Part 13

Thrusting its war-scarred head into the clouds, Amiens had been left behind: they were skirting the old battle-line. Though seasons had come and vanished, memories of tragedy were still apparent. Shell-torn walls had been patched, but the patches served to emphasize the ruin. One could trace in the landscape crumbling trench-systems and the rusty red of entangled wire. Here and there, in gleaming plots, white crosses grew in humble clusters. In fancy he pictured the hosts who had died. The unprofitable patience of their sacrifice! Had they known what was to be the result, would they have gone to their death so gladly? The result of their idealism was hunger. He recalled his awkward phrase--the world's hunger had proved to be his opportunity. Santa's horror disturbed his memory. He was inclined to go to her and explain. Everything had to be purchased by labor. Anything one possessed was the wage of labor. To give things away did harm. It wasn't business. It set a premium on laziness. Even to give food to a starving nation did harm; it made that nation a pauper. The most primitive of all laws was that bread should be earned by the sweat of the brow--that if a man did not toil, neither should he eat. The only righteous way to feed starving people was to set them to work. So his thoughts ran on, building up the argument.

But he did not go to her. It was Varensky's message that deterred him: “He told me to say, 'Soon you can have her.'” Did Santa know what was meant--that the message referred to Anna? She must know. What difference would this make to her? She also loved, and she was a panther-woman.

The countryside grew blurred with dusk. The stiff, white crosses faded out of sight. Forgetting his danger, he fell asleep, wondering whether Anna would be with her husband at Budapest.

III

When he awoke, he was in total darkness. Glancing through the window, he discovered that the world outside was weakly lit with straggling rows of street-lamps. They seemed to be marching in the same direction as the train; in the far distance they rushed together, making night hollow with their flare. His first thought was of Santa; a thousand things might have happened.

As he groped at the handle of the dividing door, he caught the sound of laughter.

“May I enter?”

The Santa whom his eyes encountered was no longer the fugitive from justice. She was mysteriously changed. There was animation in her countenance and seduction in her voice. She was again the enchantress of men, reckless and tender, who had all but captured his heart on the Atlantic voyage. He looked to see what had caused this transformation. Lolling in the entrance was the handsome stranger.

Before Hindwood could speak, she was addressing him gaily. “So you've wakened! I didn't like to disturb you. You've almost made me miss my dinner. If you're ready now----”

The stranger interrupted. “I've not dined. But I have my place reserved. If there should prove to be no room, perhaps you would flatter me by occupying my place instead.”

Santa shook her head graciously. “It's good of you, but my husband and I will take our chance.”

She was the only one whom her claim that Hind-wood was her husband left undisturbed. The two men glared at each other in astonishment. It was the stranger who recovered first.

“If I had known that this lady was your wife, I should have asked your permission before I made my offer. I shall be very happy if you will permit me to do you both this service. I ought to introduce myself.”

He fumbled in his pocketbook and produced a card on which was engraved, “Captain Serge Lajos, Hungarian Royal Hussars.”

“My name is Hindwood--Philip Hindwood.” Hindwood returned the compliment surlily. “I agree with my wife; we both prefer that you retain your place and that we be allowed to take our chance.”

Santa rose eagerly to prevent the giving of further offense. Her smile was for the Captain. “We waste time talking. You'll join us, Captain? We'll take our chance together.”

Without risking a reply, she led the way, Hindwood following and the Captain coming last. There was no opportunity for speech in the swaying corridor. When the dining-car was reached, they were shown immediately to a vacant table.

At first they sat in silence, watching how the lights flashing by the panes were strengthening into a golden blur.

“Where are we?”

It was Hindwood who had decided to be amiable.

“Entering Paris.”

“So late as that!” He consulted his watch. “We go through without changing, they told us.”

“There's no change till Vienna.”

The Captain's answers were mechanical. He seemed to be brushing aside a presence that annoyed him. His puzzled eyes were fixed on Santa.

Suppressing his irritation, Hindwood made another effort at friendliness. “I didn't notice you till we were getting into Calais. I guess we must have traveled together from London.”

Captain Lajos, if that really was his name, seemed to be thinking of something else. He let some seconds elapse. When he spoke, it was without looking up. “I noticed you from the first. I can prove it. Your wife didn't join you till Dover.” Then he seemed to repent of his intrusive rudeness and changed the subject. “I was glad to see the last of London. I'd been sent to meet some one who failed to arrive. It was all in the papers. You probably know as much about the circumstances as I do. The person was Prince Rogovich.”

Santa's face went white. Her lips became set in an artificial smile. Beneath the table her hand clutched Hindwood's. For all that, it was she who took up the challenge.

“We've not been reading the papers lately.” Above the clatter of the wheels, her trembling voice was scarcely audible. “My husband and I have been very busy and---- But your friend, why was he so unkind as to disappoint you?”

The Captain had turned to her as though greedy for her sympathy. His dark, bold eyes drank up her face.

“He wasn't unkind. He was----” He shrugged his shoulders and spread abroad his hands. “Until something is proved, I suppose the best way to express it would be to say that he was unavoidably delayed. He left New York on a liner and disappeared on the evening that he should have landed.”

Hindwood bent forward, attempting to divert attention from Santa. He tapped the Captain's hand.

“Excuse me for intruding on a conversation which you evidently intend to include only my wife, but there are no points of call on an Atlantic voyage. If your friend started from New York and the ship was not lost, how could he have been delayed?”

“How? That's the question.”

The Captain's hostility was unmistakable, and yet the odd thing was that it exempted Santa.

While the first course was being served, Hindwood racked his brains to discover the motive which lay behind the Captain's attitude. Was he a police-agent, amusing himself and biding his time? Was he doubtful of Santa's identity and cultivating her acquaintance as a means of making certain? Was he merely a disappointed male, infuriated at finding a husband in possession?

Santa was speaking again. She had made good use of the respite to compose herself. “It must have been terribly anxious for you waiting. I suppose you were there to meet him at the port where he ought to have arrived?”

Hindwood held his breath. She was practically asking the man whether he had been one of the welcoming group of officials on that night when the _Ryndam_ had reached Plymouth. If he had been, he must have seen them. He must remember them. He might even know their biographical details, their business, and that they were not married. At all events, if that were the case, it would explain the keenness of his interest.

“No, I wasn't at Plymouth.”

They both shot upright in their chairs and sat rigid. For a moment they had no doubt that the Captain had declared his hand.

Then he postponed the crisis by adding, “You see, my friend, as you call him, was traveling by the Holland-American Line, so Plymouth was where he should have landed. We had a special train arranged to hurry him to London. The first warning I received of the disaster was at Paddington, when I was informed that the special train had been canceled.”

“Then it was a disaster?”

Santa asked the question in an awed tone which, under the circumstances, was not altogether feigned. Getting a grip on herself, she leaned across the table, making her eyes large and tender. “We're fellow-travelers, chance-met. My husband and I are Americans; when we part from you, it's almost certain we shall never meet again. I'm not seeking your confidence, but you're worried. If it would help you to tell----”

The Captain shook his head gravely. He appeared to be worshiping her in everything save words, though it was possible that his adoration was mockery. “There's nothing to tell. Not yet. I wish there were. There may be something at Paris. The English police are working. They promised to keep in touch with me by telegram.”

With amazing daring Santa persisted, “But what do you suppose happened?”

Before answering the Captain arranged his knife and fork neatly on his plate. He looked up sharply like a bird of prey. “Murder. To your dainty ears that must sound shocking. I have reasons for this belief which, for the present, I'm not at liberty to share.”

During the pause that followed Hindwood was on tenterhooks lest, with her next question, she should betray herself. To prevent her, he flung himself into the gap.

“I agree with you,” he said with weighty dullness. “I agree with you that some sort of accident strikes one as extremely likely. You mentioned that a special had been chartered to bring your friend to London. That would indicate that he was a person of consequence.”

“He was.”

The words sounded like an epitaph. They were spoken with the impatience of a door being banged.

Turning to Santa, the Captain was on the point of saying something further, when the waiter approached with the information that at the next stop the dining-car would be cut off. They became aware that they were the only diners left. The train was slowing down. The noise of its progress had changed to a hollow rumbling, which told them that a bridge was being crossed. Shifting their gaze, they discovered Paris, sparkling like a pile of jewels strewn in the lap of night. Below them in slow coils, mysterious with luminous reflections, wound the Seine. Hindwood's instant thought was that somewhere out there beneath the darkness, the woods of Vincennes were hiding.

Having paid their bill, they commenced the return journey through corridors dense with eager passengers. Before their section had been reached, the train was in the station. At the first open door, the Captain sprang to the platform and was lost.

“Where's he gone?” Santa whispered.

Hindwood glanced at her palely. “To get his telegram. To get----”

Seizing her arm, he hurried her back to his compartment, where behind locked doors they could spend in private whatever of freedom remained.

IV

The jig's up.”

Hoping that he was creating an impression of calmness, he lit a cigarette. She raised her face to his with a softness in her eyes that he had never noticed.

“If it is,” she pleaded, clutching at his hands, “swear you hadn't the least idea who I really am. Disown me. Act as though my arrest had come to you as an utter shock.”

He seated himself beside her. “But, my dear Santa, that wouldn't help you.”

“Help me! Of course not,” she agreed with rapid vehemence. “If I'm caught, I'm beyond helping. It's of you I'm thinking--you, with your generosity and your splendid plans. If I dragged you down, as I dragged down all the others, my heart would break. I never meant you any harm. You do believe me?”

“I do now.”

“Say you know that I've loved you,” she urged. And, when he hesitated, “Quickly. Time's running short. Let me hear you say just once, 'Santa, I know that you've loved me.'”

“Santa, I know----”

“You wouldn't kiss me?” She asked the question scarcely above her breath. “There've been so many who paid to kiss me. You wouldn't give me the best, that would be the last?”

When his lips touched hers, she smiled.

“They may come now.”

Minutes dragged by like hours. Every sound was magnified into something monstrous. A dozen times they imagined they heard police clearing the corridor, preparatory to bursting in the door. What they heard was only newly-arrived passengers and porters disposing of their baggage. At last suspense became its own anesthetic.

“Did he tell you his destination?” Hindwood whispered.

Not daring to speak, she shook her head.

“Why did you get into conversation with him?” Her lips scarcely moved. He had to listen acutely.

“I didn't. He pretended to have mistaken his compartment. I was crying. He saw.”

“Why were you crying?”

“Because of you.”

“And you told him?”

“Not exactly.”

“What did he say? I heard you laughing when I entered. How did he commence?”

“He said I was too beautiful to be unhappy--it's the way every man starts. Then he said that he'd recognized me, just as though he'd been looking for me always. And then he tortured me by wondering whether our paths had ever crossed.”

“And you answered?”

“Never--unless he'd seen me in America.” Hindwood fell silent. Without warning he leaped to his feet. Before he could escape, she was clinging to him.

“Don't leave me to face them.”

“I'm not.” He freed himself from her grasp. “If I've guessed right, you won't have to face them.” With that he was gone.

A quarter of an hour elapsed: he had not returned. Nothing that she dreaded had happened. With a lurch the train jerked forward. Farewells were being shouted. Station-lamps streamed past, the scarcer lights of freight-yards, then at last the glow-worm warmth of a city under darkness.

The door opened. She rose trembling, steadying herself against the wall. When she saw who it was, she sank back. “Tell me.”

“We were on the wrong track.” He spoke leisurely. “Captain Lajos wasn't lying. I followed him. He met his man with the telegram. He suspects us so little that he showed it to me. It read, 'No further developments.'”

“Thank God.” She pressed her handkerchief to her lips. And then, “Why should he have shown it to you? It was to put us off our guard.”

He sat down in the seat opposite. “I think not. He's changed his tactics. He's made up his mind to be friendly. It's you he's after, but in a different fashion. He thinks he's in love with you.”

“But he threatened----”

“No. It was our own guilty conscience. Here's how I figure it out. He probably has seen you before. He can't remember where. It may have been in the days when you were dancing. It was the vague recollection of you that piqued his curiosity and got him staring. When he found you alone and crying, he thought he'd stumbled on an adventure. My entering upset his calculations. I became for him the cruel husband; he hated me on the spot. My dear Santa, our meeting with him is the luckiest thing that could have happened.”

Dabbing her eyes, she tried to laugh. “I don't see it.”

“It's as plain as a pike-staff.” He bent forward, lowering his voice. “He was mixed up with Prince Rogovich. He's one of the people who's hunting for you. In his company you won't be suspected. He'll get you across all the frontiers.”

She was still reluctantly incredulous. “But the things he said at dinner. He played with us like a cat.”

“He wasn't playing with us.” Hindwood became eager in his determination to convince her. “He was playing into our hands. He knows all the things that we want to know. Every move the police make is telegraphed to him. It was the frankness with which he let us into his secrets that was so alarming.”

“Then how must we act?”

“The way we have been acting. Until it's safe to be rid of him, we must keep him believing that we're married, and none too happily. I'm afraid it's up to you to keep him lulled by pretending----”

“Don't;” she closed her eyes. “It's like going back to the ugly past.”

“It's beastly, I know.” He spoke seriously. “But what else----? Any moment he may recall where last he saw you. Sleep over it. We can decide in the morning.”

V

All night he had been haunted by the oppressive sense that, if he did not watch, something terrible would, happen. It was shortly after dawn when he rose. Stepping into the corridor he found that he had the train to himself. It seemed as depopulated as an early morning house and, despite the clamor of its going, as silent. He placed himself near Santa's door and stood staring out at the misty landscape streaking past like a trail of smoke. It was here that Santa found him when she slipped from her compartment.

He turned quickly. “He's not up yet.” Then, noticing her pallor and the shadows under her eyes, “You haven't slept?”

“Not much.”

“Making your decision, I suppose?”

She bit her lip nervously. “I shall have to pretend---- It'll only be pretending. You'll understand?”

“It won't last long,” he comforted her. “If we've been running on time, we must be in Alsace-Lorraine already. Within the next few hours we'll be out of France and into Germany. You'll feel safer there, won't you?”

What he was really asking was whether it wasn't true that during the war she'd been a German spy.

“Shall I?” was all she answered.

They fell silent. Without mentioning it, each guessed the motive which had occasioned the other's early rising. They dared not let the Captain out of their sight. While they could not see him, they had no peace of mind. Whereas yesterday his companionship had seemed to spell death, to-day it spelt protection. Yesterday they had done everything to elude him; to-day it would probably be he who would do the avoiding. It was essential that they should have won his confidence before they arrived on German soil. There was little time to lose. He had not appeared when the first sitting for breakfast was announced.

In the restaurant car they dawdled over their meal and sat on long after it was ended. They had even begun to discuss the possibility of his having left the train during the night, when with an eagerness kindred to their own he entered. Hindwood waved to him.

“I'm afraid we've finished. But won't you seat yourself at our table? I've no doubt my wife will join you in a cup of coffee. While you breakfast, if it's not objectionable, I'll smoke a cigarette.”

Captain Lajos beamed like a pleased boy. If one wasn't prejudiced in his disfavor, it was possible to find him likable. “I shall be delighted,” he said in an embarrassed tone. “Journeys are tedious nowadays. Once every one who counted was gay and prosperous; one was never at a loss to find a friend. To-day, in this bankrupt world, the only travelers are money-lenders and pawn-brokers.” He laughed. “I may as well confess: I didn't think you were up yet--that's what made me late. I was so tired of my own society that I was waiting for you.”

As he said, “I was waiting for you,” his eyes flashed on Santa.

It was she who spoke. “I fancy we've been just as bored with ourselves and even more eager to meet you. What you told us last night sounded so mysterious and romantic. I could hardly sleep for thinking about it. To have a Prince for one's friend and to travel so far to welcome him, only to find----” She clasped her hands childishly. “Life can be so drab--how drab, a man of your kind can never know. American husbands, no matter what they possess, take a pride in always working.”

He disappointed her curiosity with a crooked smile. “Whether you're a Prince or a millionaire, there's nothing romantic about being murdered.” Then her allurement kindled the longing in his eyes. “You're wanting me to confide the secrets that I warned you I couldn't share. Surely you must know something of Prince Rogovich?”

“No. Truly.” She returned his searching gaze with apparent frankness.

Hindwood jogged her elbow. “My dear, I've remembered. When we sailed there was a Prince Rogovich in the States, doing his best to raise a loan--I think it was for Poland. It was rumored that the money was to be squandered on military adventures. I guess he didn't find many takers. You're in the Hungarian Hussars, Captain, but you must excuse me for stating that on our side of the Atlantic we've seen all we want of armies.”

Santa clicked her tongue impatiently. “That's all very well, but it doesn't explain why the Prince----”

“It might,” Hindwood insisted mildly. “Discouraged men often commit suicide. He was coming home. He'd failed in his object----”

“He hadn't.” The Captain glanced quickly behind him to see whether any one could have heard him. He continued in a voice that was little above a whisper, “Only a few of us knew. He was coming home in triumph.”

Leaning across the table with suppressed excitement, Santa made the appeal of pretty women throughout the ages. “I wish you'd trust me.”

Hindwood pushed back his chair. “It's time for a cigar. Perhaps you'll join me later. If you'll excuse me----”

They paid him scant attention. The last he saw of them they were gazing enraptured into each other's eyes.

VI

It was well over an hour since he had returned to his compartment. He had left his door wide, so that he could inspect every one who passed along the corridor. They couldn't have slipped by without his noticing. He was becoming almost as distrustful of Santa as he was of the stranger. Already the rôle of unwanted husband was growing irksome. The thing that baffled him most was her morbid curiosity. It was revolting to think of her, with her disarming air of refinement, encouraging her admirer to conjecture the details of a crime which she herself had committed. But how had she committed it? He himself did not know. He had just begun to contrive the scene in his mind when they entered. Her face was lit with a new intensity. At a glance he was aware that whatever she had learned had quickened her emotions. The Captain followed grudgingly, like a dog hanging back on a chain.

“Captain Lajos has been telling me,” she commenced. “But we'd better have the door closed. He's been telling me things that you ought to know. He's so concerned for my sake that he's offered to repeat them.”

The Captain seated himself opposite to Hind-wood and regarded him gravely. “The things that I've been telling your wife are not my secrets. I must ask you to give me your solemn promise.”

“You may take that for granted.”

“And there's one other point. I didn't offer to repeat them; it was Mrs. Hindwood who urged me. I'm making this plain because I don't want you to think I'm offering you my advice uninvited.”

Hindwood lit a fresh cigar, fortifying himself against whatever shock was pending. “I give you full credit for your motives.”

“Then let me ask you a question. Have you noticed that there are scarcely any women on this train?”

“I believe you're right. But until you mentioned it I hadn't noticed.”

“Well, if you'll watch, you'll see that I'm correct. There are women and children in plenty on trains moving westward. But on trains moving eastward, where we're going--no.”

Hindwood watched the man intently, wondering at what he was driving.

“Would you be surprised,” he continued, “if I were to tell you that one of the chief reasons for the women's absence is this affair of Prince Rogo-vich?”

“You rather harp on Prince Rogovich, don't you?” Hindwood flicked his ash. “After a time one ceases to be surprised at anything. But aren't you presuming too much in insisting on his having been murdered? All that's known by your own account is that he's vanished. In any case, what can he possibly have to do with the scarcity of women on trains running eastward?”