Читать книгу No Way Home - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 9

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Without provoking any comment, Mr. Henry Campion lodged at the modest post house, Blaue Engel, in Stuttgart, having crossed the frontier from Bavaria without any difficulty, owing to his papers being of a kind acceptable to both the Duke of Bavaria and the Duke of Wurtemberg. He soon forgot the lady staying at the inn under the name of Madame Daun. He had stayed at so many inns during his recent rapid journeying, and inquired into the identities of so many fellow travellers. He did not expect to find her alone, and for that reason had taken but little interest in the lady living on the first floor of the Drei Mohren. Therefore, he, who had left such alarm and speculation behind him, was obsessed by his own sorrows and furies and gave no thought to the tall man who had brushed against him under the linden trees, nor to that pale room he had seen bright in the summer darkness, behind the open shutters of the lady's chamber.

He had come to an end of his clues. Such reports as had been secretly and lavishly furnished to him he had exhausted. All had proved false and had led him astray from main roads. In six months of hard riding and driving he had zigzagged across Europe, often retracing his steps. It had been like wandering in a maze. War, too, had overturned the usual conveniences and made everything tedious. Many villages were deserted, many chateaux closed, hunting boxes and summer residences abandoned, parks overgrown, the posts were disorganized, the countryside often had a ruined look. It was common to see maimed and diseased people. Herr Kugler had been wise to warn him of the dangers of travelling alone through the dense forests where the rambling walls and stern towers of ancient castles certainly harboured thieves and vagabonds. But he had not been molested. He went well armed and was prudent, he had, also, the fanatic's faith in his destiny that kept him from any concern as to his own safety.

Now, in Stuttgart, he felt himself lost in the maze, as if the entire design enclosed him, twist on twist, and to move would be only to wander senselessly until he died of an agony of fatigue.

He walked along the Grabenstrasse, past the new palace still being built, to the old palace, approached by an avenue of plane trees. The heavy, formidable royal residence, appearing like a fortress of some distant period, partly deserted, partly used as offices, attracted as much of his attention as he had to give to anything. He turned into the courtyard, then into that beyond, and noticed that the ancient chapel was being used as an apothecary's shop.

In his loneliness, his idleness, the intense concentration of his purpose, he moved like a man mechanically propelled, up to the counter on which were wooden bowls of poppy heads, a pair of shining scales and bottles of Bohemian glass, deep blue and a clear crimson, cut on white.

The place smelt pleasantly of herbs and essences; shelves at the back held Delft jars of drugs. The apothecary's assistant was weighing out cloves, cinnamon and bay leaves, and looked up sharply as the foreigner entered. The apothecary was attached to the court and visited only by the better sort. Mr. Campion's self absorption gave him an air of confidence, so that he passed as one well answered for by the great.

"I want," he said, "an anodyne. I do not sleep very well."

The young man shook his head. He did not understand English. Mr. Campion roused himself and repeated his demand in German.

"The name of your physician, sir?" asked the other.

"I have none."

"Then I cannot supply you with anything save a very simple powder—to ease the head or the heart."

The Englishman tapped his fingers on the counter.

"It was an impulse on which I spoke. Naturally, travelling incessantly one becomes fatigued."

"You are credited to the English Ministry?" asked the apothecary's assistant.

"No. But my papers are in good order and I have protection in high places."

"I do not doubt it, sir," replied the chemist sincerely, for the stranger had a figure and air of authority and distinction. "You were recommended here? We have essences, perfumes, soaps, ointments—"

"I shall make some purchases. Let them be what you will." Mr. Campion seated himself on the high-polished stool by the counter. "I am tired. Pray give me the name of some doctor of medicine."

"Dr. Raab of the Postplatz attends most of the foreigners; he speaks several languages. But, sir, you should learn this at the English Residency—"

"I came here by chance," interrupted Mr. Campion. "A curious place in which to find a chemist's shop."

"A magnificent new palace is being built," replied the Wurtemberger with pride, "and this, the ancient Hofburg, is now used as offices. This was the chapel."

"A blasphemy, as I think."

"Sir, you will find, all over South Germany, old chapels, churches and convents now used as shops, barracks and lunatic asylums."

The youth had turned to the back of the long room where trestles, board tables and chairs stood in front of shelves and cupboards.

Mr. Campion rested his arms on the counter and took his face in his hands. He felt giddy and grateful for this respite from fatigue in this shadowed, pungently scented place. His quest was so near hopeless that he might, he thought, as well begin it here as in any other place.

The apprentice returned with a goblet of pale green foaming liquid that he promised would remove the pains of exhaustion, and, after drinking it, Mr. Campion did feel soothed.

The young man continued with his task of weighing and crushing in a mortar aromatic herbs, that he then poured, by a silver funnel, into jars of opaque jasper.

"There is a good deal to see in Stuttgart," he gossiped. "Though it is termed an idle city, having no trade, nothing but the court, the residences and the barracks. But the Stifskirche, just round the corner, has majestic royal monuments in the choir and an organ you can boast of. In the Hofkellerei you can purchase very fine wine, and in the Muns and Medaillen Cabinet are some remarkable coins and gems. In the palace gardens are orange trees three hundred years old—" he held up a small phial of thick milky blue glass, "here is some essence or attar extracted from them. I perceive you are not listening, sir."

"No. I am not sure why I came here. Yours is a pleasant city, and the country about like a park or garden. But I am lost. I am searching for someone—for two people."

"Ah, with the war just over, and another threatened, there are so many lost."

"Pray do not repeat that. I hear it from everyone. I must do my utmost in the time allotted to me. I have help. But I must rely on myself. Do they say in Stuttgart," he added abruptly, "that there will be another war soon?"

"Indeed, yes, sir, that is all the talk, of ill omen and foreboding, and we scarcely able to scrape a living yet from the ruins of the last confusion."

"I hear that also, everywhere. If war comes again my time in Europe is shorter still. I do not know where to begin. As well here as anywhere!" he gave a disagreeable laugh. "I suppose you or your master know all the strangers who come to Stuttgart? I thought I had traced them, after so many tedious miles, to Heilbronn but they, she, had left that valley. Where had she gone? Into Swabia, Franconia—I had many reports. I went here, there, turning back more than once." He checked himself. "Why do I tell you all this? I fall into the weak habit of talking to myself."

"You search, sir, for a lady, travelling alone?" asked the young man, doubtfully.

"No, no, she would be well attended. She is English, eccentric, and using an assumed name. She wintered in Italy for her health, two winters, or in Switzerland—her lungs, as I understand. In brief she has inherited a swinging fortune, an estate in Hampshire, you understand, with responsibilities. I represent her lawyer."

The apothecary's assistant thought this story, told in halting German, incorrectly used, odd and not in accordance with the foreigner's appearance that was in nothing that of a legal or business man, nor was his manner, of hardly suffered passion, that of one engaged in merely mercenary or routine work.

"It must be a troublesome journey, sir. Has the lady left no post or agent's or banker's address?"

"None—eccentric, I told you, and wishful to lose herself."

"She must be well supplied with money. Everything is costly now."

"Yes, she must," replied Mr. Campion, grimly. "I don't understand that—I mean I suppose she is using all her resources."

"But who sends her money?" asked the apothecary's assistant, putting the heavy gilded stoppers into the jars of crushed herbs. "You could, sir, surely, being a lawyer, have found that out in England."

"I did," interrupted Mr. Campion in a hard, angry tone. "She had left the address given me, before I reached it—communication with England is much delayed. I have, therefore, been travelling for several months."

"It must," remarked the young Wurtemberger, "be a considerable estate to warrant such expenses."

"More than an estate hangs on this quest. Tell me if you recall any talk or gossip. I warrant that little takes place here you do not know of."

"I have not heard of an Englishwoman recently in Stuttgart or near abouts, sir."

Mr. Campion sighed. "She is not able to speak any language but her own, save a little French. She could not pass for anyone save an Englishwoman." He paused, fingering the round goblet. The sunlight lay on the stone floor and Mr. Campion gazed at it, as if through it, at long vanished scenes that haunted him and would not be forgotten. "An Englishwoman," he repeated.

"And delicate?" the apothecary's assistant suggested. "Then, sir, this doctor Raab might assist you; as I said, all foreigners go to him."

Mr. Campion rose. As he had lied when he had said the lady was ill this suggestion did not interest him. He wished that he had not entered this strange place, with the vaulted roof above and cold flags beneath, and pungent perfumes. He put a coin on the table for his draught and asked for a parcel of pomades and soaps to be made up and sent to him, Mr. Henry Campion, at the Blaue Engel. He hesitated, looked round as if expecting one to enter the tall door and blot out the shaft of sunshine.

There was something so forlorn, yet so forceful, in his attitude, something that so strongly conveyed both courage and despair, that the young Wurtemberger, who was sympathetic towards this fine handsome man, and who had believed nothing of his story, said: "Perhaps, sir, I might help you. The clue is very slight but—"

Mr. Campion had turned instantly to face him.

"I am used to slight clues. I shall pay well, even for useless information."

"Well, sir, there was a gentleman, a foreigner, sent here by Dr. Raab—he had a touch of quinsy, such has been common, and the malaise from the grapes—too many vineyards round Stuttgart—"

—"and he was travelling with a lady?" Mr. Campion corrected himself. "As a courier, I mean."

"No. He was searching for a lady. I wondered if it might be the same lady. An Englishwoman, he said. He had traced her, or so he supposed, to the Bavarian frontiers."

The young man paused to consider the effect of his words on his sombre and interesting stranger. A flash that was almost like the light of hope spread over the heavy face as Mr. Campion wildly thought, "Has he left her? Is it possible? Has she left him?" The light faded and he said: "Where is this man? Is it possible to speak with him?"

"Why, I do not know, sir, or even if he is still in Stuttgart."

"Did you see him? What is he like in his person?"

"Very well, sir. He came here, when he was cured, and bought a quantity of perfumes. A foreigner, he might be English, his German had an accent."

"Like mine. I never spoke the language until recently. Yes, this man," Mr. Campion laboured out his clumsy lies, "might be the courier of this English lady."

"I do not know where he stayed. But Dr. Raab might tell you."

"Thank you. Send your account to my inn, I shall be there for some days, I suppose."

He left the shop, blinking in the sunlight, then returned asking for the physician's exact address. The young man gave this, then turned, checking over the items the stranger had ordered at random. "Whatever the truth is, he did not tell it to me."

Mr. Campion felt giddy in the sunlight; he made his way heavily to the physician's house in the Postplatz. Dr. Raab was at home and received him civilly. He was an elderly man with a smooth experienced manner. He might, from the appearance both of himself and his neat home, have had many activities besides that of medicine, but Mr. Campion took him on his face value, as a physician and nothing else. Moreover, the Englishman came straight to the point and, dropping all pretence at concern for his own health, related the story the apothecary's assistant had told him.

"Certainly I recall the young man; in this quiet old city every new face is noticed. He was staying at Bode's and may be there now. He inquired about a lady. Rather remarkable that there should be such a lost lady, a foreign lady, travelling in Europe in these tedious times."

Mr. Campion longed to put the queries he had posed to Herr Kugler, but could not bring himself to do so. What had been possible with an innkeeper was not possible with a man of education. He repeated his tale about the estate in Hampshire and stiffly took his leave, awkwardly placing a fee on the physician's bureau. He had the address, Bode's Hotel, of the other foreigner, who seemed to be on the same quest as himself and whose description he had not dared to ask. Before the lackey had opened the front door to him, Dr. Raab had appeared at the head of the stairs, his face smiling. "I do not know if I am betraying a confidence in telling you that this patient of mine, the last time I visited him at Bode's, told me that he had found the lady."

Mr. Campion could not answer. He bowed and went out heavily into the sunshine that lay with a warmth that seemed tangible on the Postplatz. The unacknowledged hope had vanished. She had not left him, not escaped, or if she had she had been recaptured soon and easily. Even, Mr. Campion asked himself fiercely, if they had parted, what difference would that have made, after two years? None, was the answer. Yet there had been that sparkle of hope. He sighed and walked slowly, often losing his way in the unfamiliar streets. When he found Bode's Hotel in the Schlossstrasse, he discovered it to be a superior inn, with a fine frontage, and well kept. There were handsome carriages before the door and liveried valets in the passage.

He asked for Signor Petronio Miola, the name that Dr. Raab had given him as the nom de voyage of the foreigner who might have been English. Mr. Campion, who, because of his limited knowledge of languages, had not ventured to change his nationality, thought that the man whom he sought might very well have done so. "One of his sly, crafty tricks. Yes, he would be clever at any kind of mummery; he knows Europe well, too."

Then Mr. Campion reflected that he had come to Bode's on an impulse, almost stupidly, searching out his enemy face to face, in public, without having thought out what his action would be. He had not intended this, but rather to take them unaware, to spy on them unperceived, to make himself and his purpose known carefully, and by degrees.

Now a moment was possibly on him that he had long and passionately waited for, and he felt unprepared, even sick and nervous.

The valet returned to inform him the Signor Miola was about to leave Stuttgart, it was for him that one of the carriages waited, but that he could offer a few moments to the traveller who wished to speak to him on matters of importance.

Mr. Campion was too absorbed in his purpose to feel the sting to his pride that he would never, save for this one object, have endured. He had never asked favours or waited on others. His spirit was as unbending as his manners.

He was shown into a parlour on the first floor; amid the formal furniture lay strapped valises, and Mr. Campion felt a heightening of his continuous nausea at this constant travelling. The road—the inn—the passport—the visa. The fruitless correspondence, stale and dull, waiting at the posthouses. And again came the forbidden, but not to be denied, thought of lost days of peace and security, of a home with lawns sloping to the edge of the placid river, of the company of those whom he had cherished with a love and pride seldom expressed.

How well he knew these inn rooms! In how many of them had he passed restless nights! They hardly changed from one country to another. If one paid enough, one got good service and accommodation of an unvarying kind, and these continental hostelries provided both an exasperating sense of a vagabond continually changing existence, and a dull monotony. As usual, there was an inner door to the private room occupied by the luxurious traveller. Mr. Campion glanced jealously through this door that stood partly open, and saw, with a sick glance, the back of a man in a summer cloak, standing before a dressing table. The light was so cast that this figure was a mere outline of brownish grey, the hues in the shadow of both the travelling dress and the long, fastened back hair. It might have been the man for whom Mr. Campion searched. The woman also, might have been concealed in the second chamber. Mr. Campion paused to hear their voices. For himself, he could neither speak nor move, but stood rigid, his hat in his hand, his heavy face slightly distorted in a grimace of fatigue and emotion.

His suspense lasted no more than a second, and the man by the dressing table had heard him enter and turned. Even in the obscurity of cross lights and shadows Mr. Campion perceived he gazed at a stranger.

Relief at being spared the hideous climax that he so desperately sought, was instantly followed in Mr. Campion's mind by an intensifying of the dreadful frustration that accompanied him weary day, dreary night.

"I have disturbed you needlessly, sir," he said in English, his sad passion making him awkward, even discourteous in bearing.

The other man came into the parlour. He was young, comely and expensively dressed. His air was cheerful, gentle and aristocratic. He seemed entirely at his visitor's service, anxious to please and of a most sympathetic manner. But Mr. Campion regarded him with dislike as the cause of disappointment, humiliation and a surge of almost intolerable emotion.

"You are not English?" he asked abruptly.

"No. I am a native of Bologna. I speak your language however. I had an English tutor. Pray be seated."

"It is not worth while. You are not the man I seek. Dr. Raab was under a misapprehension, he thought you a fellow countryman of mine."

"If I had been, what would you have asked me?" Signor Miola spoke with a sweet courtesy that Mr. Campion unreasonably resented. Feeling, however, that he must make some excuse for his intrusion, he said: "I am searching for a lady—" Then the words died on his tongue, for he realized how often and to how many people he had repeated them.

"And Dr. Raab told you that I, also, made this search for a gentlewoman?"

"Yes, but now I see that your business can be none of mine."

"Pray be seated, sir. Do not let us part so suddenly. Share with me a bottle of sparkling Necker wine. I have found the gentlewoman I sought."

Partly out of curiosity, not wholly to be denied, partly out of a desire not to appear churlish, Mr. Campion took the red damask chair by the window that looked on to the busy Schlossstraat.

"She was an elderly Spaniard, a connection of mine by marriage, travelling with a chaplain, maids, a courier, a dwarf and spaniels. Her destination was Bad Willsbad, but apparently she changed her mind and went to one of the Brunnen in the Black Forest."

"Sir, this does not concern me."

"But one traveller may tell his tale to another?" The Bolognese pulled the bell. "My quest is rather amusing. My relative's son is in sudden need of money—a pressing bill, you understand—and I, having nothing better to do, undertook to be his ambassador. To-day I travel to Rippoldsau, in the valley of Schappau, where I learn she is."

In return for this frankly given explanation, Mr. Campion offered his dry and badly told tale of the missing heiress to the Hampshire estate.

Signor Miola was all gracious attention to this halting narrative.

"Naturally, everyone travels under a nom de voyage now, but a wealthy Englishwoman travelling alone—"

"Not alone. She would have an English courier with her." He could not save himself from adding: "Have you seen any such lady?"

"Very possibly." Signor Miola poured out the sparkling wine the valet had brought, into the green glasses. "As I was about to say, an Englishwoman, travelling alone, wealthy, keeping to the main roads, should be easily traced. I have been lately on the way between Nuremberg and Stuttgart and searching out of the way places. There are many foreigners at the Brunnen, even now; could you offer me a description?"

Signor Miola spoke fluently, his address was manly and ingratiating. Mr. Campion, whose large hand shook slightly on his glass, felt soothed and more inclined to give his confidence than he had felt since he had left London in the first rigours of his cold, almost despairing resolve.

Yet still he expressed himself with difficulty.

"She is young; of no great, or surprising beauty, you understand. A—well bred—Englishwoman. There is nothing uncommon in her person, save her hair. Red hair. And that hue is uncommon only in England. In the Scotch Lowlands it is not rare."

"I have seen such a lady," replied the other, readily. "But she was with her husband."

Mr. Campion set down his glass with meticulous care, but his strength rose to meet his need.

"Yes, she might be with her husband. She would be, I suppose. As representing her man of business, I know little of her affairs. I suppose she was ill and left in some medical care while her husband, who is a merchant, travelled alone. There would be a courier also—a modest equipage."

The Bolognese had been looking from the window while Mr. Campion forced out these words. Then he spoke indifferently. "A couple answering to that description was here a day or so ago. They lived quietly, but I got into conversation with them, as I like to speak English. The lady did not appear to be delicate."

"What manner of man was her companion?" Mr. Campion obliged himself to ask this odious question.

"About my own age and figure. A soldierly bearing, dark—for your country, at least. Conspicuous good looks. Yes, I think so." Signor Miola smiled as if sympathetically interested.

Mr. Campion tried to rise, but could not.

"The heat," he muttered, "and this incessant jolting over broken roads. I have attacks of giddiness."

"Dr. Raab is an excellent physician."

"I forgot," sighed the Englishman, "to tell him my case. I was so engrossed in finding you. I supposed," he added, more firmly, "that you were either the husband—or the courier of this lady."

He forced himself to rise, and stood holding on to the back of the red damask chair. He obliged himself to look into the pleasant light grey eyes of the Bolognese, who was smiling at him in a most agreeable manner. No one could have been more unlike the man he sought; strange that he had made that first mistake of thinking that there was a resemblance, strange, even allowing for the uncertain light of the shadowed inner room.

"Can you inform me," he asked carefully, "where this—these people, went?"

"Yes, to Donauschingen on the way to Schaffhausen—"

"In Switzerland?"

"Yes."

Mr. Campion restrained his impulse to follow at once the fugitives. Slow and easily deceived, he was yet well trained and constantly goading himself to be on the alert. He reminded himself that he must be cautious. Used to direct methods, he was exasperated by anything in the nature of a subterfuge. Even the fact that he bore what the Bolognese so casually termed a nom de voyage, irritated him, though he was aware that few people travelling in Europe now used their own names, for good or bad reasons. "Careful," he warned himself, "this Italian fellow is certainly a gentleman, but he may be a scoundrel or a practical jester, and it is possible he even desires to throw me off the scent." Aloud, he asked painfully, loathing the part he was playing, if his agreeable host could be certain of the destination of the English couple.

"They said it was Schaffhausen—I heard them instruct the German courier," smiled Signor Miola. "They seemed weary of Germany. Their name is Latymer."

"Oh, these false names! Their appearance? Excuse me that I trouble you, but I have already wasted so much time, and I have to return to England shortly."

"You expect a renewal of the war?"

"Maybe—why do you ask?" Mr. Campion was glad of a respite from the poignant purpose of this odious interview.

"I thought you might be a soldier—you have that air."

A slow colour spread over Mr. Campion's heavy face.

"I am a lawyer, sir, as I told you."

"Why yes, but, as you remarked, sir, these false names! Now how can I help you to identify the Latymers? The gentleman's handsome face was the most notable of their characteristics."

Mr. Campion turned from the window, then turned again like one blind with torment.

"No fop," added Signor Miola, "but a head of classic beauty. The lady? A high nose, prominent eyes, red hair, pale, she wore some Eastern shawls, very fine silk, yellow, white, she had a dressing case of green morocco, for she entrusted it to me to have repaired for her. They knew very little German."

Mr. Campion bowed his head in silence.

"And, if it helps you, the initials on the case, that she said she had possessed before her marriage, were L.W."

"Yes, these are the people," muttered Mr. Campion, with a ghastly look. "You heard her name, her Christian name, used perchance?"

"Yes. I noticed it, for it was odd to me at first. Letty—Lettice—our Letitia, I presume. She told me that the other letter stood for Winslow. So, my dear sir, if you are searching for Mrs. Letty Winslow she is certainly by now at Schaffhausen."

"That is her real name she toys with so. To hear it in this place! From a stranger's lips!" Mr. Campion grinned, sighed and stumbled on. "Truly I am confused with fatigue, this has been a long, a tedious business."

"One understands, perfectly. Perhaps I can help you further. I travel with my servant, who is a very intelligent fellow." Signor Miola stepped to the inner door and called: "Bonino!"

A lean, soft-footed man with quick eyes appeared, a small valise in his hand. His air of perfect detachment soothed even Mr. Campion's terrible agitation.

"Bonino," explained his master, smiling. "This gentleman is looking for the English people who were staying in Stuttgart, will you tell him their names and particulars of their appearance, and their destination."

The body servant, in rapidly spoken Italian and broken English, at once confirmed Signor Miola's story.

Mr. Campion had believed this from the first. Now he heard this second witness he felt he had satisfied all possible prudence and caution. He thanked the Bolognese in a formal and abstracted manner, hardly noticing to whom he spoke, picked up his hat and cane and went downstairs.

Signor Miola watched him from the window.

"Bonino, there is a man most easily gulled. I see him below making inquiries from the porters, he will certainly go at once to Schaffhausen."

"Sir, he appeared incapable of further travel—a man exhausted, consumed by emotion."

"But a very strong man, Bonino. Much what I expected to see. One might feel inclined to pity him."

"Certainly, sir, one pities him a great deal."

"Yet his intention is murder, Bonino."

The valet permitted himself the slightest shrug. "May I ask, sir, where we are going?"

"Into the Forest. See the arms are ready and primed. We must go alone."

"You have found them, sir?" Bonino's tone was regretful.

"Certainly I have. It was not so difficult. We must be off at once."

The servant ventured to step closer to his master; the fading sunlight, now full on him, showed him to be nearly a generation older than Signor Miola.

"If I could once more entreat, even on my knees, that you, my dear lord, abandon this—infatuation, that you return to the splendid life you had at the Villa Aria, at the Palazzo San Quirico. You are so missed—the ornament, the support of your family."

The Bolognese received these words, spoken with all the formality and grace of the Italian language, without the least offence. Indeed, he returned the servant's obvious affection with a loving glance.

"Indeed, I know your worth, Bonino. You have reason on your side."

"Reason, indeed I have, sir. This adventure is beneath you—you who have so much. Besides, I foresee disaster for you among the three of them. Indeed, sir," continued the valet desperately, "what worth or merit have they so to engross your attention?"

"Very little indeed, as I think, Bonino," agreed Signor Miola. "A most ordinary affair, save in a few details. The truth is that I was not so satisfied as you—as anyone supposed—in that splendid life of mine in Bologna. It was dry and hollow. One wearied of the pedantry, the intrigues, even of the artificial merriments."

"So one understands, signore, but this! What substitute is this—for anything?"

"You must return to Italy if you are wearied, Bonino. I shall go on alone until, one way or another, the little drama ends."

"You know that I cannot leave you, signore. You know that my letters, reports home keep your family satisfied."

"Yes, yes. You are very useful," smiled the young man. "You manage everything extremely well. I should find it difficult to travel incognito without you. There is no more to be said than that, Bonino. Take the valise down to the carriage and tell the postillion my destination is Wilhelmsruhe in the Forest, a former hunting box of some small pretensions near Rippoldsau—"

"Where your aunt is staying, sir?" asked the servant, wisely accepting defeat with a jest.

"So your English is better than I thought, you rascal. You not only overheard, but understood all my conversation!"

"How else could I have confirmed your story?"

"I gave you hints enough for that, Bonino. The Englishman is so dense, and so bewildered with passion that he never grasped the significance of your presence in the other room."

"Yet he was shrewd enough, signore, to probe you as to their appearance."

"A desperate kind of shrewdness, Bonino. He was forcing himself to be suspicious, against his native credulity. He has never done anything of this kind before—is rash enough to travel alone and to rely on court introductions and the police. Of course no one takes any interest in his case. He is put off everywhere with lies."

"It is certainly amazing, signore, that he accepted the tale you told him of your eccentric relation."

"Yes, but I am not inclined to laugh at him, Bonino. Now, be on your way. I shall follow."

Left alone, the young man stood thoughtfully, looking down into the street where other travellers arrived and departed as the post-coach put in to change horses. Mr. Campion had left the active scene, and was certainly by now on his way to Donauschingen, a twenty-six hour journey from Stuttgart, and the wretched man already broken by fatigue—

"For his part," mused Signor Miola, "a renewal of the war would be a lucky fortune for him, a chance of an honourable death."