His natural courtesy and sense of chivalry bade him wait for an invitation before attempting to force his way in.
The younger woman laughed, and his skin bristled to the bulging nape of his neck. He pressed his foot more firmly against the woodwork.
“We could not very well ask you in at this hour, Herr Kapitan,” she explained. “But if you – as an officer of the invading army – insist on coming in – the responsibility lies with you alone.”
The little gurgle of merriment which followed affected him as no laughter had ever done. He thrilled again as though a skeleton hand were playing scales up and down his spine. He appreciated the mocking note: she was laughing at herself – at the conventions – and at her mother.
“I will accept the full responsibility,” he replied gravely, “but I should appreciate the mere formality of an invitation.”
“Will you not come in, then, after your great kindness?” Her tone this time defied all his attempts at analysis. “Our dinner is a cold one, but I think you will agree that there is no chef living that can equal the artist who prepared it.”
“Thank you extremely,” he replied; and a moment later the well-oiled latch had clicked behind him.
The large open hall felt pleasantly warm after the chilly draughts of the street, and he was conscious of a faint and subtle perfume which appealed to all that was sensual in his nature. He approved of the scent very strongly, and wondered whether it came from the masses of cut flowers which glowed and gleamed wherever there was a ledge on which the great glass bowls could stand. Then his eye was attracted by the life-size frescoes which adorned the side walls. He screwed his small eyeglass into his eye and studied them with interest. They were literal translations in colour of various classical incidents which are not usually translated literally in print. The drawing and the colouring were obviously the work of a master hand, strong and vigorous and almost alive. Yet although they were devoid of all vulgarity and indecency, they were the very incarnation of suggestiveness. They resembled those books which threaten always to be improper on the next page.
“Good!” exclaimed the visitor. “Very good. They might almost have been painted by a German artist.”
“Shall we go upstairs?” said his hostess. “We do not live in the ground floor rooms. They are too dark and dismal.”
“I will look at those pictures again by daylight and perhaps I will photograph them,” he said, as he crossed the tiled floor and followed her up the stairs. As he climbed, he stroked the broad flat top of the old bannister-rail with his hand, delighting in the smoothness of its time-worn surface.
So richly were the stairs carpeted that his spurred heels made no sound.
The dining-room was a large apartment with heavily curtained windows. Down the centre ran a massive refectory table, covered with a damask cloth and sparkling with glass and silver. Across one end of the room stood a similar table, which did duty as a sideboard. In one amazed and comprehensive glance he realized that it was laden with those delicacies most dear to a famished German heart and stomach. Amongst the dishes there stood, or lay in small baskets, bottles fat and thin, bottles whose corks were covered with silver, with gilt, with red or white or green.
Captain Kurt von Unserbach moistened his lips, wrenched his unwilling glance from the end table, and turned to make a complimentary speech to his hostess. To his surprise he found that he was alone. He had not heard her leave the room.
The next five minutes he spent, to his complete satisfaction, in studying the various dishes and in apportioning to each delicacy its relative weight in terms, not of appetite, but of capacity.
“My mother is very tired after her walk.”
Captain von Unserbach started guiltily and removed his finger from his mouth. These thick carpets were delightful to walk upon, but they were devilish inconvenient at times.
“She has retired to bed and hopes that you will excuse her.”
Kurt von Unserbach clicked his heels and excused her with all the good will in the world. Then he raised his eyes and forgot even the good things upon the table.
Many a heart has been lost in the moonlight to be recovered instantly in the more mellow glow of lamps. But this woman was even more bewitchingly beautiful now that he could see the full glory of her coiled black hair. No trace of a warmer tint stained the smooth ivory of her skin. Her eyes, he realized, were not dark brown but were almost black with a little emerald green sparkle in their depths.
He looked up at the ceiling to see if there was a green shade to any of the lamps. There was not. Wherefore he looked into her eyes again – and his glance was gripped and held till he prayed that her lids might close for one brief second. When at last they fell, he sank back into a chair and breathed fast.
One thing he vowed silently: that, Emperor or no Emperor, he could never love any woman but this. He no longer wished to go to England. Miss Smith–! He broke in upon his own thoughts with a sudden shout of laughter. What did ten thousand Misses Smith weight in the balance against one smile of this woman.
“Come; you must be famished after your onerous duties as chevalier aux dames,” she laughed. “See; I will wait upon you by way of repaying the debt.”
Whereupon, the Captain tucked one corner of his napkin into the collar of his uniform and fell more deeply in love than ever. She served him with never too much of this and with never too little of that. He could not have helped himself with more delicate accuracy. Moreover, she ate practically nothing, a novelty which appealed to his æsthetic sense.
And the wines! Were there ever such wines! Each one in its turn seemed to have gained an added delicacy of flavour from the memory of its predecessor. It would have been a pleasure even to sip them – it was paradise to swallow them by the glassful. An Englishman would have slipped silently beneath the table, but Kurt von Unserbach merely leant back on a roseate cloud and twiddled his feet at the prosaic world below.
The banquet ended with a coffee liqueur under a film of fresh cream, and with one of his own cigars.
“You are a German,” he exclaimed ecstatically. “You must be a German. You are a Prussian of the Prussians.”
“I am of no nationality,” she replied. “I was once an Alsacienne – but now I belong to no nation.”
“Then you were half a German,” he exclaimed in triumph, “and I will make you entirely a Prussian.”
“But your marriage is an affair of state. Your emperor would never agree that you should marry me.”
Captain von Unserbach settled himself more comfortably back on his rosette cloud and twiddled his feet at the Emperor. “I am von und zu,” he declared haughtily, “and if he refuses his consent I will threaten to kill myself.”
From the expression in her eyes he gathered that this would be an even greater blow to her than to the Emperor. He hastened to assure her that he would not carry this threat to the extreme of fulfilling it.
“And – tell me,” she changed the subject, “were you in that first great advance into Belgium?”
“My regiment was one of the first that rode ahead past the fortress of Liege,” he answered proudly. “But why talk of other women when I have you here with me?”
But she encouraged him to speak of his doings, and her eyes mastered his as the fumes of the wine loosened his tongue. And as he told her tale after tale of those hideous days, the green lights in the depths of her eyes shone steadily – and coldly.
“That is from your point of view,” she said. “But supposing your army had found it a military necessity to sack this town. Supposing that your triumphant soldiers had already broken into this house before I had met you?”
Von Unserbach shuddered and winced. “Ach – don’t! It is unthinkable!” He deliberately evaded her meaning. “All these beautiful things would then have been destroyed.”
“And for me? Do you care nothing then for me?”
For one second he stared back at her, and then he sprang to his feet. His chair fell to the floor unheeded. “God in Hea
ven!” he shouted. “Care for you! I love you more than anything!”
He strode towards her and took her into his arms.
II
At five o’clock the following morning Captain Kurt von Unserbach let himself out silently by the narrow door. His face wore an expression of rapturous ecstasy. He drew his cloak tightly round him, and set out at a brisk strut for the barracks. It was certainly a cruel stroke of fate which had torn him from paradise at such an hour; but he reflected that the same fate which had selected him for early morning duties on that particular day had also thrown him in the path of this wonderful happiness. But for Fate he would never had met his– ? “Thousand devils!” he laughed. “Why, I don’t even know her name.”
He felt in his pocket for his cigar case and then remembered suddenly that he had left it on the mantelshelf in the bedroom. He paused for a moment and then turned again towards the barracks. He would not have time to go back, and it would be safe enough in her keeping. If her mother found it . . . ? He shrugged his shoulders. She could always say that she had taken it in there to keep it safe.
That morning was all seconds, and every second seemed like an hour. Moreover he was ravenously hungry, in spite of the heavy meal he had devoured such a short time before. His subordinates suffered even more than was usual. His only other gleam of consolation was the glance of unconcealed envy cast upon him by the infantry officer he had passed on the previous night.
As soon as he was off duty and had swallowed a hasty but ample lunch he hurried to the square. At first he was unable to locate the house, which had a strangely different appearance in the light of day. The door jambs with their shields and bugles he had found easily enough; but what, in the moonlight, had appeared to be a door of polished wood with a painted grid in it, was shabby in the extreme. The grid was red with rust. Blistered and dirty paint hung in tattered strips from the woodwork. He tugged at the remains of an iron handle, and in the distance sounded the metallic bleat of a broken bell. He rang again and listened. There was an echo which resembled those to be found only in an empty house. He stepped back into the roadway and looked up at the windows. Those which were not broken were covered with grime. He then noticed that there was no wrought iron lantern-bracket over the door. He heaved a sigh of relief. It could not be the same house.
He crossed the square to the police station and marched straight into the Prefect’s private room. “Can you tell me where I can find a house with a pattern of shields and bugles on the supports of the stone door-frame?”
“I can,” replied the Prefect wearily, placing his pen carefully in the tray of his inkstand.
“A house with a door of some dark wood with a painted grid in it, and a lantern bracket over it.”
“I cannot. There is no such house in Brevolt.”
“Rubbish. I dined there last night.”
The Prefect bowed in silence. It is not wise to contradict Prussian officers. Otherwise he might not now have been acting as mayor in addition to his police duties.
“Well?” demanded Captain von Unserbach.
“There is only one house in Brevolt with a pattern on its lintels such as you describe, and that is the one at which you have just been ringing. There was once a lantern-bracket such as you describe, but it fell down five years ago. The door was painted for the first and last time some forty years ago. The house is to let; but it has a bad name.”
“Why?”
“Its last owners were not altogether desirable people.”
“I am not asking about its last owners. Who lives there now?”
“Nobody.”
“You had better be careful as to how you tell me lies. I know perfectly well that a lady and her daughter are residing in that house. I do not know what your reasons for denying that fact may be, but you need have no fear that I intend them the slightest harm.”
The Prefect crossed the room and opened a locker. He selected a bundle of documents, untied the string, and extracted a pencil drawing. “Is that the lady you are seeking?” he asked.
“Yes!” Von Unserbach shouted. “Thousand devils! Why have you been wasting all my time with your lies. Empty house – you blockhead! Do you mean to tell me that two ladies and their household and ten vans of furniture could move in under your very nose and you not know it! You shall hear more about this!”
“And what is it you wish?”
“Wish! Why to get in there of course!”
The Prefect held out his hand for the pencil sketch. “It belongs to the police records,” he explained.
“It belongs to me,” replied the Prussian.
The police officer took a large key from the locker, and returned the remainder of the documents. Captain von Unserbach followed him across the square and, as soon as the narrow door had groaned and grated open, he pushed past him into the hall.
The Prefect heard the guttural oath of astonishment which followed, and smiled drily behind his pointed grey beard.
Kurt von Unserbach stood on the threshold – staring straight ahead of him – rigid with horror and amazement.
The hall was empty. There was no trace of furniture, nor of the glass vases of flowers, nor of the rich stair-carpet. The dust lay half an inch thick over the tiled floor, over the stairs, over the bannisters, over everything.
“Are you looking for the frescoes?” inquired the Prefect politely. “They were painted out over thirty years ago. They were scarcely of a nature to attract respectable tenants.”
But it was not the invisibility of the frescoes, it was not the absence of the furniture, which had terrified the soldier. There were fingermarks trailing through the dust on the bannister rail. There were footmarks in the dust on the floor, footmarks which led past the walls where the frescoes had been, and showed upon the stairs. And the marks on the bannister rail had been made by his own fingers, and the marks on the floor had been trodden out by his own cavalry boots. And besides these there were no other marks in the dust.
“Now that we are here it is a pity that you should not see over the house once again,” suggested the police officer. “The owners would sell it for a mere trifle. But it would interest me very much to know how you got in last night? The keyhole was clogged with dust.”
Kurt von Unserbach followed him up the stairs in silence. His brain was numbed. It was capable of nothing save obedience to outside suggestions.
The door to the dining-room resisted the efforts of the Prefect to open it. The bolt of the lock had rusted and the handle refused to turn. The Prussian pushed him aside and wrenched and tugged and twisted. Then he put his shoulder to the door and burst it open.
The room was empty. The massive tables and the solid chairs had vanished. There was now no carpet on the floor save a carpet of thick dust patterned with marks of his own boots. In the centre of the room and by the end wall, where the tables had stood, the dust lay smooth and untrodden. He saw clearly the marks where he had paced up and down beside the sumptuous dishes while waiting for– ? For– ? Waiting for– ? With an effort he resumed control of his brain. He snatched the pencil sketch from his pocket and thrust it towards the Prefect. “Who is she?” he demanded. “Who is that?”
“Your pardon, one moment; but is that your cigar end, and cigar ash, over there in the grate?”
“Who is that – please?” He spoke civilly – almost coaxingly. He was no longer merely a Prussian officer. He was a man, striving to fight down the fear that was growing in him.
“She came from Alsace with her mother, after the great war of 1870. A Prussian officer made their house his headquarters.”
“Ach!” The tone was one of comprehension, disgust, and fury.
“Ah – how she hated the Prussians! They were too vile even for her. She vowed that she would never return to France while a single one of that breed grunted through it unharmed. She was a bad woman – but she loved her country passionately. She continued her profession here for three years.”
“What profession?”
“In 1870 there was only one profession open to women,” replied the Prefect drily.
“But – the furniture! The furniture! How could it have been taken away in the night – and the dust not disturbed! In the night –? I tell you it was here at five o’clock this morning!”
“It was sold to pay off their debts. The table that was in the centre of the room has stood in the Mayor’s house for the last forty years. It is the one across which you fired at him. The chairs were purchased by the late Burgomaster and the other table” – he indicated the end wall – “was purchased by my father.”
“When?” Von Unserbach asked the question with an effort, and scarcely dared listen for the reply.
“The great oaken bed with the hangings of crimson velvet worked with golden fleurs-de-lys,” the old man continued in a tone of professional interest, “was broken up for firewood. No one would bid for it, by reason of the murder.”
“Broken up!” Kurt von Unserbach almost screamed the words. His forehead was damp. The colour had left his florid cheeks.
“Your pardon! You asked me when they were sold. It was in August 1874. I remember the date because it was exactly a month after the two women were executed. They cannot have been altogether bad, because they loved their country.”
Captain von Unserbach spoke rapidly in whispers. His words were inaudible. His lower lip hung loosely.
“Since that date the house has been closed,” added the Prefect after a polite pause. “You have doubtless noticed how thick the dust is.”
But Kurt von Unserbach was cursing his way through a half-forgotten prayer. He turned suddenly, with military precision, and strutted down the passage to the next room. He did not dare to go slowly, lest the remnant of his courage should fail him. He threw back the door and halted with a sharp click of his heels.
On the mantel-shelf lay his cigar case, exactly as he had left it.
The thick dust on the floor was undisturbed save for the imprints of his own bare feet.
He stared at the bare corner where, that very morning had stood the semblance of a great oaken bed – with hangings of crimson velvet worked with golden fleurs-de-lys. It was the space of a full minute before his eyes no longer focused on the patch of smooth dust. He turned – clicked his heels – and fell headlong on to the floor.
The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories (Mammoth Books) Page 37