Читать книгу Tales of Mystery & Espionage: 21 Spy Thrillers in One Edition - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 90

Table of Contents

“Baroness!” Charles exclaimed, waking apparently from a profound slumber, sleepily stifling a yawn, sitting up in his corner seat and staring in well-simulated amazement at his neighbour. “What the mischief are you doing in this train and how on earth did you find your way into my coupé?”

The Baroness’ exclamation was without a doubt sincere. A few seconds before, Charles had appeared to be in the deepest of slumbers. She withdrew her eyes from the tin despatch box in the rack opposite and stared at him.

“How long have you been awake?” she asked.

“That is no answer to my question,” he reminded her. “What are you doing in this train and how does it happen that we have become neighbours?”

“You are not pleased to find me here?”

His eyes still seemed full of sleep. He yawned once more. He tapped the label gummed on the window of the compartment.

“How did you find your way in here. Baroness?”

“Baroness!” she complained. “I like better Beatrice.”

“I wish that you would answer my question.”

“My dear, what would you have?” she protested. “Last night I got into serious trouble. It was because my thoughts were with you. I could not help it. He wearied me—that young German Nazi. He wanted me to stay with him until the hour of his departure. I refused. He left me white with fury.”

“It sounds as though you had been very unkind to the young man, but I scarcely see how that explains your presence here,” he said patiently.

“Am I doing any harm?” she asked. “The Herr Lieutenant lodged a complaint about me with the police. The under-chief of the police is a friend of mine. He sent me a word of warning. He advised me to get away from Vienna without delay. I pack a few things and I come. I arrive at the station. It is a seething mass of human beings. The station master, the officials, they were all in despair—but what could they do? ‘Only let me get on the train,’ I begged. That is what happened. They put me in the corridor and they lifted my dressing-case and bag after me. I sit on my bag very unhappy. Then I walk a little way and what do I see? It is the one man of whom I have been thinking, the one man for whose sake I am in trouble. I was brave. An inspector passed. I pointed to the empty seats in your coupé. I said, ‘Monsieur has locked the door by accident. I wish to enter.’ He read the label and hesitated. I empty my purse into his hand and he opens the door. That is how I come here.”

“Do not think,” Charles begged, sitting still a little more upright, “that I complain of my good fortune, but you will admit that when I woke up it was a shock to see you there.”

“I have explained,” she pointed out. “You have a good word for it in English. It is a coincidence. Believe me, I did not intrude upon you willingly. I do not look my best at this hour of the morning. I need a great deal of sleep always and I have had very little.”

“But where are you going to?” he asked.

“I have yet to make my plans. Paris, I think. Believe me, though, I shall be no encumbrance to you. I have money, I have a passport, I have a ticket as far as Zürich. I think I shall go to Paris. Why do you ask? You are not really interested.”

“I can assure you that I am.”

“It is not interest of the sort I desire. It is curiosity. It is perhaps suspicion. Why should you feel like that towards me, Charles?”

“There was that little affair of Mr. Benjamin’s catalogue, you know,” he reflected. “Then the number and variety of your admirers keeps me disquieted. By the by, where is His Highness?”

“Your namesake?”

“Yes.”

“From Zürich I telephone,” she confided. “It is possible that he is at Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo would suit me very well for a short time unless something more amusing suggested itself. What are your plans, Charles?”

“Already,” he told her severely, “you have begun to interfere with them. That box is full of papers, most of which need destroying. I ought to begin work on them at once.”

Her eyes, he decided, were beautiful even at this time in the morning, although they rather resembled a cat’s. They were watching him sleepily yet intently.

“I do not wish to interfere with your work,” she said. “I will help you.”

“I am not yet sufficiently awake,” he confessed. “Perhaps I will doze a little longer.”

“But you are ungallant,” she complained. “I know what I will do. I have a thermos full of coffee here. I will give you a cup. Then you will wake up. You will be your old self. How is that? What do you say?”

She drew her dressing-case a little closer to her and unlocked it. She brought out a very beautiful thermos and two collapsible cups. She filled them with coffee and held one out towards him. He shook his head.

“You will excuse me,” he begged, glancing at his watch. “I had coffee at the hotel. Before long I shall shock you by bringing out a little apparatus of my own which makes something more palatable.”

“You will not take a half a cup?” she pleaded. “It is of my own making.”

He shook his head again.

“Don’t let me stop you, though.”

She poured the contents of the cups carefully back into the thermos.

“I will wait,” she murmured.

“If you wait for me to drink that coffee,” he said gently, “you will wait a long time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only that I do not drink coffee in the middle of the morning,” he replied. “Do not let us bandy words any longer, Baroness—or Beatrice—which you like. I must think and I must think very hard.”

“What about?”

“I must try to solve the question which is at present puzzling me. I must try to find out why you have chosen to board this train and why I opened my eyes to find you staring at that tin box.”

“All these things you could find out quickly,” she assured him, “if you would give me your own confidence.”

“And in return?”

“What do you want?” she asked. “Not me, I am afraid. Never have I gone so near offering myself to anyone as I have to you. All the time you keep me at a distance. At night I begin to look for the crow’s-feet round my eyes. I look at my body before the glass. I ask myself what you can find fault with. Sometimes I fancy that your voice grows a little kinder. The moment passes and the suspicions are all back again, the cold light is fixed in your eyes. And I could do so much for you!”

He threw down the window and looked out. They were passing across a great stretch of upland country and a fresh tingling wind from the distant mountains was blowing in their faces. He moved to the other side of the carriage and glanced down the corridor. The train seemed packed with a monumental burden of human beings, men and women from every walk of life, from a little herd of terrified Jews to the scattered members of a British touring company. The heat was overpowering. People were wedged together in the corridors until there was scarcely room for them to breathe. The air which swept through the window brought fresh life with it. The smell of the fields and woods seemed to chase away the heavy odours of the overcrowded train. Charles turned and dabbled his fingers in the tiny toilet basin and passed them over his eyes. He took Eau de Cologne from his dressing-case and offered it to his companion. She moistened her hands and lips.

“My bath this morning was a farce,” he remarked. “It was five o’clock and the water was unheated. A swim in some southern sea, and a sun bath afterwards, I think that is what we need.”

“We could have it,” she murmured.

“Ah, my dear, but there is work to be done,” he reminded her. “There is work before me now.”

“Where do you sleep to-night?”

“How can I tell.” he answered. “Somewhere in Switzerland, I hope.”

“There is always a doubt,” she said, “whether we shall cross the frontier to-night. There is another huge train behind ours. I cannot really see how everyone can expect to get through the Customs. Is this all your luggage?” she concluded, looking round the coupé,

“I have clothes in Switzerland.”

“Clothes and what?”

“It is the curse of my life,” he sighed, “that I can never answer a beautiful woman in the way she sometimes deserves. I ought to tell you firmly and unmistakably not to seek to penetrate into my secrets and instead of that I find myself telling you very gently that much though I appreciate your interest in my affairs I should prefer your abandoning this habit of perpetually teasing me with questions.”

“You are a tantalizing person, Charles.”

“You will like me better presently when I tell you something.”

She moved a little closer to him.

“What is it, please?”

“I possess a luncheon basket.”

Disappointment gleamed for a moment in her eyes.

“You are so very British,” she said. “I, too, love to eat and I shall certainly be hungry by and by but there are other things I like better.”

“Yes?”

“I love kindness and kind words. I am a soft woman. I love affection. I love love. I really do not think you understand what Austrian women are like, Charles.”

He was silent for several moments. When he spoke again she might well have believed that she had made progress.

“It is a pity,” he complained, “that women, so lovable in themselves, should devote their lives as they so often do to unworthy purposes. I can imagine you, Beatrice, as a wonderful wife, a delightful companion, an excellent mother. The trouble seems to be that nowadays a woman does not find these things sufficient. She peers into the men’s world of strife and struggle and she fosters unsuitable ambitions. The Viennese world, the little I have seen of it, is inclined to be artificial, Beatrice. The realities arc not sufficient. From the manicurist to the Princess, all women seem to be searching for something in life which they will never find.”

“What we do, we do for men’s sake,” she said bitterly. “It is to help or to bring us nearer to some man whom we love or think that we love.”

He rose to his feet.

“This,” he declared, “is an absurd conversation. If I can find my way so far I am going to make a little promenade.”

“And leave me alone with all your property?” she asked, pointing with a sudden smile to the tin box.

“I shall leave you alone even with that. Baroness. Perhaps the very fact that I do so will dispel some of those suspicions you have of me. If I should happen to come across the crushed and suffocated remains of our conductor amongst this phalanx of people, is there any information you would like to have?”

“I should like to know at what hour we arrive at this little town near Feldkirch where we are to wait for the other train to join us, and whether we are supposed to leave the train for the night or remain in it.”

“I’ll do my best to find out,” he promised, “but it’s a thin chance, from what I can see.”

He paused to light a cigarette and stepped out into the corridor. It took him more than a quarter-of-an-hour to reach the conductor, who was obstinately protecting his stool in the far corner of the voiture. The corridor was jammed. Not a single window was open. One other coupé, the same size as his own, was occupied by at least a dozen English and American tourists. In every other compartment the people seemed to have wedged their way in indiscriminately. Some were sitting upon the floor outside in the corridor itself. It was necessary at times to step over crowds of prostrate men and women, some of them still asleep. Charles reached the conductor at last. The man rose and saluted him as he approached but he kept his foot upon the stool.

“I have here,” he announced, “a note for the gnãdiger Herr. If I had tried to deliver it before I should never have been able to return.”

He felt in his satchel and produced the note. It was written in Blute’s clear handwriting and addressed to him by name.

Your train will remain outside the station of Feldkirch at a small country village until ours arrives. A room is engaged for you at the only hotel—the Schweizerhof. Be sure to claim it directly you arrive. The journey will be continued at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. All well.

M. B.

Charles handed the eagerly anticipated trinkgeld to the man who took off his cap and broke into a smile which sat strangely upon his wrinkled and perspiring countenance.

“We shall arrive at about what time?” Charles enquired.

The man’s gestures were indicative of a profound ignorance.

“To-night—to-morrow night. Who can tell? We are taking the place of the great express which touches in these parts a hundred kilometres an hour. We proceed at less than thirty. Nevertheless, we make no stops. That much is to the good. I would offer my services to the gnãdiger Herr but I am helpless. There is nothing I can do. If by chance the guard should bring the train to a standstill I will offer myself to seek anything the gnãdiger Herr might wish for.”

“I have some food with me,” Charles told him. “If you have any drinkable water you can bring it along. There is nothing else I want seriously.”

Charles started on his return journey and decided that he had no curiosity left in his fellow passengers. He tore the note which he had received into small pieces and let them slip through his fingers as he passed the only opened window. The Baroness looked up expectantly as he entered the coupé. He went straight to his dressing-case, drew out a cocktail shaker wrapped in a towel, shook it violently, handed a glass to his companion, brought one out for himself, filled the two and replaced the shaker. He swallowed half his cocktail at a gulp.

“The place,” he declared, “is a madhouse. Men and women of every race, squawking babies; the women—half of them asleep—are lying about anywhere, the men angry and sullen. I don’t think I like these wild rushes.”

He lit a cigarette which she had placed between her lips, lit another for himself, refilled their glasses and put away the shaker.

“Did you collect any information?” she asked.

“Not a scrap. Apparently no one knows where we are going or when we shall get there.”

She came a little nearer to him.

“Just now I don’t much care.”

He ignored the pressure of her fingers upon his arm. His eyes were fixed upon the tin box.

“I don’t believe you’ve touched it,” he observed.

“It’s locked,” she sighed.