had denied you a rendezvous. You will be killed if you remain
here."
For a moment Neeland hesitated, but curiosity won:
"Who is likely to try anything of that sort?" he asked. And a tingling
sensation, not wholly unpleasant, passed over him.
"Almost anyone here, if you are recognised," she said, as gaily as
though she were imparting delightful information.
"But _you_ recognise us. And I'm certainly not dead yet."
"Which ought to tell you more about me than I am likely to tell
anybody. Now, when I smile at you and shake my head, make your adieux
to me, find Captain Sengoun, and take your departure. Do you
understand?"
"Are you really serious?"
"It is you who should be serious. Now, I give you your signal,
Monsieur Neeland----"
But the smile stiffened on her pretty face, and at the same moment he
was aware that somebody had entered the room and was standing directly
behind him.
He turned on his chair and looked up into the face of Ilse Dumont.
There was a second's hesitation, then he was on his feet, greeting her
cordially, apparently entirely at ease and with nothing on his mind
except the agreeable surprise of the encounter.
"I had your note," he said. "It was charming of you to write, but very
neglectful of you not to include your address. Tell me, how have you
been since I last saw you?"
Ilse Dumont's red lips seemed to be dry, for she moistened them
without speaking. In her eyes he saw peril--knowledge of something
terrible--some instant menace.
Then her eyes, charged with lightning, slowly turned from him to the
girl on the sofa who had not moved. But in her eyes, too, a little
flame began to flicker and play, and the fixed smile relaxed into an
expression of cool self-possession.
Neeland's pleasant, careless voice broke the occult tension:
"This is a pretty club," he said; "everything here is in such
excellent taste. You might have told me about it," he added to Ilse
with smiling reproach; "but you never even mentioned it, and I
discovered it quite by accident."
Ilse Dumont seemed to find her voice with an effort:
"May I have a word with you, Mr. Neeland?" she asked.
"Always," he assured her promptly. "I am always more than happy to
listen to you----"
"Please follow me!"
He turned to the girl on the sofa and made his adieux with
conventional ceremony and a reckless smile which said:
"You were quite right, mademoiselle; I'm in trouble already."
Then he followed Ilse Dumont into the adjoining room, which was lined
with filled bookcases and where the lounges and deep chairs were
covered with leather.
Halting by the library table, Ilse Dumont turned to him--turned on him
a look such as he never before had encountered in any living woman's
eyes--a dead gaze, dreadful, glazed, as impersonal as the fixed regard
of a corpse.
She said:
"I came.... They sent for me.... I did not believe they had the right
man.... I could not believe it, Neeland."
A trifle shaken, he said in tones which sounded steady enough:
"What frightens you so, Scheherazade?"
"Why did you come? Are you absolutely mad?"
"Mad? No, I don't think so," he replied with a forced smile. "What
threatens me here, Scheherazade?"--regarding her pallid face
attentively.
"Death.... You must have known it when you came."
"Death? No, I didn't know it."
"Did you suppose that if they could get hold of you they'd let you
go?--A man who might carry in his memory the plans for which they
tried to kill you? I wrote to you--I wrote to you to go back to
America! And--_this_ is what you have done instead!"
"Well," he said in a pleasant but rather serious voice, "if you
really believe there is danger for me if I remain here, perhaps I'd
better go."
"You _can't_ go!"
"You think I'll be stopped?"
"Yes. Who is your crazy companion? I heard that he is Alak
Sengoun--the headlong fool--they call Prince Erlik. Is it true?"
"Where did you hear all these things?" he demanded. "Where were you
when you heard them?"
"At the Turkish Embassy. Word came that they had caught you. I did not
believe it; others present doubted it.... But as the rumour concerned
_you_, I took no chances; I came instantly. I--I had rather be dead
than see you here----" Her voice became unsteady, but she controlled
it at once:
"Neeland! Neeland! Why did you come? Why have you undone all I tried
to do for you----?"
He looked intently at Ilse Dumont, then his gaze swept the handsome
suite of rooms. No one seemed to notice him; in perspective, men moved
leisurely about the further _salon_, where play was going on; and
there seemed to be no one else in sight. And, as he stood there, free,
in full pride and vigour of youth and strength, he became incredulous
that anything could threaten him which he could not take care of.
A smile grew in his eyes, confident, humorous, a little hint of
tenderness in it:
"Scheherazade," he said, "you are a dear. You pulled me out of a
dreadful mess on the _Volhynia_. I offer you gratitude, respect, and
the very warm regard for you which I really cherish in my heart."
He took her hands, kissed them, looked up half laughing, half in
earnest.
"If you're worried," he said, "I'll find Captain Sengoun and we'll
depart----"
She retained his hands in a convulsive clasp:
"Oh, Neeland! Neeland! There are men below who will never let you
pass! And Breslau and Kestner are coming here later. And that devil,
Damat Mahmud Bey!"
"Golden Beard and Ali Baba and the whole Arabian Nights!" exclaimed
Neeland. "Who is Damat Mahmud Bey, Scheherazade dear?"
"The shadow of Abdul Hamid."
"Yes, dear child, but Abdul the Damned is shut up tight in a
fortress!"
"His shadow dogs the spurred heels of Enver Pasha," she said, striving
to maintain her composure. "Oh, Neeland!--A hundred thousand Armenians
are yet to die in that accursed shadow! And do you think Mahmud Damat
will hesitate in regard to _you_!"
"Nonsense! Does a murderous Moslem go about Paris killing people he
doesn't happen to fancy? Those things aren't done----"
"Have you and Sengoun any weapons at all?" she interrupted
desperately, "Anything!--A sword cane----?"
"No. What the devil does all this business mean?" he broke out
impatiently. "What's all this menace of lawlessness--this impudent
threat of interference----"
"It is _war_!"
"War?" he repeated, not quite understanding her.
She caught him by the arm:
"War!" she whispered; "War! Do you understand? They don't care what
they do now! They mean to kill you here in this place. They'll be out
of France before anybody finds you."
"Has war actually been declared?" he asked, astounded.
"Tomorrow! It is known in certain circles!" She dropped his arm and
clasped her hands and stood there twisting them, white, desperate,
looking about her like a hunted thing.
"Why did you do this?" she repeated in an agonised voice. "What can I
do? I'm no traitor!... But I'd give you a pistol if I had one----" She
checked herself as the girl who had been reading an evening newspaper
on a sofa, and to whom Neeland had been talking when Ilse Dumont
entered, came sauntering into the room.
The eyes of both women met; both turned a trifle paler. Then Ilse
Dumont walked slowly up to the other:
"I overheard your warning," she said with a deadly stare.
"Really?"
Ilse stretched out her bare arm, palm upward, and closed the fingers
tightly:
"I hold your life in my hand. I have only to speak. Do you
understand?"
"No."
"You are lying. You _do_ understand. You take double wages; but it is
not France you betray! Nor Russia!"
"Are you insane?"
"Almost. _Where do you carry them?_"
"What?"
"Answer quickly. _Where?_ I tell you, I'll expose you in another
moment if you don't answer me! Speak quickly!"
The other woman had turned a ghastly white; for a second or two she
remained dumb, then, dry-lipped:
"Above--the knee," she stammered; but there was scarcely a sound from
the blanched lips that formed the words.
"Pistols?"
"Yes."
"Loaded? Both of them?"
"Yes."
"Clips?"
"No."
"Unstrap them!"
The woman turned, bent almost double, twisting her supple body
entirely around; but Ilse Dumont was at her side like a flash and
caught her wrist as she withdrew her hand from the hem of her fluffy
skirt.
"Now--_take_ your life!" said Ilse Dumont between her teeth. "There's
the door! Go out!"--following her with blazing eyes--"Stop! Stand
where you are until I come!"
Then she came quickly to where Neeland stood, astonished; and thrust
two automatic pistols into his hands.
"Get Sengoun," she whispered. "Don't go _down_-stairs, for God's sake.
Get to the roof, if you can. Try--oh, try, try, Neeland, my friend!"
Her voice trembled; she looked into his eyes--gave him, in that swift
regard, all that a woman withholds until the right man asks.
Her lips quivered; she turned sharply on her heel, went to the outer
hallway, where the other woman stood motionless.
"What am I to do with _you_?" demanded Ilse Dumont. "Do you think you
are going out of here to summon the police? Mount those stairs!"
The woman dropped her hand on the banisters, heavily, set foot on the
first stair, then slowly mounted as though her little feet in their
dainty evening slippers were weighted with ball and chain.
Ilse Dumont followed her, opened a door in the passage, motioned her
to enter. It was a bedroom that the electric light revealed. The woman
entered and stood by the bed as though stupefied.
"I'll keep my word to you," said Ilse Dumont. "When it becomes too
late for you to do us any mischief, I'll return and let you go."
And she stepped back across the threshold and locked the door on the
outside.
As she did so, Neeland and Sengoun came swiftly up the stairs, and she
beckoned them to follow, gathered the skirts of her evening gown into
one hand, and ran up the stairs ahead of them to the fifth floor.
In the dim light Neeland saw that the top floor was merely a vast
attic full of débris from the café on the ground floor--iron tables
which required mending or repainting, iron chairs, great jars of
artificial stone with dead baytrees standing in them, parts of rusty
stoves and kitchen ranges, broken cutlery in boxes, cracked table
china and heavier kitchen crockery in tubs which once had held
flowers.
The only windows gave on a court. Through their dirty panes already
the grey light of that early Sunday morning glimmered, revealing the
contents of the shadowy place, and the position of an iron ladder
hooked to two rings under the scuttle overhead.
Ilse Dumont laid her finger on her lips, conjuring silence, then,
clutching her silken skirts, she started up the iron ladder, reached
the top, and, exerting all her strength, lifted the hinged scuttle
leading to the leads outside.
Instantly somebody challenged her in a guttural voice. She stood there
a few moments in whispered conversation, then, from outside, somebody
lowered the scuttle cover; the girl locked it, descended the iron
ladder backwards, and came swiftly across to where Neeland and Sengoun
were standing, pistols lifted.
"They're guarding the roof," she whispered, "--two men. It is
hopeless, that way."
"The proper way," said Sengoun calmly, "is for us to shoot our way out
of this!"
The girl turned on him in a passion:
"Do you suppose I care what happens to _you_?" she said. "If there
were no one else to consider you might do as you pleased, for all it
concerns me!"
Sengoun reddened:
"Be silent, you treacherous little cat!" he retorted. "Do you imagine
your riffraff are going to hold _me_ here when I'm ready to depart!
_Me!_ A free Cossack! Bah!"
"Don't talk that way, Sengoun," said Neeland sharply. "We owe these
pistols to her."
"Oh," muttered Sengoun, shooting a menacing glance at her. "I didn't
understand that." Then his scowl softened and a sudden laugh cleared
his face.
"I'm sorry, mademoiselle," he said. "You're quite welcome to your low
opinion of me. But if anyone should ask me, I'd say that I don't
understand what is happening to us. And after a while I'll become
angry and go downstairs for information."
"They know nothing about you in the _salle de jeu_," she said, "but on
the floor below they're waiting to kill you."
Neeland, astonished, asked her whether the American gamblers in the
_salon_ where Sengoun had been playing were ignorant of what was going
on in the house.
"What Americans?" she demanded, incredulously. "Do you mean
Weishelm?"
"Didn't you know there were Americans employed in the _salle de jeu_?"
asked Neeland, surprised.
"No. I have not been in this house for a year until I came tonight.
This place is maintained by the Turkish Government--" She flashed a
glance at Sengoun--"_you're_ welcome to the information now," she
added contemptuously. And then, to Neeland: "There was, I believe,
some talk in New York about adding one or two Americans to the
personnel, but I opposed it."
"They're here," said Neeland drily.
"Do you know who they are?"
"Yes. There's a man called Doc Curfoot----"
"_Who!!_"
And suddenly, for the first time, Neeland remembered that she had been
the wife of one of the men below.
"Brandes and Stull are the others," he said mechanically.
The girl stared at him as though she did not comprehend, and she
passed one hand slowly across her forehead and eyes.
"Eddie Brandes? _Here?_ And Stull? Curfoot? _Here in this house!_"
"In the _salon_ below."
"They _can't_ be!" she protested in an odd, colourless voice. "They
were bought soul and body by the British Secret Service!"
All three stood staring at one another; the girl flushed, clenched her
hand, then let it fall by her side as though utterly overcome.
"All this espionage!" cried Sengoun, furiously. "--It makes me sick, I
tell you! Where everybody betrays everybody is no place for a free
Cossack!----"
The terrible expression on the girl's face checked him; she said,
slowly:
"It is we others who have been betrayed, it seems. It is _we_ who are
trapped here. They've got us all--every one of us. Oh, my God!--every
one of us--at last!"
She lifted her haggard face and stared at the increasing light which
was turning the window panes a sickly yellow.
"With sunrise comes war," she said in a stunned voice, as though to
convince herself. "We are caught here in this house. And Kestner and
Weishelm and Breslau and I----" she trembled, framing her burning face
in slim hands that were like ice. "Do you understand that Brandes and
Curfoot, bought by England, have contracted to deliver us to a French
court martial?"
The men looked at her in silence.
"Kestner and Breslau knew they had been bought. One of our own people
witnessed that treachery. But we never dreamed that these traitors
would venture into this house tonight. We should have come here
ourselves instead of going to the Turkish Embassy. That was Mahmud
Damat's meddling! His messenger insisted. God! What a mistake! What a
deathly mistake for all of us!"
She leaned for a moment against one of the iron pillars which
supported the attic roof, and covered her face with her hands.
After a moment, Neeland said:
"I don't understand why you can't leave this house if you are in
danger. You say that there are men downstairs who are waiting to kill
us--waiting only for Kestner and Breslau and Mahmud Damat to arrive."
She said faintly:
"I did not before understand Mahmud's delay. Now, I understand. He has
been warned. Breslau and Kestner will not come. Otherwise, you now
would be barricaded behind that breastwork of rubbish, fighting for
your lives."
"But you say there are men on the stairs below who are ready to kill
us if we try to leave the house."
"They, too, are trapped without knowing it. War will come with
sunrise. This house has been under surveillance since yesterday
afternoon. They have not closed in on us yet, because they are leaving
the trap open in hopes of catching us all. They are waiting for
Breslau and Kestner and Mahmud Damat.... But they'll never come,
now.... They are out of the city by this time.... I know them. They
are running for their lives at this hour.... And we--we lesser
ones--caught here--trapped--reserved for a French court martial and a
firing squad in a barrack square!"
She shuddered and pressed her hands over her temples.
Neeland said:
"I am going to stand by you. Captain Sengoun will do the same."
She shook her head:
"No use," she said with a shiver. "I am too well known. They have my
_dossier_ almost complete. My _procès_ will be a brief one."
"Can't you get away by the roof? There are two of your men up
there."
"They themselves are caught, and do not even know it. They too will
face a squad of execution before the sun rises tomorrow. And they
never dream of it up there----"
She made a hopeless gesture:
"What is the use! When I came here from the Turkish Embassy, hearing
that you were here but believing the information false, I discovered
you conversing with a Russian spy--overheard her warn you to leave
this house.
"And there, all the while, unknown to me, in the _salle de jeu_ were
Curfoot and that unspeakable scoundrel Brandes! Why, the place was
swarming with enemies--and I never dreamed it!... Yet--I might have
feared some such thing--I might have feared that the man, Brandes, who
had betrayed me once, would do it again if he ever had the chance....
And he's done it."
There was a long silence. Ilse stood staring at the melancholy greyish
light on the window panes.
She said as though to herself:
"I shall never see another daybreak."... After a moment she turned and
began to pace the attic, a strange, terrible figure of haggard youth
in the shadowy light. "How horribly still it is at daybreak!" she
breathed, halting before Neeland. "How deathly quiet----"
The dry crack of a pistol cut her short. Then, instantly, in the dim
depths of the house, shot followed shot in bewildering succession,
faster, faster, filling the place with a distracting tumult.
Neeland jerked up his pistol as a nearer volley rattled out on the
landing directly underneath.
Sengoun, exasperated, shouted:
"Well, what the devil is all this!" and ran toward the head of the
stairs, his pistol lifted for action.
Then, in the garret doorway, Weishelm appeared, his handsome face
streaming blood. He staggered, turned mechanically toward the stairs
again with wavering revolver; but a shot drove him blindly backward
and another hurled him full length across the floor, where he lay with
both arms spread out, and the last tremors, running from his feet to
his twitching face.