Charles’s hesitation was only a matter of seconds.
“Look here,” he proposed, “I have a better scheme.”
“Out with it quick, then,” Blute begged.
Charles dragged out his watch.
“The train is being stopped for me in less than ten minutes from now just opposite my little chateau at Felsen, where I was going to break away. There is a siding there. To start with we three must make our way into the van right away. Just before we get to Felsen, guard, you must loosen the couplings and detach them altogether with the brakes on. We’ll be ready to jump out with the guards and all our luggage before anyone else realizes what we are doing. Meanwhile the train itself won’t stop and it will be out of sight in no time. If this cheerful gang of desperadoes you are talking about tumble to what’s happening and jump the train we shall fight it out with them, but at this speed I don’t think they’ll risk it.”
“It’s a good scheme,” the guard cried feverishly.
“It’s the best chance you’ve got, anyway, and I’m with you.”
“Well, there you are,” Charles concluded. “There will be six of us all armed and we shall have the stuff in the grounds before they can stop the train and get out in the regular way. If we can get as far as the chateau itself there are one or two servants of mine up there who are used to a rough-house.”
They were all on their feet now. Blute laid his hand on Charles’s shoulder.
“There’s only one thing against this scheme, Mr. Mildenhall,” he said gruffly. “You’ll be let down completely. You’ll be marked down as one of a gang of thieves, even if we are only trying to save a man’s property from a greedy State.”
“That be damned!” Charles scoffed. “I’ll take my chance. Miss Grey, of course, must stay in the train.”
“Miss Grey will do nothing of the sort,” Patricia declared passionately. “I am coming down to the van with you now and if anything goes wrong and they try to rush us I shall fight it out with the rest of you. I’ll take the first gun there is to spare from either side. I can shoot pretty straight, I promise you.”
The guard looked out of the window and glanced at the watch he held in his shaking fingers.
“No time to argue, gentlemen,” he insisted.
He snatched Charles’s bags from the rack and led his three passengers along towards the end of the car. They hurried through the kitchen adjoining, through another door and out on to the iron platform.
“Into the van with you!” the guard insisted. “You three must hurry. I must stop to see about the couplings. I shall have to lie down on my stomach to do that job while she’s going. I shall manage it, though. It will be a nasty jerk, mind, when she breaks away. Into the van, please! You will find it difficult to get across that last bit when she begins to sway.”
He stood on one side and they hurried past him. There was an open space bridged over by only a narrow footway into the van. Blute shouted and one of the four guardians held out his hand and helped him across. One by one they safely negotiated the passage. Blute explained the situation in a few breathless words.
“If they try to follow us this way,” he pointed out, “we’ll kill the lot of them before they get across. A bullet a time and over they go. They won’t get here in time, though. The guard will have disconnected us and we shall be half a mile away even if they get hold of the engine driver and make him stop the train.”
“They won’t do that, sir,” the guard, holding on to an iron rod and looking up from his horizontal position, called out. “There’s a locked door between them and the engine. I shall be telephoning to the driver directly to put on steam. I should not be surprised if you are not safely in the chateau before they can leave the train…There goes the first of the couplings!”
They were beginning to wobble now. Charles half carried Patricia to the far end of the car and placed her by one of the cases.
“You crawl down behind that, young woman,” he enjoined, “and don’t go bobbing your head up to see who’s hit. Listen to me—and you, too, Blute—because I know the country here. If the train gets half a mile away before the gang are on the track it’s a cinch for us! We have a gate over the narrow road that runs level with the railway and an open entrance up the avenue to the chateau. Once inside there we’re safe. Now then, what about the caskets?”
“We can each carry one or drag it,” the chief of the guardians declared. “They’re no great weight. We’ll have to come back for the boxes.”
“As long as we get them across the road we can send down for them,” Charles said. “We must hide them inside the wood bordering the road.”
He knelt down by Patricia’s side. She came very close to him.
“There’s plenty of cover, Blute,” he called out. “Come farther back.”
Blute concluded his rapid orders to the four men and changed his position slightly.
“Look out!” he warned them. “We shall all go head over heels when that last coupling is loosened and the brake’s on.”
There was a sudden hissing of steam, a shriek from the metals. They were on the siding, very nearly jumping it. The van rocked from side to side as the brakes began to bite, then they slackened down to a crawl and came to a standstill. They rushed for the door which Blute had opened and jumped safely on to the track. The disappearing train was already well away and the engine driver had done even better than his instructions. He had put on speed to such an extent that, although one or two of the doors had opened and the forms of several men were visible hanging out as though they meant to jump, not one of them tried it. The most daring of their enemies had apparently rushed through the dining car and the kitchen and, leaning over the platform at the end of the carriage, had fired one abortive shot. The train was gathering speed every moment.
CHAPTER XXVI
Table of Contents
“That’s trick number one for us,” Blute declared, springing lightly down on to the permanent way. “Two of you fellows come down here and the others pass the caskets to us.”
They promptly obeyed. Afterwards they found the gate leading from the railway line to the road opened with a latch and the gate up the avenue to the chateau was easily flung back. One by one they dragged the caskets and then the three cases across the rails, the bordering roadway and into a place of security behind some shrubs in the chateau park.
“It’s trick number one for us, all right,” Blute repeated, pausing to wipe his forehead, “but we’re not quite out of the wood yet. How many men did you say you have up there, Mr. Mildenhall?”
“Well, I haven’t been there for over twelve months,” Charles reflected. “There was an old housekeeper who looked after things—I took her over from the last proprietor. Then there were two indoor menservants, a youth who looked after the electricity and telephone—we’ve always done a lot of long-distance telephoning from here—three men in the garden and a woodman.”
“Any weapons?”
“Not much in that way, I’m afraid. There are two or three sporting guns. A number five shot from a highly charged cartridge out of a Purdy gun is not to be sneezed at! No rifles, I’m afraid, but I’m sure there are a couple of revolvers. The servants are mostly Swiss but a pretty decent lot as far as I can remember. Needham, the butler, is really in charge. I’m afraid they get very slack when I’m away for a time. I couldn’t get hold of any of the servants whom I remembered when I rang up but the chauffeur’s voice was familiar and he told me he knew all about the plane and would see that it was got ready. He promised, too, to have the cars looked over. I suggest that we three go straight on up to the chateau and leave the cases here for the present. We can send down some more men to help bring them up. I know we have one lorry at least and a large car which should carry the lot. You can start off when you like.”
Blute hesitated for a moment.
“We must have transport,” he reflected. “The only thing I’m bothered about is supposing the Three G’s get the train stopped and hurry back
here.”
Charles pointed to the range of mountains ahead.
“They’ve got to get to the other side of those before they come to a town of any size,” he confided. “Even if they got the train stopped, there would be nothing to bring them back. It’s nothing but rough mountain country for fifty or sixty kilometres. There’s one military post but that wouldn’t do them any good.”
“We’ll do as you propose then,” Blute agreed. “Wait just a moment while I have a few words with the men.”
“It’s a lovely old place,” Patricia remarked as they drew nearer to the house on their upward climb. “I love the towers at the corner and the long sweep of the front.”
“It’s more French than Swiss, I’m glad to say,” Charles pointed out. “I don’t altogether like the look of the place, though,” he went on, glancing disparagingly around. “The grounds look very neglected and I can’t see a single gardener about. I fancy I can hear someone in the flying field, though, and there’s smoke enough from the chimneys. As soon as we’ve got our luggage up we must see what Madame can do for luncheon.”
“Have you a very good cook?” Patricia asked wistfully.
“Pretty fair so far as they go,” he answered. “I have never done a great deal of entertaining here. It was a very useful headquarters to write reports from and it is quite near several frontiers. Here we are!”
They crossed the paved courtyard; Charles pulled the huge iron bell chain, turned the great handle of the front door and pushed it open. There was a large but silent and gloomy hall. A man issued from the back regions and made his way towards them. He was dressed in dark livery but Charles looked at him puzzled.
“Who are you?” he asked.
The man stared at him for a moment, then he smiled a little superciliously.
“I was about to ask you the same question,” he confided. “Whom do you want to see?”
“I want to see Needham, my butler,” Charles replied. “My name is Mildenhall. The chateau belongs to me. I telephoned to say that I was coming.”
The man looked at him for a moment in blank astonishment, then he moved across the hall and threw open the door of a large reception room.
“Some visitors for you, sir,” he announced. “The younger gentleman says that his name is Mildenhall and that he owns the chateau.”
The man who had been seated at the writing-table rose to his feet. He was dark, tall, his figure was slim, even elegant, he was well and carefully dressed although in markedly foreign fashion. His grey eyes had a peculiarly chilling effect. The smile upon his lips, however, was a perfectly genuine affair. He appeared to find the situation a little unexpected but amusing.
“Really?” he exclaimed. “Mr. Mildenhall! I was hoping to make your acquaintance but not quite in this fashion. I am afraid before I ask you to be seated—the young lady will excuse me?—I must ask you, both of you, please, without any hesitation—quickly in fact—to raise your arms towards the ceiling and keep them there.”
Almost before he realized it Charles found himself looking into the barrel of a revolver held in the speaker’s right hand and Blute felt himself covered by a second weapon held in his left. It was certainly no time for argument. Charles’s first impulsive move forward and the lowering of his right hand had sent his opponent’s finger swiftly and without the slightest hesitation to the trigger of his weapon. Mildenhall raised his arms in approved fashion. Blute had already done the same.
“Thank you, gentlemen. Now, will you kindly explain this unexpected visit?”
“I don’t see that any other explanation is necessary than to tell you that this is my chateau and I am asking you what the devil right you have here,” Charles replied.
“The right of possession.”
“And your name?”
“Ah, you are beginning to be inquisitive,” the other observed. “I have special names for most of the countries I visit and they are many. In Switzerland I am known nowadays as Count Gervaise Gunther. That is when I am addressed formally, which rarely happens.”
“Of the Three G’s!” Blute groaned.
The Count smiled.
“You are a man of the world, I perceive, sir,” he remarked, bowing slightly to the speaker. “You have heard of me.”
This was, as he instantly realized, the bitterest moment of Charles Mildenhall’s life. He was conscious of a sensation which produced in him a feeling of deadly sickness. In his own vanity, in his own self-confidence, he had brought the girl whom he loved and the man with whom he was working into this mortal danger. He had taken a risk, not only on his own account but for them also. It was a horrible thought. If ever he passed out of this ghastly room alive, a possibility which he was inclined to doubt, he would still never forget the agony of these moments.
“Yes,” Blute admitted after a brief pause, “I have heard of you. I sometimes wondered if the time would ever come when we should meet face to face. I did not think that it would be here, though, or in this fashion.”
“You have brought to a successful conclusion, Mr. Blute,” the Count observed, reseating himself in his chair but keeping the little dark brown gun with its almost violet-coloured barrel in his right hand, “so many of your schemes in life that I imagine you have forgotten the possibility of failure. I have been one of your admirers, you know. I always felt that if I could have come across a man with a genius for finance, as brilliant in his way as I am in mine, we might have done great things in Europe. We might have become king-makers. We might even have occupied thrones of our own.”
“You flatter me,” Blute said bluntly.
“Not in the least. By the by, young lady, will you not honour this poor abode by taking a chair? It is really more your friend Mr. Mildenhall’s than mine, you know, although I am doing the honours just now. Do sit down. The small orange-coloured couch behind you would go with your complexion and hair.”
“Thank you. I’ll try it,” Patricia assented.
The Count smiled in approval.
“I was about to allude, Mr. Blute,” he went on, “to the amazing coup you have brought off which has preserved for Mr. Leopold Benjamin his great fortune. In nearly every country you have not only preserved his wealth but you have added to it. You will be proud to know, I am sure, that even in my own country, Switzerland, your name is as famous even as my own.”
“It is an honour,” Blute murmured with gentle sarcasm.
“This present enterprise of yours, though, Mr. Blute, seems scarcely likely to redound so much to your credit,” the Count continued. “I am inclined to fear that you have been a little indiscreet in your choice of an ally.”
“That,” was the calm reply, “seems to be my affair. If I may be pardoned for saying so, I am not a young man and I cannot support the weight of my two arms held in a vertical position very much longer.”
“Reasonable,” the other acknowledged. “Let me see—what can we do? Strauss, this way a moment.”
The man who had admitted them came from the shadows of a further apartment. His master reflected.
“Let me see if this would work,” he suggested. “Hold Mr. Blute’s right wrist firmly in your fingers, Strauss, and place your hand upon the muzzle of his weapon. If he is willing to relinquish it bring it to me.”
Blute was not the man to make an effort which was foredoomed to failure. He yielded the revolver.
“The same course of action with my younger friend, Mr. Mildenhall…Excellent. Both weapons I will keep on the table by my side, gentlemen, until we have arrived at an understanding. By the by, Mr. Mildenhall, we have turned your rackets court temporarily into an execution ground. We have found it very well adapted for the purpose.”
“I shall be happy to sample it,” Charles observed grimly.
“It seems to me highly probable,” the Count continued, “that you will have an opportunity. I am not a jealous husband but I do not like young men whose flirtations with my wife become too obvious. There was that hideous-looking Hessian lieute
nant, for instance, who has probably saved his skin by going off to Poland. I had no fancy for that young man. Of course, when it comes to the great ones of the world—with the same Christian name as your own,” he reflected with a smile, “a husband may regard the affair with greater leniency. A very charming man, the Archduke.”
“Do you know, I don’t want to be rude,” Charles ventured, “but I’m getting very bored, and I am sure Mr. Blute is too, with your monologue. What the hell does all this talk about your wife mean?”
“My wife. I forgot you knew her by her later name, the Baroness von Ballinstrode. She was really a very pretty young woman years ago when she became the Countess Gunther.”
There was a brief acute silence.
“Are you telling me,” Charles demanded, “that Beatrice von Ballinstrode is your wife?”
The Count sighed.
“Do you mean to tell me that you have never heard of that dear lady’s disreputable connection?”
“I will answer for it that he did not,” Blute intervened. “Mr. Mildenhall knew only that the Baroness had made an unfortunate marriage with a man who ruined her life and from whom she was divorced.”
“Ah, but that is where my wife was wrong,” the Count protested calmly. “I never consented to the divorce. If my wife had been a little more reasonable she might have been very useful to me. At any rate, I never had any idea of letting her go. I have not been quite satisfied with her behaviour lately—in fact, my displeasure went so far as to relieve her of her passport—but…”
“Get on with the matter in hand,” Blute insisted.
“I am talking to save time,” the Count confided. “I am coming to the point now, though. In this bungled enterprise of yours, Mr. Blute, what have you done with the—er—loot?”
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