“You will give it to me?” she exclaimed, holding out her hand.
“Yes, I will give it to you,” Fawley assented.
The tips of her fingers tapped hard against the tablecloth.
“I cannot wait,” she prayed. “Give it to me now.”
“There are terms,” Fawley warned her.
Disappointment shone in her eyes. Her lips quivered. For a moment his attention wandered. He was thinking that her mouth was the most exquisite thing he had ever seen. He was wondering—
“Do not keep me in suspense, please,” she begged. “What terms do you speak of?”
“You will not find them difficult,” he assured her, “especially as you have confessed just now that you are not an assassin at heart. Listen to my proposition.”
“Proposition,” she sighed, her eyes once more dancing. “I am intrigued. Will you commence? I am all eagerness.”
“Fold your hands in front of your bosom and swear to me that you will not repeat this afternoon’s adventure and you shall have your slipper.”
She held out her hands.
“Please place them exactly as you desire.”
Fawley crossed them. Like white flowers they were—soft and fragrant, with nails showing faintly pink underneath but innocent of any disfiguring stain of colour. She repeated after him the few words which form the sacred oath of the Roman woman. When she had finished, she treated him to a little grimace.
“You are too clever, my chivalrous captor,” she complained. “Fancy your being able to play the priest. And now, please, the slipper.”
Fawley drew it from his pocket and laid it upon the table. The exquisite paste buckle with the strangely set crown flamed out its brilliant colouring into the room.
“You regret the buckle?” she asked. “It is very beautiful and very valuable. It is quite authentic too. There is Medici blood in my veins. That, I suppose, is why I have the impulse to kill!”
A single lamp stood upon the table, with a worn shade of rose-coloured silk. Except for its rather fantastic and very dim illumination, they sat amongst the shadows. Her hand touched his, which still rested upon the slipper.
“You will give it to me?” she whispered.
“I shall give it to you,” Fawley agreed, “but please do not think that the buckle or even the fact that you have worn it are the only things I have found precious.”
“What do you mean?” she asked fearfully.
Fawley lifted the delicate inner sole of the slipper and looked up. Their eyes met across the table. She was breathing quickly.
“You have read it?” she gasped.
“Naturally.”
“You are keeping it?”
“On the contrary, I am returning it to you.”
A wave of relief drove the tension from her face. She seemed for the moment speechless. The paper which he handed across the table found its way almost mechanically into the jewelled handbag by her side.
“At the same time,” he went on gravely, “you must not hope for too much. I am in the service of Berati. I must tell him what I found in the slipper of the woman who tried to kill him.”
“You will tell him who it was?”
“I think that I am wrong, but that I propose to forget,” he told her. “You have probably made many men forget themselves in your brief years, Princess. You will make many more. What I read, I shall communicate to Berati. The source of my information I shall keep to myself. Take the slipper.”
Her hands were drawing it off the table but, as though by accident, they passed over Fawley’s and he felt their shivering warmth. There was a softer light in her eyes than he had ever seen.
“Princess—Elida—” he whispered.
She leaned towards him but Fawley swung suddenly around in his chair. Patoni, stark and sinister, was standing by the side of the screen, looking in. His smile was one of composed malevolence.
“I beg a thousand pardons,” he apologised, with a stiff little bow. “I am here on a mission of great importance.”
Fawley rose to his feet. He was as tall as Patoni and at that moment his face was as hard and set.
“It is part of your Italian manners,” he asked, “to play the spy in this way?”
“I have offered you my apologies,” was the cold retort. “A quarrel between us is not possible, Major Fawley. I am still of the Church and I do not fight duels. I am compelled to ask you to accompany me without a moment’s delay to the Generalissimo.”
“The Princess—” Fawley began.
“Has her duenna,” Patoni interrupted.
Elida leaned forward and suddenly clasped Fawley’s hand. He seemed somehow to have grown in stature, a man on fire with anger and without a doubt dangerous. Even the two carabinieri standing behind Patoni looked at him with respect.
“Please go,” she begged. “Please go with Prince Patoni, my friend. My car is waiting, my servant is here. I need no escort. I wish so much that you do as I ask.”
Fawley bent over her hands and touched them with his lips. Then he turned and left the room with Patoni.
CHAPTER VI
Table of Contents
In a life full of surprises Martin Fawley was inclined to doubt whether he had ever received a greater one than when, for the second time during the same day, he was ushered into the presence of General Berati, the most dreaded man in Rome. Gone was the severe high-necked and tight-waisted uniform; gone the iciness of his speech and the cold precision of his words. It was a tolerable imitation of a human being with whom Fawley was confronted—a dark-haired, undersized but sufficiently good-looking man dressed in a suit of apparently English tweeds, stretched at his full length upon the sofa of a comfortable sitting room leading out of his bureau, reading the New York Herald and with something that looked suspiciously like a Scotch whisky and soda by his side. He threw down his paper and welcomed his visitor with a grim cordiality.
“Come in, Major,” he invited. “I will offer you a whisky and soda as soon as you tell me exactly whom you found on the other side of that door.”
Fawley accepted the chair to which his host had pointed.
“May I take the liberty,” he begged, “of asking a question first?”
“Why not?” Berati answered with unabated good humour. “This is an unofficial conversation. Proceed.”
“Where did you disappear to after that first shot?”
Berati chuckled.
“I give audiences too easily,” he confided, “and for that reason, I have several little contrivances of my own invention. Some day I will show you this one. There is a button on my desk which I touch, the rubber floor upon which I sit disappears, and so do I, into the room below. I should explain perhaps that it is only a drop of a few feet and the end is what you call in England a feather bed. And now the answer to my question, please.”
Martin Fawley was probably as near complete embarrassment as ever before in his life. He hated the position in which he found himself. He hated what he was about to do. He kept his countenance but he was bitterly mortified as he felt for a secret pocket inside his coat and silently withdrew his cigarette case.
“General Berati,” he said, “I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself and I shall merit what you will doubtless think of me. At the same time, do remember this—I am to some extent a mercenary in your service. I allow myself that amount of excuse. It was a woman who fired the shot and, as you see, I am handing back my papers.”
“This is most intriguing,” Berati observed. “I gather then that you refuse to tell me her name?”
“Frankly,” Fawley replied, “I believe you know it already but, all the same, you are right: I refuse to tell you her name. I have been in your service for the matter of a few hours, I see you nearly killed, I know who fired the shot and I am not going to tell you who it was.”
“Capital,” Berati exclaimed. “Just what I should have expected from you. Put back your cigarette case, my young friend. After all, you probably saved my life, for, thanks to you, there was n
o second shot.”
“You know who it was?” Fawley asked, a little bewildered.
“Perfectly well,” Berati confided. “I joined my wife’s guests,” he went on, “chiefly for the pleasure of seeing whether you showed any embarrassment when you were presented to a certain one of our Roman beauties. My congratulations, Major. You have some of the gifts necessary in our profession, at any rate. Let me offer you a whisky and soda.”
Fawley thanked him and helped himself. Berati’s intonation as well as his manner seemed to have become curiously Anglo-Saxon.
“Listen, my friend,” he continued, “when an attempt is made upon my life, I never, if I can help it, allow anything to appear in the journals. You do not wish to give away a beautiful lady any more than I want to admit to the indignity of having been nearly wiped off the earth by so frail an instrument.”
“I think, sir, that you are a very brave and a very forgiving man,” Fawley declared, with an impulsiveness which was absolutely foreign to his character.
Berati laughed almost gaily.
“No man,” he said, “who is in touch with the great affairs of the world can afford to be made ridiculous. An attempt on my life by my wife’s niece, by the Princess Elida, is a thing to smile at. Nevertheless,” he went on, his tone becoming a trifle graver, “I have reason to believe that the Princess was carrying with her a paper of some importance.”
“She was,” Fawley admitted.
“You discovered it?” Berati snapped out with a trace of his former manner.
“I discovered it,” Fawley confessed. “Its purport is at your disposal.”
“And the paper?”
“I returned it to the Princess.”
Berati’s air of bonhomie temporarily disappeared. He scowled.
“An amazing act of gallantry at my expense,” he sneered.
“Bad enough in my position, I admit, but not quite as bad as it seems,” Fawley pointed out. “I have already told you that the purport of that paper is at your disposal.”
“It was signed by one who used to bear a great name in Germany?” Berati asked.
“It was,” Fawley assented.
“And in return for certain action on your part you were offered—?”
“I can tell you specifically, if you like.”
Berati shook his head.
“A copy of the proposed agreement reached me ten minutes ago. My mind is not made up. I have decided to wait until you have visited Germany. Your reports from there will influence me. At present I have an open mind. The Princess Elida has been bitterly disappointed,” he went on, “by what she thought was a point-blank refusal on my part. She believes that I lean towards Behrling. She has the usual woman’s fault—she jumps at conclusions.
“Is it permitted to ask what your intentions are with regard to the Princess?”
Berati grunted.
“Nothing venomous, I can assure you. I do not make war on women. She is now on her way to Vienna in the safest of my airships. I regret the necessity for such discipline, but she will not be allowed to cross the frontier again for a year. This need not disturb you, my friend, for I doubt whether you will spend much of your time in this country. You will recognise the fact, I am sure, that however much I may choose to risk in the way of danger, I cannot afford to be made ridiculous.”
“I think that you have behaved very generously,” Fawley declared.
Berati rose to his feet and touched the bell.
“The car in which you arrived is waiting for you, Fawley,” he announced. “Your place is taken in the night train for Monte Carlo. You have thirty-five minutes. Good luck to you. Carlo,” he added in Italian, to the servant who had answered the bell, “show this gentleman to his automobile. He goes to the Central Railway Station. By the by, Fawley, your luggage has all been registered and your small things put in your compartment. Once more—good night and good luck to you.”
Fawley lingered for a moment until the servant was out of hearing.
“How do you propose to communicate with me, General?” he asked.
“Concerning that you need not worry,” was the bland reply. “I do not approve of the telephone or the telegraph and I like even less letters which go through the post. Live your own perfectly natural life. Some day you will find in your salon a blue envelope.”
CHAPTER VII
Table of Contents
The blue envelope!
Fawley threw down the tennis racquet he had been carrying, turned the key in the lock of his sitting room door at the Hôtel de France and moved swiftly to the writing table on which the letter had been placed. He tore it open, read it very deliberately—for it was in a somewhat curious cipher which he had only just committed to memory—and then, lighting a match, watched it slowly consume to ashes. Afterwards he lingered for a few minutes on his balcony, looking up towards the misty peaks eastwards of Mont Agel. He no longer regretted the fortnight’s idleness, the nonappearance of Krust, the almost stagnant calm of his days. He had thoroughly established himself as a leisure-loving American with a passion for games. He now busied himself at the telephone, cancelling a few social engagements, for Fawley, reserved though he was by habit, was a man always sought after.
“A few days’ golf up at Sospel,” he told every one, after he had packed his clothes.
He wondered a little grimly whither those few days’ golf would lead him. Perhaps to the same place as Joseffi, who had been found in the gardens with a bullet through his heart and a revolver by his side, but who had never been known to enter the Casino in his life.
“You are not leaving us, sir?” the valet de chambre enquired, as he answered the bell.
“Only for a few days,” Fawley assured him. “I am keeping on my rooms.”
“You are not leaving us, Major Fawley, I trust,” the smiling and urbane manager asked him in the hall.
“Only for a few days,” Fawley repeated. “I am going to explore your
hills and try another golf links. Back about Sunday, I should think. Keep my letters.”
“I wish you a pleasant and successful expedition,” the manager remarked, with a final bow.
Fawley’s smile was perhaps a little enigmatic. He waved his hand and drove off without further speech.
* * * * *
Fawley, some five days later, driving his high-powered Lancia car through one of the many passes of the lesser Alps between Roquebrune and the frontier, suddenly swung around a corner to find himself confronted by a movable obstruction of white freshly painted rails and an ominous notice. A soldier in the uniform of the Chasseurs Alpins stepped forward, his rifle at a threatening angle.
“There is no road this way, Monsieur,” he announced curtly.
Fawley, who had brought his car to a standstill, leaned forward and produced a map. He addressed the soldier in his own language.
“My young friend,” he protested, “I fancy that you are mistaken. You have blocked the wrong road. This is clearly marked in the latest edition of the issued maps as a Number Two road between Hegel and the village of Les Estaples.”
“Your map is of no consequence,” the man replied. “This road was taken over by the military some time ago. There is no passage here for civilians.”
A sergeant, who had been sitting on a rock amongst the sparse pine trees smoking a cigarette, scrambled down to them.
“What is the trouble?” he demanded.
“Monsieur desires to use this route,” his subordinate confided. “I have told him that it exists now only for military purposes. He must return the way he came.”
“C’est exact,” the sergeant declared. “Where were you bound for by this route, Monsieur?”
Fawley leaned from his seat.
“I have been told,” he replied confidentially, “that your army is thinking of erecting military works here. I wish to discover how far that is the truth.”
The sergeant stared at him. So did the private. So did the young lieutenant, who had just ridden up
on a high-spirited horse in time to hear the end of the sentence.
“What is the reason for Monsieur’s desire to gain this information?” he asked, wheeling around so that he completely blocked the road.
“I might reply that that is my affair,” Fawley declared. “I really do not see why I should be questioned in this fashion. I have a map in my hand which clearly indicates this as a public thoroughfare.”
The lieutenant made a sign. The sergeant mounted on one footboard, the private on the other.
“Go backwards in reverse,” Fawley was ordered. “Take the narrow turning to the right about thirty metres back.”
“Where will it lead me?” Fawley asked doubtfully.
“You will find out when you get there,” was the curt reply. “If you hesitate, I shall have to ask you to consider yourself under arrest.”
Fawley, grumbling to himself all the time, obeyed orders. He found himself, after a climb of a couple of kilometres along a road which commenced in villainous fashion, but whose latter portion was smooth and beautifully engineered, in front of a recently built, white stone house, around which a considerable clearing had been made. A sentry stood in front of the door. The lieutenant who had galloped on ahead had disappeared into the house. Fawley rose to his feet.
“Is this where I get out?” he asked.
“On the contrary, you remain where you are,” the sergeant replied gruffly. “Our lieutenant is now interviewing the commandant.”
Fawley lit a cigarette and gazed down the avenue of fallen pines to the broken country beyond, the bare peaks fading into the mist with the background of snow-capped ridges incredibly near.
“A trifle wild here,” Fawley remarked. “You seem to have cut down a great many trees. You use a lot of timber in the army, I suppose.”
The sergeant maintained a scornful silence. The private grinned. The horizon was suddenly blurred. A few flakes of sleet began to fall.
“Any objection to my putting up the hood?” Fawley asked, shivering.
The sergeant pointed to the house.
“You will be warm enough in there,” he said. “Monsieur le Lieutenant is coming to fetch you.”
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