The Second Seal

by Dennis Wheatley

  “Then we are in the very devil of a mess.”

  “I fear you are. Tonight all eyes will be riveted on you and her; and I shall be surprised if you do not receive an order to quit Vienna as soon as it can be conveyed to you without giving additional point to this excellent basis for starting a scandal.”

  The Duke gave a rather twisted smile. He had to leave Vienna in any case on Monday. It seemed mean to take advantage of Ilona’s generosity as an excuse for doing so; yet it would make her less unhappy to think that he had left in order to protect her from the results of her own rashness, rather than for any other reason: so he said:

  “Then I shall forestall any such unpleasantness by leaving of my own free will.”

  “You could hardly do better as far as saving her name is concerned,” Adam Grünne agreed with a friendly smile of appreciation. “But not until to-morrow or Monday. You must appear Tonight to kiss hands on your appointment and ask leave of absence; otherwise your going will look like an insult and cause more tongues to wag than ever.”

  De Richleau was very glad that the stalwart little Count viewed matters so. Only to save Ilona from open disgrace could he have brought himself to leave Vienna without saying good-bye to her; and Grünne’s opinion tallied with his own. Refolding the parchment that she had so impetuously ordered to be made out in a natural but ill-considered wish to do public honour to her lover, he observed:

  “Your prediction has come true only too soon, Count. But I trust you do not think too ill of me for not having taken your advice to leave Vienna ten days ago.”

  “In the circumstances you would hardly have been human if you had. Still, it is to be regretted for both your sakes that the affair should have gone so far. What occurred between you at the dance on Thursday night is no business of mine: but she was in the deuce of a state all yesterday. She couldn’t sit still for two minutes, and coughed herself sick with excitement. Last night she was running a temperature again, and Sárolta says that if her doctor saw her he would not allow her to get up to-day. But, of course, she has forbidden anyone to send for him, and wild horses won’t prevent her appearing at the ball Tonight.”

  “What you say makes me feel very guilty,” said the Duke with grave concern.

  Count Adam shrugged his broad shoulders. “If it had not been you, my friend, it would have been someone else. I only marvel that she has not fallen a victim to this universal complaint before. But about your uniform; how soon can you be ready to accompany me to the regimental tailors? They will do the job somehow, of course; but it is going to be the very devil of a rush, and you will have to hold yourself at their disposal for a couple of fittings this afternoon.”

  Walking over to the speaking tube, the Duke blew down it and ordered coffee, rolls and fruit for two. Then he said, “I’ll go and bath at once. Please help yourself when breakfast arrives, and I’ll join you as soon as I can. I shall be ready to leave in three quarters of an hour.”

  De Richleau spent most of the day at the tailors. They almost made the uniform on him; but in an interval between fittings he managed to find a heart-shaped ruby. It was quite small, but that was immaterial as Ilona had finer jewels than Rockefeller could have bought her, and its appropriateness as a gift lay in its unusual shape.

  At half past eight he left Sacher’s, resplendent in sky-blue and silver, with the loose sleeve of the astrakhan-trimmed half cloak swaying gallantly behind him as he walked, and his chest glittering with his orders and decorations. A quarter of an hour later a taxi, which had carried him along the Link Wienzeile into Vienna’s south-western suburbs, set him down before the Schönbrunn Palace.

  Its great courtyard was full of equipages and running footmen. Inside, its marble halls, staircases and salons were crowded with hundreds of guests: officers in an immense variety of uniforms; diplomats wearing black silk breeches, white stockings and cordons of every colour; Hungarian magnates whose costumes were trimmed with sea otter, ermine and sable; and bare-shouldered women of all ages, whose tiaras, necklaces, pendants, rings, ear-rings, brooches and bracelets would together have stocked for twenty years every jeweller’s shop in the Rue de la Paix. For the last time, although they could not know it, the noblest blood, the finest brains, with all the wealth, gallantry and beauty of an ancient Empire, had gathered there in their splendour to do honour to a daughter of the Imperial House of Habsburg.

  Slowly, through a sea of nodding plumes, rustling satin, and glittering epaulets, the Duke made his way across the long range of lofty salons at the back of the palace to the Throne room. At the far end of it, on a low dais, Ilona was seated in a great gilt chair, the back of which rose to frame her face with the spreading wings of the double-headed Habsburg eagle. To her right, on a similar chair, sat her cousin, Franz Ferdinand; and on her left, another cousin, the young Archduke Charles. De Richleau solemnly made his three bows to them; then, as the line moved on, passed into the next salon. He could not but be a little awed at the thought that the very apex of all this power and glory was a young and beautiful woman who had declared her love for him. But he was much concerned by her appearance as the light dusting of powder, which was all the make-up considered permissible at that date, did not disguise the fact that she was far from well.

  Already a number of people had congratulated him on the birthday honour he had received, and now he ran into Sophie von Hohenberg. As a morganatic wife she had no special precedence at official functions, so had to appear as an ordinary guest.

  “Well, well, my dear Colonel!” she greeted him with a cynical little smile. “How handsome you look in your new uniform.”

  “I thank your Highness,” he smiled back, offering her his arm as she dismissed her previous cavalier.

  “And now, of course,” she went on in a low voice, “the real reason for your anxiety to have Ilona Theresa at Königstein is revealed. I must confess that you tricked me very cleverly.”

  He raised his dark ‘devil’s’ eyebrows. “I fear I fail to understand.”

  “Oh come! You cannot pull the wool over my eyes. That little minx is in love with you, and you with her. I had a suspicion that she was more than ordinarily interested in you when I saw you waltzing together at the Czernins’ dance but, knowing her reputation for frigidity, dismissed it as unlikely.”

  “Then I pray your Highness to dismiss the idea again, for it has not one atom of foundation.”

  “Why this appointment, then? It can only be so that, as a Colonel of her regiment, you can gain ready access to her without the usual formalities.”

  That aspect of the matter had not even occurred to the Duke, and he said so. Then he went on, “You are right, though, in assuming that it was her visit to Königstein which led to my appointment; although I had no thought of it before that. It chanced that during the two dances we had together there we talked of my campaign in the Balkans. She remarked then that the Austrian army was second to none in appearance, but had no experience of war: and that as far as her own regiment was concerned she thought it would be a good thing if they had someone like myself who could advise on modern training. She was right, of course, and I naturally agreed with her. Without consulting me further, it seems that she took my agreement for consent to undertake the work. But no one could have been more surprised that I was when I received her commission this morning.”

  The explanation was a good one; although the Duchess murmured a little doubtfully, “I had no idea that Ilona interested herself in military matters,” he felt that he had shaken her; so he added casually:

  “As a matter of fact, though, she has picked on the wrong man at the moment; as I have to leave Vienna to-morrow, and shall be detained for some time in Constantinople on important business.”

  The Duchess shrugged. “Ah well, perhaps I was wrong. In your case it certainly seems so. All the same, I suspect she is going to be a very disappointed young woman when she hears that her handsome new Colonel is not remaining here to dance attendance on her.”

  T
he ball was now opening with a quadrille. Franz Ferdinand led out Ilona and other couples followed in order of precedence, while the great bulk of the brilliant throng lined the walls to watch the formal measure. A waltz came next and de Richleau danced it with the Duchess; then he took up a position not far from the dais, where Ilona could easily send for him when she wished. Half an hour later she sent her equerry to him, and in another waltz they took the floor together.

  Now that he was close to her, he was more alarmed than ever by the hectic flush of her cheeks and unnatural glitter of her eyes. They had hardly completed their first graceful whirl, when she said unhappily:

  “Oh Armand! I have acted like a fool again.”

  “My dear,” he murmured, “please do not blame yourself for your generous impulse. I was touched to the heart by it.”

  She was almost crying. “I did it because the temptation to give you some honour was too strong for me; and I chose this, thinking myself so clever, because it would also give you an excuse to be able to visit me at any time. But now Sárolta and Adam tell me that all Vienna will be talking about us, and this afternoon I received a request from the Emperor for my reasons for making such an appointment.”

  “Have you given one?” he asked quickly.

  “Not yet. I can think of nothing to say, except that I have formed a liking for you; and that will lead him to suspect the truth.”

  “That, we must prevent at all costs: and I fear it is going to cost us very dear,” he sighed. Then he told her of the explanation that he had given the Chotek, which would also serve for the Emperor, and of his intention to kill rumour by leaving Vienna next day.

  She faltered in her step, clutched at him, and exclaimed: “No, Armand! No!”

  Before he could reply she was seized with a violent fit of coughing. As they were near the side of the room, he led her from among the dancers without difficulty, and by raising her big ostrich feather fan she concealed her convulsed face from all but the people who were standing nearest to them. When the bout had subsided, she said: “Take me to one of the windows for some air.”

  The night was hot and down one side of the great room a line of French windows stood open, giving access to a hundred-feet long balcony that was as wide as a normal terrace. A few couples were drifting in and out and strolling along it, but he did not dare to take her outside as he knew that scores of people must be watching them, and that their disappearance for even a few moments would now be certain to set malicious tongues wagging. On their approaching the nearest window, the people about it had respectfully drawn back, and as he halted with her in its entrance no one was within earshot.

  “Armand,” she said in a low voice. “You must not go away. I could not bear it.”

  Fearing that if he even looked at her their expressions might disclose the intensity of their emotions, he stared straight in front of him across the balustrade into the gardens. Beyond the great open space below them with its eight lawns patterned by flower beds, the pleached alleys, laid out with such skill by a famous eighteenth century gardener, were lit with chains of fairy lamps. In the star-lit distance beyond the Neptune fountain rose the graceful colonnade of the Gloriette and the tall trees of the park. The strains of the ‘Merry Widow’ waltz came to them from within, mellowed by the gliding footsteps and the rustling dresses of five hundred dancers.

  No lovers could have craved a more perfect setting for romance, but these two, watched as they were by a score of curious eyes, were blind to the beauty of the scene, deaf to the lilt of the waltz, and thinking only of striving to prevent the misery that they felt from showing in their faces.

  “Darling, I must go,” he said dully.

  “No, please!” she murmured. “You cannot be so cruel. Everything will be all right if only we are very careful.”

  “Not now that all Vienna suspects us, my sweet.”

  “Oh, Armand; you don’t understand. You—you have loved lots of other women. But with me it’s different. I’ve never loved anyone before. And I love you so that it hurts. I’ll die if I must lose you.”

  His heart felt as though it were being crushed between two revolving mill-stones, but he could only say: “My sweet Princess, I swear that I have never loved anyone as I love you; and that I would cut off my right hand, if by doing so I could spare you a moment’s pain. But the only way now in which I can protect you from scandal is to leave Vienna.”

  She nodded, but her voice was very near to tears as she pleaded: “But not yet. Not for a few days, at least.”

  Deceiving her, even partially, about the reason for his departure was hateful to him; but he knew that even had Dimitriyevitch and Sir Pellinore been no more than a part of some awful dream, it would still have been incumbent on him to leave Vienna for her sake, and the sooner the better. So he said:

  “I beg you to be brave and face the facts, beloved. If I stayed on we dare not risk a meeting. Even if we were seen riding together in the Prater, a story would now be made of it. And to linger for even twenty-four hours is to risk receiving an order to go. If once that happened, I should be debarred from returning; whereas if I go at once——”

  Like a drowning woman she clutched at the straw. “You’ll come back, then? Oh, when? When?”

  “We must allow time for the air to clear—time enough for it to sink into people’s minds that the honour you have done me was not for the reason they thought.”

  “Be more precise, I beg you.”

  He considered the matter for a moment without regard to any others, and replied: “If we are not to defeat our own purpose, I ought not to reappear here in less than eight weeks.”

  “Oh, Armand, no! I cannot wait a whole two months before I see you again. I cannot! Besides, at any time now fresh plans may be started for marrying me off. Go now if you must: but surely you can return to Vienna in secret. You were so bold and clever at Ischl, when you acted the part of a guide. If you really love me, you will think of some other plan like that by which we can at least see one another.”

  Her words found a ready echo in the Duke’s own heart. He had every reason to suppose that within ten days of his arrival in Belgrade he would either have found out Dimitriyevitch’s plans and initiated plans to foil them, or, if he had failed, that the mine would have been sprung, leaving him free to get out of Serbia as best he could. He nodded.

  “If it is humanly possible, I will do as you suggest. But I beg you, dear love, to be patient for a fortnight.”

  Ilona’s face brightened. “You promise me faithfully then, to be back here by the end of the month?”

  The band stopped playing. The dance was over, and he knew that he must take her back to the dais in a few moments. Lowering his voice still further, he said: “I promise. Now hold out your hand as though a button of your glove had come undone, and you wished me to do it up for you.”

  She did as he asked, and he deftly slipped the little ruby through the opening of the glove into her palm. “That,” he whispered with a smile, “is my birthday present to you. It represents my own heart, and I give it to you for ever.”

  “Thank you, dear Armand,” she breathed. “You have mine already.”

  Five minutes later he had bowed his way backwards from her and once again mingled with the glittering throng. Perturbed as he was about her health, he had had no chance to ask her about it, or urge her again to see her doctor; but her hectic flush and coughing fits were so obviously abnormal that he hoped her family would insist on her doing so while he was away.

  That led him to speculate unhappily on what he could say to her on his return, if war had broken out in the meantime and forced them into hostile camps. He was determined to keep his promise to her, even at the risk of being put into an aliens’ detention camp until he could escape. But, having kept it, in the worst event, he must somehow get back to England to take his part in the fight. The whole dark future seemed to bristle with so many difficulties and dangers that he tried to force it from his mind, but its awful possi
bilities insisted on contrasting themselves with this magnificent assembly, in which he was but one of a thousand colourful bubbles that seemed to float and mingle so gracefully to the airs of Schubert, Liszt and Strauss. Soon after he had left Ilona he saw Sophie von Hohenberg again, and she gave him an arch smile. Had he been able to foresee the future he would have shuddered, for in fifteen days she was to die.

  He would have left early if he could, but etiquette demanded that he should remain until the Imperial party withdrew. Moreover, having danced with Ilona, prudence demanded that he should also be seen dancing with other ladies, and another three hours elapsed before those walls, that had known so many generations of glory, echoed for the very last time to the Austrian National Anthem played in the presence of the Habsburgs.

  He had already given notice in the office at Sacher’s that he would be vacating his rooms next day. In the morning he bade good-bye to Frau Sacher, and asked her to have the bulk of his luggage sent to Königstein, as it might be a considerable time before he visited Vienna again. At the station he left one large portmanteau in the cloak-room, against the possibility of his returning in secret; then, with his two remaining suitcases, he boarded the train for Budapest.

  The beautiful Hungarian capital had always been a favourite spot with him so, since he had had to leave the city that held his beloved Ilona, he was by no means averse to putting in a night and a day there. He went to the Vaderskürt, where he had previously stayed, and they made him very comfortable. But he did not call upon Count Esterházy, or any of his other Hungarian friends, as to have done so would have necessitated awkward explanations regarding the shortness of his stay. The weather was heavenly, so he spent most of the Monday swimming and sun-bathing then, that night, he caught the train on to Belgrade.

  The French manager of the Cosmopolitan was most pleased to see him again and installed him in the same room. Soon afterwards the moustached gentleman with the lemon-coloured boots and the photograph album of local ladies in the near-nude appeared, but was swiftly dismissed. The Duke then wrote a note to Colonel Dimitriyevitch, reporting his arrival, and sent it by hand to the War Office.