Wanted, an English Girl

by Moore, Dorothea

Gill felt sure that he would come back, if he had the smallest part of an idea. She had not forgotten that promise he had asked of her while he and she walked up and down the pavement outside Wingeld’s. She had his address—his stepfather’s address, which he had said would always find him—stored away in the central division of her new purse, but that did not bring him any nearer just then to a person wanting his practical help very badly.

  Gill leaned out of the window—hoping, praying that somebody she knew would go by. And somebody did, only he was somebody whom she did not at all want to see—the Baron von Eckart. He was coming down the street from the direction of the station; he turned sideways when he had passed below her window—by craning her head out she could see him run up the steps and press the electric bell. Then he was coming to see the Baron von Traume—perhaps to go on with the conversation she had interrupted at Estinotti’s; perhaps to talk over the mysterious news which Berta had blurted out; perhaps to help in settling what was be done with Gill herself.

  Gill came away from the window in deep disgust; there was no help to be got from this passer-by, that was certain.

  She wondered whether the two Barons were going to talk again: in the room next hers. It was hardly likely, now her host knew that she had overheard them, unless the Baroness had been doing something to the back of the cupboard yesterday evening when Gill had met her coming from the room.

  Gillian opened the cupboard door. At least an investigation would be something to distract her thoughts, which were not particularly cheerful ones just now.

  Something had been done to the back of the cupboard since last night, or at least something was in course of doing. Probably the Baroness had intended the work to be finished this very morning while Gill and Berta were safely shut up with Shakespeare in the schoolroom.

  As it was, a part of the back had been removed without being replaced by anything more solid. Gill found that she could see through, not into the bedroom of the Baron and Baroness, as she had expected; but into another cupboard, through the open door of which she could look into what seemed to be a sort of business room.

  This was quite interesting. Gill supposed she ought not to be looking, but she did look, and that was how it was she saw that a door in the wall beside the writing-table was standing ajar, and through it she could see a ladder-like staircase running upwards.

  Not that it occurred to her at all immediately, as it would doubtless have done to the heroine of a book, as a means of escape. For one thing, she did not know that she could get through into the next room from the back of the cupboard; for another, she had not a notion where the stairs led. It was only when, in her interest, she leaned rather hard against the back part of the cupboard and felt it give most decidedly, that it struck her that at least she need not stay a prisoner in her own room any longer than she wished. Once in the Baron’s she had only to open the door and walk out, and if she met somebody on the hall or stairs, she would be no worse off than she was now.

  Gill squeezed and pushed and worked at what was left of the frail boarding that backed the cupboard. There must once have been a door between the two rooms, but it had probably been taken away when a cupboard was put in on both sides, and Gill reaped the benefit. She got through in about ten minutes, hot but triumphant, with a long scratch upon her hand but hope in her heart. She had heard the gong sound for mittagessen a few minutes ago; if she could only dodge the servants she ran quite a good chance of making her escape now.

  Her hand was on the door when she thought of her luggage. A romantic escape was all very well, but Aunt Edith would be vexed enough already at seeing her niece back, and what would she say if her niece left all her clothes and a brand-new hold-all behind her?

  It was not a large or heavy hold-all; Gill thought for a moment, and then decided that she could manage to carry it if she took out a few of her heaviest things.

  There was no time to be lost; she squeezed back through the cupboard, and, shutting its door behind her, flew upon her hold-all.

  She had just got the straps undone, and was trying to decide whether Aunt Edith would be more annoyed by the sacrifice of the dressing-gown or the hated blue Sunday dress, when the key turned in the lock and a voice spoke behind her.

  “What are you doing, Miss Courtney?”

  Gillian turned round. The Baroness was standing in the doorway, suspicion in her curious eyes.

  Gillian had never felt so entirely thankful to Aunt Edith. If it had not been for her she would have run full tilt into the Baroness upon the stairs, and how could she have explained her escape from a room where the door was still fast locked?

  “What are you doing?” the Baroness repeated a little louder, and Gillian sat back upon the floor and answered with outward innocence, though it must be owned that her heart was in her mouth:

  “I am unpacking my hold-all, as the Baron told me, Baroness.”

  The Baroness came a little further into the room, and turned a cold glance upon the luggage of the English girl. Then she said:

  “You may accompany me down to mittagessen. In spite of your behaviour we have no wish to deny you food, and the Baron my husband has some further questions to ask of you.”

  “That’s the result of the other Baron’s visit,” Gillian thought, in great dismay at this most unwelcome invitation. Aloud she answered, wondering a little to hear her own voice sound so ordinary:

  “Do you mind if I stay here till you have finished mittagessen? I have such a headache, and don’t even want to smell, much less to touch any food.”

  The headache was genuine enough. Excitement had driven it away for a little while, but it had returned in full force so soon as Gill began to stoop over her hold-all.

  “Very well. You may remain,” the Baroness announced, after a glance at the girl, and she went out again, locking the door carefully behind her.

  Gillian got up the moment that she heard the disappearing footsteps on the stairs. There was no time to be wasted if she were to be interviewed directly after the midday meal, though she comforted herself a little with the thought that all German meals are lengthy.

  A pair of boots, the dressing-gown and the Sunday frock were thrown overboard with reckless speed, and the lightened hold-all re-strapped. She squeezed through the cupboard with it, holding up the loosened boards with one hand, while she dropped her luggage through into the next room with the other.

  It fell with a frightening thud, making her heart beat furiously with sheer fright for a moment, and sending two or three papers on the Baron’s writing-table flying in all directions.

  Force of habit made Gill stoop to pick these up; after that first paralysed second, while she was waiting for someone to have heard the noise and come running to see who had made it.

  No one did come, however, and she carried the papers in a little pile to the writing-table, and opened the blotting-book that lay there to thrust them hastily inside it.

  Something that was inside the blotting-book already stared up at her in bold black printing. Her eye was caught by the first words before she knew what she was doing: when she did know, she paused for an instant and then deliberately read to the end.

  It was a notice—Gill called it that in her own mind, not being used to the term “manifesto”—of the size that she had seen fastened to church doors and other public places in England.

  It had been printed in Coblenz, and was signed with a name that she did not know. Below was a title “Commandant, Eighth German Army Corps.”

  This was the manifesto to which the Commandant of the Eighth German Army Corps had affixed his name.

  “France having violated the neutrality of Insterburg by commencing hostilities against the German troops on the soil of Insterburg, as has been incontestably established, His Majesty the Emperor has been compelled by this disregard of neutrality on the part of the French to order troops to enter Insterburg. Therefore let the people of Insterburg and its Government abstain from aggravating the task of the German troops
.”

  Gill stared at the manifesto in silence for a whole minute, forgetful of the very grave risk of detection. Then she gave herself a little shake, and woke up. She did not know a great deal, but she did know that whether the statement in that manifesto were false or true, its purport was—a declaration of war.

  CHAPTER XV

  The Home in the Rue des Carillons

  Her first thought was to stuff the manifesto into the already baggy pocket of her coat and fly downstairs and out into the streets that led to the Grand-Duchess and her friends.

  Her next was a more prudent one. The chances were against her managing to get away without meeting anyone; when she had thought of it before she had felt she would be no worse off if stopped. Now she would be worse off, much worse, if they caught her with the paper upon her and observed—and those agate eyes of the Baroness did observe everything—her bulgy pocket.

  If she were taken, no warning would be given to the Insterburgers of the coming of the Germans.

  There was a telephone upon the Baron’s little writing-table—if only she had the fat telephone directory, which she had seen in his big study, Gill felt she could have got on. A telephone was so much the quickest way of passing on her information—and time was dreadfully important.

  She tip-toed across to the door and opened it a chink. She must be able to hear if anyone were coming up the stairs. Then she flew back to the writing-table. A telephone directory! Surely the Baron did not take the trouble to go and fetch it from the downstairs study whenever he wished to make sure of a number? She opened and shut drawers with frantic haste; there were long lists of names, with their telephone numbers against them, written out in a stiff German handwriting; but these were not easy to read quickly, and she did not dare take the time to see if the name and number she wanted was among them. For the minutes were racing by; when mittagessen had been consumed below stairs the chance that she felt herself wasting so horribly would be gone.

  That knowledge seemed to paralyse her brain and make it impossible for her to think.

  Mademoiselle de Monti’s number—she knew she had seen it, but where? The answer to that question came with a suddenness that made her laugh hysterically with relief. Of course, Mademoiselle de Monti had given it in the note inviting Gill and Berta to go with her to the opera, and, though Gill could not recollect the number, she had the note. With a sense that she was dreadfully like the sentimental type of High School girl whom she had always secretly despised, she had put that particularly kind little note away in her jewel-case, as she called the box which kept her few valuables; and her jewel-case was in the hold-all not the width of the floor away.

  Blessing Aunt Edith for the second time that day—if it had not been for her the hold-all would not have been there so conveniently, that was certain—Gill tore aside the straps again and got at the precious note. Here it was, with its clear directions: “Telephone to me at —” and the number.

  Gill listened at the door for half a minute, trying to keep under the chokiness of intense excitement, and then hurried to the telephone, thinking out the German for what she had to say at the Exchange, as she lifted the receiver.

  She asked for her number, and wondered if she had heard suspicion in the voice of the operator. She stood still, waiting to be through, with her heart thumping like a scared rabbit’s, and an inward conviction that if it hadn’t been for the noise it made she would hear someone coming up the stairs to fetch her down. Well, if she could only get a message through to Mademoiselle de Monti first, Gill told herself, it didn’t really matter if the Baron did find her telephoning his private plans from his private room. She told herself so over and over again during those dreadful hours while she seemed waiting to be through with Mademoiselle de Monti—told herself firmly as well as often, and tried hard to believe it.

  There was a voice at last, but it wasn’t Mademoiselle de Monti’s. It was a man’s voice, but not a German’s, thank goodness!

  “Who is it?”

  “Gillian Courtney, wanting Mademoiselle de Monti. Please get her very quickly,” urged poor Gill. “It’s wildly important.”

  “I am afraid she is out driving with the Grand-Duchess.” (Gill’s heart sank.) “Are you there?—Can I take a message for her?”

  The voice spoke in French; it was the voice of a gentleman. Gill took a little heart again.

  “Yes, please; but do you mind telling me who you are first—sounds rude, but you’ll see why in a minute.”

  “Not at all. Would you not rather talk in English if you are the Miss Courtney the Grand-Duchess spoke of? I am Stèfan Anverra, first secretary to the Premier.”

  “Thanks,” Gill got out breathlessly. “Please, I’m going to tell you now. I think it’s a German plot. Are you there?”

  “One minute, please; I’m only getting out my pocket-book to take down what you say.”

  “Be quick!” urged Gill in an agony. “They may come upstairs and find me doing this at any moment.”

  “Right. I’m ready.”

  Holding the manifesto in a hand that wasn’t quite as steady as usual, Gill dictated it down the ’phone.

  “Right. Where did you get this?” Monsieur Anverra inquired, in English.

  “From the Baron’s writing-table—an accident—I saw it, but I knew something was wrong before.”

  “How, Mademoiselle? Explain, please.”

  Monsieur Anverra had quite lost his polite society manner, Gillian noticed. He was short and abrupt, as though he too were in a desperate hurry. Somehow that tone was helpful instead of frightening. It made her pull her wits together without wasting one second in the process.

  In the fewest possible words she told what Berta had said.

  “You can’t get at any more papers, I suppose?” inquired the secretary shortly.

  Gill gasped.

  “Does the Baron meet other Germans at his house?”

  “Only Baron von Eckart that I know about, and he’s here now; but he met last night with some other men at the smoking-room at Estinotti’s,” Gill added, by no means sure that this bore on the case, but desperately anxious to avoid the need of searching for more papers, or answering more questions now.

  “Estinotti’s. Ah! Which smoking-room, Mademoiselle?”

  “To the left of the vestibule as you come out.”

  “Good. I will put that matter into the hands of the Chief of Police instantly. For the other also there is not a moment to be lost, if we would prove the lie about the French, in time. Can you remain as you are, Mademoiselle, for the present, or …”

  He was actually thinking of her as well as her information. Gill felt that in gratitude alone she should give no trouble. “Oh, I’m all right,” she said. “Only please tell Mademoiselle de Monti by and by, when you can.”

  She put down the receiver, and suddenly felt as though she were going to cry. She had disposed of her dreadful weight of responsibility—had put it into hands that were strong and capable to hold and deal with it; she felt sure of that. She did not quite know why that should seem to be a reason for crying, but it was. Possibly the fact that she had taken nothing since she got up but a little coffee may have had more to do with the tears that would want to come.

  She fought them back, however, and kneeling by her hold-all, on the floor beside the cupboard, stuffed back her little jewel-case, and began to fasten up the straps again. She had only just begun when she heard someone coming up the stairs!

  Gill never knew afterwards how she did it. Really Monsieur Anverra’s brisk tones must have possessed a stimulating effect. There would be no going down, that was clear, so she must go up, and the narrow door opposite was open, and a staircase must lead somewhere.

  She was through that narrow door, bumping the half-strapped hold-all before her, and had closed it softly, as the key turned in the lock of her own bedroom door.

  She struggled up the stairs, with the hold-all, which seemed all bumps and humps, banging into her shins. Several articles
fell out of it as she went; she did not wait to pick them up, but she clung desperately to the hold-all itself.

  The staircase ended in a long window, with an inside bolt; as she fumbled with the bolt she remembered the outside staircase which she had noticed as distinguishing this house from others when she first came there, with Mademoiselle de Monti, and knew then how she was going to escape.

  Her hair-brush fell as she wrestled with the window-bolt, and went jumping down the steep little staircase as though it were tremendously proud of the achievement and meant to draw attention to it. Gillian found herself giggling at it feebly, because she knew that if Aunt Edith had been there, she would have said that if Gill had only remembered to put her brush and comb tidily into her brush-and-comb bag, this would not have happened. She thought it rather queer that she could laugh just then.

  The bolt was not a stiff one; she drew it back and scrambled through the window, on to a trellised iron staircase, that corkscrewed down to the narrow passage between this house and the next.

  Gill remembered that one did not see much of the staircase from the street, owing to the position of that next house, but the Baron and the Baroness would know that she could only have escaped one way. Curiously enough, though, she did not feel at all afraid now. All her fright seemed to have gone away in that choking feeling of relief. She went steadily down, her hold-all bumping in front of her; for the steps were too narrow to allow of her carrying the bulky thing alongside. She reached the narrow passage at the foot in safety, and turned out of its back door into the quiet street that ran parallel with the Rue St. Denise.

  Of course she was too wise to stay there, or anywhere where she might be seen from the house whose plots she had betrayed. She dived down the first turning that she met, and then another out of that, and then another: then and then only did she dare to drop the hold-all on the pavement and rest her tired arms for a moment, while she thought what to do next.

  The most insistent desire in her mind was coffee, but she did not dare to go to any restaurant or public place for fear of meeting somebody who would give her away to the Baron.