Читать книгу Matorni's Vineyard - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 7

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The Baron von Grezzner, having carefully watched the departure of his prospective hostesses from the tennis courts, emerged from the dressing rooms, summoned a little carriage, and directed the man to drive him to the Château de Roquebrune. Neither in dress nor appearance did he make any effort to conceal his nationality. He was, in fact, the perfect embodiment of the well-fed, good-humoured and good-natured Teuton, unburdened with a superabundance of brains, spruce, well-groomed, and easy-living. His face was round, his complexion florid, his figure a little stout, but remarkably well set up. His lips seemed to be always hovering around a smile. His eyeglass was a rigidly fixed appurtenance. He had abandoned the German style of short hair of the more militant type of his nationality and wore it brushed smoothly back in flaxen profusion. He lit a cigarette, as his carriage climbed the hill, and hummed a tune to himself. He was still humming it when he was ushered into the château, and out on to the beautiful Bougainvillea-embowered loggia. He only left off to greet his hostess with apparent ecstasy.

“This,” he declared, “is amazing. This is my greatest happiness of recent years. Princess, it is a sad truth that you grow more beautiful.”

“Why sad?” she asked.

“Sad for those of us who are privileged to see you so seldom.”

“Be grateful for what happens,” she smiled. “Are you not lunching with us?”

“I do not need to be reminded of my present joys,” he sighed.

A footman brought out cocktails. The Baron disposed of two with much appreciation.

“Luncheon will be served,” his hostess told him, “in ten minutes. My cousin, the Comtessa, is with me, of course. If you would like to see the view of which we are so proud we have just time.”

The Baron murmured his delight, and the Princess, holding a tiny parasol over her uncovered head, walked by his side down a long rose pergola, across the lawns for which the château was famous, to a small temple which stood facing the sea. The Baron paused before he followed his guide inside. He stood for a moment gazing around in voluble admiration of the view. One might have imagined, however, that he was also making quite sure that there were no loiterers in the garden. In due course he, too, entered the arbour, and stood looking down upon the Mediterranean.

“It is magnificent!” he exclaimed. “It is a little corner of heaven, this!”

“Do you know, my friend, that I very nearly put off our luncheon,” the Princess said, a little abruptly.

“But why?”

“It was Torrita’s advice,” she confided. “If you come to think of it, it is curious how many people there are in Monte Carlo just now who might be interested in your visits here. There is Milord Bremner, the English Cabinet Minister, whom Matorni speaks of much more respectfully than of most English politicians, Général de Parnouste, the French ex-Chief of Staff, and Admiral Ledoux, who commands the Toulon squadron. Torrita, I fancy, has his suspicions of this place. He is badly wanted in Rome, but he remains here for a few more days.”

Von Grezzner’s smile had disappeared. His expression was almost grim.

“Then we will lose no time,” he said. “The chief reason I begged for this interview, Princess, was to ask you this: Has Torrita arrived at any decision with regard to the disappearance of the papers which Uguello was known to have been carrying?”

“None whatever,” the Princess admitted. “Uguello spent the last twelve hours in London surrounded by our people. Our very cleverest man, in whom Torrita has every confidence, is willing to stake his life that Uguello boarded the Blue Train with the papers which he received in Berlin sewn into his vest. Everything was done according to plan, as you know, yet when he was searched after he had been dealt with near Lyons, the stitches were still there in his vest, but the papers had gone.”

“And on the train?”

“He spoke only to an Englishman—the young 46 man you were playing tennis with this morning—Mervyn Amory.”

“That babe-faced fool!” the Baron explained contemptuously. “Why, he’s here every season. He is a typical Englishman. He thinks of nothing but his games.”

The Princess did not respond. All the time the Baron watched her.

“You think otherwise?” he asked suddenly.

“I would not go so far as that,” she replied. “I only let my thought dwell upon him at all because Uguello did not exchange a single word with any one else upon the train.”

Von Grezzner ruminated.

“I have never yet met an Englishman,” he observed, “having to do with the Secret Service who was able to present an inoffensive and unsuspicious appearance. If ever a man looked a brainless idiot, Amory does.”

“Nevertheless,” the Princess insisted drily, “he is being watched. To-morrow he lunches here. I shall drop him a hint for his own good.”

“Supposing,” the Baron suggested, “that he really did have the papers from Uguello, surely he would not have the slightest idea how to make any practical use of them. You know what Uguello’s intention was. He was calling secret meetings of the Red Shirts in every town of Italy, and having a copy of Matorni’s plans and our agreement laid before them. He hadn’t the slightest intention of 47 tinkering with France and England. It was Matorni’s downfall he aimed at, and there is no doubt that if he could have got in first with his information, there would have been a terrible rising of the Red Shirts throughout the country.”

“That may have been his intention,” the Princess reflected, “but we can never be sure. You know what Matorni is? A man of swift decisions, and with the courage of a lion. A word of this, and he would have had the leaders of the Red Shirts shot in every town throughout Italy.”

“But it is Fascism, Matorni himself, and his complete autocracy that the Red Shirts wish to destroy,” the Baron argued. “They don’t want to embroil Italy with other nations.”

“First and before everything,” the Princess pointed out firmly, “what they desired was to stop the war. If that arrives, a hundred thousand Red Shirts will be called to the Colours, and will come under martial law. Frankly, I believe if Uguello had doubted his getting through to Italy, he would have disobeyed his orders and paid a call in Downing Street.”

The German was very much disturbed. He walked the length of the little arbour and back again. He looked out across the Mediterranean, but he no longer went into ecstasies about the view.

“Princess,” he said at last, “the situation is serious. We have to remember one thing, though. This is the fourteenth day since Uguello’s death. So far, 48 I think we may safely say that there has not been the slightest indication in Rome, Paris or London, of any leakage. If those papers had fallen into dangerous hands, should we not have heard of it before now?”

“That seems reasonable,” the Princess acquiesced, “yet fourteen days is not a very long time. Torrita, I am sure, is uneasy. He says little to me, but I am certain that he has suspicions of a sort. Matorni is needing him badly in Rome, but he declines to leave this place. He is convinced that unless they were destroyed, the papers Uguello was carrying are in Monte Carlo.”

“How does he arrive at that conclusion?” the Baron enquired.

“No one left the train at Marseilles,” the Princess replied. “Torrita had, altogether, fourteen men watching, and the platforms were guarded with the utmost care. At Nice, Torrita has already satisfied himself as to every person who left the train. At Cannes there were only two—the English chaplain, and an American spinster. At the Italian frontier, every passenger was searched. There was trouble about it, of course, but Torrita has absolute powers, and he used them. You see, there remains only Monte Carlo. There were nineteen people who descended there, and not one of them came within half a dozen yards of Uguello after the train had left Calais—always excepting the young man Amory.”

“Of him,” the Baron declared with conviction, “I 49 have no fear whatsoever. For four years I have known him here. He plays tennis morning and afternoon. He talks tennis at night, and he dreams of it in his sleep. He gambles very little. He goes to the dancing places scarcely at all. He lives for his sport and his health. It is not of such stuff that the dangerous adventurers of the world are made.”

In the distance a luncheon gong was making melodious music. The Princess laid her hand upon her companion’s arm.

“Well, my friend,” she decided, “for a time we will forget our perplexities.”

The Baron knew all about his hostess’ chef, and he smiled.

“We will forget them very pleasantly,” he declared.