“You will never let me do anything for you,” she said. Her eyes were velvety. “It isn’t fair. I have exacted so much from you, and—”
“And I have been most brutal and unfeeling in many of the things I have said to you,” said I, despairingly. “I am ashamed of the nasty wounds I have given you. My state of repentance allows you to exact whatsoever you will of me, and, when all is said and done, I shall still be your debtor. Can you—will you pardon the coarse opinions of a conceited ass? I assure you I am not the man I was when you first encountered me.”
She smiled. “For that matter, I am not the same woman I was, Mr. Smart. You have taught me three things, one of which I may mention: the subjection of self. That, with the other two, has made a new Aline Titus of me. I hope you may be pleased with the—transfiguration.”
“I wish you were Aline Titus,” I said, struck by the idea.
“You may at least be sure that I shall not remain the Countess Tarnowsy long, Mr. Smart,” she said, with a very puzzling expression in her eyes.
My heart sank. “But I remember hearing you say not so very long ago that you would never marry again,” I railed.
She regarded me rather oddly for a moment. “I am very, very glad that you are such a steady, sensible, practical man. A vapid, impressionable youth, during this season of propinquity, might have been so foolish as to fall in love with me, and that would have been too bad.”
I think I glared at her. “Then,—then, you are going to marry some one?”
She waited a moment, looking straight into my eyes.
“Yes,” she said, and a delicate pink stole into her cheek, “I am going to marry some one.”
I muttered something about congratulating a lucky dog, but it was all very hazy to me.
“Don’t congratulate him yet,” she cried, the flush deepening. “I may be a very, very great disappointment to him, and a never-ending nuisance.”
“I’m sure you will—will be all right,” I floundered. Then I resorted to gaiety. “You see, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to—to make another woman of you, and so I’m confident he’ll find you quite satisfactory.”
She laughed gaily. “What a goose you are!” she cried.
I flushed painfully, for, I give you my word, it hurt to have her laugh at me. She sobered at once.
“Forgive me,” she said very prettily, and I forgave her. “Do you know we’ve never given the buried treasure another thought?” she went on, abruptly changing the subject. “Are we not to go searching for it?”
“But it isn’t there,” said I, steeling my heart against the longing that tried to creep into it. “It’s all balderdash.”
She pouted her warm red lips. “Have you lost interest in it so soon?”
“Of course, I’ll go any time you say,” said I, lifelessly. “It will be a lark, at all events.”
“Then we will go this very afternoon,” she said, with enthusiasm.
My ridiculous heart gave a great leap. “This very afternoon,” I said, managing my voice very well.
She arose. “Now I must scurry away. It would not do for Mr. Bangs to find me here with you. He would be shocked.”
I walked beside her to the chair that stood below the portrait of Ludwig the Red, and took her hand to assist her in stepping upon it.
“I sincerely hope this chap you’re going to marry, Countess, may be the best fellow in the world,” said I, still clasping her hand.
She had one foot on the chair as she half-turned to face me.
“He is the best fellow in the world,” she said.
I gulped. “I can’t tell you how happy I shall be if you—if you find real happiness. You deserve happiness—and love.”
She gripped my hand fiercely. “I want to be happy! I want to be loved! Oh, I want to be loved!” she cried, so passionately that I turned away, unwilling to be a witness to this outburst of feeling on her part. She slipped her hand out of mine and a second later was through the frame. I had a fleeting glimpse of a slim, adorable ankle. “Good-bye,” she called back in a voice that seemed strangely choked. The spring in the gold mirror clicked. A draft of air struck me in the face. She was gone.
“What an infernal fool you’ve been,” I said to myself as I stood there staring at the black hole in the wall. Then, I gently, even caressingly swung old Ludwig the Red into place. There was another click. The incident was closed.
A very few words are sufficient to cover the expedition in quest of the legendary treasures of the long dead Barons. Mr. Bangs accompanied us. Britton carried a lantern and the three Schmicks went along as guides. We found nothing but cobwebs.
“Conrad,” said I, as we emerged from the last of the underground chambers, “tell me the truth: was there ever such a thing as buried treasure in this abominable hole?”
“Yes, mein herr,” he replied, with an apologetic grin; “but I think it was discovered three years ago by Count Hohendahl and Count Tarnowsy.”
We stared at him. “The deuce you say!” cried I, with a quick glance at the Countess. She appeared to be as much surprised as I.
“They searched for a month,” explained the old man, guiltily. “They found something in the walls of the second tier. I cannot say what it was, but they were very, very happy, my lady.” He now addressed her. “It was at the time they went away and did not return for three weeks, if you remember the time.”
“Remember it!” she cried bitterly. “Too well, Conrad.” She turned to me. “We had been married less than two months, Mr. Smart.”
I smiled rather grimly. “Count Tarnowsy appears to have had a great run of luck in those days.” It was a mean remark and I regretted it instantly. To my surprise she smiled—perhaps patiently—and immediately afterward invited Mr. Bangs and me to dine with her that evening. She also asked Mr. Poopendyke later on.
* * * *
Poopendyke! An amazing, improbable idea entered my head. Poopendyke!
* * * *
The next day I was very busy, preparing for the journey by motor to the small station down the line where I was to meet Mrs. Titus and her sons. It seemed to me that every one who knew anything whatever about the arrangements went out of his way to fill my already rattle-brained head with advice. I was advised to be careful at least one hundred times; first in regard to the running of the car, then as to road directions, then as to the police, then as to the identity of the party I was to pick up; but more often than anything else, I was urged to be as expeditious as possible and to look out for my tires.
In order to avoid suspicion, I rented a big German touring car for a whole month, paying down a lump sum of twelve hundred marks in advance. On Thursday morning I took it out for a spin, driving it myself part of the time, giving the wheel to Britton the remainder.
(The year before I had toured Europe pretty extensively in a car of the same make, driving alternately with Britton, who besides being an excellent valet was a chauffeur of no mean ability, having served a London actress for two years or more, which naturally meant that he had been required to do a little of everything.)
We were to keep the car in a garage across the river, drive it ourselves, and pay for the up-keep. We were therefore quite free to come and go as we pleased, without the remotest chance of being questioned. In fact, I intimated that I might indulge in a good bit of joy-riding if the fine weather kept up.
Just before leaving the castle for the ferry trip across the river that evening, I was considerably surprised to have at least a dozen brand new trunks delivered at my landing stage. It is needless to say that they turned out to be the property of Mrs. Titus, expressed by grande vitesse from some vague city in the north of Germany. They all bore the name “Smart, U. S. A.,” painted in large white letters on each end, and I was given to understand that they belonged to my own dear mother, who at that moment, I am convinced, was sitting down to luncheon in the Adirondacks, provided her habits were as regular as I remembered them to be.
I set forth with Britton at
nine o’clock, in a drizzling rain. There had been no rain for a month. The farmers, the fruit-raisers, the growers of grapes and all the birds and beasts of the field had been begging for rain for weeks. No doubt they rejoiced in the steady downpour that came at half-past nine, but what must have been their joy at ten when the very floodgates of heaven opened wide and let loose all the dammed waters of July and August (and perhaps some that was being saved up for the approaching September!) I have never known it to rain so hard as it did on that Thursday night in August, nor have I ever ceased reviling the fate that instituted, on the very next day, a second season of drought that lasted for nearly six weeks.
But we went bravely through that terrible storm, Britton and I, and the vehement Mercedes, up hill and down, over ruts and rocks, across bridges and under them, sozzling and swishing and splashing in the path of great white lights that rushed ahead of us through the gloom. At half-past eleven o’clock we were skidding over the cobblestones of the darkest streets I have ever known, careening like a drunken sailor but not half as surely, headed for the Staatsbahnhof, to which we had been directed by an object in a raincoat who must have been a policeman but who looked more like a hydrant.
“Britton,” said I, wearily, “have you ever seen anything like it?”
“Once before, sir,” said he. “Niagara Falls, sir.”
* * * *
CHAPTER XV
I TRAVERSE THE NIGHT
We were drenched to the skin and bespattered with mud, cold and cheerless but full of a grim excitement. Across the street from the small, poorly lighted railway station there was an eating-house. Leaving the car in the shelter of a freight shed, we sloshed through the shiny rivulet that raced between the curbs and entered the clean, unpretentious little restaurant.
There was a rousing smell of roasted coffee pervading the place. A sleepy German waiter first came up and glanced sullenly at the mud-tracks we left upon the floor; then he allowed his insulting gaze to trail our progress to the lunch counter by means of a perfect torrent of rain-water drippings. He went out of the room grumbling, to return a moment later with a huge mop. Thereupon he ordered us out of the place, standing ready with the mop to begin the cleansing process the instant we vacated the stools. It was quite clear to both of us that he wanted to begin operations at the exact spot where we were standing.
“Coffee for two,” said I, in German. To me anything uttered in the German language sounds gruff and belligerent, no matter how gentle its meaning. That amiable sentence: “Ich liebe dich” is no exception; to me it sounds relentless. I am confident that I asked for coffee in a very mild and ingratiating tone, in direct contrast to his command to get out, and was somewhat ruffled by his stare of speechless rage.
“Zwei,” said Britton, pointing to the big coffee urn.
The fellow began mopping around my feet—in fact, he went so far as to mop the tops of them and a little way up my left leg in his efforts to make a good, clean job of it.
“Stop that!” I growled, kicking at the mop. Before I could get my foot back on the floor he skilfully swabbed the spot where it had been resting, a feat of celerity that I have never seen surpassed. “Damn it, don’t!” I roared, backing away. The resolute mop followed me like the spectre of want. Fascinated, I found myself retreating to the doorway.
Britton, resourceful fellow, put an end to his endeavours by jumping upon the mop and pinning it to the floor very much as he would have stamped upon a wounded rat.
The fellow called out lustily to some one in the kitchen, at the same time giving the mop handle a mighty jerk. If you are expecting me to say that Britton came to woe, you are doomed to disappointment. It was just the other way about. Just as the prodigious yank took place, my valet hopped nimbly from the mop, and the waiter sat down with a stunning thud.
I do not know what might have ensued had not the proprietress of the place appeared at that instant, coming from the kitchen. She was the cook as well, and she was large enough to occupy the space of at least three Brittons. She was huge beyond description.
“Wass iss?” she demanded, pausing aghast. Her voice was a high, belying treble.
I shall not attempt to describe in detail all that followed. It is only necessary to state that she removed the mop from the hands of the quaking menial and fairly swabbed him out into the thick of the rainstorm.
While we were drinking our hot, steaming coffee and gorging ourselves with frankfurters, the poor wretch stood under the eaves with his face glued to the window, looking in at us with mournful eyes while the drippings from the tiles poured upon his shoulders and ran in rivulets down his neck. I felt so sorry for him that I prevailed upon the muttering, apologetic hostess to take him in again. She called him in as she might have called a dog, and he edged his way past her with the same scared, alert look in his eyes that one always sees in those of an animal that has its tail between its legs.
She explained that he was her nephew, just off the farm. Her sister’s son, she said, and naturally not as intelligent as he ought to be.
While we were sitting there at the counter, a train roared past the little station. We rushed to the door in alarm. But it shot through at the rate of fifty miles an hour. I looked at my watch. It still wanted half-an-hour of train time, according to the schedule.
“It was the express, mein herr,” explained the woman. “It never stops. We are too small yet. Some time we may be big enough.” I noticed that her eyes were fixed in some perplexity on the old clock above the pie shelves. “Ach! But it has never been so far ahead of time as tonight. It is not due for fifteen minutes yet, and here it is gone yet.”
“Perhaps your clock is slow,” I said. “My watch says four minutes to twelve.”
Whereupon she heaped a tirade of abuse upon the shrinking Hans for letting the clock lose ten minutes of her valuable time. To make sure, Hans set it forward nearly half an hour while she was looking the other way. Then he began mopping the floor again.
At half-past twelve the train from Munich drew up at the station, panted awhile in evident disdain, and then moved on.
A single passenger alighted: a man with a bass viol. There was no sign of the Tituses!
We made a careful and extensive search of the station, the platform and even the surrounding neighbourhood, but it was quite evident that they had not left the train. Here was a pretty pass! Britton, however, had the rather preposterous idea that there might be another train a little later on. It did not seem at all likely, but we made inquiries of the station agent. To my surprise—and to Britton’s infernal British delight—there was a fast train, with connections from the north, arriving in half an hour. It was, however, an hour late, owing to the storm.
“Do you mean that it will arrive at two o’clock?” I demanded in dismay.
“No, no,” said the guard; “it will arrive at one but not until two. It is late, mein herr.”
We dozed in the little waiting-room for what I consider to be the longest hour I’ve ever known, and then hunted up the guard once more. He blandly informed me that it was still an hour late.
“An hour from now?” I asked.
“An hour from two,” said he, pityingly. What ignorant lummixes we were!
Just ten minutes before three the obliging guard came in and roused us from a mild sleep.
“The train is coming, mein herr.”
“Thank God!”
“But I neglected to mention that it is an express and never stops here.”
My right hand was still in a bandage, but it was so nearly healed that I could have used it without discomfort—(note my ability to drive a motor car)—and it was with the greatest difficulty that I restrained a mad, devilish impulse to strike that guard full upon the nose, from which the raindrops coursed in an interrupted descent from the visor of his cap.
The shrill, childish whistle of the locomotive reached us at that instant. A look of wonder sprang into the eyes of the guard.
“It—it is going to stop, mein herr,
” he cried. “Gott in himmel! It has never stopped before.” He rushed out upon the platform in a great state of agitation, and we trailed along behind him, even more excited than he.
It was still raining, but not so hard. The glare of the headlight was upon us for an instant and then, passing, left us in blinding darkness. The brakes creaked, the wheels grated and at last the train came to a standstill. For one horrible moment I thought it was going on through in spite of its promissory signal. Britton went one way and I the other, with our umbrellas ready. Up and down the line of wagon lits we raced. A conductor stepped down from the last coach but one, and prepared to assist a passenger to alight. I hastened up to him.
“Permit me,” I said, elbowing him aside.
A portly lady squeezed through the vestibule and felt her way carefully down the steps. Behind her was a smallish, bewhiskered man, trying to raise an umbrella inside the narrow corridor, a perfectly impossible feat.
She came down into my arms with the limpness of one who is accustomed to such attentions, and then wheeled instantly upon the futile individual on the steps above.
“Quick! My hat! Heaven preserve us, how it rains!” she cried, in a deep, wheezy voice and—in German!
“Moth—” I began insinuatingly, but the sacred word died unfinished on my lips. The next instant I was scurrying down the platform to where I saw Britton standing.
“Have you seen them?” I shouted wildly.
“No, sir. Not a sign, sir. Ah! See!”
He pointed excitedly down the platform.
“No!” I rasped out. “By no possible stretch of the imagination canthat be Mrs. Titus. Come! We must ask the conductor. That woman? Good Lord, Britton, she waddles!”
The large lady and the smallish man passed us on the way to shelter, the latter holding an umbrella over her hat with one hand and lugging a heavy hamper in the other. They were both exclaiming in German. The station guard and the conductor were bowing and scraping in their wake, both carrying boxes and bundles.
No one else had descended from the train. I grabbed the conductor by the arm.
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