Phantom Wires: A Novel

by Arthur Stringer

  CHAPTER VIII

  "FOREIGNERS ARE FOOLS"

  Frances Durkin, as she turned back into the darkness of the room,desperately schooled herself to calmness. She warned herself that,above all, she must remain clear-headed and collected, and act coollyand decisively, when the moment for action arrived.

  But as the seconds slipped by, and the silence remained unbroken, ashred of forlorn hope came back to her. Each moment meant more assuredsafety to her husband--he, at least, was getting away unscathed andunsuspected. And that left her almost satisfied.

  She still waited and listened. Perhaps, after all, the Prince hadtaken his departure. Perhaps he had gone back to the _portier's_office, for explanations. Perhaps it had not even been Pobloff--merelya drunken stranger, mistaken in his room number, or servants with amessage or with linen.

  She groped softly across the room, until she came to the door. Shefound it draped and covered with a heavy blanket. Holding this back,she slipped under it, and peered through the keyhole into theilluminated hallway. There seemed to be nobody outside.

  "It is a rule of the game, I believe, never to shoot the rabbit untilit is on the run!"

  The words, spoken in excellent English, and barbed with a touch ofangry cynicism, smote on her startled ears like an Alpine thunderclap.

  She emerged from under the blanket, slowly, ignominiously, ashamed ofeven her Peeping-Tom abandonment of dignity.

  As she did so she saw herself being looked at with keen but placideyes. The owner of the eyes in one hand held a lighted bedroom lamp.In his other hand he held a flat, short-barreled pocket revolver, ofburnished gun-metal, and she could see the lamplight glimmer along itsside as it menaced her.

  She did not gasp--nor did she shrink away, for with her the situationwas not so novel as her antagonist might have imagined. Indeed, as shegazed back at him, motionless, she saw the look of increasing wonderwhich crept, almost involuntarily, over his white, lean, Slavic-lookingface.

  Frances Durkin knew it was Pobloff. He was tall, exceptionally tall,and she noticed that he carried off his faultlessness of attire withthat stiff but tranquil _hauteur_ which seems to come only with amilitary training. The forehead was high and white and prominent, withoddly marked depressions, now thrown into shadow by the lamp light,above and behind the highly-arched eyebrows, on each extremity of thefrontal bone. The nose was long and narrow-bridged, and the faceitself was unusually long and narrow, and now quite colorless. Thisgave a darker hue to the thin mustache and the trim imperial, throughwhich she caught a glint of white teeth, in what seemed half a smileand half a snarl. The hair was parted almost in the centre, a littleto the right, and but for the pebbled shadows about the sunken, yetstill bright eyes, he would be called a youthful-looking man. Sheunderstood why women would always speak of him as a handsome man.

  "I am sorry, but I was compelled to force the bolt," he said, slowly,with his enigmatic smile.

  She still looked at him in silence, from under lowered brows. Herfingers were locking and unlocking nervously.

  "And to what do I owe this visit?" he demanded mockingly. He was quiteclose to her by this time.

  She took a step backward. She could even smell brandy on his breath.

  "Your English is admirable!" she answered, as mockingly.

  "As your energy!" he retorted, taking a step nearer the still opendoor. Then he looked about the room, slowly and comprehensively. Onhis face, in the strong sidelight, she could see mirrored each freshdiscovery, as step by step he covered the course of the completedinvasion. She followed his gaze, which now rested on the rifled safe.

  A little oath, in Russian, suddenly escaped his lips.

  Then he turned and strode into the anteroom, and she could hear himmaking fast and locking the outer hall door. Then he withdrew the key,and came back to her.

  "I must still regard you, of course, as my guest," he said slowly, withhis easy menace.

  "You Europeans always give us lessons in the older virtues!" sheretorted, as mockingly as before, in her soft contralto.

  He looked at her, for a moment, in puzzled wonder. Then he held thelamp closer to her face. He nursed no illusions about women. FrancesDurkin knew that for years now he had made them his tools and hisaccomplices, never his dictators and masters. But as he looked intothe pale face, with the shadowy, almost luminous violet eyes, and thesoft droop of the full red lips, and the still girlish tenderness ofline about the brow and chin, and then at the betraying fulness ofthroat and bosom, the mockery died out of his smile.

  It was supplanted by a look more ominously purposeful, more grimlydetermined.

  "What, madam, did you come here for?" he demanded.

  She shrugged an apparently careless shoulder.

  "His Highness, the Prince Ignace Slevenski Pobloff, has always been therecipient of much flattering attention!" She found it still safest tomock him.

  "We have had enough of this! What is it? Money? Or jewelry?"

  She spurned the leather bag on the floor with the toe of her shoe. Hecould hear the clink and rattle of the napoleons that followed themovement. He started suddenly forward and bent over the brokendespatch box. His long white fingers were running dexterously throughthe once orderly little packets.

  "_Or something more important_?" he went on, as he came to the end ofhis stock.

  Then he gave a little half-cry, half-gasp; and from the look on hisface the woman saw that he realized what was missing. He peered ather, with alert and narrow eyes, for a full minute of unbroken silence.Then, with a little movement of finality, he turned away and put downthe lamp.

  "I regret it, but I must ask you for this--this document, withoutequivocation and without delay."

  She opened her lips to speak, but he cut in before any sound fell fromthem.

  "Let there be no misunderstanding between us. I know precisely whatyou have taken; and it will be in my hands _before you ever leave thisroom_!"

  She had a sense of destiny shaping itself before her, while she stood ahelpless and disinterested spectator of the vague but implacabletransformation which, in the end, must in one way or the other sovitally concern her.

  "I have nothing," she answered simply.

  He waved her protest aside.

  "Madam, have you thought, or do you now know, what the cost of thiswill be to you?"

  He was towering over her now. She was wondering whether or not therewas a ghost of a chance for her to snatch at his pistol.

  "I can pay only what I owe," she maintained evasively.

  He looked at her, and then at the locked door. His face took on asudden and crafty change. The rage and anger ebbed out of him. Heplaced the lamp on the dressing-table of polished rosewood. Then hislean, white fingers meditatively adjusted his tie, and even moremeditatively stroked at the narrow black imperial, before he spokeagain.

  "What greater crown may one hope for, in any activity of life, than abeautiful woman?" he asked quietly.

  There was a moment of unbroken silence.

  For the first time a touch of fear came to her shadowy eyes, and theywere veiled by a momentary look of furtiveness.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, madam, simply that you will now remain with me!"

  "That is absurd!"

  She noticed, for the first time, that he had put away his revolver.

  "It is not absurd; it is essential. Permit me. In my native countrywe have a secret order which I need not name. If the secrets of thisorder came to be known by an individual not already a member, one oftwo things happened. He either became a member of the order, or hebecame a man who--who could impart no information!"

  "And that means----?"

  "It means, practically, that from this hour you are, either willing orunwilling, a partner in my activities, as you now are in my possessionof certain papers. Pardon me. The penalty may seem heavy, but thecase, you will understand, is exceptional. Also, the nature of yourvisit, and the thoroughness of your
preparations"--he swept thedismantled room with his grim but mocking glance--"have alreadyconvinced me that the partnership will not be an impossible one."

  "But I repeat, this is theatrical, and absurd. You cannot possiblykeep me a--a prisoner here, forever!"

  He looked at her, and suddenly she shrank back from his glance, whiteto the lips.

  "You will not be a prisoner!"

  "I am quite aware of that!"

  "You will not be a prisoner, for then you would not be a partner. Thecoalition between us must be as silent as it is essential. But first,permit me!"

  She still shrank back from his touch, consumed with a new andunlooked-for fear of him. And all the while she was telling herselfthat she must remain calm, and make no mistake.

  The remembrance came to her, as she stood there, of how she had oncethought it possible to approach him in a more indirect and adroitfashion, as the wayward and life-loving Lady Boxspur. She shuddered alittle, as she recalled that foolish mistake, and pictured the perilsinto which it might have led her. She could detect more clearly nowthe odor of brandy on his quickening breath. His face, death-like inits pallor, flashed before and above her like a semaphoric sign ofimminent danger. Action of some sort, however obvious, was necessary.

  "I want a drink," she gasped, with a movement toward the cabinet.

  He turned and caught up the heavy glass brandy-decanter, emitting anervous and irresponsible laugh.

  In one hand he held the decanter, in the other the half-filled tumbler.That, at least, implied an appreciable space of time before those handscould be freed. In that, she felt, lay her hope.

  Quicker than thought she darted to the door over which still swung theshrouding blanket. She knew the key had already been turned in thelock, from the outside; the only thing between her and the freedom ofthe open hall was one small bolt shaft.

  But before she could open the door Pobloff, with a little grunt ofstartled rage, was upon her. She fought and scratched like a cat. Theblanket tumbled down and curtained them, the plumed hat fell from thewoman's disheveled head, a chair was overturned. But he was too strongand too quick for her. With one lithe arm he pinioned her two handsclose down to her sides, crushing the very breath out of her body.With his other he beat off the muffling blanket, and dragged her awayfrom the door. Then he shook her, passionately, and held her off fromhim, and glared at her.

  One year earlier in her career she knew she would surely have faintedfrom terror and exhaustion. Even as it was, she seemed about to schoolherself for some relieving and final surrender to the inevitable, only,her vacantly staring eyes, looking past him, by accident caught sightof a little movement which brought her drooping courage into life again.

  For she had seen the window-shutter slowly widen, and then a cautioushand appear on the ledge. She watched the shutter swing in, furtherand further, and then the stealthy figure, with its padded feet, emergeout of the darkness into the half-lighted room. She could even see thepallor of the intruder's face, and his quick movement of warning thatreminded her of the part she must play.

  "I give up!" she gasped, in simulated surrender, falling and droopingwith all her weight in Pobloff's arms.

  He caught her and held her, bewildered, triumphant.

  "You mean it?" he cried, searching her face.

  "Yes, I mean it!" she murmured. Then she shuddered a little,involuntarily, for she had seen Durkin catch up one of his shoes,hammer-like, where it protruded from the side pocket of his coat--andshe knew only too well how he would make use of it.

  As Pobloff bent over her, unwarned, unsuspecting, almost wondering forwhat she was waiting with such confidently closed eyes, Durkin crossedthe carpeted floor. It was then that the woman flung up her own armsand encircled the stooping Russian in a fierce and passionate grasp.He laughed a little, deep in his throat. She told herself that she wasat least imprisoning his hands.

  Durkin's blow caught the bending figure just at the base of the skull,behind the ear. The impact whipped the head back, and sent therelaxing body forward and down. It struck the floor, and lay there,huddled, face down. The woman scrambled to her feet, breathing hard.

  "Close the shutters!" said Durkin quickly.

  Then he turned the unconscious man over on his back. Then he caught upa couple of towels and securely tied, first the inert wrists and thenthe feet. Quickly knotting a third towel, he wedged and drilled asharp knuckle joint into the flesh of the colorless cheek, between theupper and lower incisors. When the jaw had opened he thrust the knotinto the gaping mouth, securely tying the ends of the towel at the backof the neck.

  "Have you everything?" whispered Frank, who had once more pinned on theplumed hat, and was already listening at the panel of the hall door.There was no time to be lost in talk.

  "Yes, I think so."

  "Your baggage?"

  "My baggage will have to be left, but, God knows, there's little enoughof it!"

  He wiped his forehead, and looked down at the bound figure, alreadyshowing signs of returning consciousness. They heard laughter, and thesound of footsteps passing down the hall without.

  Durkin stood beside his wife, and they listened together behind theclosed door.

  "Not for a minute--not yet," he whispered. Then he looked at hercuriously.

  "I wonder if you know just what a close call that was!"

  "Yes, I know," she said, with her ear against the panel.

  He peered back at the figure, and took a deep breath.

  "And this is only an intermission--this is only an overture, to what wemay have to face! Now's our chance. For the love of heaven, let's getout of here. We've got hard work ahead of us, at Genoa--and we've gotonly till Friday to get there!"

  He did not notice her look, her momentary look of mingled reproof andweariness and disdain.

  "Now, quick!" she merely said, as she flung the door open and steppedout into the hall. Luckily, it was empty, from end to end.

  Durkin, with assumed nonchalance, walked quietly away. She waited toturn the key in the door, and withdrew it from the lock. Then shefollowed her husband down the corridor, and a minute or two laterrejoined him in the fragrant and balmy midnight air of Monaco.