Count Michæl Temesvar, when he left behind him the great estate where he ruled as absolute and tyrannical master and came to the fashionable, pleasure-loving London, was a different man.
In London he paid due regard to the conventions and was entertained at great houses and in return offered very splendid receptions to his hosts. Meanwhile he kept a skilled finger on the hardening arteries of new international affairs.
He knew very well that he was suspected of intriguing for monarchial restoration and the confusion of the country where he was so pleasantly entertained, by such men as the Earl of Rosecarrel. But for the main part England still clung to her habit of disbelieving that a man who could be so charming in society would commit thebetiseof plotting where he had played.
He was particularly interested in the Spring Automobile Show at the Crystal Palace. He had heard a great deal of late of the Lion motor and he wanted one. On his first visit to the show he told the manager that the silver model there exhibited was the one that he would buy. He was annoyed that thefirm's representative would not allow it to be taken away until the show finished.
On his second visit he was irritated to find that the manager raised objections about selling it at all.
"You see, sir," said the manager, "a car like this demands careful driving and constant attention. Our ordinary model would suit you better."
"I want this because it is said to be the fastest car in the world," Count Michæl returned. "To me the price is nothing."
"It isn't that at all, sir," the manager said. "In confidence it wouldn't do us any good if your own mechanics got it in such a condition it couldn't do its best work. Bad advertisement you understand."
"You think I should have a special chauffeur then? Good. Send me one. Send three if necessary but send me a man who has the nerve to drive along my mountain roads by day or night at any speed I choose."
"That's a tall order, sir," the manager returned.
"But I pay. I always pay better than others because I want better work."
Count Michæl Temesvar beheld a blue-clad mechanic working under a car. He struck him a sharp blow on the leg with his cane. A grimy-faced man emerged rubbing the bruised limb.
"You," said the count peremptorily, "can you drive a car like this Lion?"
The man grinned. The idea seemed to tickle him. He spoke with the cockney accent of his kind.
"Me drive a Lion?" he said. "Ask Mr. King 'ere what I can do."
"I couldn't let him go," said Mr. King quickly. "He is my best demonstrator and a wonder at tuning up an engine."
Count Michæl ignored the protesting manager.
"What is your wage?"
"I get five pound a week."
"I give you ten. You are my man. You leave for my place in Croatia when the show is over. My secretary will see you are looked after. Serve me well and you will never regret it. I am generous, when I am pleased." He turned to his companion. "See that all arrangements are made. If he has a wife and children bring them if he desires it. If he will be happier without them let them remain here. I must have him. He has intelligence and industry. Look you, he has gone back to his work. He loves his engine as a good groom does his horse."
The mechanic had indeed crawled again under the huge car. The count could have added that he was cautious for he drew his legs well into cover.
The count and the secretary went off. The secretary was to call at the office next day and arrange things. The manager was deferential, but when they had left the glass-roofed hall he permitted himself to laugh. Then he crossed to the car and bent down.
"It's all right, Mr. Trent," he said, "they've gone now; you can come out."
Anthony Trent looked up at him and grinned.
"You can always get a job as an actor," he said.
"Your accent is a bit of all right," the manager returned, gratified.
"If it's etiquette for a manager to have a drink with a mere oil-stained mechanic as I am, lead on to the nearest place."
"Well," said the manager later, "what do you think of him?"
Anthony Trent rubbed his leg.
"He struck me," said Trent in a curious, musing way. There was something in his tone which made the manager look at him quickly. Anthony Trent's face was grim and set.
"I don't think he meant it that way," Mr. King replied. He had visions of assault and battery.
"Some day I shall give him the opportunity to apologize," said the American.
Mr. King had received personal instructions from the chairman of the Lion Motor, Ltd., to obey Mr. Anthony Trent in every particular. Mr. Trent was to be allowed to have the run of the shops and the most expert mechanics in the firm were to put all they knew at his disposal.
Anthony Trent started by giving the manager the best dinner he had ever eaten. Then he coached him in therôleof a manager anxious not to lose his best demonstrator. King was delighted that Count Michæl walked into the trap set for him eagerly. He liked Trent but thought poorly of his chances in a tussle with this big girthed foreigner.
"Must be fifty inches round the chest," he observed, sipping his drink delicately, "and most of it muscle. One of the most powerful men I've ever laid eyes on, Mr. Trent. Built like a wrestler. Aboutfive feet ten I judge, a couple of inches less than you but five stone heavier."
"What was the big car on the aisle opposite us at the show?" Trent asked, as King thought, irrelevantly.
"The 'Amazon,'" King answered scornfully. "All varnish and silver plate and upholstery with a motor that isn't worth a tinker's dam."
"That's like the count," Trent smiled, "champagne, high living and general dissipation have made a shell of him. He looks well enough to the eye, like that Amazon car, but call on the motor and you'll see 'em both hang out distress signals."
"Maybe," King conceded, "I'll put my bet on the Lion," he smiled in a friendly fashion at the other, "and the Eagle."
They fell to talking technicalities and kept it up till the hour when Michæl, Count Temesvar went to dine at a house in Bruton street. He told his host that as a compliment to this country, his second home, he had just bought an English car and engaged an English chauffeur. The other guests thought it so broad-minded of him. He further endeared himself to his company by deploring the retirement of his old adversary, that eminent diplomat, the Earl of Rosecarrel.
His old adversary's occupation at the moment would have surprised him. The earl was devising an ingenious cipher code having, it would seem to the uninitiated, the various parts of a Lion motor which might need replacing by telegram tothe London factory. Anthony Trent would take a copy with him, carefully concealed, and any telegram sent by him to the works would instantly be forwarded to the code's inventor.
"What makes you so cheerful?" his daughter asked as she bade him goodnight.
"That amazing American of yours," he answered.
"'Of mine,'" she repeated. But even in the grip of her unhappiness she was not sure that the dim future did not hold some alleviation.
Few people were more careful of appearances than Anthony Trent. He was always dressed with quiet distinction. In the early days of a profession where it is not well to be too prominent, he chafed at this restraint. Later he saw that it was the sign of sartorial eminence.
On assuming the name and characteristics of Alfred Anthony he also had to dress the part and talk the part. From the men in the Lion shop he had, with his mimic's cleverness, taken on their peculiar intonations and slang until he certainly could deceive a foreigner. And since he was thorough he forced himself to smoke the part.
He accompanied his great silver car across the channel to Ostend dressed as the men in the shop dressed. And he moved with their brisk, perky quickness and he alternated between shag in a bull-dog pipe and Woodbine cigarettes. He was glad that Mr. Hentzi, the count's secretary observed his altercation at the Belgian port with a customs officialwho made him pay duty on an excess number of cigarettes.
"Ah," said Mr. Hentzi with condescension, "the cigarette of the Briteesh Tommee!"
At Ostend, Trent superintended the despatch of his charge by fast freight and then took the trans-continental express to Budapest. He was to wait for the car and drive it to its new home. During the few days he was forced to idle in the Hungarian capital he deplored the fact that new status prevented him from going to the Bristol or the Grand Hotel Royal. He stayed, instead, at an hotel of the second class and encountered little friendliness. English or Americans, it seemed, were still regarded as enemies.
He was saved from any violence by Hentzi's announcement that he must be fitted for the Temesvar livery. It was no use to rebel. With incredible swiftness the tailor turned it out. Trent looked at himself in the glass with the utmost distaste. The color scheme was maroon and canary yellow. He likened himself to those who stood before the fashionable stores on Fifth avenue and opened limousine doors.
"With that livery," Hentzi said impressively, "you will be safe; you will be respected."
Anthony Trent was too much overwhelmed to answer him. Certainly the Anthony Trent who stared back at him from the mirror was a stranger. He was wearing his hair longer than usual and a small moustache was already sprouting. The hawklikelook was not evident. He wore, instead, an air of innocence that was Chaplinesque. Hentzi took this look of scrutiny to be one of pride.
"You must have your photograph taken and send it to your best girl," he laughed, "she will make all the other ones jealous."
"Yes," said the man who suddenly remembered he was Alfred Anthony of Vauxhall Bridge Road, "she'll be fair crazy about it. Just like me."
But he did not wear it much. He preferred the chance of a row with the populace to his unwished for splendor. The days of delay gave him leisure to think over coming difficulties. He conceded he had been led away by emotion and enthusiasm when he was betrayed into boasting of his prowess. The two men who had failed had been good men no doubt and they were dead.
Such a man as Temesvar must know that the brain who originated the attempt at recovery of the draft was still scheming. The count must constantly be on the watch. And if so, why had he engaged Alfred Anthony with so little investigation? Like most high grade criminals, Anthony Trent was apt to suspect simple actions when performed by men of the Temesvar type and impute to them subtle motives. He wished he had been able to take a longer look at the count instead of his momentary talk.
He reminded Trent very much of the celebrated painting of Francis the First, that sensual monarch who was devoted to the chase, masquerades, jewelryand the pursuit of the fair. But Francis, for all his accomplishments, was weak and frivolous while Temesvar was ruthless and a power, if Lord Rosecarrel was to be believed.
Before he left London Trent had secured what road maps he could of Hungary and particularly the Adriatic coast of Dalmatia and Croatia. At his hotel he spread them out on the table and spent hours poring over them.
He ventured to ask Mr. Hentzi some particulars of the place, and why Count Michæl had gone to the expense of importing the chauffeur and the car when he had many machines in his garage and so many men at his command.
Hentzi told him the count needed a clear-eyed, temperate man who could make great speed and make it safely.
"Most of our men," Hentzi declared, "drinkshlivovitza, a brandy made of plums, and there are people who visit the count whose lives must not be imperilled by recklessness."
"What about the roads?" Trent asked thinking of the weight of the Lion and its tremendous wheel-base.
"From Karlstadt to Fiume runs the Maria Louise road which is superb. It is one over which you will pass many times. Then there is the Josephina road from Zengg and many fine highways built not for the Croatian peasants but for strategic purposes. You have seen in this war which is passed what good roads mean, eh?"
"You 'it it on the 'ed, Guv'ner," Trent said cheerfully. "What do I go down to Fiume for?"
"To meet passengers from the steamers or from the count's yacht. It is one hundred and twenty miles from Fiume to Radna Castle. What could you do that distance in? The road down the mountain to Karlstadt is good but narrow."
Alfred Anthony spat meditatively.
"The old girl will do it in three hours," he said, "she'll shake 'em up a bit inside but if there aren't no traffic cops or big towns I can do it in three hours or bit more."
"No. No," Hentzi cried nervously, "that is suicide. We have been satisfied to take six hours."
"With 'orses?" Alfred Anthony demanded, "pretty good time with 'orses, but this is a Lion."
Hentzi sat on the front seat during the long drive and pointed out the path. On the whole he was a good natured man but he did not permit the count's chauffeur to forget that he was talking to the count's secretary. Hentzi had formerly been a clerk in the estate office of the Temesvar family and had been promoted to his present position because he was faithful and a good linguist.
He was afraid of the count. Trent could detect a fear of him whenever the name was mentioned. When Hentzi warned the new chauffeur to be careful if his employer was in an angry mood the American demanded the reason.
"If I do my duty," said the pseudo mechanic, "he can't hurt me."
"You talk as a child talks," Hentzi laughed. "He will do as he likes and as the devils that are in him at the moment. He fears neither God, man, nor devil. Pauline only may mock when he rages."
"Who is Pauline?" Trent asked, "the missus?"
"The Countess," Hentzi said with dignity, "is in perpetual retreat with the Ursuline sisters near Vienna."
"Is Pauline the daughter?"
"His daughters are married." Hentzi laughed, "Castle Radna is not a place where it is wise to ask questions. You think because his excellency was cheerful when you last saw him he is like that always? I tell you if Pauline has been unkind he may visit it on you. I prefer that he does. I am tired of his humours and you are younger and stronger."
"You don't mean he might hit me?" Trent cried.
Hentzi seemed to find Trent's anxious manner amusing.
"Most certainly he will," the secretary assured him, "but you need not be alarmed. He will fling you gold when his temper has spent itself."
"I'm not going to let any man strike me," Trent said doggedly. "It would raise the devil in me and I might be sorry for it."
"You would," Hentzi said thinking that the chauffeur meant he might lose his job.
Anthony Trent, instead, was thinking that he might, in order to succeed in his venture, have to submit to indignities that would be torture to one of his temperament. It would not be wise to letthe secretary know this so he turned the subject to the woman who dare laugh when the count was angry.
"Who is Pauline?" he asked.
"She was a skater from the Winter Palace in Berlin. She is beautiful or she would not be at Castle Radna; she is clever or she could not control Count Michæl who has broken many women's hearts. She is bad or she would not have driven the countess from her home. For myself I hate her and the men and women with whom she fills the place."
"So they keep a lot of company up there?"
"Company!" Hentzi replied, "there is no such castle in Europe. I have seen life in Buda and Vienna but up there! You may be sure when the master drinks champagne the servants will drinkshlivovitza. But do not think they are all Pauline's friends. No. No. The great of the world come there too and Pauline's friends are banished. You will drive great personages up from Fiume and you will not know who they are or what their errand."
"Is the count a politician?"
Hentzi laughed with good natured contempt at such a naïve query. Not to know Michæl, Count Temesvar's reputation in the field of world politics was to admit ignorance of all the troubled currents which worried kings and presidents.
He was rudely brought back from his lofty attitude by the sudden stopping of the car. He was almost thrown from his seat.
"Look!" Trent cried, pointing to a piece of close cropped turf, "a golf green as I live."
"What of it?" Hentzi snapped, "what do you know of golf?"
"I used to be a caddie," Trent lied glibly. "Who plays there?"
"The count because his doctor tells him to. I because I hate it, and Pauline that her figure may remain seductive. Thank God there are but nine holes! It encourages our master to have one man who always plays worse than he. Look, that is the castle."
Almost under the shadows of Mount Sljeme the rugged building lay. Around it, nestling at its gates were many other lesser stone buildings which Hentzi told him were stables, dwellings and out-houses. It was situated in theZagorjeor land beyond the hills and had, despite its fine gardens and the green turf of the links a forbidding air.
When the Lion was run into its garage Hentzi introduced the new chauffeur to the man with whom he was to live, a man who with his wife had one of the cottages outside the castle wall. Peter Sissek, the man, was unfriendly from the start. He resented the importation of a chauffeur with the new car as a slight to his own skill. But as he spoke only Croatian and Hungarian, and Trent understood neither tongue, his grievances were not voluble.
Anthony Trent met Pauline in rather a curious way. He had been a week at Castle Radna and had not been commanded to drive the count. Then Hentzi had informed him Count Michæl was sick of a bad cold. Sissek by virtue of being senior in the Temesvar service tried to get the new man to help him with his own cars but Trent absolutely declined.
He had assumed a certain post in order to carry out a design but his duties lay with the Lion car and he left the Croatian grumbling and set out for a tour of inspection. Naturally his steps led him to the little golf course a mile distant. There were no long holes and the course was hardly trapped at all. It was just the kind of place elderly men, who played a weak game, would revel in.
By the first tee was a little rustic pavilion. Through the windows Trent could see three or four golf bags. The temptation was too strong to resist. He picked the locks with the blade of a pocket knife and found himself in a comfortable room. The count's golf bag contained excellent clubs and plenty of balls. He looked at the balls and knew the count's game instantly. They were bitten into bythe irons of a strong man. Trent shuddered at the gashes and then, selecting a new ball and a putter and driver went out on the nearby green. It was sheltered from all observation and he putted for a few minutes.
In the distance he could see the first green. It looked to be a little under three hundred yards distant; and it lay beneath, sweetly tempting to a long driver.
Anthony Trent had for some years now lived a life in which he denied himself nothing. He had reached out for such treasures as only a millionaire may buy. The question of right or wrong in the matter of using his employer's clubs bothered him little. He did not want to be observed in case the privilege were denied him.
He teed up his ball, made a few preliminary swings and then struck the white sphere with perfectly timed strength. He watched it rise, fall and roll almost to the edge of the green. He would certainly make it in three.
Then he turned round to look into the astonished face of a very beautiful woman. There was something in the general effect, quickly seen, which reminded him of Lady Daphne; but as he looked he saw this girl was older. He doubted the genuineness of the golden hair and he saw that art had aided nature in the facial make-up. But she was no more than eight and twenty and her figure differed from Daphne's slim, almost boyish slightness. She was dressed in a curious shade of green. It was a tinthe thought he had never seen before until he looked into her eyes and saw it there reflected.
Pauline had known the count had engaged a chauffeur from London but she assumed him to be of the usual type. She had no idea that the man who had just made such a superb drive was he. Pauline had been used to much social enjoyment of a sort and while Count Michæl had been away she had to behave circumspectly. She was dull and she was bored; and now, as though an answer to prayer, Fate had sent her a handsome young man who stood like a bronze statue as he followed the flight of the ball.
Since the count had given permission for the families of the neighbouring landowners to use his course she imagined it to be one of these or perhaps a guest at some local mansion.
Anthony Trent was never one who made a habit of the pursuit of the fair. His profession had taught him caution. Almost always the feminine element had brought the great criminals to peril. There had been one or two harmless flirtations but his love for Daphne was the great affair of his life. He groaned when he looked into Pauline's bold eyes and saw admiration looking from them. Other women had looked at him like that. Pauline was absolute at Castle Radna. Her enmity might be very harmful. Her friendship might be ruinous.
He assumed the bearing of Alfred Anthony which he had abandoned unconsciously. He even touched his cap to the lady as a servant who habitually wears livery should do. She frowned as he did so.
"Who are you?" she said in German.
"I'm the new chauffeur, miss," he returned in English.
"What are you doing here, then?"
"Having a bit of a game," he said with an air of timidity. "I hope you won't tell the guv'nor."
"The guv'nor?" she repeated.
"The count," he said, "the old toff with the beard."
Trent produced a Woodbine and lighted it luxuriously. He had all the quick nervous gestures of the cockney.
"Where did you learn to play golf like that?" she asked, looking at the white speck almost three hundred yards distant.
"Anyone can make a fluky drive," he said, "one drive doesn't make a golfer, Miss. I used to be a caddie at the Royal Surrey Club."
"Then you can carry my clubs," she said. She looked at him with a frown. "How is it the door is open?"
"Someone must have forgot to shut it," Trent said simply. "I just walked in."
All his excuses to get back to his garage were ineffectual.
"You will understand later," she said imperiously, "that if I order a servant to obey me he must do so. I wish you to teach me to play better golf. I shall pay you."
"I'll be glad to have a little extra money to send the mis'sus," said Trent cheerfully.
"That means you are married, eh?" she said.
"You've 'it it," he smiled.
He misjudged Pauline if he thought this would have any effect upon her. She was a specialist in husbands, an expert in emotional reactions.
Pauline played a very fair game. She had not been properly taught. But she was strong and lithe and although she had begun the game in order to keep her figure she played it now because she liked it. When she had performed professionally in London and big provincial cities she had seen that efficiency in some sport or another wasde rigueuramong women of importance and she hankered after the social recognition that unusual skill at sports often brought with it.
"Make another such drive," she commanded after she had driven only a hundred yards. "Not like mine, but like your first."
Trent having committed himself to a term of caddiedom at a great club where caddies have risen to the heights as professionals, he was not compelled to play a bad game. Pauline had never seen such golf and she worshipped bodily skill at games or sports more than any mental attainments. His short approaches amazed her. The skill with which at a hundred yards he could drop on a green and remain there with the back spin on the ball seemed miraculous.
"I shall play every day," she decided, "and you shall tell me how to become a great player."
"What about me and my motor?" he objected, "I came to drive a car and not a golf ball."
"I shall arrange it," she said, "Peter Sissek can drive."
"Not my car," he cried, "I'm not going to have no blooming mucker like him drive my Lion."
Her green eyes were narrowed when she looked at him.
"There are a hundred men who would give all they had for such an opportunity," she said slowly.
"Let 'em," he said quickly, "I'm a chauffeur and mechanic."
At the last hole she made a poor topped drive and the ball landed in a bad lie. It was an awkward stroke and he corrected her stance and even showed her how to grip the club when suddenly he was struck a tremendous blow on the back of the head. He was thrown off his balance but was up like a cat, dazed a little but anxious to see what had hit him. He thought it was a golf ball. It was Count Michæl instead. He looked more like Francis the First than ever. His eyes were blazing with anger. He had stolen upon them unaware at a moment when Trent's hand was holding the white hand of Pauline as he tried to explain the grip.
The count was too angry to understand the look that Trent threw at him or to realize how nearly the pseudo-chauffeur lost control of himself. But Trent pulled himself together, dissembled his wrath, remembered his mission, and even presented a rueful but free from resentment appearance.
"'Ere guv'nor," he cried, "steady on! I 'aven't done anythink."
"It is you I blame," the count said to Pauline. He spoke in German and ignored Alfred Anthony. "Why is it unknown to me you bring my servant to play with you?"
Certainly Pauline had no fear of the magnate.
"Because he has been a professional caddie and plays so well I can learn the game. Since your game is contemptible with whom can I play here?"
"I beat Hentzi every time," stormed the Count.
"Hentzi," she laughed, "he is afraid of you. I am not. This man is useful. I have told him he is to carry my clubs when I play. Do you object to that?"
"By no means," the count said becoming more amiable. "I see no objection; but as he has two arms he can carry mine also. He is abeau garçonPauline and I do not permit his filthy fingers to touch the hand I kiss." He turned to Trent. "How is it you are here and not at your work?"
"I took a bit of a walk," Trent answered.
"And finding him near the pavilion I told him to carry my clubs," Pauline added in English. "What is strange in that?"
Sissek with a Fiat car was waiting by the pavilion. He had driven his master down and took Pauline back as well. He did not understand why the new man was carrying golf clubs. He brightened when the count spoke to him in rapid Croatian.
"I am telling him," the count said, "that there is plenty of work for you to do. He will find it if you cannot. And as Peter is very strong and as short tempered as his lord I bid you be careful."
Trent's temper was not sufficiently under control to keep a sneer from his face.
His grin was superbly insolent. He forgot his cockney accent and his acquired vocabulary.
"I'm afraid," he said, "you are not as good a judge of men as you are of women."
"What is this you say?" the count demanded frowning.
"I mean that if your fool-faced Peter there can make me do anything against my will he shall havemysalary as well as his own. You came behind me when I wasn't looking and hit me. I can't resent that—yet, but warn him if he tries anything on me like that I'll—" He paused conscious of having said too much and aware that Pauline was gazing at him with vivid interest. "I'll make him sorry." Trent felt it was a weak ending.
"He is funny, this new chauffeur from London is he not Pauline?"
But Pauline had a mischievous idea. She spoke to Peter Sissek, that powerful and jealous servant, and he flashed a look of hatred at Trent. He thoroughly believed that the new man had indeed made the insulting remarks Pauline ascribed to him.
"Michæl," said Pauline caressingly, "let us see what this bold man would do if Peter threatened him. We will not let Peter hurt him but it will be a lesson." Pauline knew men and she saw in Trent one who could not easily be forced to do anything.
Poor Peter Sissek urged by his master to avenge himself upon this hated alien rushed to his fate. Ina way Trent was sorry. He had no real grievance against the man. But Peter was immensely strong and spurred on by a lively hatred. It was his idea to get his long arms about the slenderer man and throw him to the ground and there beat his sneering face in. He was stopped in his rush by a stinging left jab which caught him square on an eye. While he stood still in amazement another blow fell, this time on his nose.
The big man paused in angry amazement that one built so much more slenderly than he could hit with this terrific force. Pauline leaned forward her lips parted and the red flush of excitement victor over art's rouge. She was a woman of violent loves and hates and had urged many a love sick swain into unequal contest for amusement's sake. Although Trent had attracted her she was not sure that she did not want to see Sissek punish him. He had paid as little attention to her charms as though he thought she was old and ugly.
As she looked at the foreigner she noted that his face had changed. He looked keen, hawklike, dangerous. It would have been wiser for Anthony Trent had he allowed Peter Sissek to triumph.
Then, suddenly, Peter made a rush. He put down his bullet head and jumped at his man. Anthony Trent saw the opportunity for as pretty an upper-cut as one might need. For Peter Sissek it was the whole starry firmament in its splendor that showed itself, and then the night came down.
"He has killed Peter!" the count roared.
"That is not death," Pauline said clapping her hands.
For an uneasy moment the count remembered that not many minutes earlier he had buffetted this quiet, grim fighter, this same man who hit his opponent at will and evaded his enemy's blows with practised ease. These English speaking peoples with their odd notions of independence and their skill with their brutal fists were dangerous. It might well be that even he, Michæl Temesvar had best remember his new chauffeur was not docile like Peter Sissek and the others.
"This is murder!" the count said still angrily.
"He'll come to," Trent said carelessly. "Shall I drive you back?"
"No," said the count. He looked coldly at the man who had charge of the Lion. But Trent knew very well that the anger in his face was not from any sympathy with Peter Sissek. It was the thought that Pauline had deceived him and that this young man was too skillful in too many ways that annoyed the aristocrat.
"I will send a car back," Count Michæl asserted, "meanwhile stay with the man you have so cruelly assaulted."
Peter Sissek awoke to consciousness a few seconds later and looked with difficulty on the world. His nose was cut, an eye was closed and his car was gone. He made strange outcries and became so excited that Trent with a black look bade him be silent. Sissek knew what was meant and started at a run along the road.
Trent was not so sure he had done well that morning. He had angered the count. Well, such anger would probably pass under ordinary conditions. He had interested that magnificent animal Pauline, reigning favorite, and autocrat, and Pauline was not discreet. Sooner or later the count would see the way she looked at his chauffeur and then the game would be up. He would be sent back to London his mission a failure. To get Pauline's enmity would be fatal, too. She would not hesitate to ruin a man she hated and the count would always believe her word against that of Alfred Anthony. The American sat on the edge of the first tee and cursed all irregularly run establishments. He looked up presently to see the car returning. It was driven by Hentzi.
"What is this I hear?" Hentzi said severely.
"I don't give a damn what you have heard," Trent said crossly.
"What? You talk like this to me?"
"To you or anyone else," Trent retorted. "Look here, my little man, I came here to look after a high powered car and risk my neck on mountain passes. All right. I'm agreeable. But if you or anyone else thinks I'm a golf caddie or a footman or a servile beast like Sissek you're all mistaken. I'm a good mechanic and I can drive a car against almost anyone but I'm not going to stand for oppression. The count hit me." Anthony Trent patted himself on the chest as the enormity of the offence grew larger, "he hitme!"
"You talk as though you were a gentleman," Hentzi said coldly. "My friend you are of the people and you have read too much. You probably think you are my equal. It is an honor to serve a Temesvar but if you are anxious to go to your own country I have no doubt your company can send another man."
"There's no need for that," Trent said less irascibly, "but what makes Pauline think I'm going to carry her clubs around when I've got my own work to do?"
"So that was it," Hentzi commented. "That was why Count Michæl stormed at me so. My good Alfred, you are young and life is sweet. I counsel you to remember that always while you are at Radna. The Temesvars have always been hot headed. You see that steep cliff yonder?"
Trent looked above him to where the side of a mountain was cut so sharply that a drop of four hundred feet would be the lot of one stepping from the edge.
"That has been the scene of many tragedies," Hentzi said, "many men have stepped into space."
"Murdered?" Trent demanded.
"Accidents," Hentzi assured him, "unfortunate accidents. There was one lamentable occurrence not many years ago and he was a fellow countryman of yours by the way. A man of great personal distinction. But these are not for you, these reminiscences of high life. What will interest you is that the count says you can no longer live with theSisseks. He does not want two valuable servants to kill one another. Room will be made for you at the Castle. That pleases you, eh?"
"Yes," Trent said, conscious that his look of triumph had puzzled Hentzi. "I do not like Mrs. Sissek's cooking."
In reality he was delighted. Here he was to be taken into the Castle without having to make an effort. It was the first step. It would be strange if one as skilled and silent as he could not soon have every detail of the house at his command. He knew the servants drank their native spirits, brandies, made of cherries, apricots and plums. This assured sound sleep and unlimited opportunities. The count was a great drinker, too, and his guests feasted well.
As if in conspiracy against him the major domo, chief of the indoor servants, put him in the least desirable of rooms, a rat-ridden chamber away from the sleeping apartments of the rest of the help. In the heat of summer it would be unbearable. There was fortunately a great bolt which barred the door from intruders. The one long, deep window opened inwards. An old square copper pipe used to drain the roof far above passed his window. He took hold of it and found it immovable. It would easily support his weight. The ground lay twenty feet below. It was the windows that this copper pipe passed which most interested Trent. If they had catches similar to his own he could open them with a hair pin. He was eager for night to fall. And because he was now assured of action he became much moredocile. He allowed Hentzi to lecture him severely on his brutal behaviour.
During the next week he was worked so hard that he had little opportunity, apart from his long journeys to Fiume, to do aught else than make a mental plan of the windows on his side of the castle. There were four apertures similar to that which gave light and air to his room. The heavy copper pipe passed by them all. To a gymnast with a clear head they were all within reach. The climb was probably less difficult than it would seem to an observer looking up from the ground. There was risk, of course, but Anthony Trent was always ready to take it.
In the daily life of the servants' hall he noticed that the place had an enormous number of retainers, young and old, many more than seemed necessary. They were with a few exceptions sons and daughters of the Temesvar family, servants proud of their caste and the man they served. The major domo spoke German and French. He was a pompous person who ruled absolutely below stairs. He did not like the stranger but he had been commanded not to allow any brawls and he saw to it the chauffeur was let alone. There was much to eat and to drink. Count Michæl owned herds of swine which grazed in the miles of oak and beech forests surrounding Castle Radna and the heady drinks that abounded were made from his own fruits by his own people.
As a rule the lower servants went early to bed. Those who remained up later were the major domo and such of his men as waited upon the count'stable. There came a dark cloudy night when Anthony Trent wearing black sneakers and a dark suit free from white collar or cuffs crawled out of his dungeon-like window and up the twelve feet of piping that intervened between his own and the next window above. He found himself looking down into what he supposed was the great entrance hall of the castle. Just below him was a great seat raised above the hall level on a platform of stone at the base of the fine sweep of stairway.
It was the official seat of the major domo. He could see the portly servant in a sort of antique evening dress, white gloves on podgy hands and a gilt chain of office about his thick neck. Below were three or four footmen in the maroon and canary of the Temesvars. They were yawning as though weary of inactivity. Plainly Trent could not emerge a few feet above the major domo's head and in full view of the footmen.
A climb to the next embrasure revealed what at first seemed a checkmate to observation. He found on investigation that some great article of furniture was backed against the window. It was immovable. Another climb and he was able to step through the easily opened window to a dark corridor. Anthony Trent in a great silent house where danger and disgrace would attend his discovery was in his element. He moved silently, surely, and seemed possessed of a seventh sense. He had never before professionally worked in such a vast rambling place as Castle Radna. It was not easy even for onetrained as he to keep the plan of the place in mind. He found himself on a floor of bedrooms few of which were occupied.
He bent over one slumberer whose breath was strong with plum brandy and found he had discovered Hentzi's bedroom. He, did not need to be very quiet here. Underneath him was the floor where the main bedrooms would be and he had an idea the count might keep his valuables there. It was necessary that he should be able to enter from the outside since the stairway leading down was brilliantly lighted from the main hall and stone stairway where the men servants seemed permanently stationed.
Trent had the ability to snatch sleep when he desired it. It was now only eleven o'clock. He crawled under Hentzi's bed and slumbered until one. There was no danger of discovery. He did not snore and the man in the upper berth would not wake till morning. Anthony Trent had made a profound study of the value of snores in the determination of the tenacity with which the snorer clung to sleep.
When he shut Hentzi's door and stepped out into the corridor he saw that the lights had been extinguished below and he was free now to make his way to the floor beneath. He tried no doors but went at once to the aperture covered by the article of furniture. It was a huge ebonyarmoireinlaid with panels of tortoise-shell and ornamented by intricate designs of brass and ormolu. It was probablyput in this spot for the purposes of decoration and he picked the lock to prove himself right. It was empty and there was space enough to stand upright in.
He felt it vandalism to break the back panel and feared once the loud cracking of wood might arouse the house. But there were few in Castle Radna who went without a nightcap. It took him almost two hours to hack an aperture that would admit him easily.
Then he slid down the pipe and went to bed. It was not easy to sleep. He had done very well so far. He was free of the house. With luck he could come and go at will during the still night hours. But the first step was easy. Next to find where the count kept Lord Rosecarrel's treaty and then to take it. And finally to get away with his treasure. He was not so much inclined to belittle the abilities of those other two who had planned and failed as he had been when he talked to the earl. He had taken due notice of Hentzi's reference to the death of an Englishman a few years ago who had met his fate at the base of the steep cliff-side. He felt almost certain that this was one of the men the earl had spoken of.
Lord Rosecarrel had said they set a trap for him into which none but a clever man would fall. He wished now he had asked particulars of it. So far Anthony Trent had escaped snares and the nets of hunters because he had outguessed his opponents. Sometimes he told himself that in the end the deadlylaw of averages would make him its victim. The pitcher would go once too often to the well. These reflections while they made him more than ever cautious did not lessen his zeal. Plainly it would be easier to work a remote castle in Croatia than a New York mansion protected by burglar alarms, night watchmen and detectives. Yet he had always succeeded so far in the face of these obstacles. But the address and nerve which had carried him through many a tight pinch in New York would not avail him here.
More than once, clad in evening dress, he had joined excited groups of guests and tried to capture himself. He had calmly taken his hat and cane from a footman and been bowed out of a house he had pillaged and once Inspector McWalsh had carried to the door some priceless antiques he had taken from the very collection the Inspector and his men were guarding.
Reflection showed him that Count Michæl Temesvar was far too shrewd to trust the document that meant so much to him to insecure shelter. Despite the fact that the castle seemed filled with idle, drinking, overfed lackeys and he himself was unwatched, there must be some precaution taken which would defeat him unless he trod warily.
It was his experience that rich men knew little of the vulnerability of the safes to which they entrusted their valuables. Again and again he had been able to open such with ludicrous ease. Count Michæl probably had an antique which would senda "peteman" into ecstacies of mirth. Trent's job was to locate it.
Next day he was commanded to accompany Pauline and the count to the golf links. Pauline hardly looked at him but Count Michæl watched him continually. He was relieved at the girl's attitude. She was beaten by her opponent and angry at it. The count was not a sportsman. He putted over the easy bunkers and more than once he lifted his ball to a better lie. The victory made him good humoured. His heavy bearded face was wreathed with smiles. Trent had the opportunity to observe him more closely than ever before. It was a bad, crafty face but it was not merely the face of a pleasure loving fool. If rumor spoke rightly he was, more than any other man, the prime mover in activities aimed against the English speaking peoples. From this same Castle of Radna had issued many plots and subtle schemes all directed by this man who moved a golf ball with his foot when he thought none was looking.
Hentzi had told him that every European and American newspaper of note was to be found in the count's library. It was odd that such a man would not make some great city his home. He mentioned this once to Hentzi who made the astonishing answer that the count dreaded assassination by political enemies. Fearing perhaps he had said too much the secretary added that Count Michæl had long ago abandoned politics for the life of a great landowner and that such a fear was without foundation.
"It wouldn't be easy for a stranger to get in here, would it?" Trent demanded carelessly.
The question seemed a most provoking one.
"Let such a one try," he returned smiling, "and he will see how we welcome him here in Radna. You who are of another world would not understand."
"I suppose not," Trent said and talked of other things. But he was not reassured. He set himself to master the roads that led to safety. There might be the need to know them. He had not yet been down to Fiume alone. He wanted to find several places in the big port. There might be a time when he would have to send an order to the Lion works for spare parts. His code was elaborate and framed to meet all contingencies.
When he asked Hentzi why so few people stayed at the castle the secretary's reply amazed him. Hentzi rather liked to impress this amiable cockney. He was not without a sense of the melodramatic.
"My friend," he said with condescension, "there are more who take their dinner in the big dining hall than you know. If it were your lot to be an indoor servant you would know what I mean. Castle Radna is at one time a prison, a sanctuary and the abode of hospitality."
"I never understand what you're driving at Mr. Hentzi," Trent told him. "I don't get your meaning half the time."
"I do not intend that you shall," Hentzi remarked. "And I do not advise you to seem curious. As it is you have displeased your master."
"Sissek started it," Trent reminded him.
"Sissek is a clod, a peasant, a man of no importance. I am not thinking of Peter Sissek. I am thinking of Madame Pauline."
"That blond woman," Trent said with assumed carelessness. "What about her?"
"She has praised your face and figure before one who, when he is jealous, kills."
"Me?" cried Trent with an air of astonishment, "why I only told her she was a rotten golfer."
He groaned in spirit. His stay at Castle Radna was going to be very difficult. Hentzi watching him closely only saw a face which expressed little interest. He was used now to sudden questioning by this volatile cockney.
"What do you mean by the castle being a prison?"
"I should have said that it has held many prisoners in bygone years, and sheltered many of the great. This is not like your English castles where the lord has no power. Look you, not a year ago we stayed, the count and I, at such a place. The owner struck a careless servant and was obliged to pay a fine before a judge. Think of it! An English lord haled into court by his own footman and fined. There is nothing like that here so when you are struck again do not think of an English policeman and a fine. I wish you to stay. When Sissek drives down the mountain I am always alarmed. You go twice as fast and I have no fear. Count Michæl desires you to stay."
"I haven't said anything about going have I?"Trent retorted. He supposed Hentzi was trying to warn him not to look covetously at the handsome Pauline. The warning troubled him. He was of a physical type to which blonds of the Pauline type were invariably attracted.
"Many have died for her," Hentzi went on, "the young officers who flocked to see her skate. There were scandals. She was sent away from Berlin. She was in America, in England and Petrograd. She is cruel. I am afraid of her."
"I'm only a blooming chauffeur," Trent said carelessly, "and I wish I had never carried clubs at the Royal Surrey."
"You are also good looking," Hentzi said, "and of a superior type. Furthermore you are young and she has seen you play better than any man she has met and she has seen you fight. I warn you."
"I've got a girl of my own in London," Trent said confidentially, "who is a fair knock out. My girl has the real gold on her sweet little head and the roses on her cheeks owe nothing to a bottle and her eyes are sometimes violet and sometimes dark blue and she is slim and has those long white hands one wants to kiss."
"Love has made you a poet," Hentzi said affably. It was well that he did not notice that the cockney accent was for the moment abandoned. Hentzi was not a very close observer. He had only two profound emotions. The one a fear of his employer, the other admiration for himself. He considered Trent to be much impressed by his superior knowledge and,here a little and there a little, imparted much valuable information as to the castle, its inhabitants and their method of life. He considerately pointed out the count's library, the room into which no strangers had ever been bidden.
Anthony Trent, therefore, at one-thirtya.m. the next morning was better equipped for exploration than on his previous venture. Hentzi had told him that so long as the count remained up a servant waited to attend on him, old Ferencz by name. Trent remembered him at the servants' table as a surly old man who was silent and reserved and unpopular even among his fellows. He was liable to meet this man at any time. Trent was glad the Temesvar men servants had not the same silent ways of the Rosecarrel men. The men at Castle Radna walked heavily, lacking the thin shoes of the earl's servants, and talked loudly. There was little of the perfect discipline and service of the great English houses. It was due no doubt to the fact that the men were almost feudal retainers and not highly trained servants going from country estate to town house with the seasons.
Almost the moment he stepped from his tall ebonyarmoireTrent heard steps coming toward him. He was at the moment passing a door. His pass key opened it instantly and he stepped into darkness and shut the door carefully. But he knew he was not alone. There was a heavy unrhythmic snoring of a man far gone in sleep. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness Trent saw the outlines of a big bed.
He passed the foot of it on hands and knees. The professional always takes this precaution. A man waked from sleep by hearing a stranger at the foot of his bed invariably aims at a man supposed to be standing up. Although the sounds Trent detected were genuine sleep induced snores he could not be sure that another watchful occupant of the bed was not listening breathlessly and even now reaching for a weapon.
When he assured himself everything was quiet he looked about the room with the light of his electric torch. The sleeping man was a stranger to him. He was a red faced man of middle age and on a chair nearby was the undress uniform of an officer of high rank, a light blue uniform with silver facings. Accustomed as he was to khaki uniform alone Trent had no idea to what European service the sleeper belonged. He remembered Hentzi's remark that there were more people at the dinner table than one might suppose. Trent was certain he had never seen this officer about the castle grounds and had never driven him.
From the bedroom a door led evidently to a roomen suite. This was unlocked and Trent entered noiselessly. It was a room twice the size of the adjoining apartment and furnished magnificently. So vast and splendid was the chamber he thought it must be that of Count Michæl, the room where perchance the treaty lay concealed for which he had risked so much. But it was not Count Michæl who lay stertorously slumbering. It was instead a princeof a great and lately reigning family who had strangely disappeared from the world a few months earlier and had been, so report ran, drowned in escaping from exile.
Anthony Trent was looking at one, worthless in character and devoid of ability but nevertheless a man who might by reason of his name rally about him an army which could start again the dreadful struggle whose scars were yet fresh. A great ceremony had been made of the funeral and a society of his former officers had been organized to perpetuate his memory by embarrassing his opponents. Trent remembered, dimly, reading an article in a London paper which spoke of the prince as being as dangerous dead as when leading his dissolute life.
Anthony Trent looked at the weak, passion-lined face of the man who had sought Count Michæl's shelter and smiled. He had long ago been intrigued by the idea of mixing himself in high politics. Here, possibly, was an excellent beginning. But the prince could wait a little while. The time was not yet ripe for his resurrection.
Looking across the room Trent saw two long French windows lighting it. One was open. Instead of the balcony upon which the intruder assumed these windows opened, they led into a large courtyard some eighty feet long and forty feet wide. He did not understand how it was this great open space should have its being in the middle of the castle. There seemed no reason why it existed in a building of this sort. He was to find later that itsorigin was accidental. What was now a paved and open courtyard had been the magazine of the castle during the Turkish occupation of Croatia. The castle itself had never given in to the Ottoman conqueror. It had been shelled in the Reformation uprising in 1607 and a ball shot had exploded the ammunition. The chamber had never been rebuilt but a century later was turned into a pleasant garden.
Trent stepped through the open window and down three steps into the courtyard. It was plainly much used. There were lounges and chairs and tables. Pausing at one of them he saw London and New York papers which he had brought up from Fiume earlier in the week. There were French novels and bon-bons and a feather fan. Evidently the prince was not without his feminine companionship. In one of these big chairs Trent sat down and looked about him. The room from which he had come faced due east. To the north and south were plain solid walls without windows. Only to the West at the other end of the space could he see that the walls were pierced with French windows. As he looked these were suddenly illuminated. He made no motion. He felt reasonably certain that he was in such a position as to be unobserved.
But he grew less calm when the count's unmistakable figure passed up and down before the two windows and finally opening one stepped out into the courtyard. Behind him came Hentzi who should have been in bed long ago. The two passed so closehe could have touched them. They were speaking rapidly and in what he supposed must be the Croatian tongue. Twice he heard his name mentioned. The count always called him by the assumed name of Alfred pronouncing it "Arlfrit."
It was not pleasant hearing. They might be, for all he knew, discussing his already discovered absence from his room. It was true he had bolted the door but someone from the outside might have detected the dark-clad climber making his unlawful ascent. Already a search might be in progress which would eventually claim him as the third failure. Count Michæl was often so excited about trivial things that the listener was not able to guess whether his present mood was the outcome of some small irritation or of something far more sinister. There recurred frequently the name of Pauline and once or twice the count pointed to the windows where slept the man whom his people had mourned as dead.
There was one moment of dreadful anticipation for the American. He noticed that Hentzi was permitting himself to argue with his master. Suddenly as the twain passed by Trent's refuge the count buffetted his secretary on the head. It was Count Michæl's favorite expression of annoyance. Trent himself had suffered thus on the golf links. Hentzi ducked in time to receive merely a glancing blow but he gripped the arm of Trent's chair to steady himself. If he had taken his eyes off thecount's still upraised hand he could not have failed to see the intruder.
For a full half hour Anthony Trent sat quiet. Then the count and Hentzi left him alone. Now that immediate risk of detection seemed past Trent assured himself that his evening had been well spent. Undoubtedly Count Michæl's rooms, the rooms he wanted to investigate—were those through whose windows the two had come and gone. He memorized as well as he could the position in the corridors the doors would occupy. The discovery of this courtyard three floors in depth helped him to understand what had baffled him in his explorations of the corridors many of which came to abrupt meaningless ends. In other days they had continued across the space that had once been arsenal, magazine and strong room.
He made his way through the open window and past the sleeping men without mishap. In the corner of a panel in thearmoirehe bored two small holes and blew away the dust that fell from them. He descended the copper pipe prepared to find his room invaded by vengeful servants. But it was as he had left it. It was not for his arrest that the count had dragged Arlfrit into his conversation.