"Stay where you are, Watkins," I commanded. "Let me have that torch, Nikka."
I turned it on the over-mantel. An efficient kit of burglar's tools reposed on the mantel-shelf under the carven group of dancing monks, ale-horns and tankards waving aloft. The figure in the middle of the group had a comically protruding belly that seemed to waggle as the light played on it. But what interested me was the small flexible saw that was still fixed in the base of the panel above the dancing monks.
"Do you see what our friends were up to?" I asked. "That fellow Toutou has a keen mind. He is somebody to be reckoned with. He saw what none of us saw, even after we had worked out the cipher."
"What did he see?" asked Nikka.
For answer I switched the light on to Lady Jane's verse:
Lady Jane's verse
Whenne thatte ye Pappist ChurchmanneWoudde seke Hys Soul's contenteHe tookened up ye Wysshinge StoneAnd trodde ye Prior's Vent.
"He saw that," I answered. "And he jumped to conclusions from it. He knew, as we knew, that there is something concealed in this house, probably in this room. And he thought that that verse would not have been placed just there unless there was a reason for it."
"By Jove, I believe he was right!" exclaimed Hugh.
Nikka propped a chair against the mantle-piece, and climbed on to the shelf. The panel had been sawed through on both sides and part of the bottom.
"Go ahead," said Hugh. "It's ruined anyway. But I swear I don't see how there can be an opening in back there that wouldn't sound hollow when you rap over it."
While I held the light on the panel Nikka sawed away, and in fifteen minutes he had it detached from its beveled frame.
"Come up here, Hugh, and help me with it," he said, as he withdrew the saw, and Hugh climbed to his side.
They found a thin chisel in the burglar's kit, and with this Hugh gently pried the panel loose.
"It has a stone backing," cried Nikka disappointedly, as it came away.
In fact, we all experienced a profound feeling of disillusionment when Watkins received the panel in his arms, and the empty area of stonework was revealed, about four feet long and three feet high.
"Too bad," said Hugh, jumping down. "Especially as we could have gotten a body through an opening that size."
There came a yell of triumph from Nikka, and Watkins, whose eyes had been straining at the opening, shouted:
"There is something there, your ludship!"
Nikka was digging furiously with the chisel at what looked to be a dark stone in the very center of the empty area.
"It's an inner wood panel," he grunted over his shoulder. "I can feel something behind it."
There was a splintering noise, and the "stone" fell apart. Behind it was a shallow recess, perhaps nine inches square, completely filled by a rusty iron box. Nikka levered the box out, and handed it to Hugh.
"Your ancestress was a clever old person," he commented, dropping beside us on the couch. "Fancy her figuring that the inner panel would prevent the recess from sounding hollow when it was rapped."
The box was about three inches deep. It was unlocked, and Hugh lifted the cover without difficulty. Inside were two papers, very brittle and yellow from the heat of the chimney. The first was a torn fragment from a household account book:
"Septr. ye 2nde, 1592."Paid Conrad of Nurmburgge ye Germanne masonne:item, for sealinge ye Olde Cryptte belowe ye PriorsHouse: item, for ye engine for ye Priors Vent:item, for ye pannellinge in ye Gunneroom £17 s9 d4item, two boxes of Flanders iron s7—————"Accompte £17 s16 d4"
And below this was written:
"And I sent Hyme forth of ye Vilage thatte Hee might not have Chaunce to talk howbeeit Hee ys clousemouthed and Hath littel Englysh."
It was impossible not to laugh at the invincible determination of Lady Jane.
"What did she do with the second box?" I suggested.
"Probably used it in another mystery," chuckled Nikka. "What's the other paper, Hugh?"
"It's the real thing! Great Jupiter, see what Toutou missed!"
And he spread the second paper on his knee. It was short and to the point:
"To Hymne thatte hath Witte to rede Mye riddel. Presse atte ye One time ye Sfinxes headde and ye Monkes bellie. So wil ye Flaggin drop in ye Dexter side of ye Harth. Thatte whych you Seke you shal Discovour in yts proper Place.
"JANE CHESBY."
I flashed the electric torch on the mantle-piece. "Ye Sfinxes headde" was in the very center of the row of Turks' heads, and veiled women that was sculptured along the edge of the stone mantle-shelf. "Ye Monkes bellie" was the bit of carving that protruded from the center of the bibulous group that had upheld the panel bearing Lady Jane's verse.
"I've pressed both of those more than once," I protested.
"But not both at once," answered Nikka.
He bounded up, and drove his two hands, palm out, against the projections. There was a muffled thud in the fireplace. I sank on my knees, and trained the electric torch inside. On the "dexter," or right-hand side, in the rear, yawned a hole some two feet square.
I crawled through the ashes, and thrust the torch over the rim. There was a sharp drop of three or four feet, and then the beginning of a flight of stairs, heavily carpeted with dust. A damp, earthy odor smote my nostrils. The others crawled in beside me. Even Watkins pulled his nightshirt around him and stuck his head in as far as he could get.
"Ever seen that before, Watty?" asked Hugh, backing out.
"Never, your ludship."
The valet's face was a study.
"Is late ludship, Mister Hugh, was frequently in the 'abit of being alone, as I daresay you know. But 'ow in the world could 'e have found it, your ludship, if he didn't find out first about that?"
Watkins nodded toward the gaping hole in the over-mantle.
"I'm damned if I know," admitted Hugh. "Maybe we'll find out. By the way, how do you suppose you close the Vent?"
Nikka fingered the two projections, and the moment he applied pressure the flagstone slapped up into place.
"There's some counterweight arrangement," he said. "The fellow who designed this was a master-mechanic."
"Evidently," agreed Hugh. "Well, you chaps, we are another mile-stone farther on the road, but the first thing we have to do is to get the corpus delicti safely underground."
"Right," assented Nikka, "But we need clothes and food. You can't tell what we may run into."
For the first time I looked at myself, and burst out laughing at the spectacle I presented. My pajamas were torn to shreds, and I was smutted from head to foot with soot and ashes. Hugh and Nikka were little better. Watkins was as immaculate as a man in his night-shirt may be.
"Very well," said Hugh. "Then Jack had best go upstairs and wash, while Watkins gets dressed and fetches our clothes. In the meantime, Nikka and I can be disposing of our friend here."
We adopted this plan, and Watkins also volunteered to tell cook to start breakfast. The curtains had been close drawn over all the Gunroom windows, and I was amazed to perceive on leaving it that the sun was rising.
When I came downstairs twenty minutes later, Hawkins the butler, carrying a large tray, was knocking on the Gunroom door.
"I'll take it," I told him. "You go back to the kitchen like a good fellow, and keep the maids quiet."
I knocked for several minutes without result, and finally set the tray down, and banged the door with both fists.
"All right! All right!" called a strangely blanketed voice. "Who is it?"
"Jack!"
Feet scuffled inside, and the door was jerked open by Hugh, rather dusty and cobwebby.
"We were out under the Park," he explained. "We took that Gypsy down safely, and I came back ahead of the others on the chance you might be trying to get in. There's a regular passage, Jack. It seems to go on and on. We didn't have time to follow it very far."
He set the table, which I had overturned, on its legs, and I brought in the tray. Then Nikka and Watkins emerged from the fireplace, blinking owlishly, and we three drew chairs up to the table, and Watkins served breakfast as deftly as though we had not departed a hair's-breadth from the ordinary routine of life.
"Have you had breakfast yet, Watty?" asked Hugh.
"No, your ludship."
"Sit down, then, and eat."
Watkins looked like a man instructed to undress in Piccadilly.
"Beg pardon, your ludship—"
"Sit down, man."
"But, your ludship—"
Hugh pointed to a chair.
"Damn it, Watty," he said severely, "bring that chair up, pour yourself some coffee and eat."
Watkins complied with an air of outraged decorum.
There was a knock on the door.
"Who's that?" said Hugh.
"It should be 'Awkins with the quick-lime, your ludship," answered Watkins, hastily pushing back his chair. "'E had to 'ave it brought from the stables."
"Take it from him, Watty—and then come back here and finish your breakfast."
"Why quick-lime?" I asked, as Watkins received a bulky, whitish-powdered sack through the half-opened door.
"We can't very well dig a grave in stone," was Nikka's grim comment.
Watkins dropped the sack on the hearth, and returned to his breakfast. He wanted very much to quit with one cup of coffee, but Hugh ordered him back and insisted that a man who had work to do required not less than four slices of toast and three eggs.
"Bloated I'll be, your ludship," protested the valet. "Oh, if you will 'ave it!"
"I will," said Hugh. "You are going to be on guard here, Watty, while we are gone. Have you your automatic? Right O! Don't let anybody in."
He took the electric torch, and dropped the sack of lime down the hole in the fireplace. We climbed after it, one by one. The first stairs were extremely steep and the roof was so close that we had to stoop; but after we had descended perhaps fifteen feet, they turned to the right and the roof lifted to a little more than six feet.
"This is where the passage strikes off from the house," remarked Hugh.
The stairs continued to descend for another fifteen or twenty feet, and then straightened out. At the foot of the last step lay the body of the Gypsy. Hugh was carrying the lime-sack, so Nikka and I picked up the dead man, following Hugh, who lighted the way with the torch.
The passage was beautifully built, with an even floor, and wide enough for one man to walk comfortably. Despite a damp odor, it was not muddy, and there must have been some means of ventilation, for the air was reasonably fresh. According to a compass on Nikka's watch-chain, it trended across the Park towards the ruins of the Priory.
The Gypsy's body was a clumsy load to manage in so confined a space, and we halted every two or three hundred feet to rest. We estimated that we had walked a kilometer when we noticed a gradual upward slope in the flooring. The passage turned a corner, and the light of Hugh's torch was reflected on the rusty ironwork of what once had been a massive door.
Of the wood only a pile of dust remained, cluttered about the broken lock; but the great hinges still stretched across the path, upholding a ghostly barrier of bolted darkness. We deposited the dead Gypsy on the floor, and helped Hugh to bend back the creaking iron frame. Beyond loomed a vast emptiness, a spreading, low-roofed chamber, studded with squat Norman pillars that marched in dim columns into unseen depths.
The torch scarcely could penetrate the heaped-up shadows, but as our eyes became accustomed to the room's proportions we realized that we stood on the threshold of a mausoleum similar to the one in which we had seen Lord Chesby laid to rest. Hugh stepped across the stone sill of the doorway, and swung the light back and forth between the pillars. Suddenly it glinted on metal.
We all pressed closer, staring at the picture that took shape under the white glare. On a stone shelf lay a skeleton in armor. The peaked helmet had rolled aside from the naked skull, but the chainmail of the hauberk still shrouded trunk and limbs. Next to it lay a smaller skeleton, clad in threads of rich vestments. There was a twinkle of tarnished gold cloth, a fragment of fur. A bygone Lord of Chesby and his lady!
"We are intruders in this place," I exclaimed. "It doesn't seem right, Hugh."
My voice rolled thunderously from roof to floor and wall to wall and back again, and the pillars split the echoes into parodies of words.
"Intruder—derr-rr-r—whirr-rrr-rr-r! Place—pla-aay-ayy ay-ay!"
"One feels indecent in being here," agreed Nikka.
Hugh frowned down upon the two skeletons.
"They wouldn't mind," he said. "We have a reason for coming."
And while the echoes had their will with his declaration, he led us slowly around the circuit of the chamber.
Niche followed niche. On shelf after shelf lay the bones of men and women whose bodies had rotted ages ago. On one moldered the skeleton of a man in clerical raiment, with what had been a miter on his skull, some cadet of the house who had entered the Church.
Halfway around we came to another shelf that held two skeletons. The inner, obviously a woman's, thrust its poor bones through the tattered fabric that robed it. The man wore an immense pot-helmet of the early type, with eye-holes and nasals drilled in the fashion of a cross. His chainmail was very finely-woven, and included mail shoes that had collapsed pathetically on crumbled bones. His gauntleted hands were clasped on the hilt of a long, two-edged sword, which lay upon his chest with the point between his feet. His left arm supported a kite-shaped shield that revealed traces of color beneath the over-lying dust.
On his chest, just above the clasped hands, was an iron box identical with the one which we had found behind the panel of the over-mantle, the second of the "two boxes of Flanders iron" which Conrad had furnished to Lady Jane.
Hugh switched his torch on the base of the shelf. In rough, angular Gothic characters we spelt the inscription:
Hic JacetHugh Dominus ChesbiensisetEdith Domina Chesbiensis
"The first Hugh!" exclaimed Hugh with a note of awe in his voice.
And indeed, it must have been a moving experience to view the flimsy relics of those two from whose loins he, himself, had sprung through the resistless life impulse prevailing over time and death down the procession of the centuries.
He hesitated a moment, and then reached out reverently and removed the iron box from the mailed breast. Handing the torch to me, he raised the dingy cover. Inside was a chest of ebony, bound with silver, sound and whole. It was unlocked. As Hugh lifted the lid, a sheet of paper fluttered out and Nikka caught it. Across the top was engraved "Castle Chesby," and it was covered with fine, cramped writing.
"It's Uncle James's record," said Hugh. "After the exultation of plumbing the mystery to be murdered like a dog! Poor old chap!"'
The note or record was whimsically brief and undated:
"Last Thursday evening, in studying Lady Jane's doggerel on the back of the Instructions, I suddenly perceived the cipher. It occurred to me that the verse on the over-mantel in the Gunroom must have some connection with this, and after several days' examination, I fell upon the secret. I say fell, advisedly. In my interest in the task, I had shut myself up, and refused luncheon, tea and dinner, and finally, late in the evening, I sank against the mantle-shelf, weak and half-fainting. My hands, groping for support, struck the sphinx's head and the monk's stomach. I felt them give, heard the flagstone fall. After that hunger was forgotten. I descended the chimney stairs and found my way here, the first Chesby to traverse the Prior's Vent since that singular old ancestress of mine so effectually concealed it, and with it, the clue to the treasure. I do not see now how I can fail to find the treasure, but I shall leave the missing half of the Instructions, together with this note, in Lady Jane's chest, so that, if I should fail, the information may be available for Hugh.
"JAMES CHESBY."
"This was what he tried to tell—at the last," said Hugh.
His voice choked.
"Poor old chap!"
"There is something peculiar about his finding the secret in one way and our finding it in another so shortly afterward," I said.
"The soothsayers of my people would call it a sign, a premonition," replied Nikka, with a melancholy smile.
"Of what?"
"Of the removal of whatever curse or inhibition has prevented the discovery of the treasure up to this time."
"Well, two men have died already since this last search was begun," answered Hugh, fumbling in the chest. "And who knows how many others have been killed on its account?"
He drew out a bundle wrapped in decaying velvet cloth. Within was a wrapping of silk, and under all a folded blank sheet of parchment enveloping two other documents. One was a parchment, tattered and worn, which had evidently been much handled. It was jaggedly cut at the top as though by a dull knife or some other instrument. Its surface was crowded with the same intricate Black Letter script in mediæval Latin as comprised the Instructions in the Charter Chest. The writing was badly faded, and a number of words in the lower right-hand corner had been smudged by dampness at some remote time.
The second document was a pencilled translation of the first in James Chesby's handwriting:
"The Great Palace—or as some call it, the Palace of the Bucoleon—is over against the Hippodrome and the Church of St. Sophia. In the Inner Court, which fronts upon the Bosphorus, there is a door under the sign of the Bull. Beyond the door is a hall. At the end of the hall there is a stair. At the foot of the stair there is a gate. Pass through the gate into the atrium which is off the Garden of the Cedars. In the Garden is the Fountain of the Lion. From the center of the Fountain take four paces west toward the wall of the atrium. Then walk three paces north. Underfoot is a red stone an ell square. Raise the ................................................
"... farewell, my son, and forget not the monks of Crowden Priory and the plight of Jerusalem.
"Thine in the love of Christ and the Sainted Cuthbert,
"HUGH."
Beneath this Lord Chesby had scrawled:
"The missing portion is not essential. Below the stone is the treasure. That seems certain."
We looked at one another, hardly able to believe our senses. The thing had appeared so difficult, so unattainable. And now it was almost within our grasp—or so we reasoned in the first flush of confident anticipation.
"It's a question, of course, whether any portion of the Palace of the Bucoleon remains," Nikka pointed out.
"But Uncle James seemed to have no doubt of that," answered Hugh. "Do you remember, Jack?"
A wild shout bellowed from the mouth of the passage, roared and clanged like a trumpet-blast and was shattered by the echoes.
"Your lud'—Mis' Jack! Mis' Nikka!"
Hugh slipped the penciled translation in his pocket, swiftly rewrapped the Black Letter original and stowed it in the ebony chest, and refastened the iron box, which he returned to its former place on the mailed breast of his dead ancestor.
"That's Watkins," he said. "Something has happened up above. Come on, you chaps."
In the doorway he paused by the body of Toutou's gangster.
"What about this?" he demanded. "I won't have him left in there—with those."
He gestured toward the silent forms that filled the sepulcher.
"No need to," returned Nikka curtly, emptying the lime-sack as he spoke. "Leave him here."
We trotted on, and when we passed the first turn in the passage, just beyond the wreck of the ancient door, we saw a light that bobbed up and down in the near distance.
"Your ludship!" wailed Watkins's voice through the booming echoes.
"Steady on, Watty," Hugh called back. "I'm here."
"Thank God! Oh, your ludship, I'm that—"
Watkins panted up to us quite out of breath. He carried a dwindling candle in one hand, and his usually tidy garments were coated with dust.
"Must—apologize—ludship—appearance—fell—stairs," he began.
"Easy, easy," said Hugh comfortingly, and fell to brushing him off. "If it's bad news, why, it's bad news, Watty. If it's good news, it can wait."
"It was a lady, your ludship!"
We all laughed.
"A lady!" repeated Hugh. "Bless my soul, Watty, are you gettin' dissolute in your old age?"
"She 'ad nothing to do with me, your ludship," remonstrated the valet indignantly. "Leastwise, I should say, she 'ad no more to do with me than make a mock of me and the pistol you gave me."
"How's that?"
"Took it away from me, she did, your ludship." Watkins's voice quivered with wrath. "And tripped me on me back. Yes, and laughed at me!"
"A lady, you said?" demanded Hugh incredulously.
Watkins nodded his head.
"And hextremely pretty, too, if I may say so, your ludship."
Hugh looked helplessly at Nikka and me.
"I say, this is a yarn!" he exclaimed. "Watty, for God's sake, get a grip on yourself. Begin at the beginning, and tell everything."
He grinned.
"Conceal nothin', you old reprobate, especially, if there were any amorous episodes with this lady."
"Your ludship! Mister Hugh, sir!" Watkins's expression was a study in injured innocence. "You will 'ave your bit of fun, I suppose. As for me, sir, if I was for making love to some female I'd take one that was not so free with her strength."
"Are you sure it was a woman?" interrupted Nikka.
"Judge for yourself, sir, Mister Nikka. After you gentlemen left me, I tidied up the room, and quite a time had passed, I should judge, when I heard a click, and one of the windows opened in the south oriel."
"That's the one Toutou and his man escaped through," I broke in. "They probably fixed the lock."
"Very likely, sir. I turned when I 'eard the click, and the lady stuck 'er leg over the sill."
"Stuck her—" Hugh gasped.
"Quite so, your ludship. She 'ad on riding-breeches. A very pretty lady she was, your ludship," added Watkins contemplatively.
"So you've said before," commented Hugh. "And what next?"
"I said: 'Who are you, ma'am?' And she laughed, and said: 'Oh, it's only me, Watkins.' And I said: 'Well, ma'am, I'm sure I don't know 'ow you come to 'ave my name, but I really can't permit you to come in 'ere. Please get down, and go around to the front door.'
"With that she 'opped over the window-sill, and stood there, looking about 'er. 'Come on, now, if you please, ma'am,' I said again. And I'm sure, your ludship, I was considerate of 'er all the way through."
"I'll bet a pony you were," said Hugh sympathetically.
"Yes, sir. Thank you, your ludship. She looked around, as I said, and she walked over to the fireplace as cool as a cucumber. 'I see they did find it, after all,' she says, and she stooped and peeked in at the 'ole where the stone 'ad dropped. At that I knew she could be no friend, so I poked the pistol at 'er, and said: 'I don't want to 'arm you, ma'am, but you'll 'ave to come outside with me.'
"'Oh,' she says, 'you wouldn't 'urt me, Watkins. You're a nice, kind, old valet, aren't you?'"
Watkins's voice throbbed with renewed indignation, and we all three, the gravity of the situation forgotten, collapsed on the dusty floor.
"Go on, go on," gasped Hugh.
"'Ow can I, your ludship, if you're laughing all the time?" protested Watkins. "Oh, well, you will 'ave your fun!"
"So did she," I chuckled.
"She did, sir," agreed Watkins with feeling. "She came right up against the pistol, and put out 'er 'and and patted my cheek like, and the first thing I knew, gentlemen, she 'ad tripped me and grabbed the pistol from my 'and, and there was I, lying on the floor, and she with 'er legs straddled over me, pointing the pistol at me, and laughing like sin.
"'Get up,' she says. And she went and sat sidewise on the table, with the pistol resting on 'er knee.'
"What was she like, Watty?"
"She 'ad black hair, sir, and was dark in the face. She wasn't big, but she was—well, shapely, you might say. And she 'ad a way of laughing with 'er eyes. She asked me where you were, and what you had found, and I stood in front of her, and just kept my mouth shut. 'I might shoot you if you won't talk,' she says. 'And if you do, there'll be those that will hear it, and you'll be seen before you get away,' I told 'er. 'True,' says she, 'and I couldn't bring myself to do it, anyway. You're too sweet. You can tell your master, though, that we're not sorry he's found what he was looking for. If we couldn't find it, the next best thing was for him to find it. Whatever he does, he will play into our hands.'
"Then she walked over to the window, and dropped the pistol on a chair. "'Ere,' she says. 'You might 'ave me taken up for breaking and entering if I went off with this.' And she 'opped over the sill on to the lawn. When I got there she was in 'er saddle and riding away. I tried to telephone to the Lodge to 'ave 'er stopped, but the wires were cut. They must 'ave done it in the night, your ludship. 'Awkins was unable to get through to any of the village tradespeople this morning.'
"Was that all?" asked Hugh.
"Yes, your ludship. I called 'Awkins, and told 'im to stand in the front door, and send away anybody who came. Then I climbed down into the 'ole, thinking you would wish to know what 'ad 'appened immediately, your ludship."
"You did quite right, Watty. I don't blame you for what happened. The lady must have been a Tartar."
Hugh turned to us.
"It seems to me the lesson for us in this last experience is that we have got to move rapidly if we are going to shake off Teuton's gang," he said. "They are fully as formidable as Nikka warned us they would be. We ought to start for Constantinople this afternoon."
"There's no question of that," assented Nikka. "But what are you going to do with the key to the treasure? You have it in your pocket now, but it is a long journey to Constantinople. Suppose they steal it en route? They may have plenty of opportunities, you know. Personally, I am not sanguine of shaking them off. Then, too, you must remember that Constantinople is the human sink of Europe, Asia and Africa, more so to-day even than before the War. It swarms with adventurers and dangerous characters. The refuse of half-a-dozen disbanded armies make their headquarters there. It will be a simple matter for a gang like Toutou's to waylay you or search your baggage."
Hugh flushed.
"I had thought of that," he said. "Er—the fact is—Jack has a cousin—a girl we both know—"
"You mean you do," I interrupted sarcastically. "I'm only her cousin. Have you heard from Betty?"
"Yes, damn you! She and her father are at the Pera Palace—he's an archæologist-bibliophile Johnny, Nikka, and an awfully good sort."
"And the girl?" inquired Nikka, with his quiet grin.
"Oh, you'll meet her, too. She's very different from what you'd expect in a cousin of Jack. Anyhow, she knows about this treasure business, and she read of Uncle James's murder, and she's most fearfully keen to be in the game with us. My suggestion is that I mail Uncle James's translation of the key to her in Constantinople. Nobody knows that she knows me or has any connection with any of us. She left New York before Uncle James arrived. So it would be perfectly safe in her hands."
"And in the meantime, we'd better commit it to memory," I said.
The others agreed to this, and we read over the brief transcript of the missing half of the Instructions until we had the salient directions fixed in our minds. Then we retraced our steps through the passage, climbed out of the Prior's Vent and sealed it again; and while Hugh and Nikka motored down to the village post office with the letter for Betty, Watkins and I saw to the necessary packing in preparation for the journey.
We had bags ready for all four of us by lunchtime, and arranged with Hawkins to send trunks after us to the Pera Palace in bond. When Hugh and Nikka returned from the village, all that was necessary was to eat the meal, issue final directions to the servants for the repairing of the panel of the over-mantle—the removal of which we represented to have been the work of the burglars—and fill up the tank of the car.
With an eye to a possible emergency, we had arranged in advance for a considerable supply of gold and negotiable travelers' notes, and our passports, thanks to Hugh's influence, had been viséd for all countries in southern and eastern Europe.
"There's only one thing we lack," remarked Hugh, as we drove out through the park gates. "I want an electric torch for each of us. The one we captured came in very handy this morning."
So we stopped at the shop of the local electrician in the village, and Hugh went in to make the purchase. He was just resuming his seat in the car when another machine drew up alongside, and Montey Hilyer waved a greeting.
"Thought you were going to stay in the County a while, Hugh," he hailed.
Hugh stared at him with the concentrated iciness which the English of his class attain to perfection.
"Are you touring?" continued Hilyer. "Or going abroad? Seems to me I heard something this morning about your taking a trip to Constantinople. A favorite hang-out of your uncle's, I believe. Well, if you're following the Dover road, you mustn't mind if I trail you. I have no objection to a knight errant's dust."
Without a word, Hugh slipped in his gears and zoomed off on first, scattering dogs and pedestrians right and left.
"Damn the scoundrel!" he ripped between clinched teeth. "How I wish I could show him up! Who was with him?"
Nikka and I both shook our heads.
"There were three people in the tonneau," answered Nikka, "but the cover was up, and they were buried in wraps. Did you notice your pretty lady, Watty?"
"No, sir. I couldn't say."
All the way to Dover Hilyer's green car tracked our wheel marks two or three hundred yards behind. Once, near Godmersham, Hugh speeded in an endeavor to shake him off. But Hilyer stuck to us without difficulty, and ran up close enough to show his derisive grin at the end of the spurt.
On the channel boat again we had the sensation of being watched, although we could not have pointed to any persons and accused them of spying; and certainly none of the members of the Hilyer house party was in evidence. Hilyer, himself, called good-by to us from the dock.
"Have a good time," he shouted genially. "If you get to Constantinople, you may see me later."
At Calais we passed the Customs and passport officials expeditiously because both Hugh and Nikka were personages—a doubtful asset, as we were soon to learn. And on the Paris train we actually thought that we had eluded surveillance—until we rolled into the Gare du Nord and started to disembark. It was Nikka who discovered the little red chalk mark on the door of our compartment, and Watkins who spotted a furtive individual who slunk down the corridor as we stepped into it, a rat-faced fellow of the Apache type that had disappeared during the War and somehow floated back with other scum to the surface of peacetime life.
We were all of us familiar with Paris, Nikka and I perhaps more so than Hugh. And we drove to a small hotel near the Louvre which is noted for its table, its seclusion and its steady patronage. Aside from the fact that it is a little difficult to get a bath there, it is the best hotel I know of in the French capital. The proprietor welcomed us as old friends, and we were provided with the choicest fare and the most comfortable rooms he had to offer.
The four of us were dog-tired—remember, we had been steadily "on the prod," as Hugh said, since we wakened in the early morning hours to repel Toutou's invasion, and the nervous strain had been wearing. But before we turned in, after M. Palombiere's magnificent dinner, Nikka telephoned a private number at the Prefecture of Police.
The result of his call was demonstrated when we went down to breakfast the next morning. A jaunty little man in a top-hat and frock-coat, with spats and a gold-headed cane, flew up to Nikka and embraced him in the center of the lobby. And Nikka introduced him to us as M. Doumergue, Commissaire of the Police de Suretie, or Secret Police.
Would he do us the honor of taking breakfast with us? Mais, certainement! It was a pleasure of the greatest to have the company of M. Zaranko and his cher colleagues. His regrets were unspeakable that he might not have an extended opportunity to make our acquaintance, as he understood from M. Zaranko that we must depart that same day. He had taken the necessary steps already to dispense with the usual formalities for arriving and departing travelers, and he had also examined the dossiers of the individuals M. Zaranko had named.
This last was what especially interested us; and we listened closely to the facts he recited from a notebook.
"Of Toutou LaFitte, Messieurs, but little can be said. If you have seen him, then you have seen one whom no police official can claim knowingly to have laid eyes on. But we feel him, Messieurs. We hear of him. We sense his manifold activities. If the stories which others, like yourselves, tell us are true, he is a genius, a monster. He rules the criminal world. He has the brain of a statesman, the instincts of an animal.
"Hilmi Bey we know well. During the war he found it convenient to dwell in Switzerland. He has been mixed up in various shady coups, both in Egypt and in Turkey. He has sources of income we have never been able to discover. Prior to this nobody has associated him with Toutou.
"And this Russian pair! Vassilievich and Vassilievna! They are notorious as international spies. Before the war they worked in the German interest. During the War, who can say? Had we caught them they would have been shot out of hand. But the War is over, I regret to say, Messieurs. They hold their titles of right, and undoubtedly come of an honorable family or families. For as to their being brother and sister—tien! Why worry about the unessential?
"The Hilyers have been watched since before the War on suspicion of being implicated in dishonorable gambling transactions. But in France, Messieurs, a wide latitude is allowed in these matters, and so far, we have not been able to catch them—how is it the excellent Americans say? Ah, yes, wiz zee goods.
"Is this of assistance? I regret deeply I cannot add more. But if I can aid you in any way, if you are annoyed in Paris or subjected to observation, pray call upon me."
He bowed himself out.
"That's all very well," remarked Hugh, as we wandered over to the newsstand in the lobby, "and his information is valuable, Nikka, but we can't call on him officially! If we complain of being shadowed at the Prefecture of Police, they will ask us the object of it; and if we tell them the truth, you can be sure the secret will leak out. Why, the policeman who didn't use such information would be a fool! No, lads, the only thing for us to do is to dodge our trailers."
I shook the Paris edition of theDaily Mailin front of him.
"How the devil can we dodge trailers?" I demanded. "I just picked up this paper, and look at what I see on the front page."
There under a two-line head was the following announcement:
"Lieut. Col. Lord Chesby, D.S.O., accompanied by Mr. Nikka Zaranko, the famous violinist, and Mr. John Nash, an American friend, crossed on the Calais boat yesterday and arrived in Paris last night. Lord Chesby recently succeeded to the title under circumstances of very tragic interest."
"There's only one thing to do," said Hugh. "Where's Watkins? We'll collect him, and book for the first train to Marseilles. They'll expect us to go direct by the Orient Express."
We rather prided ourselves on our cleverness as we sat back in a reserved compartment of the Lyons-Mediterranean Express, and watched the Tour Eiffel fade against the sky. We had moved with considerable celerity. First, we had loaded ourselves and baggage into waiting taxis in front of the hotel. Then we had driven in these to the Gare de l'Est, dodged in and out of that whirlpool of life, and reëntered two other taxis, which we had directed in a reasonless jaunt through the central district of Paris.
Then Nikka and I had left Hugh and Watkins with the taxis in a side-street near the Madeleine, and bought the tickets at Cook's. We had returned to the taxis by a roundabout route, and resumed our crazy progress from one side of the river to the other and back again, now crawling up the slopes of Montmartre, now threading the narrow ways of the Isle du Cite, now buried in the depths of the Quartier, now spinning through the Bois. We had lunched at a roadhouse, and returned to the station just in time to climb aboard the train. And finally, instead of risking the separation entailed by patronage of the wagons lit, we had elected to seclude ourselves in a single compartment and sleep as best we could.
Hugh voiced the sentiments of three of us, when he stretched out his legs and exclaimed:
"What price Toutou's vermin now? I jolly well bet they esteem us artful dodgers."
Nikka smiled.
"Don't be too sure," he cautioned. "Eluding detection is their life-work. We are only amateurs."
"Rats," grunted Hugh. "Sherlock Holmes, himself, couldn't have traced us, eh, Watty?"
"I'm sure I don't see 'ow any one could 'ave followed us, your ludship," replied the valet wearily. "I don't quite know where I am myself, sir."
"I fear you haven't any submerged criminal instincts, Watty," chaffed Hugh. "Now I find myself gettin' a bit of a thrill out of this hide-and-seek stuff. By Jove, I almost wish we had the police after us, too. That would be a treat!"
"A fair treat!" groaned Watkins. "I mean no disrespect, your ludship, and it may be there's no call for the remark, but glad I'll be when this treasure is safe in the bank and we can go 'ome to Chesby."
We all laughed.
"How about dinner?" I asked. "Shall we eat by shifts or—"
"What's the use?" returned Hugh. "We haven't anything that will do 'em any good, and besides, they're peekin' into all the compartments of the Orient Express at this moment."
So we adjourned together to the restaurant-car, dragging Watkins with us, much against his will; and we ate a jovial meal, all relieved by the relaxation in the strain which had been imposed upon us and enjoying the comic reluctance with which Watkins permitted himself to be forced to sit at the table with Hugh.
"Dammit, Watty!" Hugh finally explained. "You're not a valet on this trip. You're a brother adventurer. I don't want any valeting. I'm taking you along for the benefit of your strong right arm."
"All very well, your ludship," mourned Watkins, "but if the Servants' 'All ever 'ears of it it's disgraced I'll be. I couldn't 'old up me 'ead again."
"I'll take care of that. And do you think we'd leave you to eat by yourself? Suppose that pretty lady of yours came in and sat down beside you. What would you do?"
"I'd 'eave 'er out the window, your ludship," said Watkins simply.
We loafed through dinner, and complete darkness had shut down when we returned to our compartment.
"I say," exclaimed Nikka, as he switched on the light. "Was your bag up there when we left, Hugh?"
Hugh studied the arrangement of the luggage on the racks.
"Can't say," he admitted finally. "But it ought to show if it's been pawed over."
He hauled it down, and opened it. Everything apparently was in perfect order.
"Hold on, though," he cried, pursing his lips in a low whistle. "Watty, you packed this bag. Don't you usually put razors at the bottom?"
"Yes, your ludship."
"They're on top now. So are my brushes. Everything in order, but— What do you say to giving this train a look-over, Jack? If there are any familiar faces aboard we ought to be able to spot them. Nikka, you and Watty can mount guard here and protect each other until we come back."
Our car was about in the middle of the train, and at my suggestion, Hugh went forward, while I followed the corridor toward the rear. I examined carefully the few persons standing and talking in the corridors, and violated Rule One of European traveling etiquette by poking my head into every compartment door which was open. But I did not see any one who looked at all like any of the members of Toutou's gang whom I knew. In fact, the passengers were the usual lot one sees on a Continental through-train.
I was returning and had reached the rear end of our car when I heard a scream just behind me and a door crashed open. I turned involuntarily. A woman in black, with a veil flying around her pale face, ran into the corridor, hesitated and then seized me by the arm.
"Oh, Monsieur! My husband! He is so ill," she cried in French. "He dies at this moment. I pray you, have you a flask?"
The tears were streaming from her eyes; her face was convulsed with grief. I reached for my flask.
"Calm yourself, madame," I said. "Do you take this. I will ask the guard to help in finding a physician."
"Oh, no, no," she protested. "He has fallen. He is so heavy I cannot lift him. And he dies, monsieur! Oh, mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!"
I slipped past her into the compartment, flask in hand. One of the electrics was on, and by its light I discerned the body of a man huddled face down on the floor in the midst of a litter of baggage and wraps. I dropped the flask on one of the seats, and leaned over to hoist the man up. As I did so she reëntered and closed the door, still babbling brokenly in French.
"If you will help me, please, madame," I suggested. "He is very heavy, as you say."
"But gladly, monsieur. If you will turn him over—so that we may see if he breathes."
The man was breathing, stertorously, long, labored gasps. I could see very little of him, only an unusual breadth of shoulder and a sweeping black beard. But I experienced an odd sensation of distaste as I touched him, and snatched my hands away. The woman began to sob.
"Oh, monsieur, he will choke! He will choke!"
I felt like a cur, and promptly braced my hands beneath his chest. I started to lift him—and my wrists were caught in a human vice. So quickly that I could not follow his movements, the inert man on the floor had twisted me down beside him, his knee was on my chest, my wind was cut off, a pair of steel handcuffs fettered me, and as I opened my mouth to scream a cotton gag was thrust into place by the woman who had lured me in.
"Voilà!" she said complacently, knotting the cords of the gag around my neck. "Or if you'd rather have it in American, Mr. Nash, you're it. Here, Toutou, get off him. You won't help by crushing his chest in."
She gave my captor a shove, and he rose with a growl and a menacing gesture of clawed hands to take a seat by the door. I could see now that he was Toutou or Teodoreschi, cleverly disguised. The black beard concealed his intensely pallid face and fell to his waist. A soft cloth hat hid the fine contour of his skull. His immense chest was minimized by loose, ill-fitting clothes. And the evil green eyes, flaring with animal lusts, were ambushed behind dark spectacles.
"Get up," said the woman.
She stooped and put her hands under my arm-pits, exerting a strength amazing for her size. I staggered up and collapsed on the seat opposite Toutou and as far away from him as I could get. I was weak from the vigor of his handling and the nausea his touch had aroused. Inwardly, I cursed myself for a fool. I had been neatly trapped at the very moment I was priding myself on being on the alert.
The woman sat down opposite me, tossed back the veil which had been hanging loosely around her face, picked up a vanity case and commenced to wipe a generous layer of powder from her cheeks.
She was of a Latin brunette type, with masses of wavy black hair, great lustrous brown eyes and a piquant beauty of face. As her profile was exposed to me my memory was jogged awake. She was Watkins's pretty lady! And I was reinforced in this conclusion when I recalled the muscle she had exhibited in helping me up, the off-hand expertness with which she had gagged me, performances reminiscent of the way the valet had been tripped and despoiled of his pistol.
After a muttered interchange of words with Toutou in a language I did not understand, she fastened her gaze on me, and evidently something of my thoughts was reflected in my face, for she burst out laughing.
"You can't make me out!" she jeered in an unmistakable American accent. "You're not the first, Mr. Nash. How is old Watkins? He knows Hélène, too, and I'll bet he never wants to see me again. I laugh whenever I think of him lying there on the floor gaping up into his own pistol. And say, you were lucky that day. I came near fetching a bomb with me, and if I had I sure would have piled it into that passage. Where would you have been then, eh?"
She chuckled impishly, and Toutou from the shadows at his end of the compartment—as I came to find out, the man had an animal's aversion for the light when his enemies were present—snarled a sentence that was partly French, partly something else.
"Your affectionate friend tells me to quit kidding and get down to business," she interpreted with a smile. "I'm going to take that gag out, Mr. Nash, and Toutou is going to sit beside you with his hand on the back of your neck, and if you so much as start to yip he'll break it just as if you were a chicken." Her eyes glinted harshly. "Do you get me? That goes."
I nodded my head. Toutou moved up beside me, and a shiver wrenched my spine, as his hand unfastened the gag and enclosed my neck.
"We are perfectly safe," she continued. "You are my insane husband. We are Americans, and I am taking you to relatives in Italy. Toutou is the physician in charge of the case." She reached inside her bodice and produced some papers. "Here are your passport and a medical certificate. Everything is in order.
"The one question is: are you going to do business with us willingly or must we make you?"
I moistened my lips.
"I don't know what you mean," I answered as coolly as I could. "I haven't got anything you might want. Search me."
"I will."
She dug out every pocket. She opened my vest, felt for a money-belt, felt inside my shirt, took my shoes off, examined them carefully by flash-light, and made sure I had nothing in my socks. She was a methodical person, that lady. Having searched me, she put everything back in its proper place, drew on my shoes and laced them. Then she sat back and stared at me.
"And there was nothing in the baggage," she commented.
I grinned. But quickly subdued my amusement as Toutou snarled beside me and his steel fingers pressed until my neck was numb.
"None of that, Toutou," she ordered sharply. "What about your friends, Mr. Nash?"
"None of them has anything."
"But you found something. You must have. What was it?"
She leaned forward, and her eyes bored into mine. I stared back uncompromisingly.
"I don't want to have to let Toutou hurt you," she warned softly.
At that something in me burst into flame.
"It doesn't matter what he does," I spat at her. "He can't make me tell you anything. As a matter of fact, I haven't anything definite, none of us has. But if we had, we wouldn't tell. I'll die before I help your gang."
That sounds like stage heroics, but I was in an exalted mood. I could feel Toutou's grip on my neck, and I imagined I didn't have long to live in any case.
"It's only a question of time," she went on. "You don't realize that you and your friends are alone in this. You have a great organization against you. You have as much chance as the fly after he touched the flypaper. All we have to do is to watch you, and at the worst we can take the treasure away from you when you find it."
"Then why are you so anxious now?" I rasped with a fair mimicry of Toutou's feline rage.
"'There's many a slip'—" she quoted. "We don't believe in leaving anything unnecessarily to chance. You know, you are in a hopeless position, my friend. Why not talk sensibly? We can easily get rid of you and your friends, if we care to."
"You'll find it harder, the longer you delay," I flashed at her. "You are educating us."
She laughed as merrily as a convent schoolgirl.
"So I see." She leaned closer coaxingly. "Now, just between the two of us—we're Americans, aren't we?—what did you find behind the chimney? After all, it was Toutou who really saw the point first."
"That's true," I agreed, "but we would have seen it."
"Oh, you would! Then what did you find? Come, let's get this over with! We'll make an accommodation. Think—"
There was a buzz of voices in the corridor. I heard a dry official monotone, then Hugh's clipped English French and Nikka's smooth accent.
"But he must be on the train, Monsieur—"
"Ah, but if—"
"There can be no question he is in one of the cars. What objection—"
"There are people who sleep, women who—"
"But surely we can search—"
The woman opposite me hissed one swift sentence to Toutou, and rose, crouching towards the door. Hugh's voice, tense and passionate, thundered over the dispute:
"I don't give a damn for your rules! My friend is missing! I'm going to look—"
A hand rattled the knob of the door. Hélène ripped off her waist, dropped her skirt to the floor, and tumbled her hair over her shoulders—all in two consecutive movements. As she unlocked the door, she clutched her lingerie about her. Toutou reached up one hand, and twitched off the single light; his other hand compressed my neck and throat so that I could hardly breathe. Hélène, herself, pushed open the door.
"Why the disturbance, messieurs?" she questioned silkily in French with the Parisian tang. "In here we have illness. Is it necessary—"
One look was enough for them, I suppose. It would have fixed me, I know. I heard Hugh's boyish gasp, and Nikka's apology.
"It was a mistake, madame. A friend is missing. We thought—"
"Here there are only ourselves," she assured them holding the door wider.
Hugh cursed bluntly in Anglo-Saxon, and the guard joined his voice in hectic phraseology. Hélène slowly reclosed the door.
"The light once more, Toutou," she whispered, and then she sank on the seat and laughed as she had before like a schoolgirl on a lark.
Toutou's face was demoniac despite beard and glasses. Hélène saw the purple flush on my cheeks, my straining nostrils.
"Beast!" she hissed. And she slapped him with her bare hand. He cowered before her. She snatched the gag from my lap, and readjusted it. "Go!" She pointed her finger toward the other end of the compartment, and Toutou shambled away cat-fashion. "He will murder you yet, Mr. Nash," she said cheerfully. "And I don't want you to get it into your head that I am going to keep on saving you indefinitely."
She rearranged her hair, picked up her waist and skirt, and put them on as casually as though she was in her boudoir.
"This writing that you found," she resumed her questioning, "is it definite? You may nod or shake your head."
I did neither.
"Very well," she answered patiently. "We will try you further."
And for two hours she shot questions at me, attacking the problem from every conceivable angle, always with her eyes glued on my eyes, always vigilant for any sign of acquiescence or denial. At last Toutou barked an observation at her, and she leaned back a trifle wearily.
"We approach Lyons," she said. "I shall let you go this time, Mr. Nash, principally because if we killed you it might frighten your friends away. Above everything, if we cannot learn the secret first, we must get you to Constantinople."
Toutou took from one of their bags a length of stout rope, and tied my legs from ankle to knee. The train was already whistling for the station yards. Hélène donned hat and furs, and patted my shoulder.
"I wish you were with us, my friend. Ah, well, one wishes for the moon. Be of a stout heart, and remember that Hélène de Cespedes has saved you from the knife. I fancy we shall meet again, and as I said, I cannot promise always to be so kind-hearted."
She let Toutou collect their two bags, saw him to the door and then switched off the single light. They went out, the door closed, and I was in darkness. I strained at my bonds, but without success. Suddenly, the door was reopened. The head of Hélène de Cespedes showed against the lights in the corridor.
"Here is the key to those wristlets," she whispered, sliding it along the seat toward me. "Your friends can unlock them when they find you. I don't believe in being too hard on an enemy—not when you don't have to be. Well, so long, boy."
I chuckled to myself as the door clicked the second time. She was a character, and no ordinary woman, judging by her prowess in curbing Toutou's savage lusts. I was still reflecting on the amazing three hours I had experienced in that railway compartment, when the brakes took hold, and the train slowed to a stop between the brightly-lighted platforms of the Lyons station. There was the customary clatter of arriving and departing passengers. Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside; a hand wrenched at the door; and a guard bundled in, with two people behind him. As he turned on the light his face was a study in consternation. The two people with him bolted pell-mell into the corridor, shrieking in terror. The guard stood fast, and stared at me, stroking his chin.
"Sacré bleu!" he muttered to himself. "Name of a Boche, the mad Englishman was right! I believe they have murdered his friend!"
But then I wriggled to attract his attention to the fact that I was alive, and the consternation on his face changed to cunning.
"But no," he reflected aloud. "It may be this is a criminal. Are there, perhaps, gendarmes in company with it? It is for thechef de gare—"
But at that moment Hugh, attracted by the rumpus the two startled passengers were making in the corridor, forced his way into the compartment, shoved the guard headlong on the floor and grabbed me by the arm.
"Are you all right, old man?" he cried. "For God's sake, what have they done with you?"
I motioned to the key on the seat, and he fitted it clumsily to the handcuffs. Nikka and Watkins ran in about this time; the guard regained his feet; the two passengers returned; some more people tried to climb on their shoulders to see what was going on; somebody else fetched the police.
To the latter I told a hasty cock-and-bull story. Bandits had assailed me, searched me for valuables which luckily I did not possess, and left me as I was found. I described Toutou and his companion exactly as they had appeared, sardonically convinced that they would be able to take care of themselves against any detectives the French provinces could boast; and the police, impressed by Hugh's title and our assertion that we had an important business engagement in Marseilles, placed no obstacles in the way of our departure.
So the express steamed out of Lyons ten minutes late, and Hugh and Nikka and Watkins escorted me back to our own compartment. And when I reached there, and was safe from observation, I jangled the handcuffs before their eyes and lay back and laughed until they thought I was hysterical.
"It may have been funny for you," snapped Hugh. "It certainly wasn't for us. We were just getting ready to unload at Lyons, convinced that you had been thrown or fallen off the train."
"It's funny for all of us," I insisted, wiping the tears from my eyes. "It's a joke—on us. Don't you see it, Hugh? You were claiming that we had shaken them off, that we could sound the 'Stole Away.' And then they ransacked our baggage and kidnapped me on a crowded train. I tell you they are artists. There never was such a gang. And as for Watty's pretty lady, she is the greatest society villainness outside of the movies. Didn't you feel like a cur when she stood there in the door pulling her poor little undies together, with the hair tumbled in her eyes?"
"I'll say I did," answered Hugh with feeling. "That's score for them again."
Nikka grinned at both of us.
"Don't be downhearted, you chaps. The law of averages works in these affairs as in everything. And anyhow, I've got a plan."
Nikka's plan was simple enough.
"When I was a boy and traveled with the tribe," he said, "and we wished to cross a frontier without being bothered by the Customs officers or the Royal foresters, we divided into two parties and struck off for our destination by two different routes."
Hugh nodded.
"I see. You split the scent."
"Exactly. Our trailers are experts, as I told you chaps they would be. If you will take my advice, you will adopt Gypsy tactics against them. Confuse them, string out their pursuit—and then, perhaps, we can baffle them."
"I think you're right," answered Hugh. "What do you say, Jack?"
"Suits me," I agreed. "Nikka obviously knows more about this kind of game than we do."
"I've had experience," replied Nikka simply. "Besides, it's in my blood. Ever since we embarked on this expedition I have felt the old Gypsy strain in me clamoring for the open road. Toutou's gang are using Gypsies. Very well, let us use Gypsies."
"But how can we?" interrupted Hugh.
"My name still means something to my people," said Nikka with that mediæval sang-froid which had amazed me once before. "My father's tribe will fight for me. But in the first place, this is what I suggest. Instead of sailing for Constantinople by the Messageries Maritime from Marseilles, let us take the train to Brindisi. Our trailers will expect us either to sail on the Messageries packet or else go by rail to Belgrade and connect with the Orient Express for Constantinople.
"By going to Brindisi we shall surprise them, and perhaps disarrange their plans. Mind you, I don't expect to throw them off; but they will be uncertain. At Brindisi we can connect with a boat for Piræus. When we board that boat they will begin to believe that they understand our plans, because at Piræus one finds frequent sailings for Constantinople. And we shall book passage from Piræus for Constantinople, as they expect. But after we have gone aboard with our baggage, Jack and I will leave the boat by stealth."
"How are you going to manage all that?" I interrupted.
"You can always bribe a steward," returned Nikka. "It will be for Hugh and Watkins to keep the enemy's attentions occupied. They can engage in conversations with us through the door of our stateroom, and that sort of thing."
"But what then?" demanded Hugh. "You divide forces. That makes each party half as strong as we are now."
"There'll be no harm in that," Nikka reassured him. "Our shadows will soon find out that Jack and I are not on the Constantinople boat, and they won't venture to touch you and Watkins until they have located us—which I assure you they won't be able to do."
"Why not?"
"Jack and I are going to take another boat for Salonika, and from Salonika we shall go by train to Seres in the eastern tip of Greek Macedonia. At Seres—and I don't expect them to be able to trail us there—Jack and I will disappear. We shall cease to exist. There will be two additional members in the band of Wasso Mikali, my mother's brother, and that band will be traveling to Constantinople with horses from the Dobrudja to trade with officers of the Allied detachments in the city."
"And Watty and I?" questioned Hugh.
"You go to the Pera Palace Hotel. Meet this Miss King and her father, but don't let anybody suspect that you expected to meet them. Remember, you will be watched all the time. Your rooms and your baggage will be searched. I think they will investigate the Kings, too. Yes, that is likely. You must have Miss King hide the copy of the Instructions you sent her. Not in her trunks—ah, I have it! Let her place it in an envelope, addressed to herself, Poste restante. She can go to the Post Office and collect it whenever we need it.
"You and Watkins will not be in any danger. Toutou's people will be too busy trying to find Jack and me. They will be suspecting that you are simply bait to distract their attention—which will be quite correct. But you must be careful not to venture around the city without plenty of company. Take an Allied officer with you whenever you can. You might use the daylight hours to find the site of the Bucoleon."
"Professor King can help them there," I interrupted. "He knows old Constantinople quite well."
"Excellent," applauded Nikka. "But remember, Hugh, I said 'daylight hours.' Don't venture around indiscriminately, and don't go anywhere, even in the daylight, without several other people. The larger your party, the safer you will be against accidents—and it is an accident, rather than a deliberate attack, you will have to guard against."
"But how are we going to get in touch with you?" asked Hugh.
"Leave that to us," replied Nikka, with his quiet grin. "Make it a custom to lounge in front of the Pera Palace every morning after breakfast for half an hour; and keep a watch out for Gypsies. You'll be seeing them all the time, of course, but don't let on that you're interested in them. Some morning two especially disreputable fellows will come by, and one of them will contrive to get a word with you. Follow them."
"That's a corking plan," Hugh approved warmly. "Well, lads, we'll be in Marseilles early in the morning. Shall we nap a bit?"
If we were followed in Marseilles, we didn't know it. We only left the railroad station to get breakfast and dispatch a telegram from Nikka to his uncle—or, rather, to an address in Seres which acted as a clearing-house for the operations of this particular Gypsy band. Then we took the train for Milan, and stopped off over-night to secure some sleep. The Italian railways were never very comfortable, and the War did not improve them.
We figured, too, that by stopping at Milan we might additionally confuse our shadows, as the city was a natural point of departure for Belgrade. But the first person I saw in the Southern Express restaurant-car was Hélène de Cespedes. She had discarded her black dress for a modish costume with furs, and sat by herself in dignified seclusion, looking at once smartly aristocratic and innocently lovely. She greeted me with a smile, and crooked her finger.
"Don't you 'ave nothing to do with 'er, Mister Jack," breathed Watkins explosively from the rear of our group. "That's'er!"
"Is that the pretty lady?" whispered Hugh. "My word, Watty, I'll forgive you! Jack, you hound, introduce us. She looks better than she did the other night!"
I looked at Nikka.
"It's a good plan to know your enemies," he said. "They already know us. It can't do any harm for us to know them."
Hélène gave us a charming smile.
"I'm delighted to meet you boys," she said. "And dear old Watkins! We're quite friends, aren't we, Watkins?"