Читать книгу The Traitors - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 13

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“Monsieur will pardon me!”

Ughtred glanced up, startled. For an hour or more he had been watching with fascinated eyes the great rolling pine forests through which the train was rushing. Brand and Reist were in the restaurant-car—Ughtred was rapidly becoming too excited to eat. They had entered upon the last stage of their journey. Somewhere away beyond that dim line of mountains was Theos. So far they had been neither accosted nor watched. This was the first stranger who had addressed a word to either of them.

“You wished for a seat here?” Ughtred asked.

The priest, who had come through from the dining-car, held between his fingers an unlit cigar. His fat, good-humoured face was a little flushed. He had the appearance of a man who has found his dinner a satisfactory meal.

“It is your coupé, I understand, monsieur,” he answered, “but the smoking-car is full. I wondered if monsieur would permit me to occupy his friend’s seat until he returns. One misses a smoke so much.”

He looked longingly at the cigar. Ughtred rose and cleared off the rugs and papers which were spread over the vacant seats.

“My friends, I am sure, will have no objection,” he declared. “I think that there is room for all of us.”

The priest was volubly thankful. He lit his cigar and puffed at it with obvious pleasure.

“Monsieur is doubtless a great traveller,” he remarked, urbanely. “For me a journey such as this is an event—a wonderful event. Not once in many years do I leave my people. Monsieur will be amused, but it is indeed ten years since I found myself in a railway train.”

Ughtred was reserved, but the priest was quite willing to bear the brunt of the conversation so long as he had a listener. It appeared that he was on his way to visit his brother, who was a prosperous merchant in Belgrade. And monsieur?—if he were not too inquisitive—should he have the pleasure of his company all the way?

Ughtred hesitated for the fraction of a second. Reist was passing along the corridor with imperturbable face, but with his cap in his hand—an agreed upon sign of danger. So Ughtred, to whom a lie was as poison, braced himself for the effort.

“I go even farther than you,” he declared. “My journey is not ended at Constantinople.”

The priest’s fat face was wrinkled into smiles. It was most fortunate—his own good fortune. For himself he was so unaccustomed to travel that he found it impossible to read. He was excited—besides, it gave him the headache. To converse only was possible. But after all he had no right to inflict himself thus upon monsieur. He had perhaps affairs to attend to—or he desired to sleep? Ughtred, who found it impossible to suspect this fat, simple-mannered man so shabbily dressed, so wrapped in enjoyment of his bad cigar, smiled, and shook his head. They drifted into conversation. Ughtred learned the entire village history of Baineuill, and was made acquainted with the names and standing of each of its inhabitants from Jean the smith to Monsieur le Comte, who was an infidel, and whose house-parties were as orgies of the evil one.

“And monsieur,” the priest asked, ingenuously, “monsieur is perhaps a soldier? I have talked so long of my own poor affairs. It must be tedious.”

Just then Reist and Brand passed along the corridor, laughing heartily. Brand paused, and with a bow to the priest held out a paper to Ughtred.

“Read that, Brand!” he exclaimed. “These papers are the drollest in the world.”

Ughtred looked up puzzled, but took the paper held out insistently towards him. At the bottom of an illustration were a few pencilled words.

“Be careful! Remember! You are W. B. The priest has been asking questions about us!”

Ughtred read, and smiled. The priest leaned forward.

“It is a joke, eh? Monsieur will permit me also? It is good to laugh.”

Brand was equal to the occasion. He took the paper quickly away from Ughtred.

“Monsieur,” he said, removing his cap, “the joke which I pointed out to my friend has, without doubt, humour, but the journal, as you see, is for the students. Monsieur will excuse me if I refrain from offering it to him.”

The priest acquiesced with a graver face, and some show of dignity.

“But I fear, monsieur,” he said to Brand, “that I am occupying your seat. You wish to return here, beyond a doubt?”

Brand shook his head.

“By no means, monsieur,” he declared. “For the present, at any rate, I am engaged elsewhere.”

They passed along the corridor. Glancing up at the priest, Ughtred was aware of a slight change in his expression. His brows were contracted, he was immersed in thought. The change was momentary, however. Soon he was again chattering away—still always of his own affairs. But there came a time when he wound up a little speech with a question.

“Is it not so, Monsieur Brand—was not that how your friend called you?”

Ughtred assented.

“My name is Walter Brand,” he answered.

Again there came that faint change in the priest’s face.

“Monsieur will not think me curious,” he said. “He is perhaps a soldier?”

Ughtred shook his head.

“I have seen some fighting,” he said, “but I am not a soldier. I am a journalist, if you know what that means—one who writes for the newspapers. My friend whom you saw speak to me just now is a soldier by profession.”

The priest nodded pleasantly.

“And he, like yourself,” he asked, “is he, too, English?”

Ughtred looked around, and lowered his voice.

“He has been in the English army, but he is not an Englishman. He has had a very unfortunate history. I wish that I could tell it to you, but the time is too short, and he does not like to be talked about.”

The priest’s face shone with sympathy.

“Poor fellow!” he murmured.

“Brand!”

They both looked up. Brand himself had entered the coupé. There was a slight frown upon his forehead, and his tone was curt.

“I wish you would explain to the conductor about our tickets,” he said. “He is very stupid, and I cannot make him understand.”

Ughtred rose at once and left the coupé. Brand bowed gravely to the priest.

“I trust monsieur will excuse me,” he said, “for interrupting what I am sure must have been a very agreeable conversation.”

The slight foreign accent was beautifully done. Brand was as tall as Ughtred, and although not so broad his carriage was good and his natural air one of distinction. The priest smiled benignly upon him.

“I fear,” he said, “that I have already wearied your friend. My life must seem so humdrum to him, and to you, who have travelled so far and seen so much. For I, monsieur, as I have told your friend, have lived all my days in one quiet country place, and this journey is a great event for me.”

Brand slipped into the vacant seat. In the vestibule Ughtred met Reist. He drew him into the smoking-compartment. He was very pale, and his voice shook with emotion.

“The priest,” he said, “is a creature of Domiloff’s. You were on your guard?”

Ughtred nodded.

“What a famous fellow Brand is. Up to now, at any rate, his scheme has worked. He is personating me bravely, and really we are very much alike.”

“He will be too clever for him,” Reist said. “It is a matter of time. Do you know that in half-an-hour we shall be at the frontier?”

“So soon?” Ughtred exclaimed.

“Listen! I had a message from our friends at Limburg. The train will be searched at the barrier. There will be a determined attempt to prevent your entering the country. Theos is in a state of hopeless confusion. The motion to repeal your sentence of banishment is still before the House of Laws. The Custom officers, and I am afraid the Government officials, have been heavily bribed by Russia not to pass you across the frontier.”

A bright light flashed in Ughtred’s eyes.

“So we shall see,” he muttered.

“They have a plan ready for us, no doubt,” Reist continued, “and that priest is in it. Never mind. We shall outwit them. If only your friend Brand is equal to his part.”

“The man is a born actor,” Ughtred said. “I left him playing the Prince as I could never have done it. I do not think that Domiloff’s man will find him out.”

Reist pulled the window softly down and looked out. The train was passing across a high bridge. Below, the river wound its way through a stretch of rocky, broken country.

“We are barely twenty miles from my home—the castle of Reist is to the left of the hills there. In a few minutes the train will stop. Be ready to follow me, and do exactly as I do.”

“But we are not timed to stop until we reach Gallona!”

“Never mind,” Reist answered. “This will be a stop that does not appear upon the time-table. It is the plan of those who are working for us in Theos, and it is good. At the village station of Moschaum the signals will be against us, and we shall stop. Our task is to leave the train unseen—it may be difficult, but I have bribed all the servants, and they are preparing to see nothing. There will be horses waiting for us—and then—then it will be a gallop for a kingdom.”

“The plan seems good enough,” Ughtred said, thoughtfully, “and I am in your hands. But what about Brand?”

Reist shrugged his shoulders.

“He is one of those who love adventure, and I do not think that he can come to any harm. Let him play out his game. It was his own idea to personate you, and the risk is his own. Ah!”

There was a sudden slackening of speed. The brakes were on and the whistle sounding. Reist strolled to the platform of the car as though to look out, and Ughtred followed him. A conductor unfastened the gate and slipped away. The train had come to a standstill in a tiny station, a little wooden building with a cupola, and everywhere surrounded with a dense forest of pines. Reist looked swiftly round.

“Now,” he said. “Follow me.”

They slipped from the train on the side remote from the platform, and in half-a-dozen strides had reached the impenetrable shelter of the trees. Then there was a whistle. The train crawled onward serpent-like with its flaring electric lights and the shower of sparks which flew upwards from the engine. An hour later Ughtred, riding in silence and at breakneck speed with Reist at his elbow crossed the frontier of his kingdom.