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Title: The Fox Prowls
Author: Williams, Valentine (1883-1946)
Date of first publication: March, 1939
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Hodder & Stoughton, May, 1940
Date first posted: 19 September 2011
Date last updated: 19 September 2011
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #855

This ebook was produced by Al Haines and Mark Akrigg






VALENTINE

WILLIAMS



THE FOX PROWLS




HODDER AND STOUGHTON




  First Printed . . . . . March, 1939
  Reprinted . . . . . . . May, 1940



The characters in this book are entirely imaginary,
  and have no relation to any living person



  Made and Printed in Great Britain for
  Hodder and Stoughton Limited London by
  Wyman & Sons Limited London, Reading
  and Fakenham




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

      I.  R.43 STARTS IT
     II.  "IN RE BOREANU, NE CELMAR, DECD."
    III.  ENTER THE BARON DE BAHL
     IV.  A WANDERER COMES HOME
      V.  FIRST BLOOD
     VI.  RENDEZVOUS IN PIERCE STREET
    VII.  STEPHEN BLURTS OUT A SECRET
   VIII.  MELISSA MEETS THE BARON
     IX.  A KING IS DEAD
      X.  THE BARON PRESENTS HIS FRIENDS
     XI.  "THE VOICE OF FATE"
    XII.  CASTLE ORGHINA
   XIII.  THE FIRST WARNING
    XIV.  BLOOD IN THE SNOW
     XV.  BOULTON BLOTS HIS COPYBOOK
    XVI.  MELISSA HAS A MIDNIGHT VISITOR
   XVII.  WHEN A NAIL IS NOT A NAIL
  XVIII.  THE LIGHT BEGINS TO BREAK
    XIX.  A SUMMONS FROM CHARLES
     XX.  IN THE MOSQUE
    XXI.  THE MAN ON THE BALCONY
   XXII.  THE DNIESTER SQUARES AN ACCOUNT
  XXIII.  STEPHEN HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD
   XXIV.  THE BARON HAS A PLAN
    XXV.  THE FERRYMAN'S HOUSE
   XXVI.  "NOT OF THE LION, BUT THE FOX"
  XXVII.  FRONTIER INCIDENT
 XXVIII.  THE POT BEGINS TO BOIL
   XXIX.  A TAP AT THE WINDOW
    XXX.  THE CAT'S NINTH LIFE
   XXXI.  MONEY TALKS
  XXXII.  A SHOT IN THE DARK
 XXXIII.  VON WAHLCZEK COMES BACK
  XXXIV.  MONSTERS OUT OF THE NIGHT
   XXXV.  THE BOYAR GATE
  XXXVI.  EPILOGUE IN THE FOG




CHAPTER I

R.43 STARTS IT

Ferdinand Vermuiven, underpaid drudge in a Bucharest money-changer's
office, started it.  It was his somewhat grubby hand, protruding from
under its paper cuff, that lit the fuse.  Fizzing and spluttering it
ran from Bucharest to Belgrade, from Belgrade back to Bucharest, and
from Bucharest to London where it detonated a bomb in a certain quiet
suburban mansion.

If Ferdinand Vermuiven had not looked up from his desk that morning,
the whole course of Don Boulton's life would have been changed.

Glancing casually through the plate glass window at the seething
traffic of the Calei Victorei, the clerk perceived a large, rather
untidily dressed man sauntering along in the sunshine.  He carried his
hat in his hand and displayed a crop of crisp, white hair.  He was
accompanied by a spruce individual with a black and restless eye which
he flashed ardently at every woman they passed.  It was upon the second
of the two men that the clerk's gaze dwelt.  An hour later, at the
humble brasserie where he was wont to take his mid-day meal, he called
for pen, ink and paper and wrote to one Peregrine Dyson, importer, at
Belgrade:


_Hon. Sir,_

_The undersigned has honour to report that Guido is back.  I see same
this A.M. in Victory Street with person unknown.  Description of said
person, age circa 50, white complexion, ditto hair, respectably
dressed.  Regret that business prevented immediate pursuit of said
Guido Miklas as per yr. esteemed instructions at our last meeting but
on receipt your hon. orders will follow up prompt, habits of party
concerned being familiar to yrs. truly but in latter event small
advance for indispensable expenses humbly asked_ (_by telegraph
s.v.p.!_)

_Your oblige servant to command,
  Hon. Sir,
    Yours faithfully,
      R_.43.


Two days later Vermuiven had a companion when he left the office to pay
his customary evening visit to the caf.  But instead of going to the
obscure establishment he usually frequented, he took his friend to a
noisy place with mirrors, potted palms and a gypsy orchestra, where a
man with a shock of white hair sat with a jaunty individual with a
restless eye.  Thereafter, Vermuiven escorted his companion to the main
telegraph office, after which they drove to the airport where the clerk
saw his charge on to the plane for Belgrade.


To London, into a restful suburban square, the fuse led hissing.  Miss
Hancock, the Chief's secretary, signed for the telegram: Breakspear in
the Ciphers upstairs, across the landing from the Secret Inks, decoded
it.  Like a flame the news ran round the Cipher Room: Major Armitage,
working in the Chief's outer office, knew it, even before the buzzer
summoned him.

"You're for Bucharest, Geoffrey," the Chief greeted him.  "'The Fox' is
on the prowl again."




CHAPTER II

"IN RE BOREANU, NE CELMAR, DECD."

When old Countess Boreanu died at the age of eighty-eight in her shabby
apartment at Bucharest and left Castle Orghina to Stephen Selmar by
will, Selmar was crossing to Europe in the _Queen Mary_.  It was the
first real vacation he had had in Europe since his college days.  His
previous visits had consisted of a whirlwind round of the Selmar agents
in Britain and on the continent; but now that he had retired from
business, he felt entitled to relax and enjoy himself.  Moreover, he
was planning to test out on a long motor trip through Switzerland and
Italy the new Selmar model which would not be on the market until the
New York Automobile Show in the fall.

He had a very happy seven weeks loafing between the Alps and the heel
of Italy, especially as the new car came up even to his highly critical
standard of performance.  His only regret was that Melissa had refused
to accompany him.  But Melissa was temporarily interested in a young
man with a wave in his hair and a job in refrigeration and, having had
him included in an invitation she had received to a camp in the
Adirondacks, was spending the summer in America.  Arguing that a
millionaire's only child is privileged to indulge in such whimsies and
reflecting that young Barnes was an improvement on the dubious Italian
prince who had been Melissa's penultimate passion, Selmar bore his
daughter's defection philosophically, relying on her promise to join
him in Europe later on.  He contented himself with sending her daily
cables, mostly of a facetious order:


"ZERMATT.  TRY NOT THE PASS THE OLD MAN SAID--STOP--BALONEY TO
THAT--STOP--THE SELMAR EIGHT FLIES THEM ALL--STOP--MISSING YOU LOVE
STEVE": "VENICE.  THIS HOTEL LIKE AN OVEN--STOP--TELL BOY FRIEND GREAT
OPENING FOR AIRCONDITIONING HERE--STOP---WHY NOT BRING HIM OVER
LOVINGLY STEVE."


He liked Melissa to call him by his first name: it kept him young, he
used to tell her.

October had come round before Matre Grigorescu's letter, mailed to
Selmar at the works in Michigan, caught up with him in London.  He
found it at his bank there when, having reached Paris at the end of his
trip and garaged the car, he flew across the channel to visit tailor,
hosier and shoemaker.  Melissa was to join him later--he had a vague
plan of spending the winter on the Riviera--but that would not be for
another month at least.  Already he was beginning to find time hang
heavy on his hands and the lawyer's letter came to him as an amusing
diversion.

He read it as he sat, a big, bronzed figure in his holiday grey tweeds,
in the chair at the manager's desk.  The letter was in English.
Written from a Bucharest address on paper headed "Grigorescu & Sapiro,"
it said:


"IN RE THE COUNTESS BOREANU, NE CELMAR, DECD.

_Dear Sir,_

_We have the honour to inform you that our late client, the Countess
Boreanu, deceased the 17th July last, has bequeathed to you under her
will the family property situated on the River Dniester, in the
province of Bessarabia, known as Castle Orghina..._


"Well, I'll be hornswoggled!" ejaculated Selmar and turned the letter
over, as though further elucidation were to be discovered on the other
side.  Finding nothing, he read on:


_The passage in our client's will relative to the bequest, rendered
into English, is as follows:_

_To Stephen Selmar, automobile manufacturer, of Lansing, Michigan, the
only descendant of our ancient house who has accomplished anything
useful in my lifetime, the historic family stronghold, Castle Orghina,
which came back to the family with the expulsion of the Russians and
the reunion of Bessarabia with Rumania in the Great War.  The aforesaid
Stephen Selmar may not be aware of his descent from the illustrious
Stephen cel Mare, Moldavia's mighty hero of the 15th century and the
founder of our line, but I regard him as a worthier representative of
our famous ancestor than my useless grandnephews, Georges and Michel,
whom I am delighted to disinherit utterly.  If only through the
excellent motor-car which bears our name (though, unfortunately, in the
American spelling) and to whose qualities I can speak, having derived
much enjoyment from my Selmar limousine in my declining years, he has
revived the family lustre.  To him, therefore, I deed Castle Orghina,
built and held against the pagan hordes across the Dniester by our
common ancestor upon whom Pope Sixtus IV conferred the title of
"Athlete of Christ."  I ask him to receive an old lady's blessing,
coupled with the hope that he will spare from his millions the few
thousand dollars required to preserve the family stronghold from total
ruin..._"


"Crazy as a coot!" Selmar murmured, pushing back his hat with a
bewildered air.  The letter wound up by assuring him that his obedient
servants, Grigorescu and Sapiro, were prepared to take his
instructions, by letter or in person, at any time.

"Where's Bessarabia, Joe?" Selmar asked the bank manager.  Mr. Harper
wasn't very sure, but he'd send for the atlas.  Meanwhile, Selmar read
the letter through again.

He knew the family tradition, of course.  The first Celmar to land in
America had come from Vienna, after receiving a bullet through the
lungs with the Austrian infantry at Austerlitz, had gone back to
soldiering in the war of 1812 against the British, and retired with a
grant of land to the Ohio Valley, the name thereafter appearing
alternately as "Selmer" or "Selmar."  Aunt Agatha, who dabbled in
genealogy, had dug up the yarn about the family's descent from Stephan
cel Mare: "cel Mare" meant "the Great" in Rumanian; but Stephen had not
paid much attention to her--he was too busy building motor-cars.

Wilks, the office messenger, brought the atlas.  Selmar and the manager
pored over it together: Harper pointed to Bessarabia north-east of
Bucharest, with Soviet Russia bordering it on the east.  Selmar had
grown thoughtful.  "How does one get to this place?" he demanded.

"Through Bucharest, I'd say," replied the bank manager.  "Let's see,
doesn't the Orient Express go to Bucharest, Miss Wheeler?"

His blonde secretary spoke up from her desk in the corner.  "That's
right, Mr. Harper."

"How about flying?" Selmar demanded.

"I guess you could fly if you wanted, Mr. Selmar," said Harper.  "I'll
have someone enquire about the services for you if you like."

"Thanks, Joe.  And they'd better book me by the first available plane.
Can I give Miss Wheeler a cable?"

"Sure."  The stenographer came forward, pad in hand.  "To your
daughter, is it, Mr. Selmar?" she asked--she had taken cables for
Selmar before.

"That's right.  The same address."  He drew reflectively on his cigar
and began to dictate.  "'GET OUT YOUR ATLAS--STOP--WE HAVE BEEN LEFT A
CASTLE--STOP--ITS IN BESSARABIA MAP REFERENCE RUMANIA--STOP--GOING DOWN
TO LOOK IT OVER--STOP--HOW DO YOU FANCY BEING A CHATELAINE--STOP--LOVE
STEVE.'"

The same evening the reply came back.


"ARE YOU CRAZY OR ARE YOU CRAZY--STOP--WHO LEFT US CASTLE AND CAN YOU
SEND IT BACK--STOP--DOES IT HAVE AIRCONDITIONING--STOP--IF NOT CAN
QUOTE REASONABLEST TERMS--STOP--I RUMPLE YOUR HAIR MELISSA."


At breakfast-time next morning Selmar boarded the Bucharest plane at
Croydon.




CHAPTER III

ENTER THE BARON DE BAHL

The streets of Bucharest were hot and dusty in the sunny October
afternoon.  The Baron de Bahl had doffed his wideawake hat disclosing a
shock of snow-white hair and was sponging his face and neck with his
handerchief as he turned in out of the glare and clatter of the Calei
Victorei under the cool porch of the Hotel Metropolis.  It was the hour
between tea and dinner and the big hall was rather full.  The sensuous
strains of a Viennese valse softly played came through the palms where
a gypsy orchestra in national dress made a patch of white.  Faint
perfumes and the languid murmur of voices overlaid the air.  People
came and went.  Rumanian officers in gay uniforms, with lack-lustre
eyes and powdered cheeks, established at small tables, ogled the women
over their grenadine.

The newcomer bowed amiably to an elegant brunette nursing a griffon who
smiled at him and saluted with a condescending wave of the hand a
grizzled Rumanian colonel who read the evening paper at one of the
tables.  He did not stop but, with the relentlessness of a tank, made
straight for the telephone desk.  He was a big man in a loose, rather
over-plump way, but it was less his bulk than the air of authority he
dispensed that made people get out of his path.  A young fellow
well-tailored in a dark suit had risen in the rear of the hall on de
Bahl's appearance and now with cat-like gait came towards him.  His
skin was olive and he had dank, black hair.

At the telephone desk the Baron coughed diffidently.  "Anything for me,
Frulein Ileana?" he asked in German.

The pretty Austrian telephone attendant was most deferential.  "Your
friend, Monsieur Volkoff, called from Monte Carlo, Herr Baron--the Herr
Baron's secretary took the communication.  Trieste rang.  The gentleman
left no name.  He wished to speak to you personally--he'll call you
back.  And, _warten Sie ein Bissl_, Paris was on the line..."

"Monsieur Jaff, was it?"

"That's right.  Your secretary spoke to him.  Prague announces a
personal call for the Herr Baron at 7 p.m."

The big man nodded composedly.  "Get me Monte Carlo at once, a personal
call for Monsieur Volkoff.  You have the hotel number?  I'll take
Prague at 7--I'll be up in my suite.  Here!"  He fished out a large
leather purse, extracted a note, and put it in the telephonist's hand
with a friendly pat on the cheek.  The girl reddened with pleasure when
she saw the note.  "Oh, _danke, Herr Baron_!"

De Bahl turned to find the olive-skinned young man at his side.  "Ah,
there you are, Amanescu!" he said in French.  "What did Monte Carlo
want?  Wait!"  He drew him into the gangway between the telephone
booths out of earshot of people passing in the hall.

"It was Volkoff.  He seemed most anxious to speak to you--I'd quite a
job to persuade him that I'm your secretary."

The Baron had a dry cough that seemed to be chronic with him.  He gave
it now and asked: "Did he leave any message?"

"Yes.  He said 'Tell him to sell.'"

"To sell, eh?  Jaff called, too, didn't he?  Did you give him my order
about those shares?"

"Yes."

"How was the Bourse?"

"Weak towards the close."  De Bahl seemed pleased.  "A man named Rapp
was asking for you at lunch-time," Amanescu went on.

"Ah!"  The Baron's tone was eager.  "What brought him round?"

"He says they've heard from Selmar."

"The American, yes?"

"He's in London.  He's flying over to-day--he should be here to-night."

De Bahl's nostrils twitched.  His nose was clear-cut and aquiline: with
his white hair and regular features it gave him a distinguished air.
"Where's he going to stay--did Rapp tell you?" he questioned sharply.

Amanescu's finger pointed downward.  "Here."  Mechanically the other
repeated the gesture.  Then he clapped the young man on the back.
"Thanks, my boy.  I shan't need you any more to-night.  Run away and
amuse yourself with the pretty Rumanian ladies.  Wait!"  Once more the
leather purse appeared.  The secretary's rather sullen eyes came to
life as he perceived the extended note.  "Thanks, Baron!"  Then de Bahl
sought the lifts.

As he entered the sitting-room of his suite, the telephone was pealing.
He went to the desk.  "Monte Carlo, Herr Baron," the operator
announced.  "Monsieur Volkoff is on the wire."

"Vladimir?" spoke the Baron softly into the instrument.

"Is it you, Alexis?" a cautious voice came back in French.

"Speaking."

"You had my message?"

"Yes.  Your Vienna man examined him, then?"

"Yes.  He gives him a month."

De Bahl's dark eyes glistened.  "Good.  But it means we shall have to
work fast.  Are you sure you can keep it dark?"

"Cannot an old gentleman of 75 keep his room while the mistral lasts?
Listen, Grenander's up to something.  He and Wahlczek have been
visiting works all over the place for the past fortnight."

"I know all about Grenander.  They won't touch him with a barge pole."

"Don't be too sure.  I hear they're due at Trieste at the end of the
month for a conference with certain parties.  Apostolou is there
already.  I think they're cooking something up."

"You're right, they are.  But don't worry, their broth won't be ready
by dinner-time."

"Meaning that yours will?"

"I shouldn't be surprised.  Meanwhile, if Grenander turns up at Monte
Carlo, as he surely will, keep him at arm's length until I arrive, you
understand?"

"You may rely on me."

With an enigmatic air de Bahl hung up.  A furrow between his dark, hot
eyes, he stared down at his hands, planted palms down on the blotter.
His hands were large and white, but beautifully formed with long,
delicate-looking fingers.

He had reached for the telephone again when a sound behind him brought
him quickly about.  It was the scratch of a match that had caught his
ear.  A jaunty individual with a restless eye, his hat on his head,
stood with his back to the fireplace, nonchalantly lighting a
cigarette.  "How many times have I told you, Miklas, that I won't have
you sneaking in here without knocking?" said de Bahl.

He spoke in French.  His voice was soft and husky, the furred voice of
the chain cigarette smoker--one had the impression that he rarely
raised it.  He did not raise it now: his tone was one of mild reproach.
The other blew out his match and dropped it in the fireplace behind
him.  "Was I to know you were talking secrets?  Besides, the door was
ajar."

The Baron puckered his brow.  "I feel sure I closed it behind me."

"It was ajar, I tell you."

De Bahl had helped himself to a cigarette from a tin box on the desk.
They were enormous cigarettes, almost as long as a fountain pen.  He
lit one now, coughed a spiral of smoke and said throatily, "Rapp was
round from Grigorescu's.  Selmar will be here to-night."

Surprise appeared in his companion's face.  He was a smartly groomed
fellow in his black jacket and striped trousers and wore a large pearl
in his tie.  His eyes, jet-black and liquid, were round as a cat's, and
the teeth below his small, dark moustache were magnificent.  Against
this he was almost bald and bags under his eyes gave him a worn and
dissipated air.  "So he bit, eh?" he remarked admiringly.

"As I told you he would."

"But what does an American millionaire want with an old ruin like this?
And in Bessarabia, of all god-forsaken places!"

"Castle Orghina is not a ruin.  With a little intelligent
restoration..."

Miklas guffawed.  "And you really think you can persuade him to let us
restore it for him?"

"He knows me for a reputable antique dealer and interior decorator.
When he was at my place at Geneva this summer----"

"Bah, a millionaire and his dollars aren't so soon parted.  If he has
any sense, he'll hand Orghina over to the State."

The Baron laughed contemptuously.  "For a Greek, my dear Guido, you're
a singularly poor psychologist."

"My mother was Spanish," was the sulky retort.

"Your mother was out of a Tangier dance hall, and you can put 'dance
hall' in quotation marks, as well you know, and the less said about her
the better.  In certain enterprises in which we have been associated
together in the past you've proved your worth as architect and
draughtsman and as an exponent of direct action--a quick knife thrust,
a shot in the nape of the neck or a bomb in the self-starter--I gladly
concede that you have few equals."  As he spoke the blood ebbed out of
Miklas's face and his eyes glittered venomously.  But the Baron
proceeded serenely.  "Psychology, however, is not your forte, so kindly
leave the psychology to me.  Stephen Selmar has all the money he wants,
but like most self-made men, he lacks background.  If I know anything
of the American mentality the Countess Boreanu's bequest has made the
strongest appeal to his imagination.  Castle Orghina establishes his
pedigree, so to speak.  It's also a gift, and I've yet to learn that
the possession of wealth ever predisposed anybody against getting
something for nothing.  The fact that Selmar's on his way here proves
I'm right."

"It doesn't prove that he's willing to saddle himself with the place."

De Bahl veiled his eyes.  "I propose to organise his trip to the Castle
and I think I can promise you that he'll accept the legacy."  He blew a
cloud of smoke.  "Grenander and Co. are having a meeting at Trieste at
the end of the month----"

"With the Ukrainians, is it?"

He nodded.  "Apostolou will keep me posted.  But I don't trust him, so
I'm sending you down there.  But, if all goes as I plan, I shall want
you to come down to Castle Orghina with Selmar and me first."

Miklas laughed.  "You seem very sure of him?"

"I am very sure of him.  I saw a lot of him at Geneva this summer.  I
believe I may say without boasting that he eats out of my hand."

"He must have a better digestion than most American millionaires," said
the other sneeringly.  A shadow fell across his face.  "I wanted a word
with you about that secretary of yours."

"What about him?"

"Have you run into an Englishman called Armitage, Geoffrey Armitage,
out here, an engineer from London?"

"No.  Who is he?"

"He's supposed to be connected with the oil industry.  He and Amanescu
are as thick as thieves.  They meet almost every day."

"Well, and supposing they do?  What about it?"

"Only that Armitage is a British secret service man."

The Baron's fat cigarette, half way to his lips, stopped.  His eyes
glinted between half-closed lids.  "You're sure of this?"

"I know him as well as I know you.  He was at Addis Ababa during the
Abyssinian business and at Beirut the other day.  I ran into him only
this morning, coming out of a caf with this secretary of yours.  I
thought I'd make some inquiries.  They play billiards every evening at
this place."

De Bahl nodded.  "Did Armitage spot you?"

Miklas laughed, "He wouldn't know me if he did, I'm too old a hand for
that.  The British Intelligence, smart as they are, have never been
wise to me.  I know Armitage, but he doesn't know me."

He broke off sharply, for the Baron, with a finger to his lips, was
pointing with his other hand at the door communicating with the
bedroom.  In two noiseless bounds Miklas reached the door and softly
opened it.  From somewhere out of sight came the sound of a door gently
closing.  Miklas disappeared and re-entered from the corridor.  "There
was someone in the bedroom," he announced, "but he's gone.  Now we know
how that door came to be ajar."

The Baron nodded placidly.  "You'd better keep an eye on our British
friend, Guido."

"And what about Amanescu?"

The other smiled.  "When they're going to hang a man in England, Guido,
the hangman visits the jail the day before the execution and peeps at
his victim through a spy-hole in the door to calculate the length of
drop he'll give him.  Not a word to our smart young friend for the
moment.  I'll watch him and see how much rope he'll take."  He
chuckled.  "They don't call me 'The Fox' for nothing.  You leave the
young man to me."

He laughed with great good humour.  "Go now--I have some more
telephoning to do," he said.  Miklas went out, leaving him at the desk,
his loose frame shaking with laughter interspersed with coughing.




CHAPTER IV

A WANDERER COMES HOME

It was only mid-October, but the first fog of the year had dropped down
over London.  The day had broken dim and windless and the risen sun
showed itself to Londoners going to work as a pink disc glowing through
an orange pall.  By noon the lights were on and along Oxford Street and
Regent Street the shop-fronts blazed.  In Piccadilly the electric signs
were flashing above the silvery furrows cut by the head-lamps of the
slowly groping traffic.

With the falling of dusk the fog thickened.  In London's vast acreage
of suburbs, away from the glare of the shopping streets, it was night.
As Boulton's taxi chugged into the quiet square, the trees stood like
dim wraiths behind the battered railings of the central garden, and the
street lamps, ringed with brown radiance, had the dull gleam of sequins
sewn on the curtain of fog.  The air was raw and smelt of soot; the
young man shivered in his thick scarf and heavy Melton overcoat.  "What
a day to come home!" he murmured.

The taxi stopped at one of the tall houses in the square, a
"gentleman's residence," mid-Victorian and smug, the sort of place
where you would expect a judge or a prosperous chartered accountant to
live.  Boulton jumped out, thrust his hand in his pocket.  "Hell!" he
remarked to the dim figure on the box, "Egyptian money is no good to
you, is it?  Just a minute!"

All the lights were on in the hall when Petty Officer Potts, 180 pounds
of solid muscle turning into fat, opened to his ring.  "Potts, my old
salt!" was the young man's greeting.

The door-man's forefinger jerked to his grizzled cow-lick.  "Arternoon,
Mr. Boulton, sir!  We ain't seen you in a row o' Sundays!  Blow me
down, it must be all o' three months!  My word, you 'ave bin out in the
sun, 'aven't you?  As nice a coat o' tan as ever I see!"

The young man shuddered.  "Does the sun ever shine in this cursed town,
I wonder?" he remarked feelingly.  With a flick of the hand he sent his
rather grubby felt flying in the direction of the hat-stand.  It landed
adroitly on one of the hooks.  "Bulls-eye!" he murmured with
gratification.  The doorman helped him out of his overcoat.  "Ouch!
Mind my shoulder!" the visitor warned.

"Still 'ave trouble with it, do you, sir?" said the other, folding the
garment and laying it on the chair.

Boulton nodded.  "It's this cursed damp weather.  Ah, my Potts, never
sell your farm and go up in the air!"

The door-man grinned.  "No fear, Mr. Boulton, sir!  I copped mine at
Jutland.  I'm ashore for keeps!"

"A Jutland veteran, a hero full of honours, with a snug berth and a
pension--you're on velvet, Potts.  Look at me!  A choked feed pipe
crashes me and because it's in peace time and I'm not on duty, I'm just
a blinking civilian with a busted shoulder and darn glad to have landed
a job.  The trouble is, Potts, my hearty, I was born too late!"

The door-man chuckled.  "There was times in the war when some of us
allowed as we was born too early!"

"And to think," the young man continued, unwinding his scarf, "that I
might have flown one of these marvellous new 'buses they're dishing out
to the troops at present instead of the sudden death contraptions which
were all we had when I was in the Force.  Oh, hell!"  He dropped his
scarf on top of his overcoat.  "Don't shut that door for a moment: I
have to pay off my cab.  Hey, Hanky!"

A plain girl of indeterminate age, very neat as to dress and hair, was
crossing the hall.  At his hail she advanced composedly under the rays
of the hall lamp peering through horn-rimmed glasses.  "So you've
arrived at last!" she observed without enthusiasm.

He struck an attitude and in a voice that shook the hall, chanted:

  "At home at last, all danger past,
  I hail my native vill--age!"

dwelling tenderly on the last note, which ran up an octave.  He held
out his hand.  "Half a dollar for the taxi, please.  I've no English
money.  Why on earth do you have to live in the suburbs?"

"Stop that noise at once!  The Chief's in conference."  She was hunting
through her purse.  "Mind you pay me back!  No charging it against the
petty cash.  Your expense allowance ceases when you leave your post,
you know."

"But not when my post leaves me.  Thanks, loveliness!"  He took the
half-crown she gave him and handed it to the door-man.  "Discharge the
charioteer, my ancient sea-lion!"

The girl said severely: "The Chief expected you for lunch.  Why are you
so late?"

"The fog, angel, the fog.  Ceiling zero and visibility even less.  They
put us down at Lympne."  He had slipped his arm in hers.  "Tell me,
dear heart, are you still in love with me?"

Firmly she detached his arm.  "Couldn't you have telephoned or
something?  The Chief has asked for you at least half a dozen times."

"And how is my aged employer?"

"Worried.  The Foreign Office has been playing up again.  Sir Herbert's
with him now.  You'd better wait in my room."

She led the way towards a door at the end of the hall.  Boulton said,
"How do I stand with him?"

"You'll find out fast enough!"

"He realises they were on to me, that I had to skip.  I mean, when he
recalled me like that..."

"You can't teach him anything about the service!"

She showed him into a plain office lined with white cupboards.  There
was a typewriter and a very neat desk on which stood a bunch of asters
in a vase.  She sat down at the typewriter and began to type.  Boulton
picked up a photograph from one of the desk trays.  "Who's the pretty
girl, Hanky?"

"It's Melissa Selmar, Stephen Selmar's daughter."

"The millionaire, the American motor-car fellow, do you mean?"

She nodded, typing on.

He pursed his lips appraisingly.  "Rather fetching.  What's her picture
doing here?"

"It's the Chief's.  And don't go poking about in my trays!  I don't
like it."  She took the photograph away from him and thrust it in a
drawer.  Boulton's eyes followed the picture to its resting place.
"Old man stepping out, is he?" he observed whimsically.  "My, my, what
a time you must have, Hanky dear!  When you're not receiving lovely
American heiresses for our beloved Chief, you're entertaining a
never-ending succession of romantic and, if I may say so without
vanity, unusually good-looking Intelligence officers."

The secretary turned up her line to rub out a word.  "Those must be the
ones I haven't met," she observed witheringly, plying her eraser.

Her companion placed his hand on her shoulder.  "No, no, dear Hanky,
you must not speak like that.  Verily 'tis piteous when a refined young
female allows the iron to enter her soul.  Child, if you have not
discerned the qualities of your fellow labourers in the vineyard, is it
not because your glance has failed to penetrate through the dross to
the--er, solid ore beneath?  Beauty, dear maid, is but skin deep.  What
if the faithful Armitage is but five feet high with hair a peculiarly
loathsome shade of red, if our brother Elkington has a wall eye and the
somewhat dreary Dyson's teeth fit badly so that it is like a whistling
solo when he talks--what are these trifling blemishes by comparison
with the sterling merit that gleams like minted gold beneath the
surface?  And there are others, notably one, whom modesty forbids me to
name, who combines the--ah, external husk of a Prince Charming with the
soul of a Sir Galahad, oh, my Hanky."

She shook his hand off.  "Stop pawing me about and let me get on with
my work.  These letters have to catch the continental mail."

He sighed.  "When I joined the service three years ago, I followed the
lure of romance.  Did I find romance?  Yes, I did not.  I live the life
of a travelling bagman and when I come home with my honours thick upon
me, I have to trapse out to the darkest suburbs only to have the aged
Potts blow his beery breath all over me and to be kept kicking my heels
in the ante-chamber."

"You'll be kicking them in the hall if you don't stop talking," Miss
Hancock promised grimly.


The Chief's room was spacious and lofty.  The elaborately moulded
ceiling, the crystal chandelier and the marble fireplace suggested that
it had been the drawing-room formerly: a very large map of Europe
almost filling one wall, a wireless set, a row of steel filing cabinets
and a large safe built into the wall oddly contrasted with these
embellishments.

High Foreign Office officials are not frequent visitors at Secret
Service headquarters.  But a quarter of a century before in the Great
War Sir Herbert Ashcroft, then a Third Secretary in the Diplomatic
Service, and the grizzled man who now sat opposite him across the desk
had undergone sundry unrecorded but none the less exciting adventures
together at various neutral centres, and the link endured.  At that
time Ashcroft had been a young man about town with a Guardsman's
silhouette and a neat Guards moustache.  He was still sleek and
well-groomed and retained the moustache; but he was losing his hair and
if his back was still straight his Guardsman's figure was nearer that
of a Guards sergeant-major than a subaltern's.

With a plaintive air he was saying, "You know what he is, old boy.  He
wants Armitage.  He was greatly impressed by that report of his from
Beirut.  Why can't he have Armitage if he wants him?"

"I've told you already, Bertie--Armitage isn't available."

"How do you mean 'not available'?"

"He's away on a job.  In Rumania, to be precise."

"You can bring him home, can't you?"

"Not off this job, Bertie."  He paused.  "This is for you and nobody
else, not even your old man.  Armitage is keeping an eye on an old
friend of ours."

"Not 'The Fox'?"

"'The Fox,' no less!"




CHAPTER V

FIRST BLOOD

Ashcroft whistled.  "You haven't heard of him so lately, have you?"

His friend shrugged his shoulders.  "We're always coming across his
traces.  Wherever John Bull's in trouble his agents are never very far
away.  'The Fox' has cost me the lives of three of my men during the
past eighteen months."

He stood up and went to the window.  The curtains had not been drawn:
outside the fog clung to the panes.  There were even wisps of it in the
room, a faint haze lurking in the shadows above the chandelier.  "Back
in the war when I first went into this job," he went on, staring
sombrely into the outer greyness, "there were at least certain rules, a
sort of unwritten code that both sides honoured.  But with
international morality at its present low level how can you expect
anyone to play the game?  International spy-masters like de Bahl, who
buy and sell information as if it were tea, least of all.  It's a grim
prospect, Bertie!  When I look at the world to-day, it seems to me I
can see no farther ahead than if I were out in the fog there.  And of
course with everybody arming all round big operators like 'The Fox'
with plenty of brains and plenty of capital are on velvet."

"He has brains all right or he'd have been laid by the heels before
this."

"He's diabolically clever: he never leaves us a shred of proof against
him.  To the world at large he's the wealthy art dealer who's obliged
to be constantly travelling in the interests of his affairs."

"Does he still run that antique business of his at Geneva?"

"Very much so.  It would be hard to devise a better cover for an
espionage bureau."

"What's his nationality?  Swiss, is he?"

"A man like that probably has a different passport for every day of the
week.  As he steers clear of England we've had no opportunity of
checking up on this point.  But I'm told he was born in Tunis, father
unknown, mother Tunisian.  He's a pretty elusive person and not many
people have seen him, but he's said to be a fascinating personality
remarkably handsome, with a shock of white hair that contrasts with his
black eyebrows and olive skin.  That's just faade, however--beneath it
he's a rapacious, cold-hearted rascal with the outlook and methods of
the Barbary pirates from whom he's sprung."

Miss Hancock glided in with a letter tray.  "Your letters, sir."

"I'll sign 'em presently, Hanky."

"Mr. Boulton is outside."

The Chief frowned.  "Send him in when I ring."

The secretary glided out.  Ashcroft said, "Boulton?  Isn't that the
fellow you had out on the Italian-Sudanese frontier, used to be in the
Air Force?"  The other nodded briefly.  "He came to see me once, about
that business at Malta, remember?" his visitor pursued.  "A crazy
bloke, but that's the way you like 'em, isn't it?  Wait a minute,
surely he's the chap the Italianos made all the fuss about the other
day?  What was the trouble exactly?"

"Strictly against orders the young gentleman crossed into Italian
territory and proceeded to get himself involved in a spot of bother.  I
don't remember the details, but some askaris, a dancing girl and a
bottle of chianti were mixed up in it.  No doubt I shall hear the story
from the young man himself.  It wound up by his having to ride for his
life on a racing camel.  It seemed more prudent to recall him."

"And now he's waiting outside to catch hell?"

"I shouldn't wonder."  The smile was rather grim.  "He's a good lad and
a fine linguist.  He'd done all kinds of things after a crash put him
out of the R.A.F. before he joined us--rubber planting and the Lord
knows what else."

The visitor drew down his mouth primly.  "I regard a fellow like that
as a public menace.  Why, he might have provoked an international
incident if the Duce had not behaved most reasonably about it.  What's
'The Fox' up to in Rumania?"

His friend shrugged his shoulders.  "That's what Armitage has gone to
find out.  He was traced through a certain Guido Miklas, who's been his
right-hand man for years."

"I never heard of him."

"By profession he's an architect--he's supposed to help de Bahl in the
business.  Actually, he's been mixed up in all sorts of dirty jobs for
'The Fox.'  This office has a long score chalked up against Mr. Miklas."

The telephone on the desk rang.  Ashcroft stood up.  "I've wasted
enough of your time, old boy.  I understand about Armitage.  But my
master won't like it."

"Tell him to try the War Office!"  Okewood pressed a button on the desk
and lifted the telephone as his friend went out.

It was Miss Hancock.  "Mrs. Armitage on the wire, sir."

"I'll speak to her, Hanky.  Send Boulton in when I've finished."

The lady was voluble.  Her rather shrill voice welled out into the
quiet room.  The Chief listened impassively.  Then he spoke with
careful deference.  "I shouldn't let that worry you, Mrs. Armitage," he
said.  "No, I'm afraid I can't tell you where he is.  But he's all
right--I heard from him quite recently.  So far as I know, very fit.
Of course, as soon as we hear."

He hung up.  There was a tap at the door.  "Come!" he called.  Boulton
appeared, an ingratiating smile on his face.  His Chief aroused himself
from a brown study.  "Don't get married as long as you're in this job,"
he observed bleakly.  "No fellow in this game ought to marry.  The
wives never understand."

"No, sir!" said the young man jauntily.  His tone seemed to jar on his
superior for the other bent a cold blue eye on him.  "You're late!"

"The fog grounded us at Lympne.  I caught the first plane out of
Khartum on receiving your message.  I wrote my report on the way
home--I have it here."  He laid a thick envelope on the desk.  "I feel
I should explain, with regard to that unfortunate incident, sir----"

"I've no use for officers that disobey orders," his Chief broke in
sternly.  "Your damned insubordination has almost wrecked the most
delicate negotiations which the Foreign Office is at present
conducting.  If the Treasury didn't keep me so infernally short-handed,
I'd lay you off for three months, just to teach you that an order's an
order.  As it happens, I've a job for you at this moment, but I tell
you frankly I'd never put you on it if you didn't happen to be the only
man available.  I do it with the utmost reluctance because I don't
trust you, because you've let me down."

"I assure you, sir----"

"I don't want any excuses.  There's one tradition in this service and
that is that officers don't let the office down.  You're to consider
yourself severely reprimanded.  Now sit down!"

Much of the young man's self-assurance had evaporated.  With rather a
dazed air, he drew up a chair.  The Chief's hand dipped into the silver
cigarette box on the desk.  Then he pushed the box at the visitor.
With a questioning glance at the other's face, the young man helped
himself, stooped to the proffered match.  Their eyes met.  Boulton
cheered up: he discerned a glint of humour in his superior's glance
that gave him confidence.  Unexpectedly the Chief chuckled.  "That must
have been a good camel you had!" he said.

The young man grinned.  "I had to pinch it.  Off the major commanding
the Italian meharists, as a matter of fact.  I thought I might as well
bag a good one while I was about it.  Gosh, I bet he was raving!"

The other flung himself back in his chair and laughed silently.
"Lord," he observed with a sigh, "you make me wish I was your age
again."  He began to brandish his big ivory letter-opener.  "Now pay
attention to me, young Boulton?  When you leave here this afternoon
you'll go to an address Hanky will take you to and await the visit of a
certain Amanescu who's arriving from Bucharest.  He speaks only
Rumanian and French--that's why I'm sending you.  He'll bring a letter
from Geoffrey Armitage addressed to 'Captain Dunlop.'  You're 'Captain
Dunlop.'  Is that clear?"

Boulton nodded.  "Does Armitage say anything about the fellow, sir?"

"He's been acting as private secretary to a certain party in Bucharest
who's a very old acquaintance of this office.  Did you ever hear of one
Alexis de Bahl, better known as 'The Fox'?"

The young man's eyes widened with excitement.  "I should say I did.
Why, the Mediterranean was ringing with his name during the Abyssinian
crisis!  Do you mean to say you've got a line on him at last?  And in
Bucharest, of all places!"

"It looks like it."  The Chief's tone was measured.  "Armitage who's
handling the situation for us has got hold of this bird, Amanescu.
Amanescu has a story to sell, but he's opening his mouth wide and won't
deal except with a principal.  You'll have to comb him out and see what
his information is worth.  You'll refer to me before closing with him
but I can tell you we'll go to a pretty high figure for the pleasure of
putting Alexis de Bahl where he belongs, and that's behind the bars.
Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Have you ever met a fellow called Miklas, Guido Miklas, one of de
Bahl's men?"

Boulton shook his head.  "No, but I know about him.  He's supposed to
be 'The Fox's' trigger man.  What's he up to?"

"He's been in Bucharest with 'The Fox' in tow.  I can't tell you what
they're up to, but here's the situation as far as I know it.  Something
appears to be stirring in the Ukraine--at any rate, Trieste reports the
arrival there of a party of Ukrainian Nationalists who are in constant
touch with a certain Apostolou, a well-known international agent and a
notorious doublecross.  Armitage says that de Bahl has been in almost
daily communication by telephone with Trieste and has now gone off to
Bessarabia which, I need not remind you, is conveniently close to the
Ukraine.  With him are Miklas and an American millionaire called Selmar
who makes motor-cars.  I've had Selmar vetted and he appears to be a
respectable citizen: all I can say is that his reputation is better
than the company he keeps.  Maybe, this fellow Amanescu will be able to
throw some light on what all this portends; but at present Armitage
seems to be as much in the dark as we are.  Three days ago, however, he
wired me that he was leaving for Bessarabia on 'The Fox's' trail so we
should be hearing something from him soon.  What is it, Hanky?"

The secretary stood there with a telegram.  "From Bucharest, sir."

The Chief's eyes snapped.  His face hardened as he read the telegram.
"All right, Hanky," he dismissed the secretary.  "It's from Vermuiven,
our resident man at Bucharest," he told Boulton.  "Apparently Armitage
instructed him before leaving for Bessarabia to keep track of de Bahl's
movements.  At any rate, he wires that de Bahl and Selmar returned to
Bucharest last night and left again by car this morning in the
direction of Budapest."  He frowned.  "So 'The Fox' has thrown us off
the scent again.  I wonder what the devil Armitage is up to--we should
have heard by this.  Well, there's Amanescu to go on with and if he
fails us, we'll have to start afresh from the Trieste end."

He broke off, staring in front of him.  Then he picked up his
letter-opener again.  "About Amanescu," he said, drumming with the
paper-knife.  "He was due at 7; but fortunately his train's nearly two
hours late owing to the fog so you've plenty of time.  Hanky will go
along with you to Pierce Street to lend things an air of respectability
and here"--his hand dived into a drawer and brought out a
folder--"you'd better be glancing through Armitage's reports while I
polish off these letters."

He drew the pile of letters towards him.  The secretary was back again.
"All right, Hanky, I'm just signing 'em."

"You ought to see this."  She thrust a copy of the _Evening Standard_
at him, pointing with a finger that was not very steady at an item on
the front page.  "See what?  What is it?" he said testily taking the
newspaper from her.

The long silence that followed caught Boulton's attention.  He looked
up to see the Chief staring fixedly at the newspaper spread out before
him on the desk.  "Poor old Geoffrey," he murmured.  "He always liked
to have two strings to his bow and now there's only one."  Silently he
handed the newspaper to Boulton, his finger indicating a Reuter
telegram from Bucharest, printed at the foot of the first column.
Boulton read:


_Bucharest.  Tuesday._

_A telegram to the "Romania" from Orghina, a village in Bessarabia,
announces that the body of an English engineer named Armitage, who was
visiting Rumania on business, has been recovered from the Dniester.
The local police have opened an enquiry._


The Chief took off his glasses and passed his hand, wearily over his
eyes.  "Well," he said, "with poor old Geoffrey gone, Amanescu's our
only source."  His glance rested sternly on Boulton.  "It's up to you,
young man."




CHAPTER VI

RENDEZVOUS IN PIERCE STREET

Soho is an elastic term.  The precise boundaries of this Continental
quarter of the London West End are as vague as the origin of the name.
From Oxford Street it merges into the London theatre district somewhere
in the triangle of which Shaftesbury Avenue is one leg, Leicester
Square and Piccadilly Circus the others.  Not all of Soho is given over
to cheap eating-houses, delicatessen shops, waiters' clubs and the film
trade.  One corner harbours the wool industry, and the accents of
Bradford and Leeds are strong in certain modern office blocks which
stand up incongruously between the Hogarthian houses in and about
Golden Square.

To one such block, bleakly utilitarian product of neo-Georgian London
with its six floors of concrete already discoloured by the London
grime, Miss Hancock conducted Boulton.  On account of the fog they went
by tube, alighting at Hyde Park Corner, as Boulton insisted on calling
for letters at his club in Piccadilly.  The fog was thicker than ever.
It came billowing in from the Park.  Piccadilly was a chaos of groping
headlights and sounding klaxons.  Boulton proposed dining at his club,
but his escort protested there was no time.  It was already past eight:
they must not be late at the rendezvous.  They fumbled their way to the
club.  Miss Hancock was kept waiting a good ten minutes on the ladies'
side.  She was fuming when her companion appeared.  "Do you realise
that it's twenty-five minutes to nine?" she demanded irately.  "It's no
good taking a taxi in this fog--we'll have to walk.  If his train
shouldn't be as late as they say..."

"He'll wait," said Boulton.  "He has something to sell, hasn't he?
Don't worry.  If the train's in, we'll find him on the mat."

"You talk like a fool," was the sharp rejoinder.  "We've a job to do
and I'm here to see we do it.  For heaven's sake, stop loafing about
and come on!"

He saw she was on edge and glanced at her wonderingly.  He had never
seen Hanky indulging in the luxury of nerves before.

The lights of Soho swam in the fog.  Here on all sides were names,
faces, too, that evoked the Mediterranean sunshine--there was something
preposterous about the brown clamminess of Berwick Street and its
roaring street market, with its cheerful costers chaffering under the
naphtha flares and the moisture beading on the bright windows of the
provision and radio shops.  At the street corners the public-houses
were oases of light and noise; but in the sparsely lit back streets the
fog seeped over all.  One such street was Pierce Street, a narrow lane
running between the shabby Georgian houses with the gaunt silhouette of
a new office building breaking the line of the roofs.  "It's here,"
said Miss Hancock, plunging into the gloom of the lane.

A distant clock struck nine as they turned in under the entrance to
Beltran House.  There was no porter visible, but the outer door was
open: it remained open until midnight for the convenience of the wool
firms in the building with country mails to catch, Miss Hancock
explained.  They had a glimpse of a bare lobby, a panel with the
tenants' names, a lift.  Behind them the street was quiet and deserted,
a funnel of fog.

The fog was in the lobby.  It clung to the electric lights.  The lift
was automatic.  Miss Hancock pressed the button, not once, but again
and again.  The lift did not descend: someone was using it.  "D'you
think he'll ever find his way here in this fog?" Boulton asked her as
they waited.  She did not reply but pushed the button again.

The elevator came down and they mounted into the stillness, past floor
upon floor of silent offices.  They got out at the third floor.  Two
men were waiting there, nondescripts in felt hats and heavy tweed
overcoats, who, entering the lift, descended out of sight.

The whirr of the dynamo as they went down seemed to be the last sound
of life in the whole building.  Only the corridor was lit--room after
room, all exactly alike, was dark as Miss Hancock led the way along.
At last she stopped, fumbled with a key and a light went on showing an
ante-room with an office beyond.  "The Higgs Company, Importers" was
painted on the door.

It was a banal office, banally furnished--light oak desk and chairs,
waste-paper basket, telephone, and a typewriter in the outer room.
"We'd better find out about his train," said the secretary and, without
removing her hat, went to the telephone, while Boulton was hanging up
his hat and coat.  He heard her speaking to Victoria.  She was
replacing the receiver when he joined her.  "The train came in five
minutes ago," she announced.

He glanced at his watch.  "Nine-five!  If he's here before half-past
I'll eat my hat."  Producing a small parcel, he went on, "Since you
spurned my invitation to dinner, my Hanky, I made so bold as to ask the
club to put up a few sandwiches."  He began to undo the string.

She was at the glass, taking off her hat.  "Thanks, I don't want
anything!"

"You've had no dinner!"

"All the same."

"Look!"  He held up a half bottle of champagne.  "I got them to put in
a pint of pop.  We'll have a little celebration."

She whirled round to face him.  "Because a man's been killed, is that
it?"

She spoke with such feeling that he stared at her blankly, the bottle
in one hand, one of the two tumblers he had unpacked with it in the
other.  "Why, Hanky!"

"Geoffrey Armitage was a friend of yours, as he was the friend of us
all at the office," she cried.  "I dare say you knew him better than I
did, a quiet, kindly creature, a gentleman in the real sense.  Now he's
dead, foully murdered, for all we know, and it means so little to you
that you speak of celebrating.  Celebrate what, in God's name?
Celebrate the fact that you may be the next to go?"

He smiled at her whimsically.  "You know, Hanky, it isn't a bad toast."
He lifted the bottle to her.  "_Moriturus te salutat!_"

But she swept on.  "Last year, it was Hereford, and before him young
Lumley.  You don't talk about it because it's supposed to be bad form
to mention such things, but you know you took your life in your hands
on this last trip of yours to the Sudan.  God, when I think of the mess
men make of things!  Boys like you are brought into the world to marry
and have families, to be happy and do great things, not to be
slaughtered like sheep!"

He shrugged his shoulders.  "I'm nearly thirty, if you call that being
a boy, and I'm very conscious of the fact that if I'd been born ten or
fifteen years sooner, I'd probably now be pushing up daisies like most
of the war generation.  I don't want to marry and settle down, Hanky: I
want to enjoy life in my own way.  And that means getting a thrill out
of it.  That's why I joined the Air Force--it was the bitterest blow of
my life when that crash grounded me for good: that's why I knocked
about the world for a couple of years before the Chief took me on.
There are lots of fellows who feel the way I do, there always have been
and there always will be.  That's how the British Empire was founded."

He unwound the wire round the champagne bottle and let the cork go with
a pop.  "We'll drink a toast," he said, "but it'll be to you."  He
filled the two glasses and handed one to her.  He raised his glass.
"To Hanky!  And may she always be waiting for us at the end of the
journey!"

She smiled at him then through her gig-lamps and, having blown her
nose, declared contritely, "Sorry for flying off the handle, Don!  But
this Armitage business upset me."  She took the glass.  "Champagne's
quite a treat for me.  Well, here's how and thanks for your nice
toast..."

At that moment they heard the scream.

It came from the distance, welling up suddenly out of the silence and
fog that enveloped them and as suddenly dying, a high, gurgling cry,
shrill with some mortal anguish, that seemed to climb the octave but
was cut off before reaching the top.  The secretary dropped her glass
and its clatter on the hair carpet was swallowed up in the crash of the
outer door rebounding against the wall as Boulton tore it open and
dashed out into the corridor.  No sound greeted him as he sped along,
no murmur of voices, no opening of doors, to match the clatter of his
feet along the passage, and he told himself that, but for them, the
entire building must be empty.

The landing, its floor shining in the electric light, was deserted.
The young man did not wait for the lift but raced down the stairs.  The
vestibule with its glass doors framing the curtain of fog was as they
had left it.  He ran to the street door and peered outside.  There was
nothing there but the fog and the dim vista of the street.  He turned
back into the lobby and came face to face with Miss Hancock as she
emerged from the stairs.

Then only did he perceive what lay almost at his feet.

It was the body of a young man that sprawled, half in, half out of the
lift, in a lake of blood.  He was wearing a heavy overcoat, from the
back of which something shining protruded, the white metal handle of a
dagger that winked and glittered in the electric light.  His hat had
fallen off, disclosing a head of raven-black hair.  What could be made
out of the face below was sallow.

Boulton made a long arm and picked up the hat.  With a glance at the
interior he put it on the ground.  "Vienna" was his muttered comment.

The girl spoke in a frightened voice.  "Look!"  She pointed past him at
the interior of the elevator.

Apparently in falling the dead man's hat had covered the white envelope
that lay on the lift floor, just clear of the spreading scarlet pool.
Boulton picked up the envelope, glanced at the address and his face
hardened.  The envelope was unsealed and he shook out of it the letter
it contained.  He unfolded the sheet, ran his eye over it and returned
it to its envelope.

"Armitage's letter to Dunlop," he said briefly and added, with a sort
of rage in his voice, "'The Fox' has beaten us to it again!"




CHAPTER VII

STEPHEN BLURTS OUT A SECRET

The _Rex_ had come to rest in the harbour of Villefranche.  Between the
towering heights, chocolate brown thatched with the dark foliage of
pine or the sicklier verdure of olive, the great liner lay far off
shore, a motionless white mass on a deep green sea, foam-flecked, under
a sky of brilliant cobalt, washed clean by a night of November rain.  A
tender, a flock of motor launches, some rowing boats, snuggled against
her soaring flanks, bobbing in the swell, with the gulls swooping and
hovering and crying harshly all about: from the smokestacks high above,
supremely disdainful of the rattle of a winch and the seabirds' calls,
little plumes of vapour mounted steadily into the glittering air, as
though the giant were taking a breather after the long run from New
York.

It was at Stephen's wish that at the beginning of November Melissa
Selmar had left America in the _Rex_.  Melissa had been faintly worried
about her father.  He had always been more prone to communicate with
her by cable than by letter; but for a long time past his letters
ceased altogether and his telegrams were little more than a chronicle
of his movements from place to place.  Following his wanderings by car
through Switzerland and Italy, a strange restlessness seemed to have
overtaken him.  Scarcely back in Paris and London, he was off again.
Now he was at Bucharest, now somewhere in the wilds of Rumania,
inspecting this castle some lunatic had left him (how like Steve to go
and see the place and say no more about it!), now in Paris, now Geneva.
His final word to her had come from Monte Carlo.  She was to "hop on"
the _Rex_ and get off at Villefranche where he would meet her.  There
was a certain firmness of tone about this last cable that suggested he
desired to be obeyed: as it coincided with a vague suspicion on
Melissa's part that her father was getting into mischief, she caught
the _Rex_.


Having come off in the tender, he found her in her stateroom, a rather
forlorn figure in the midst of a chaos of discarded dress- and
hat-boxes, mountains of tissue paper and a bewildering assortment of
hand luggage, some still open, others already packed.  At the sight of
the familiar form, in tussore and panama, in the doorway, she flew into
her father's arms with a little cry.

"Steve!"

"Melissa, honey!"

She clung to him ecstatically.  "Darling, darling, darling, it's so
lovely to see you again!"

He kissed the top of her head.  "You've changed your perfume.  M-m, it
smells nice.  What is it?"

"Some frightfully expensive stuff Andy Barnes sent me to the boat."

He smiled.  "Rather like taking coals to Newcastle, isn't it?  I mean,
giving perfume to a young woman who's on her way to France."

"Andy means well, but he's really an awful sap!"

Selmar smiled at her affectionately.  The thought was in his mind that
their meetings, after long separation, were always like this.  It was
probably his fault that they spoke of indifferent matters: he could not
get used to the notion that he was the father of this beautiful, vital
person, and it made him tongue-tied.  A little while--until they had
grown accustomed to one another's company again--and the old intimacy
would come back.  But at first there was always this faint feeling of
embarrassment between them.

She made him sit down on the bed beside her.  "My," she exclaimed,
settling his tie, "how smart we look in our Palm Beach suit!  And
you're thinner, Steve--it becomes you!"

He picked up her hand.  "You look like a million dollars, Melissa.  And
I like the way you do your hair.  Had a good trip?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Any new beaux?"

"Only an Italian who wants me to marry him and go and live in
Abyssinia.  The most thrilling looking person, Steve--he sent shivers
down my back.  But Abyssinia, I ask you!"

Her father looked faintly uncomfortable.  "How's refrigeration these
days?"

She made a little face.  "I'm stone cold on refrigeration.  Andy's a
nice boy, but he doesn't wear.  Not at a summer camp, at any rate.
He's too darn serious, Steve--six weeks was all I could stand of him.
So Mr. Selmar's little girl is going places again."  She jumped up.
"Help me to shut these darn cases, will you, and we'll go ashore.  Did
you bring the car?"

"You bet you.  It's on the dock.  Honey, she's a whiz!"

"Hooray.  I'll drive you back to Monte!"

At the foot of the gangway leading to the shore a grey-haired, gangling
individual, clean-shaven, with the mournful eyes and button nose of a
French comic actor and a twist of war ribbons knotted in the
button-hole of his sober broadcloth, touched his hat gravely to Selmar
and advanced to relieve Melissa of her coat and motion picture camera.
When she instinctively clung to her property, her father laughed.
"It's all right, sweetheart, it's Charles!"  And to the man he added,
in his somewhat fragmentary French, "_Charles, c'est ma fille._"

"Charles?" repeated the girl.

"He's my valet," said Stephen.  "The hotel people found him for me.  He
doesn't know much English but we manage all right.  Now you've come,
you can interpret for me if I get stuck.  _Mademoiselle parle trs bien
franais_," he confided to the valet.

Charles made Melissa a low bow.  "I trust that Mademoiselle has had a
pleasant crossing," he said gravely in French.  Mademoiselle would not
have to occupy herself with the baggage: if she would give him her
keys, he would see everything through the Customs.

It was not until she was at the wheel of the car and they were bowling
along the Lower Corniche that Melissa broke a somewhat ominous silence.
"So now we have a valet?" she remarked with a touch of grimness.  More
than once, after her mother's death three years before, she had tried
to persuade Stephen to engage a manservant to look after his clothes
and attend to his packing.  But Stephen had stoutly refused, protesting
that he was not yet so decrepit that he couldn't put the studs in his
shirt and pack a bag for himself--like most American men, he was
independent in such matters.

He laughed rather guiltily.  "As a matter of fact, he's more of a
butler than a valet."

"And what do you want with a butler at a hotel.  You're still at the
hotel, aren't you?"

"Sure, sure.  I just thought he might be useful if we took a place for
the winter."

"A villa, do you mean?"

Her father cleared his throat.  "A villa or, maybe, a chteau."

"A chteau?"  The car swerved dangerously as she took her eyes off the
road to stare at him.  "You're not talking about this Rumanian castle
of ours, by any chance?"

With a muscular hand Selmar caught the steering wheel, brought the car
into the straight again.  "I thought maybe we might spend the winter
there, just to try it out," he remarked with elaborate casualness.

Melissa drew up at the side of the road, stopped the car, and squarely
faced him.  "My poor lamb----" she began.

"Listen, Melissa," her father broke in, "I've been down there and it's
a marvellous old place, a real, old, honest-to-goodness castle straight
out of the picture books, standing up there on the banks of the
Dniester.  Generations of our family have lived there, and after them
Turks, and Tartars, and Russians, and the Lord knows who else, as they
came raiding across the river.  The Turks were there for ages and would
you believe it? they built a mosque, the cutest little mosque, and it's
still there, right in the courtyard."

His daughter shook her head.  "I had a sort of feeling I shouldn't have
let you go to Europe alone.  It's the devil the mischief you get into
when I'm not with you.  There was that deer forest on top of some
godforsaken Highland mountain you'd have bought if I hadn't stopped you
and that tumbledown castle in Wales that that phoney Lord
What's-his-name tried to stick you with.  The trouble about you, Steve
Selmar, is that you've never grown up.  You've a fairy tale complex or
something."

He laughed rather shamefacedly.  "Well, maybe, I have.  But this is
different.  When I stood on the very battlements where the great
Stephen cel Mare himself must have stood--you know, you can look out
across the river straight into the Ukraine and see the Soviet sentries
pacing the farther bank----"

"But that's Russia!" she cried aghast.  "And you propose to spend the
winter there?  My dear man, we shall freeze to death!"

His enthusiasm was undiminished.  "There'll be snow, of course, and the
Dniester's ice-bound pretty early.  But by the time I've made the place
over a little, we'll be as snug as two bugs in a rug."

"Are you trying to tell me that you actually think of restoring this
old ruin?"

He coloured up.  "Not restore exactly, honey, just fixing up one of the
towers so's we can live there, and putting in a bathroom or two and
some central heating.  And the roof of the great hall wants patching.
But don't worry, I've a first-class man attending to everything..."

A little spot of red appeared in her cheeks.  "You must be out of your
mind if you think I've the slightest intention of spending the winter
with you in this old dump!  I'm only sorry you went ahead and started
wasting money on the place without consulting me..."

He patted her hand.  "Now don't get mad at the old man, sweetheart.
It's not as though I were going to spend a lot of money on the place,
just enough so's we'll be able to stay there from time to time and
maybe entertain a few friends for the shooting--you know, I can afford
it.  Besides, it's going to give me something to do--gosh, if you knew
how bored I get, now that I'm out of the business.  After all, this is
our ancestral chteau, the--er--cradle of our race----"

"A cradle," she broke in crisply, "is what, to judge by the way they
behave, some people require!"

But he ignored the sally.  "Baron de Bahl, who's taken charge of the
work, has entered right into the spirit of the thing.  He's a grand
person, one of the most interesting fellows I've ever met.  He's at
Monte Carlo now.  You'll like him, honey.  We've been running round,
buying furniture and stuff together.  He's a marvellous judge of
furniture.  He has a big antique business at Geneva--I met him there on
my tour this summer."

She shook her head firmly and slipped into gear.  "I guess it's your
money, Steve, and you're entitled to spend it as you like--the Lord
knows, you worked hard enough for it," she said as they moved forward
again.  "But I think your plan's plumb crazy.  I won't say it mightn't
be fun to spend a few weeks at this place in summer.  But in winter!
Why, you admit yourself the country's snow-bound!  Don't you realise
you've let this furniture-dealing Baron of yours talk you into this
goofy scheme?  Go ahead and make the castle livable in if you want to:
but let you and me live like civilised beings at Monte or Cannes or
somewhere for the winter and maybe the castle will be ready for us to
take a trip down there in the spring."

"De Bahl didn't talk me into anything.  If we're going down there this
winter, it's for a reason."

"What reason?"

His manner had grown faintly mysterious.  "Well, he made me swear not
to breathe a word to anyone, not even you.  You see, he said it's
essential the Government shouldn't hear about it.  He says that nobody
dreams of going to this remote corner of Bessarabia in winter--there'll
be very little likelihood of our being disturbed.  It seems there are
all kinds of stringent laws about treasure trove, and if the local
authorities should get a sniff of it----"  He broke off, dismayed.
"Oh, my gosh, now I've let it out."

She said witheringly, "Are you trying to tell me we're going to look
for treasure in this castle of yours?"

"Honey, it's serious!"

"Serious, my foot!  It's like a comic strip.  Steve, you're nothing but
a kid.  It's pathetic!"

He shook his head stubbornly.  "I haven't spent my life in one of the
most competitive rackets in America to fall for the old gold brick
swindle--you ought to know me better than that, Melissa.  I have the
actual documents."

"What documents?"

"An old parchment in Turkish left by the Pasha who buried the treasure
somewhere in the little mosque at the castle I told you about and a
letter referring to the same story written by the castle bailiff to
Prince Balthasar Celmar, one of our ancestors who owned Castle Orghina
in the eighteenth century...."  Stephen was getting into his stride.
"You know, the history of Bessarabia, where this castle of ours is
located, is pretty complicated.  If I have it right, for centuries the
country was divided up between the Moldavians, the rightful owners, and
the Russians and the Turks, who were always fighting about it.  There
was a Turkish garrison at Castle Orghina for years; but in 1788--I
think that's the date--when Russia and Austria were at war with Turkey,
the garrison was driven out and the Pasha in charge, lighting out in a
hurry, had to dump his money and jewels.  But being a careful guy he
had his orderly-room clerk or someone make a note of the fact on this
sheepskin--I suppose to put him right with the Sultan--though he
omitted to mention the exact hiding-place.  Then Orghina returned to
the possession of the Celmars for a bit, and it was during this time
that the bailiff, a Jew called Moses Aaron--it seems that most of the
big landowners had Jews to collect their rents for them--wrote this
letter, telling the Prince about finding the sheepskin with the story
of the treasure, and asking permission to dig for it.  Apparently,
before they did anything about it, the Russians overran the country
again, the castle was once more lost to the Celmars, and, well, the
story about the treasure seems to have been forgotten.  It was de Bahl,
digging into the history of the old place, who came across these two
documents among the family papers of old Countess Boreanu, who left me
the castle."

"It was your friend the furniture Baron who produced the documents,
then?  My poor Steve, don't you realise----?"

"I know what you're going to say.  But you're wrong.  As a matter of
fact, de Bahl makes light of the whole thing.  I ran across him quite
by chance in Bucharest when I was there to look the castle over and he
agreed to go down to Orghina with me--I thought it was darn decent of
him.  He had a friend of his along, fellow called Guido Miklas, who's a
very clever architect--as a matter of fact, it's Miklas who's drawing
the plans.  He's down at Orghina now supervising the work."

She shrugged a disdainful shoulder.  "Oh, Steve," she cried in
exasperation, "don't you see, all they wanted was to get you to
commission you to restore the place?"

"Honey, you're wrong.  It was I who started it.  Just for a rag I asked
them what it'd cost to fix the place up so's a fellow could live in it
and, well, you know the way one thing leads to another--we got talking
about Stephen cel Mare and all the rest of it and when we were back in
Bucharest, de Bahl started to dig into the history of the Castle and
discovered these documents."

"Of course," she broke in with delicate sarcasm, "I was forgetting that
you read Turkish fluently.  Not to mention Yiddish, or whatever
language this Jewish bailiff of yours wrote his letter in."

He chuckled.  "Aaron's letter's in Rumanian.  I'm not such a sap as you
think me, sweetness.  I insisted on getting my own translators to work
on the documents.  Of course, this restoration job means business for
our friend, the Baron; but he's not much impressed with this treasure
story, really, and at first, he was dead against my going down there
this winter, and especially against my taking you.  I got him to admit,
however, that, if we're seriously going after the Pasha's horde, the
winter's the best time, when there's no one much about.  His suggestion
was that he and Miklas should start restoring the place and at the same
time fossick round in the mosque and if they found anything, send for
us.  But once I heard about the treasure, there was no holding me--if
there was going to be a treasure hunt I was going to be in it from the
start.  And I knew you'd feel the same about it.  Why, darling, we'll
have rafts of fun--it's like an adventure story!"

They were rolling up the long slope leading to the Square in front of
the Casino.  Melissa turned her head to smile at her father.  "Dear old
Steve," she said.  "I love your enthusiasm.  It's so American.  It all
sounds perfectly crazy to me; but it might be fun."

He clamped his hand down on hers as she grasped the wheel.  "Then
you're on?"

She laughed and shook her head.  "Wait till I've had a peek at this
Baron of yours!"




CHAPTER VIII

MELISSA MEETS THE BARON

Melissa could not help admitting to herself that Stephen had been right
about the Baron.  He interested her profoundly.  Ever since she was
twelve, after her mother's death, she had usually accompanied Stephen
on his business trips to Europe.  Englishmen, and Frenchmen, and
Germans she knew; but the Baron de Bahl was a new kind of European in
her experience.

Even at a cosmopolitan centre such as Monte Carlo he struck a bizarre
note, with his top-knot of snow-white hair combed back in a high
pompadour contrasting with his jutting, jet-black eyebrows.  There was
something vaguely Oriental about the faint brownness of his skin, the
high-ridged nose and rather prominent cheek bones, the dark lustre of
his eyes.  The eyes were remarkable, almond-shaped and mostly
half-veiled by lashes as long as a girl's.  The pupils were curiously
dilated: it lent his gaze a certain compelling power which, Melissa
felt, had something of the hypnotic about it.  She fancied he must have
been very good-looking as a young man, though in a lush, Oriental way.
In his fifties now his muscles had sagged and his nondescript suits,
usually of black or grey, hung loosely on a form that, once well-knit,
had become bloated and flabby.  It was quite evident that the Baron
cared as little about his dress as about his figure, and Melissa
discovered, rather to her surprise, that she scarcely noticed his
clothes.

That was because the personal charm he exuded had the effect of banning
all other considerations.  It was not hard to see how he had captivated
Stephen, whose simple, rather volatile nature always responded to a
frank approach.  He had an irresistible manner.  He was an
autocrat--you could tell that by the way he ordered the hotel servants
around--but behind his somewhat lordly air was not condescension but
rather the bland assumption that all men were his friends and eager to
serve him.  His air was indolent, sleepy, even, and his husky voice was
never raised above a level, velvety tone; but these externals only
stressed the more strongly the unflagging vitality of his mind, a
reserve of strength, physical as well as mental, so much in excess of
the ordinary that he seemed able to impose his will upon everybody with
whom he came in contact.

He was highly cultured.  There was a faintly foreign tang about his
English which was otherwise flawless and marked by an exquisite choice
of words.  French was his native tongue inasmuch as he had been born in
Tunis; but he appeared to have no difficulty in passing from French or
English to Italian or German or even Arabic, which he spoke with his
servant, a chocolate-hued Tunisian called Ali, gorgeously arrayed in a
gold-braided monkey jacket and sky-blue, flowing trousers.  He was
installed in a flat down by the Summer Casino, but made the big lounge
of the Selmars' hotel his headquarters.  All day long he was to be seen
there, at a buhl table facing the reception desk, his big body oozing
over the arms of his high-backed chair, one of the giant cigarettes he
favoured between his fingers and a mounting pile of stubs in the
ash-tray at his elbow, drinking innumerable cups of coffee prepared by
Ali while he pored over blue prints, and drawings, and photographs that
littered the table.  Stephen had daily discussions with him over the
plans for the restoration of Castle Orghina; but he had to go to him in
the hotel lobby.  "He'd be much more comfortable upstairs in the
suite," Selmar confided to his daughter.  "But he insists on sitting in
all that racket in the hall.  He says he likes the sensation of
movement about him--it gives him inspiration."

At the Castle workmen were already busy carrying out the essential
outdoor repairs before the first snows came down--he hoped that the
Green Turret, where, it seemed, they were to be lodged, would be ready
to receive them early in December, the Baron told Stephen.  Meanwhile,
plumbing had been ordered from England, girders, cement and tools from
Czechoslovakia, furniture from Paris, Geneva and Bucharest.  It seemed
to Melissa that Stephen must be spending a great deal of money and
wondered whether he seriously counted on recouping himself out of the
more or less problematical Pasha's treasure.  Stephen, however, in
daily conference with de Bahl over ways and means, was radiant.
Melissa had an indulgent smile for his enthusiasm.  Whether it was a
business or the fallen walls of a medieval stronghold, Steve loved to
be building something.


The winter season was not yet under way and Monte Carlo was quiet.
Stephen was rather apologetic to Melissa about it.  "Dave Harness and
Leila from Detroit and the Marchmont Buchanans from New York are at
Cannes, I believe," he informed his daughter, "but I've been so darn
busy with de Bahl I haven't found time yet to go over and look them up.
Actually, I don't know a human being here at Monte except de Bahl and
the bank manager, unless it's old Ardza, you know, the chap they call
the 'armaments king.'"

"The man who's supposed to have a finger in all the wars, is it?  The
one they made all the fuss about in the Senate Committee?"

"That's the guy.  I showed him round our works once and we met once or
twice later in New York.  A quaint old buzzard and as rich as they
come."

"Out of slaughtering millions of people!  I must say, Steve, you have
some darn odd friends!"

He laughed.  "Well, it takes all sorts to make a world.  We're not
likely to be troubled with old Ardza, even though he lives right here
in this hotel.  It appears he's over seventy and very rarely goes out
any more.  At least, so his secretary told me.  He's a Russian called
Volkoff who was out in the States with him--I met him in the elevator
one day.  De Bahl knows him."

"Well, don't go introducing me to the old vulture," said his daughter.

For the first week of Melissa's stay it was wet.  She found much
entertainment in the Baron's company.  He rarely quitted his post in
the lounge until dinner-time when he hauled his ungainly body to its
feet and departed homeward, clutching his large portfolio.  He ate no
lunch and protested that he never dined out, although he relaxed his
rule to the extent of sharing an occasional meal with them and of
dining once or twice with his friend, Volkoff, in the great Ardza's
suite.

Most days Melissa and her father took their coffee with him after lunch
at his table in the lobby.  Sometimes, when it was too wet to go out,
she would spend the whole afternoon there while Stephen was away,
hunting up antique furniture or tapestries at Nice or Grasse, and de
Bahl would hold forth to her while he worked--however occupied he
seemed to be, he always had time for a chat.  He suffered from a
smoker's cough, a little rasping hack from the back of the throat: he
had a trick, when pausing for a word in his fluent and graphic English,
of giving this little cough, flashing his dark eyes at her.  She came
to identify him with his cough: when she came down in the elevator in
the morning and heard it, she knew he had arrived and was in his
accustomed place.

The man was a fascinating talker.  His mind was stocked with knowledge
and ranged far beyond the prosperous antique business he conducted at
Geneva.  He told her wild, strange stories of blood, and lust, and
slaughter, about the old Beys of Tunis and the Barbary pirates, the
Turkish sultans and the fantastic life of the seraglios.

In his husky voice, punctuated by his little, hesitating cough, he
described to her the remote corner of Europe for which they were
bound--Bessarabia, cradle of modern Rumania, ancient and war-scarred,
torn away from its original Moldavian possessors by Hungarians, Poles,
Turks, Tartars and finally, Russians, in turn, before coming back to
the arms of Mother Rumania after the collapse of Russia in the war, its
soft Latin tongue and Christian faith still intact.

He showed her photographs of Bessarabian scenes, but the most glowing
pictures of the country were those which fell from his eager lips.  He
made her see the deep, swift Dniester rushing between high banks, from
which hoary strongholds like Castle Orghina looked down, the wide
steppe and gaunt wooden windmills, the bright, clean villages, few and
far between, buried in cherry orchards, with the bulbous domes of the
little Orthodox churches stabbing with their spires the sky above the
endless plain; he brought to her nostrils the tang of dung fires, the
scent of the rich, dark earth turned over by the patient water buffalo
trudging before the plough.  He conjured up a vision of the Castle,
rearing its lofty mass from the river brink, lone outpost of
Christendom against the barbarian across the stream, the desolate
splendour of its ruined great hall, the exotic charm of its little
mosque.

"This country," he told her one afternoon of rain when Stephen was
upstairs writing letters and they sat alone together, "is like one of
those old parchments to be found in monasteries, with one set of
writing effacing that below--what we antiquarians call a palimpsest.  A
succession of civilisations have left their mark upon it.  Thus, for
years your illustrious ancestor held back the infidel flood.  But when
he died at the end of the fifteenth century--you must visit his tomb at
Suczava, the old Moldavian capital--the Turk came swarming in.  For
centuries these old Sultans in their palaces on the Bosphorus were
lords of Bessarabia, though the Tartars from across the river made many
raids against their garrisons.  After that the country was the
battlefield of countless wars right up to Napoleonic times, when the
Russians drove out the Turks and seized Bessarabia for themselves.  The
rule of the Muscovites was worse than that of the Turks.  The soldiers
stripped the peasants of everything and when the people complained to
the General he made the historic reply, "You still have your eyes to
weep with."

"The horrible brute!" Melissa exclaimed.

The Baron hoisted his vast shoulders.  "I think he spoke no more than
the truth.  Your General Sherman said to his soldiers as I have read,
'War is nothing but hell, boys!' and he knew.  This General Kutusoff
must have been a good soldier--I should like to have met him."

"I'd run a mile from a monster like that," declared the girl
indignantly.  "Those poor people!  What a savage!"

De Bahl paused to jot down a figure from a paper he was scrutinising.
"A man of the Kutusoff type was probably no new experience for the
Bessarabians," he observed philosophically.  "All through history we
find them being knouted and tortured and hanged and plundered by one
set of invaders after the other.  Even to-day the land has a strange,
sad air, especially in such far-away parts as Orghina, where your
castle is situated.  When you stand on the battlements and look across
the river at Russia, opposite, you forget that Bucharest, so noisy and
modern, is only a night away by train from Kishineff, the capital.
Since Bessarabia was reunited to Rumania Kishineff--Chisinau, as they
now call it--is a fine, growing place; but it is three hours by
carriage from Orghina, so bad are the roads they still have in this
part of Bessarabia.  We find it more convenient to use the station on
the branch railway, 30 kilometres from Orghina--an hour and a half by
carriage: quicker by sleigh."

"It sounds pretty remote," the girl observed rather dubiously.

"It _is_ remote.  But, good gracious, as your father says, nowadays,
when every year the world grows smaller, isolation, privacy, is a
luxury which only the truly wealthy can afford.  When he first told me
he would like to restore the Castle, I thought he was crazy.  But in
reality what he says is good sense.  To-day you may buy an estate in
England, a chteau in France, and yet find no peace, with the road at
your gates full of automobiles and noise and tourists.  But at Orghina
there are no automobiles, no tourists, hardly any roads, even.
Civilisation has stood still: a little effort of the imagination and
you are back in the days of your famous ancestor defending the country
in his fortress against Russian and Turk.  It will be a new experience
for you, I promise.  You will not have your American luxury, but you
will not be too uncomfortable.  You are young, Miss Melissa, you are
American, that is to say, you have a great capacity for enthusiasm.
Take with you to Castle Orghina your American spirit of adventure and
maybe"--he screwed up his eyes and coughed--"you shall not be
disappointed--I cannot say more for the present."

She knew what he meant, of course.  Stephen had shown her the documents
referring to the Pasha's treasure, which he kept in a steel box--the
original record on its yellowing parchment, a few lines of closely
written Turkish script, and the bailiff's letter, a long effusion in
Rumanian couched in a spidery hand.  Beyond the fact that the Turkish
document spoke of the treasure being interred in the mosque, neither
manuscript threw any nearer light on the hiding-place of the treasure,
her father assured her.  By the way de Bahl looked at her, she knew he
guessed that Stephen had told her about the treasure.  On the instant
she made up her mind to have it out with him.  "I think I should tell
you," she said, "that my father and I have no secrets from one another."

For a moment his eyes searched her face uncomfortably.  Then he nodded
understandingly.  "Am I right in thinking that your worthy parent might
be a trifle indiscreet at times?  I shall rely on you to restrain him."
He rasped his little cough.  "You must remember that the Rumanian
Government is jealous of its rights and that the old Turkish tradition
of baksheesh is still strong, down where we go.  The slightest whisper
of hidden gold and we shall have a horde of petty officials descending
upon us, ravenous for pickings.  In principle, the Bessarabian frontier
is strongly held.  But the region about the Castle is so remote and so
sparsely populated that a handful of frontier guards can do all the
policing that's required, especially as there's absolutely no
communication between the two sides of the Dniester--for one thing,
because, what with rocks and rapids the river is unnavigable and for
another, the Russian guards open fire on anybody trying to cross.  When
I was at the Castle with your father I made a point of becoming
acquainted with the head of the local gendarmerie, a comfortable old
gentleman who asks nothing better than to be left in peace, especially
as his headquarters are five or six miles, over a fearful road, from
the Castle.  He believes your father to be an eccentric archologist
who does not wish to be disturbed, and I encouraged him and his men to
act in accordance with this belief by leaving with him a contribution
to local charities, which I have an idea may be applied on the
principle that charity begins at home."  He chuckled and his eyes
twinkled.  "As long as we keep our mouths shut, therefore," he
concluded, "we are not likely to be interfered with.  So, Miss Melissa,
discretion, I beg."

She nodded.  "I can answer for my father, I guess.  But what about the
workmen?  Won't they go spreading the news around?"

"It is a difficulty we have to consider.  Already we have trouble to
find the necessary skilled labour to work on the Castle.  We shall have
Rumanians, Ukrainians, Ruthenians--a veritable _macdoine_ of different
languages, different nationalities--my architect, Mr. Miklas, who is in
charge in my absence, is at his wits' end to obtain trustworthy
assistants speaking these languages to help him out.  As to the other
matter, we shall include in our working force a certain number of
picked men who will do the digging when the time arrives, men on whom
we can depend not to talk.  When the restoration work is finished, the
other men can go; but these we will keep."

"Then you really think there's something in this treasure story?"

He laughed and cocked his head.  "To hear your father talk, you'd think
that all the gold of the Orient was buried in the mosque, waiting to be
turned up by our spades.  Remember, my dear, that there was a Russian
garrison at Orghina for more than a hundred years--who knows but that
the treasure wasn't found years ago?"  He patted her hand.  "Let's
treat it as a little gamble, hein?  Then no one will be disappointed
and we shall all pass a pleasant winter together."

She laughed happily.  She liked his point of view.  Clearly, in his
eyes, the whole thing was no more than a novel and amusing experience.
Her misgivings evaporated.  The Castle loomed up as a large and
exciting question mark on the horizon and for the first time she found
herself looking forward to their stay at Orghina.




CHAPTER IX

A KING IS DEAD

After a solid week of rain, cold winds and grey skies, the sun had come
back to Monte Carlo.  Melissa awoke to just such another morning as
that on which she had landed from America.  The sun's rays were warm on
her face as she stood on the balcony in her dressing gown, breathing in
the balmy air and delighting in the peerless blue of sea and sky laid
behind the wedding-cake whiteness of the Casino.  Stephen was in Paris,
seeing about some panelling he had heard of that he thought they might
use at the castle.  He was flying back that morning and would be in the
hotel by lunch time.  Seeing that the weather was so fine, Melissa
telephoned down to the porter and ordered her father's car, the
cherished Selmar Eight, to be brought round.  She realised she would
require some sports clothes for the Bessarabian trip; she thought she
would have time to run over to Nice and back before lunch and see what
she could find there.

It was about 10 o'clock when she went downstairs.  As she passed
through the hall she was vaguely aware that the hall was unusually
crowded.  She looked for the Baron, but he was not in his accustomed
place.  Outside the hotel Stephen's convertible, a-glitter with
chromium and black cellulose, was at the kerb, parked in a long line of
cars.  She was backing out when an enormous roadster shooting up behind
her caught her rear wing a glancing blow.  She stopped, jumped out and
ran back to find the right rear mudguard badly scraped.

The car that had struck her was a powerful-looking Isotta, splashed
screen-high with white mud, which was just drawing up at the steps of
the hotel.  A man in a heavy ulster came scrambling out, followed by
three others, each bearing a large portfolio.  With a resolute air
Melissa stepped in front of them.  "Are you the owner of this car?" she
asked the man in the ulster.  "Spik to my chauffeur, yess?" he replied
and, unceremoniously elbowing her aside, dodged into the hotel, his
three companions at his heels.  Melissa was about to dash after them in
pursuit when a voice, an English voice, drawled in her ear, "Sorry.
But why not try looking round the next time you start to back?"

She swung about in a fury.  A young man in a close-fitting black bret,
a bright green scarf wound about his neck partially concealing his grey
pullover, was craning round the screen of the Isotta.  He looked like a
tramp, his face spattered with mud and darkened with several days'
growth of beard.  She glared at him.  "I did look round," she said
icily.  "How was I to know that you'd come swooping up behind me like a
maniac?  Hasn't that car of yours a horn?"

He grinned at her imperturbably through his grime.  "Sure, it has a
horn.  But it went flat on me coming through Vence, and my singularly
objectionable employer was in such a hurry he wouldn't let me stop to
have it fixed."  He peered backward to where her car stood, projecting
from the line.  "I scraped you a bit, I see.  I expect it was as much
my fault as yours."

"Pardon me, I was not in the least to blame."

He yawned.  "I daresay you're right.  Excuse me!  I'm not fit to drive
another yard really; I'm all in.  We've come all the way from Trieste
in one jump in every sort of weather.  What's the date?"

"November the 18th."

"Thursday, is it?"

"It's Friday."

He counted on his fingers.  "That's right."  He glanced at her car
again.  "Well, it might have been worse.  A lick of paint'll put that
wing right again.  It's a Selmar, isn't it?"

"It is.  And it's brand new."

He wiped a piece of mud out of his eye.  "Nice line.  Is it any good?"

She stiffened.  "The Selmar has always been the best medium-price car
on the market.  This particular model is not out yet."

He nodded.  "Demonstrating, are you?  I know--I once sold cars myself.
Do Selmars still have that lousy clutch?"

She coloured angrily.  "The Selmar never had a bad clutch at any time."

He laughed.  "All right, all right.  You can't sell me one; you don't
have to give me that salesman stuff."

"It's not salesman stuff.  And if you want to know I'm not
demonstrating, either.  My father happens to be chairman of the Selmar
Corporation.  What he's going to say when he discovers that some
lunatic's been and chipped all the paint off his rear wing, you can
figure out for yourself!"

With an anguished air the young man closed his eyes.  "Oh, dear!" he
sighed.  "Both trotters in the mash-tub!"  He gave her a contrite look.
"I'm sorry--I should have known."

She passed over this rather enigmatic remark.  "And now if you'll be
good enough to give me your employer's name and address."

"It's Grenander," he answered soberly.  "I believe we're going to stop
at a villa, but where I don't know yet.  He'll tell us when he comes
out."  His eyes, very grey and limpid behind his patina of mud,
implored her.  "Do you think you could raise me a cup of very hot, very
black coffee?  I'm falling asleep in my tracks and goodness knows when
I shall see my little bed again."

With a weary air he flung himself back in the driving seat and
proceeded to wipe his face with an exceedingly grubby handkerchief.
"This bloke of mine's a regular slave-driver," he remarked
philosophically.  "He keeps me sitting around with the bus for hours,
but if I'm not ready to shoot off the instant he appears there's the
devil to pay.  You could send a waiter out here, couldn't you?  I hate
asking you, but honest, it's as much as my place is worth to leave the
car.  I picked up this Grenander person at Trieste and he hired me to
chauffeur him and his friends.  I don't mind telling you the job was a
godsend to me at that particular time--it still is, as a matter of
fact--and I don't want to lose it.  Since he took me on three weeks ago
I've driven him and his pals half across Europe--Jugo-Slavia, Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, goodness knows where we haven't been.  He's a jumpy
packet of fun, is our friend Grenander, and if he hadn't been in too
much of a hurry to notice I bumped you, he'd have sacked me as sure as
eggs is eggs.  But if I don't get something to keep me awake I'll crash
into something else as sure as God made little apples, and next time it
mayn't be so harmless.  You know, I don't like the look in the eye of
the gendarmes in this town.  Oh, my hat, here's one of 'em now!"

A Monte Carlo policeman in a sky-blue uniform festooned with
aiguillettes, enormous moustaches sprouting from under his white
helmet, bore down upon them.  "_Dfense de s'arrter!_" he screamed,
"_Mettez-vous en ligne, nom d'un chien!  Allons!_"

The young man gave the girl a comic look.  "It's war," he murmured.
"They've mobilised the army on us.  _C'est bien, c'est bien, sergot_,"
he observed in accentless French to the gendarme.  "_On y va!_"  He
parked the Isotta beside the kerb under the fiercely rolling eye of the
law, touched his hat to the policeman in a flowery salute and stiffly
hauled himself out of the driving seat.  Seeing that the gendarme
remained there, glaring at him, and that the girl had disappeared, he
jumped into her car and ranged it behind his, on which the agent, with
a parting comminatory glance, went on his way.

The young man doffed his bret, disclosing a tangle of fair hair, and
was lounging against the railings when the girl came back, bearing a
cup covered by a plate on which reposed a couple of sandwiches.  "Well,
well, well," he said, taking the cup from her, "if that isn't real
friendly?  You're an absolute brick!"

Melissa scrutinised him discreetly as he ate and drank.  He was rather
an ugly young man, tall and broad-shouldered, with a snub nose barred
by freckles and a wide mouth, by his accent obviously British.  In his
rumpled grey flannels and a blue shirt that was far from clean, with
his unshaven face deeply burnt under its grime, he made a singularly
unprepossessing impression.  But for all that he looked and spoke like
an educated person.  And he had nice eyes, grey in the shadow, blue
when the light was on them, steady, unconcerned eyes, lit by the
merriest twinkle.  They twinkled at her now as he lifted his cup to her
and said, "To my life-saver!  And may I do as much for you some other
time!"

In order not to embarrass him while he ate his sandwiches and drank his
coffee, she turned away to her car, found a packet of cigarettes in the
recess under the instrument board, lit one, and handed him the packet.
Putting the cup and plate down on the stone ledge of the hotel
railings, "You know," he remarked casually, as he pulled out a
cigarette, "if I had such a lovely name as Melissa, I wouldn't stifle
it with a mere initial--I'd wear it in full all over my chest!"

Her eyes followed his downward to the front of her jumper with its
small "M" embroidered over the heart.  She laughed.  "How did you know
the 'M' stands for Melissa?" she asked.

He flushed a little.  "I saw a picture of you once..."

"Where?"

"I don't remember.  In a newspaper or somewhere.  My name's Boulton.
My Christian name's so utterly leprous that I try and forget it, but my
friends call me 'Don'!"

She smiled at his anguished expression.  "Let's hear this first name of
yours!"

He gave her a look of comic resignation.  "It's Alfred--isn't it too
ghastly?  The full name goes 'Alfred Donnington Montgomery Clinton
Boulton.'  Can you imagine any parents being so revoltingly inhuman as
to weigh down a poor defenceless babe with a load of names like that at
the font?  It's a wonder I wasn't sunk without trace."

At that she laughed outright: she found the young man amusing.  He
said: "I've never met anybody called 'Melissa' before.  It's a lovely,
liquid name, like--like milk and honey.  Would you mind terribly if I
called you 'Melissa' just once, to see what it sounds like?"

She laughed again.  She had china blue eyes that danced when she
laughed.  "Please yourself," she said.  "It's a free country."

He took her hand solemnly.  "Then here goes!" He declaimed:

  "'O, woman in our hour of ease.
  Uncertain, coy and hard to please,
  When pain and anguish wring the brow
  You bring us food and drink.  And how!'"

"In other words," he wound up, "thanks for the coffee and the kind
words, Melissa!"

As he betrayed no willingness to release her hand, she withdrew it
firmly.  She was suddenly aware of the intimacy that had sprung up, as
it were unbidden, between her and this surprising, shabby young man.
She liked his easy air, the pleasing timbre of his voice, his firm
hand-clasp, his unexpected mind, and realised that she was parting from
him with regret.  "Now, of course, he's going to spoil everything," she
reflected.  "He's going to ask me when he can see me again, and serve
me damned well right for letting him pick me up."

"I must be going now, if I'm to get over to Nice and back before
lunch," she told him, and cursed herself inwardly for feeling
self-conscious.

He walked with her to her car.  "I'm sorry about that wing," he told
her.  "If I were you I'd get your garage to fix it and have them send
the bill in to one Baron de Bahl at the hotel here.  He's a friend of
my respected employer: he'll be bound to know where the old devil is."

She nodded.  "We know the Baron, too.  But don't worry.  We'll stick my
father with that wing, and say nothing to your boss about it.  I should
hate to think of you losing your job."

He smiled at her out of his grubby face.  "Thanks.  Thanks for the
coffee, too.  In fact, thanks for everything.  Don't go running into
any more cars!" he added mischievously, as the self-starter whirred.

She smiled and fluttered her hand.  As she drove away, she was
conscious of a faint feeling of chagrin at the thought that he had made
no attempt to contrive another meeting.


On leaving the Isotta, Grenander, obese, short-necked, gold-spectacled,
led his three companions at a rapid amble through the rotating door
into the bustle of the hotel vestibule and straight up to the reception
desk where he buttonholed a clerk.  "Monsieur Ardza?" he said in
throaty French.

The clerk looked startled.  "Monsieur Ardza, monsieur?"

"That's right!" Grenander thrust a card at him.  "The name's
Grenander--Axel Grenander.  You can announce me and my friends.
Monsieur Ardza is expecting us."

In a helpless fashion the clerk gazed about him.  Then, lowering his
voice, he said: "I'm sorry, monsieur.  Monsieur Ardza is dead!"

"Dead?"

Aghast, Grenander stared at him, then whipped round to the two men who
accompanied him.  "The gentleman died last night," the clerk explained.

"Then announce us to Monsieur Volkoff," Grenander ordered in a stifled
voice.

The clerk spread his hands.  "I regret, monsieur, the suite has been
vacated.  The body was taken out before dawn this morning.  It has been
despatched to Bellaggio, to Monsieur Ardza's Italian property, where
the funeral is to take place.  Monsieur Volkoff accompanied it."

With an air of consternation, Grenander turned to his friends.  But
they had stepped back, and he found himself confronted by a large man,
loosely dressed with a shock of white hair.  He recoiled, his pudgy
face livid, his small eyes fearful.  "You?" he gasped in English.

The other clutched his arm--he had fingers of steel.  Smiling gently:
"You don't seem pleased to see me, Axel," he remarked in a fluty voice.

Grenander stood his ground.  "Ve came to Ardza--by abbointment," he
said in guttural English, his small eyes hostile.

De Bahl wheezed his little cough.  "Quite!  I was expecting you.  For
nearly three weeks already I have awaited your arrival."  He flashed a
glittering eye round the group.  "But Ardza is no more.  The arms king
is dead."  He smiled and dropped his voice to a purring whisper.
"Gentlemen, _le roi est mort.  Vive le roi!_"

The fat man scowled.  "Meaning what?"

"You came to submit a certain proposal to Ardza, and are remaining to
submit it to me.  Do I make myself clear?"

Grenander turned and consulted his companions with a glance.  He
grunted, but did not speak.  His air was very sullen.  De Bahl said:
"You and your friends will give me the pleasure of your company at
breakfast?  The restaurant will be deserted at this hour, and we shall
not be disturbed.  Come!"


Breakfast over, the host passed his big cigarettes around, lit one
himself and, inhaling deeply, said in his velvety tones: "I shall waste
no words, Axel.  Two months already you discuss this scheme without
making headway.  The idea is excellent--it's the execution that's
faulty.  I say nothing against your friends, Rypnik and Vassenko..."

The blood mounted in Grenander's florid cheeks.  "Vun day, mebbe, you
poke your nose vunce too often in other people's affairs, Alexis," he
growled.

De Bahl smiled composedly.  "Maybe.  But for the time being, my friend,
I am aware of your discussions at Trieste.  I likewise know that you've
been all round Europe, trying to get support for this project of yours.
You've tried Governments, you've tried industry, and neither will look
at it.  In the last resort you come to Ardza, as I felt sure you would.
Am I right?"

Grenander glowered at him.  "Ardza is dead.  So what?  I do without
him.  The plan is mine--if you t'ink you steal it, I say, No!"  And he
brought his fist down with a crash on the table.

The Baron was unmoved.  "Partnership is not stealing, Axel.  I have
elaborated a perfectly simple scheme for the successful execution of
your idea, and I'm prepared to take you and your friends in.  Indeed,
I'm relying on your help if, as I have reason to believe, you've taken
certain preliminary steps with a view to securing the--ah"--he cleared
his throat--"the necessary rank and file."

The other rolled a bloodshot eye round the table.  "By yimini now," he
growled, "I vunder who's been leaking to you!"

De Bahl laughed.  "I like to keep my ear to the ground--it's an old
habit of mine."  He shot a rapid glance round the circle of attentive
faces.  "Gentlemen, I need have no secrets from you.  This is my
plan..."

Lowering his voice to a purring whisper, he began to speak.




CHAPTER X

THE BARON PRESENTS HIS FRIENDS

It was past two by the time Melissa got back from Nice.  The hall
porter said her father had returned and had asked for her.  Upstairs,
outside their suite, there was a coming and going of waiters with
service trolleys, the loud murmur of voices from the _salon_.  She made
a little face.  There was company for luncheon, men by the sound of it.
She slipped into her bedroom next door to wash off the dust of the
Corniche road and put on some powder.

She was at her dressing-table, making up her lips, when in the mirror
she saw Stephen, napkin in hand, at the door communicating with the
sitting-room.  "Hullo, big boy," she said.  "Had a good trip?  How's
Paris?"  Through the half open door behind him the noise of voices, the
clatter of knives and forks, was loud.

He came over to where she sat and kissed the top of her head.  "All
right," he replied.  "But that panelling was a washout.  You're late.
Hurry up and come in.  De Bahl brought some men to lunch--they're going
to help us out down at the Castle."  She stood up, and they went into
the _salon_ together.  "Gentlemen, my daughter!" said Selmar.  "Baron,
will you present your friends?"

All the men at the table had sprung to their feet with alacrity.  There
were four of them, besides de Bahl, and in one she recognised the
rather porcine contours of the fat man in the Isotta, Don Boulton's
employer.  The four guests left their places and crowded about her,
bowing and kissing her hand in the foreign fashion as the Baron
introduced each in turn.--A nondescript lot was her thought, all except
a tall, rather elegant individual with a monocle and a lean,
aristocratic face marred by a long scar running from eye to chin.  He
made room for her at the vacant place at the table between him and a
little dark man rather elaborately dressed, with a big black pearl in
his tie and a white carnation in his buttonhole.

"I have a name not easy for English tongues, Miss Selmar," said the man
with the scar in very good English.  "It's von Wahlczek.  But as nobody
could pronounce it when I was up at Oxford, they called me Wally, as I
hope you will also, since we shall be spending the winter together."

Melissa laughed as she started on her grape-fruit.  "It certainly
sounds easier.  It's a German name, is it?"

"It's Czech.  But I'm a Hungarian subject, actually.  First, under the
Habsburgs, I was Austrian; then when Czecho-Slovakia was formed, I was
Czech.  But since I didn't approve of the way the Czechs treated their
minority subjects, I became Hungarian.  In other words, I'm a sort of
chameleon!"

"A thoroughbred mongrel," observed the dark man on Melissa's other
side, airily.

"Our friend, von Wahlczek," said de Bahl from the end of the table,
"speaks both Russian and Ukrainian.  He'll be very useful with the
Russian and Ukrainian workmen at Orghina.  Mr. Apostolou on Miss
Selmar's other side speaks Rumanian."

"You're Rumanian, are you?" Melissa asked, turning to her neighbour.

The latter shook his head.  "I spend many years in the country, but
actually I am Maltese.  I'm a British subject," he added, rather
defiantly.  His accent was rather foreign.  He had a slightly furtive
air.

"For reasons which, with your permission, Mr. Selmar, I have explained
to our friends," said the Baron, rolling his eyes meaningly round the
attentive faces at the table, "it is important that the Rumanian
authorities do not suspect we do anything except restoration work at
Orghina.  This is why, as I was about to tell you when Miss Melissa
came in, I have entrusted the transport of the building materials we
shall require to our good friend, Frangipani, here."  On this a
broad-shouldered, rather swarthy individual in the business garb of
black jacket and striped trousers, who sat beside him, bowed and smiled
with a flash of white teeth.  "Aldo Frangipani," de Bahl went on, "who
was in the Italian motor transport in the War, and now runs a trucking
business at Trieste, will be indispensable in organising the transport
of our materials from the railway over the bad roads when the winter
sets in: moreover, he will let us have half a dozen of his own Italian
lorry-drivers, picked men, whose discretion we may rely on.  It was
Grenander"--his glance drifted to the fat man--"who suggested this
plan, and I think it is a good one."

Grenander grunted.  "Sure, I t'ink it's good," he growled, "so long as
he gif us drifers who keep their heads shut."

Frangipani outlined a polite shrug.  "How shall it be otherwise, per
Bacco, when they do not speak Rumanian?" he observed urbanely.

This evoked a general laugh.  Under cover of it Melissa said to von
Wahlczek: "What exactly is Mr. Grenander going to do at the Castle?"

"Grenander?  He'll be in charge of the steel construction work," her
neighbour answered.  "He's an engineer."

"A German, is he?"

"Not on your life.  He's a Swede.  Or it might be a Finn--I don't quite
know."

Melissa laughed gaily.  "Well, I declare, it looks as though we should
have a regular Tower of Babel down there at Orghina.  Let's see!
There's my father and I, Americans, and de Bahl, a Swiss or something,
to start with; then there's you, a Czech----"

"Pardon, a Hungarian.  Or, if you will, a chameleon.  But not a Czech!"

She could not help laughing at him; he was so serious about it, staring
at her gravely with his glass in his eye.  "A Hungarian, if you like,"
she told him.  "Then there's Grenander, and this Maltese, and the
Italian who's going to manage the trucks.  Not to mention my father's
French valet and the Baron's Tunisian servant."

Von Wahlczek was polishing his eyeglass on his napkin.  "Well, it's a
mixed bag, I agree.  But it's a land of many nationalities, and, some
of these languages are not so easy to come by."  He dropped his voice.
"But don't worry: you'll not come much in contact with your friends.  I
believe de Bahl was good enough to suggest to your father that
Grenander and I should take our meals with you; but the others will
mess apart--they will be mostly with the men.  Grenander's a pretty
rough diamond; but I shall be there to keep him in order.  Do you think
you can put up with me as a table companion all through the winter?"

His eye sought hers ingratiatingly.  She found his scrutiny
embarrassing: to change the subject she said: "There's one nationality
in our Tower of Babel we've left out.  The Englishman!"

"The Englishman?"

"Grenander's chauffeur."

"So you know our young friend, Don?"  He broke off.  "_Ach!_ ... It
wasn't your car we hit this morning?"

She nodded.  "I'm surprised the poor young man was able to drive you at
all.  He was half dead with sleep.  I got him some coffee."

He tittered.  "_Ei, ei_, the good Samaritan!  Was your car much
damaged?"

"Nothing to speak of.  And there's no need to say anything about it to
Mr. Grenander or the young man might lose his job."

He shook his head.  "No fear.  He has to drive us down to Rumania."

"You're taking him to the Castle, then?"

"As far as Bucharest, anyway."

At the end of the table Grenander was holding forth.  "A foreman, a
boss of the gangs, ve must haf," he declared ponderously.  "But he must
be vun of us, foreign.  I know these people, all of dem at each other's
t'roats.  Ve put a Ukrainian, a Rumanian, in charge of the
gangs--plenty trobble."

"It seems to me it will have to be Herr von Wahlczek or Mr. Apostolou,"
Baron de Bahl suggested in his quiet way.

Grenander snorted derisively.  "Put a Czech over a bunch of
Ruthenians--you're crazy.  And Apostolou, they'll count him as a
Rumanian."  He grinned.  "Better, I t'ink, I find you someone."

"No time," de Bahl objected, shaking his white head.  "The winter's
coming on, and Miklas is already recruiting the labour.  You speak of
going down there to-night: well, I want you all to get busy on the job
as soon as you arrive.  You'll have to look around for a foreman when
you reach Orghina."

Melissa spoke up.  "How would an Englishman do?"

"An Englishman?" repeated Stephen.  "What Englishman?"

Von Wahlczek struck in.  "Mademoiselle is speaking of Don,
Grenander--the chauffeur who brought us here from Trieste," he
explained to Selmar.

"I was talking to him this morning," said Melissa.  "He struck me as
being a very wideawake young man."

Grenander seemed impressed.  "Veil, von qualification he has.  He's
bossed gangs before."

"You don't say?" Selmar exclaimed.

"Ja.  In the rubber plantations in Malay and Brazil, on engineering
vorks in the Sudan.  What you call a rolling stone, this yong man.  I
find him as the English say on his beam ends at Trieste, when my French
chauffeur got dronk and I sacked him.  Vorked his vay across from
Alexandria as a fireman, he told me."

The Baron interposed suavely but firmly.  "Just a minute.  This is a
responsible position.  Your young man sounds little better than a
tramp, a beach-comber."

"He's educated," Melissa struck in.  "He's what you'd call a
gentleman--at least, that's the way he impressed me.  And is he sure of
himself?  He doesn't care a hoot for anybody."

"That's right," von Wahlczek agreed.  "He's a little crazy like all the
English, but his nerve is first-class--you should have seen him
bringing that big Isotta of ours round some of the mountain curves.  As
for being a tramp, good gracious! the world to-day is full of
Englishmen of good family who can't get a job at home.  If all these
mixed nationalities we're going to employ can't have one of their own
sort over them for obvious reasons, I believe they'll work better under
an Englishman than anyone else.  And take it from me, they won't put
anything over on Boulton.  The young man is tough."

De Bahl drew on his cigarette, rasped in his throat, and carefully
flaked his ash into the saucer of his coffee cup.  "And the language
question?" he enquired gently.  "Have you thought of that?"

"He speaks Russian," said Apostolou.  "He told me so himself.
Ukrainian will not come so hard to him, I think."

Grenander guffawed.  "Rossyan, Oukrainian, what does it matter?  All
the foreign languages a gang boss vants, he has in the toe of his boot."

The Baron dropped his eyes.  Selmar was radiant.  "A first class
suggestion of yours, Melissa," he told his daughter.  "I'll see the
young man after lunch," he informed de Bahl, "and if he measures up to
specification, he gets the job!"  Melissa was watching de Bahl and it
seemed to her that a shadow crossed his face.  With a laugh Stephen
went on, "With all these different lingoes flying about down there,
it'll be a comfort to have at least one guy around who speaks the same
language as we do, won't it, Melissa?  You know," he added to be Bahl,
"he might come in useful, helping me with my letters and so on, as I
don't propose to take a secretary with me--Melissa says he's apparently
well-educated.  He'll be a sort of contact man for me.  Gosh, it's the
ideal solution, I'd say, and if the young man's willing to take the job
on, I guess we can regard the matter as settled."

Steve with a new idea always reminded Melissa of that moment at a rodeo
when the gate opens and the cowboy sails into the ring mounted on a
squealing, bucking bronco: he would cling to it as tenaciously, as
regardless of consequences, as the rodeo rider to his steed.  She saw
the Baron's face harden--it was evident he did not approve her
suggestion; but she knew her father better than de Bahl did and had no
doubt in her mind but that he would have his way.

The Baron said no more, but only lit another cigarette while Selmar,
always practical, began to question Grenander as to what wages the
young man would expect.  She was dimly aware that de Bahl appeared less
suave than usual in the marked foreign setting of the luncheon party,
not towards her father, but towards Grenander and the others--it struck
her that he barely troubled to conceal his contempt for the four of
them, singly and collectively.

It occurred to her that the fascinating Baron might be a bad man to
cross.




CHAPTER XI

"THE VOICE OF FATE"

Luncheon over, Melissa left the party to their _fines maison_ and
cigars over the contents of the Baron's big portfolio spread out over
the tablecloth, and strolled up, hatless as she was, through the
gardens to the garage to see about having the car repaired.  She was
conscious of a gratifying sense of accomplishment at having secured
young Boulton in his job, of no less pleasurable excitement, too, at
the thought that a reasonably presentable young man was going to share
their winter exile.  The strongly continental atmosphere of the
luncheon party had rather depressed her--the different brands of spoken
English, all, except von Wahlczek's, definitely exotic, the unfamiliar
types among the guests, were a little bewildering: she had suddenly
realised, with a sort of dread, the prospect of having Stephen as her
sole companion "speaking the same language," as he had put it, during
the long months that stood before.  Of course, the Boulton person
wasn't an American.  But he was the next best thing.  And he wouldn't
bore them: he had a quality of mind that she found definitely
refreshing.

At the garage, under the wide cool roof, she gave the necessary orders
about having the wing of the Selmar tapped out and repainted.  She was
turning to go when she saw, across the driveway, the grey Isotta
streaming with water and Boulton in gum boots spraying it from a hose.
She strolled over there.  He was in shirt open at the neck and
trousers, face and hands streaked with lubricant: there was even a
smear on a yellow hank of hair that drooped down over his forehead.
"Why is it," he demanded gravely as he looked up and recognised her,
"that you always see me at my filthiest?"--he did not desist from his
hosing.

She laughed and, sitting down on the running-board of an adjacent car,
fished out a cigarette from the packet in the pocket of her jumper.
"I'm an American," she said.  "In America we never mind seeing a man
doing an honest job of work."

The water hissed.  "Our idle rich don't mind it, either!" he answered
drily.

She flushed.  "That's not what I meant.  I meant..."

He turned round to her with a grin.  "Don't be so literal!  Can't you
see I was pulling your leg?"

"I don't find it amusing to be called one of the idle rich.  Especially
when I was only paying you a compliment.  I know lots of men who, when
they strike a bad patch, are quite content to sponge on their friends
instead of getting themselves a job."

At that he made chortling noises.  She said, "What's funny about that?"

"Nothing.  It was just something I thought of."  He stood back and
dashed the hair out of his eyes.  "Don't you think I'm a great
car-washer?"

"I don't think I should leave all that dust between the spokes if I
were you!"

"_Touch_!  My withers are unwrung!"  He directed the stream of water
at the wheel.  "Was your father a friend of Ardza's?" he said.

"Of Ardza?"

"The armaments king, the old guy who died at your hotel last night."

"Then that's what all the excitement in the lobby was about this
morning!  I didn't even know he was dead.  Of course, he was pretty
old, wasn't he?  Yes, my father knew him.  They met in America."

"Did your father see much of him here?"

"He didn't see him at all."

He turned and looked her in the eye.  "You're sure of this?"

"Of course, I'm sure.  My father has no use for a man who makes his
money stirring up wars and I haven't either.  As far as I know the old
man was shut up in his suite all the time we were here and nobody saw
him except Baron de Bahl."

He plied his hose once more.  "Ah!  So de Bahl was a friend of his!" he
said evenly.

"He's a friend of Volkoff, Ardza's secretary.  He used to dine up in
Ardza's suite sometimes.  Whether he was a friend of the old buzzard's,
I can't tell you."

He smiled.  "Buzzard--a bird of prey.  'Buzzard' is good.  I like
that."  He went on with his spraying.  She said, "What would you say to
a new job?"

The water gurgled.  "Who's giving me a new job?"

"My father."

With the detached air with which he seemed to do everything, he laid
the spurting hose on the ground and, going to a tap in the wall, shut
off the water.  Seating himself beside her on the running board, he
said, "You seem to spend your time doing me good turns, don't you?
It's terribly nice of you, but I can't leave old Grenander, however
objectionable as an employer, in the lurch."

"You don't have to.  He and his friends are going to spend the winter
with us in Bessarabia--that's part of Rumania, you know.  We've
inherited an old castle down there and Baron de Bahl is restoring it
for us."

"And your father seriously contemplates staying there all the winter?"

She reminded herself that she must not breathe a word about the
treasure.  "Part of the winter, at any rate," she answered.  "It
depends on how we like it."

He gazed at her bleakly.  "He must be out of his mind.  What on earth
put it into his head to think of such a thing?"

"Castle Orghina was originally built by one of our ancestors.  My
father's thrilled to the bone at the prospect of living there.  After
all, he's a rich man--he can afford to indulge his whims."

He nodded.  "Quite.  As your friend, the Baron no doubt appreciates.
Of course he talked him into this.  He's a furniture dealer, isn't he?"
He turned and glanced at her sharply.

"As a matter of fact, it's my father's own idea, entirely.  It was he
who first suggested restoring the place."

He grunted, sucking on an empty pipe.  "And Grenander and his friends,
you say, are going down there with you?"

"That's right.  Mr. Grenander's an engineer, as you probably know--he's
going to look after the steel work."

"And von Wahlczek and the other two--are they engineers as well?"

"No.  They're going to help out with the languages."  She explained
about the different languages in Bessarabia.  "They want someone to act
as foreman, someone to keep all these mixed nationalities among the men
in order.  So I suggested you.  Steve--my father--thinks it the whale
of a good idea, especially as you've bossed gangs before, Grenander
says.  They'll probably send for you this afternoon and offer you the
job so I thought I might as well put you wise."

He was silent for a long moment, staring in front of him, his hands
hanging down between his knees--he had well-shaped hands, she noticed.
Suddenly he sprang up, took a turn up and down the floor in his clumsy
boots, stopped in front of her.  "And you're going down with the party,
too?"

She nodded serenely.  "I am."  She flicked the ash from her cigarette.
"You don't have to take this job, you know."

He ignored her remark.  "Why should they drag you off down there?
Couldn't you get out of it?"

"Why should I?  It's a fascinating country, Baron de Bahl says, and the
Castle's a marvel."

He scowled.  "Bessarabia in winter's no place for anyone like you.
It's the end of the world as far as civilisation is concerned.  This
castle's probably a draughty old barrack and you'll freeze to death.
If your father's set on going, let him go.  But you, take my advice,
stick here on the Riviera and enjoy yourself in the sunshine or go back
to America, if you want--do anything you like, but give the Castle a
miss."

Her laugh was rather scornful.  "I'm not afraid of roughing it and, if
I were, I really don't see it has anything to do with you."

He nodded resignedly.  "Well," he observed with a whimsical air, "it
looks as though we were going to spend the winter together."

"Am I to infer then," she asked cuttingly, "that you'll take the job if
my father offers it?"

"I'll take it all right."  He paused, his eye on her.  "I'd have taken
it, anyway, but knowing that you're determined to be along makes a
difference."

She sighed impatiently.  "When you know me better, you'll realise I
hate compliments.  Especially cheap compliments."

"I'm not paying you a compliment," he replied very simply.  "I don't
have to tell you that you're a most attractive person, because you know
it already.  But you're impulsive, and eager, and, with it all,
terribly unsophisticated under that New York veneer of yours and you're
badly in need of someone to look after you."

She laughed.  "Thanks, but I'm quite capable of looking after myself."

He shook his head dubiously.  "In New York, London, Monte, perhaps.
But Bessarabia's a different pair of shoes.  You may be glad to have
Mrs. Boulton's little boy around before the winter's out."

He spoke jestingly, but there was no laughter in the level glance he
gave her.  She thought of de Bahl and his rather frightening air, of
Grenander, loud-voiced and vulgar, and of their ill-matched companions,
and it seemed to her that her spirits slipped a notch.  Then a man came
over from the garage office.  He bowed to Melissa.  "Pardon,
mademoiselle!"  To Boulton he said in French, "Your _patron_
telephoned.  You're to be at the hotel without the car at four o'clock."

The Englishman grinned at Melissa.  "The voice of Fate!" he murmured.
Then he went to the tap and turned on the water again.  "If I'm to be
cleaned up by four ready to see your father, you must let me finish
washing this blinking bus," he told her, picking up the hose again.




CHAPTER XII

CASTLE ORGHINA

Mink-wrapped against the biting cold, Melissa stood on the little
platform on which her turret chamber opened and gazed out across the
frostbound Dniester.  Below her the castle wall, red brick brownly
toned by age, with great stone blocks let in, dropped sheer to the icy
hummocks of the river bed.  To either side, beyond the line of
crenellated battlements high above her head, the flat whiteness of the
snow-covered steppe stretched to the low horizon, with hoary wooden
windmills, sails stripped and arms still, looming through the smother
of fine snow.

Across the river the cluster of pinnacles and gilded domes was Soviet
Russia.  In this remote frontier region it was a forbidden land, for
Soviet Russia (the Baron was her informant) was still rancorous at the
thought that, on the collapse of the old Tsarist Empire, Bessarabia had
escaped the Red embrace and returned to the bosom of Mother Rumania.
Here there was no communication between the opposing shores: the
Dniester was the barrier.  In the frosty air of the early afternoon the
sky had a greenish glow--against it the distant spires and cupolas of
the little town across the stream were laid as though cut out of
cardboard.

The setting, she told herself, was sheer Russian ballet--a design by
Bakst.  Her mind was still a little blurred by the swiftness of the
change from the glitter and luxury of Monte Carlo and Paris to the
stark picturesqueness of this forgotten corner of Europe.  Here the
blue skies and bluer seas, the chattering cocktail bars and gleaming
limousines, of the South of France, the warm, perfumed air of the Paris
dress _salons_, the moving chain of lights up and down the Champs
Elyses at night--she had stipulated for a week's shopping in Paris
before she and Steve caught the Orient Express--were as of another
world.  Bucharest, where they had taken the evening train for Chisinau,
the Bessarabian capital, was a fleeting news reel in her mind of
clanging trams, languorous mondaines and aggressively modern concrete
contrasting with peasants in sheepskins; Chisinau, where they had
transferred to a little local train, a glimpse of broad streets flanked
by mostly low and shabby shops, a great white cathedral.  They had
travelled straight through at the Baron's suggestion--"for an American
millionaire, even in Rumania, is news, Miss Melissa, and the less
attention we draw to ourselves just at present the better"--looking
backward from the balcony over the confused incidents of their journey
half across Europe it seemed to her that she had stepped straight out
of the twentieth-century as it seethes along the rue de la Paix into
the illustrations of some old Russian fairy-tale book, replete with
boyars in befurred robes, enchanted castles and shaggy serfs.

Behind her as she leaned on the coping stone of the balcony overhanging
the beetling wall above the river the castle rang to the clink of
hammer and trowel.  The snow had stopped work out of doors: the Baron
and his men were concentrating on the restoration of the Great Hall,
the self-same high-roofed chamber where Stephen cel Mare and his boyars
had feasted.  This, on the first floor, ran the whole length of one
side of the inner courtyard: below it, on the ground level, were the
Selmars' living-rooms--a sitting-room, dining-room and a nondescript
apartment which Steve used as an office.  These had been the
Commandant's quarters when the Castle was a Russian fortress--furnished
and redecorated, they were waiting for the Selmars on their arrival.

The Baron had travelled down ahead of them, while they were in Paris.
Their first impressions must be favourable, he insisted: he would not
have them arrive until he had personally assured himself as to their
comfort.  Boulton she had not seen again, for the motoring party had
set out forthwith: she gathered from Stephen, however, that he was not
unfavourably impressed with the young man and had agreed to give him a
trial.

She had fallen in love with the castle at her first glimpse of it from
the sleigh, with three horses abreast troika fashion, in which the
Baron had met them at the little local railway station.  After a long,
cold drive they saw it from afar across the gently undulating plain,
four-square and grim in the early winter dusk, the blankness of its
mighty walls rarely broken by arrow-slit or loophole, a vast pile of
reddish masonry crowning a low eminence above the river, with a tower
projecting from each corner.  They had their first view of it on
emerging from the village of Orghina, where the jangle of their sleigh
bells brought peasants in gaily embroidered shirts running to the doors
of their large thatched houses, each with its little verandah of carved
beams in vivid colours and farmyard and orchard enclosed in wicker
fences.  Thereafter, there were no houses or farms, but only the stark
fortress with its towers and battlements, between them and the mystery
land of the Soviets beyond the river.  Melissa found herself thinking
of it as their legendary ancestor built it, last bulwark of
Christianity against the pagan horde across the Dniester: her heart
leaped within her as, with a final spurt from the steaming horses, the
sleigh swept up a steep ramp to the main gate straddled by an
enormously solid tower.

Within, everything was on the heroic scale--the vast outer court with
the old Russian barracks along one side, where the workmen were now
housed, and across the way, accommodation for the Baron and his staff
in what had formerly been the officers' quarters: the smaller inner
yard, divided from the outer court by a massive iron gate and flanked
on the far side by towers which, jutting from either angle of the main
exterior wall, commanded the river up and down.  In the right-hand
tower (as you entered from the outer yard)--called, from its oxidized
copper roof, "The Green Turret"--Melissa and Stephen had their
bedrooms, tower chambers, high of ceiling and spacious, communicating
by means of a corkscrew stair leading from the vestibule below.

Melissa loved her bedroom.  Cheerful blue and white hangings on the
walls and blue and white Rumanian rugs on the floor hid the naked
stonework of the octagonal chamber and brightly painted peasant
furniture lightened the rather sombre effect of the two deep window
embrasures--one had a door leading out upon the little balcony.  A huge
white porcelain stove of the German type kept the apartment warm and
dry.  True, she and her father had to forego their private
bathrooms--they shared what had been the Russian officers' steam bath
on the ground floor, adapted to their use, with its vast wood-burning
furnace to heat the water.  But there was electric light furnished by
the plant supplying the whole castle--the patient chugging of the
Diesel engine was one of the accompanying sounds of life at Orghina:
what with the taste and comfort of their sleeping quarters, as well as
of the rest of the accommodation prepared for them, Melissa and her
father considered that the Baron had surpassed himself.

The tower forming the corresponding angle of the wall on the other
corner of the inner court was known as the Boyar Tower.  A gateway
under it gave access to the rough, precipitate track by which the
lorries with building materials reached the Castle--their loads were
temporarily stored on the ground floor of the tower or in the cellars
beneath.  The trucks, with caterpillar treads that made light of the
snow-covered roads, came at all hours--in the middle of the night
Melissa would wake to hear them clanking up the steep incline to the
Boyar Tower.

But it was the little mosque, guardian of the Pasha's secret, that
thrilled her most.  It stood facing you as you passed through the gates
between the outer and inner yards, a shabby, forlorn little building
once alternately squared in red and white stone courses but now faded
and dilapidated, built against the castle wall between the Green Turret
and the Boyar Tower, with a slender minaret quite dwarfed by the
soaring battlements above.  The low door tucked away under its tiny
porch was locked; coming upon Melissa trying it, the Baron told her
that the place was filthy and filled with rubbish inside.  It would
have to be cleaned up before it would be fit for her to visit.

A week had elapsed since she and her father had arrived at the Castle,
a week so fully filled with unpacking and exploring their new home that
they were content to postpone visiting the mosque or even undertaking
excursions beyond the Castle walls, had the weather made such trips
possible.  Huge packing-cases, with furniture and rugs and pictures,
mainly destined for the great hall, were waiting to be opened, and
others continued to arrive, mixed up with the crates of tools, the
girders and bags of cement dumped by the lorries under the Boyar Tower.

Meanwhile, she found the definitely masculine atmosphere of the Castle
somewhat overwhelming.  On the night of their arrival they had driven
into the outer courtyard to discover that the whole working force had
turned out to greet them.  In the gathering darkness torches flared and
smoked, and in their flickering light she was aware of a sea of peasant
faces hairy and unkempt, with staring eyes--shaggy men in blouses, some
bare-headed, some in flat Russian caps.  Von Wahlczek was there and the
sallow Maltese, and Frangipani, in a cluster of figures in leather
jackets smiling a welcome out of cheerful brown faces--the Italian
truck-drivers, she surmised.  It was a moment or two before she
recognised Don Boulton looking oddly Russian in a high-peaked fur cap,
suede jacket and plus-fours thrust into high boots; but the sleigh
flashed by before he appeared to see her.

The workmen had their barrack-rooms like soldiers, she discovered next
day when she went on a tour of inspection with Stephen, lines of
truckle beds with blankets neatly folded and a steel wardrobe beside
each for the man's belongings.  As their quarters were in the outer
court, and she and Stephen were lodged in the inner yard, she came
little in contact with the workmen.  But the Castle was alive with
their presence from early morning when gongs improvised from steel bars
summoned them from sleep to night-fall when the same gongs sounded the
"Lights Out"--all day long the ancient walls reverberated to the shrill
of the foremen's whistles, shouted orders, the tramp of feet.

It rather amused her to find herself the only woman in this
quasi-military setting.  She could have brought a maid with her from
France, as Stephen had urged.  But, feeling that a Frenchwoman was
likely to prove more of a liability than an asset in the wilds of
Bessarabia, she had preferred to rely on the Baron's undertaking to
find her a maid, when they were settled in, probably a German woman
from one of the old-established German farm colonies in the region.
Meanwhile, she made her own bed, while Charles and Ali, the Baron's
Tunisian, did the rest of the housework, prepared the meals with the
assistance of one of the Rumanian workmen as kitchen boy, and waited at
table.

Charles would be serving tea, she reflected as she quitted the balcony
and, passing through her turret bedroom, made her way downstairs.  As
she crossed the lobby below she saw through the window Don Boulton
coming through the gateway from the outer court.  He strode
purposefully into the yard and up to the entrance of the Green Turret,
then stopped, irresolute, and looked behind him.

Melissa opened the window.  "Hullo there," she said.  "Were you looking
for my father?"

As he raised his eyes and saw her there, his face lit up.  It seemed to
her that he had a faintly excited air.  "Because, if you are," she
continued, "he's with the Baron at the office."

He nodded.  "I know.  It seemed a good chance to catch you alone."  He
glanced back over his shoulder again.  "Do you think I might come in
for a minute?  I've something to tell you--something pretty important."

He spoke hurriedly with a sort of desperation in his voice that gave
her a sudden sense of misgiving.  "Come in, of course," she told him.
"I'm just going to have tea.  That ought to appeal to you as a good
Brritisher."

But his face showed no appreciation of her jesting tone.  With the same
hunted air, he cast another stealthy glance backward and hastily
entered the turret.




CHAPTER XIII

THE FIRST WARNING

He found her waiting for him in the doorway of the living-room, framed
in a pool of light that spilled out into the gaunt stone vestibule,
groined of ceiling and dank with the chill drifting in from the yard,
an ultra-modern silhouette in her smartly tailored fur coat.  A very
faint fragrance came to him as she stood back to let him pass and he
brushed by her into the warm radiance of the room beyond.  His rough
working clothes were powdered with snow and smeared with clay: there
was snow on his fur cap and snow on his eyebrows, and his gloveless
hands were blue with cold.  "My gracious," she declared aghast, "you
look half frozen.  Come to the fire and warm yourself."

The room was high of ceiling and tapestry hung, with a fire of
tremendous logs blazing in a great stone fireplace.  Though the
furniture, apart from the red leather settee before the fire and a
couple of club chairs to match, was period, a line of open bookshelves,
a table of American magazines, gave the apartment a cheerful, modern
look.  The leaping flames gleamed on silver and porcelain where the tea
was set out on a low table before the hearth.  Boulton appeared to
notice none of these things.  Disregarding the girl's invitation, he
said brusquely, "What's going on here?"

She bristled a little at the bluntness of his tone.  "Has anything
happened?" she asked.

"Shut the door!" he bade her and when she had complied, "What's the
game?" he demanded with the same uncompromising air.

She was thinking to herself, "He's heard about the treasure and wants
to pump me."  Going forward to the fire, she sat down on the couch and,
removing the cosy from the teapot, said composedly, "Wouldn't you be
more comfortable if you parked your hat and found a chair?"

Glancing demurely backward, she saw him whip off his fur bonnet.
"Sorry," he muttered.  Then he stamped over to the fireplace and
confronted her.  "Have you taken a look at the last lot of workmen?" he
demanded.

She knew what he was alluding to.  On the previous evening a fresh
party of workmen had arrived, hard-bitten, sturdy types.  These were
the picked men provided by Grenander to dig for the treasure, her
father had confided to her.  She shrugged her shoulders as she poured
out the tea.  "Not particularly."  She laughed.  "You know, all these
peasants, Rumanian or whatever they are, look much the same to me.  I
mean, they're all pretty shaggy, aren't they?  Cream and sugar?"

He gazed at her stonily.  "These are not Rumanian-speaking
Moldavians--they're Ukrainians to a man.  Grenander paid off every
Moldavian in the place this morning and sent them packing.  There are
twenty-eight in the new bunch and they're supposed to be skilled
labour--at least, that's what Grenander told me.  Would it interest you
to know that, out of the whole boiling, there aren't ten who can use a
plane or plaster a wall?  And there isn't a skilled workman in the lot.
And I'll tell you something else.  There were a number of perfectly
good carpenters and masons among the Moldavians, yet Grenander lets
them go.  Why?"

She handed him his tea.  "Well," she observed delicately, "I wouldn't
want to be quoted.  But I don't believe the Baron has much use for the
native article."

"So he replaces them by a bunch of scallywags who can't tell one end of
a saw from the other!"  He broke off impatiently.  "Listen.  With this
fresh batch there are about fifty men on the works here.  If your
father thinks de Bahl can get anything done with this outfit, he's
nuts!  To complete the work on the Great Hall alone, what with the
repanelling and the reflooring, calls for expert wood-workers.  Well,
you can take it from me that there are not half a dozen men left in the
Castle who know the first thing about it.  If you don't believe me, go
up to the Great Hall to-morrow morning and see them falling over each
other, just killing time.  From now on the restoration work's a farce
and de Bahl knows it.  And so I ask you again--what's the game?"  With
an angry air he drank his tea.

She was conscious of a little thrill at the thought that the
preparations for the treasure hunt were seriously afoot, at the same
time remembering that she must be discreet.  She offered him a plate of
biscuits.  "I wish you wouldn't stand there barking questions at me,"
she said.  "Why don't you sit down?"

He took a seat on the cushioned fire-rail.  "You haven't answered my
question," he reminded her.

She shrugged her shoulders.  "I think you're being rather dramatic
about something that probably has a perfectly simple explanation.  The
Baron told me at Monte Carlo that he intended to get rid of the local
labour as soon as possible."

"Why?"

She felt the colour rise in her cheeks.  "Maybe because he prefers to
employ his own people."

"An unwashed rabble who'd rather sit round talking politics than do an
honest day's work--are these his people?"

"You call them a rabble.  But I don't suppose it was so easy to find
men who'd be willing to come and work in the wilds of Bessarabia.
Naturally, they'd be of the adventurer type."

He laughed on a hard note.  "'Adventurer type' is right.  Well, it may
satisfy you, but it don't satisfy me."

She was sorely tempted to ask him what business it was of his.  But he
looked so forlorn standing there, there was such a hurt, suspicious
look in the grey eyes, that she refrained.  "Oh, well," she remarked,
helping herself to a cigarette, "I'll tell my father what you say.
We'll see what he thinks."

His manner changed instantly.  From being arrogant he became urgently
imploring.  "No, no, no, please," he entreated.  "Not a word to your
father!"

"Really," she said coldly.  "Don't you think I'm the best judge of
that?"

He shook his head.  "No.  Definitely not.  Your father and de Bahl are
in this together."

"Are you suggesting that my father and the Baron are mixed up in some
crooked deal?"

"I don't know," he said very simply.  "Your father impresses me as
being a very honest sort of man----"

"Thanks!" she broke in sarcastically.

"But he believes in de Bahl----"

"And why shouldn't he?  Baron de Bahl's a grand person and devoted to
my father."

"All right.  But don't you see, if you take this story to your father
and he repeats it to de Bahl, the first thing that happens I'm out on
my ear.  And that's what we have to avoid at all costs."

She shrugged indifferently.  "Then if you want to keep your job, surely
it's unwise to go around spreading tales against your employers?"

On that he flushed.  "Naturally, you'd think that."  He gazed at her
steadily.  "I told you at Monte Carlo the time might come when you'd be
glad to have me around.  Well, it's coming all right, and coming with
giant strides: if you've any regard for your own and your father's
safety, I do beg of you not to give them the slightest chance to get
rid of me----"

He broke off and put his finger to his lips--there were voices outside.
"Not a word to your father or anyone," he whispered imploringly as the
door opened and Stephen appeared.  Grenander was with him.  At the
sight of Boulton Grenander scowled.  "Don't you know the staff ain't
allowed to come beyond the outer yard without permission?" he growled
to Boulton.

The Englishman moved his shoulders unwillingly.  "Miss Selmar was kind
enough to ask me in to tea," he answered stolidly.

Grenander's hard eye sought out the girl.  "The yong man belongs in the
barracks vith the rest," he rasped.  "It's a rough crowd ve got here
and vithout ve use a iron discipline, ve can't handle them.  Then
please, no favourites, ja?"  He swung fiercely to the Englishman.  "Now
get back to your quarters and, in future, keep the rules or, mebbe, you
find yourself vithout a yob again!"

"All right, all right," Selmar, who had gone to the tea table and was
eating a piece of cake, broke in testily.  "That wasn't a very bright
idea of yours," he observed to his daughter in an undertone.

Melissa had crimsoned.  She found herself disliking Grenander
exceedingly.  She was about to come to Boulton's defence when she
caught sight of the Baron wiggling a warning finger at her from the
doorway.  She had rather hoped that Boulton would have stood up to
Grenander, but he only shrugged his shoulders and saying, "Thanks all
the same, Miss Selmar!" went out.

De Bahl drew Melissa aside.  "Don't pay any attention to Grenander," he
whispered.  "His bark is worse than his bite."  He gave her an
understanding smile and patted her shoulder.

She felt, as she had felt before, that one could always depend on the
Baron to do the tactful thing.




CHAPTER XIV

BLOOD IN THE SNOW

On coming down to dinner that evening Melissa was relieved to hear from
Charles that Grenander had sent word he would not be able to join them.
It was pay night for the workmen, and he would be busy until late--he
would dine with Apostolou and Frangipani who, with Miklas, the
architect, had their own mess in the buildings of the outer yard.  She
felt she could get on very easily, not only then but always, without
Grenander who, with the Baron and von Wahlczek, took his meals with
them--especially after the encounter of the afternoon.  By contrast
with the elegant von Wahlczek, the big engineer had the grace of a farm
hand, surly and taciturn, with a rough way with the servants, and
really deplorable table manners.

They did not dress for dinner at Orghina, but Melissa usually changed
her frock, while Stephen liked to slip on an old smoking jacket to
which he was attached.  The living-room was empty when she appeared in
the black taffeta dinner dress she had bought in Paris with a silver
fox across her shoulders.  Charles had put the cocktail service out and
she busied herself, while waiting for the others, in shaking up a dry
martini.  It was still snowing outside: the snow clinging to the
windows made the room with its roaring fire seem very cosy.  She was
pouring out the cocktails when her father, very distinguished with his
grizzled hair and black velvet coat, came in.  "None of them here yet?"
he said.

"Grenander won't be dining--he's paying the men," she told him.

He frowned.  "He's a tough egg, that one.  I didn't like the way he
spoke to you this afternoon.  I must have a word with de Bahl about
him."

"You know that he paid off all the local workmen to-day?"

Selmar's frown deepened.  "Who says so?"

"Boulton just told me."

He grunted.  "It's the first I've heard of it.  Of course, now that
that new batch has arrived--they're a husky-looking lot, I must say.
Still, he should have told me."

"Are we going to start looking for the treasure right away?"

"I tackled de Bahl about it this morning.  But he said there was no
hurry--as they've begun work on the Great Hall, he thinks we should
finish with that first."

The opening of the door interrupted him.  Von Wahlczek was there, very
dapper in dark grey--however grubby he might appear in the day time, as
Melissa had seen him, shouting orders in the Great Hall, he invariably
turned out well groomed at night.  He came up to her with alacrity,
bowed over her hand, then straightened himself up with an audible
sniff.  "Delicious!" he cried, beaming at her through his eyeglass.
"Your perfume, like your frock, mademoiselle, proclaims the Rue de la
Paix!"  And, turning to Stephen, "How grateful we should be to your
charming daughter, Mr. Selmar, whose always so ravishing appearance
brings a touch of civilisation, as delicious as the airs of spring,
into this company of savage men!"

Her father made growling noises in his throat--he had an inherent
distrust of compliments--while Melissa gave the newcomer his cocktail.
Selmar said abruptly, "So Grenander has been sacking some of the hands,
eh?"

Von Wahlczek shrugged his shoulders and laughed.  "Ach was, merely the
surplus labour, my dear sir.  A lot of loutish peasants only fit to
till the ground.  To your good health, mademoiselle!"  He raised his
cocktail to her.  "You'll appreciate that our friend Grenander is
continually concerned with keeping down the expenses--what you call in
America, the overhead," he remarked to Selmar, and sipped elegantly.

Stephen thawed--here was an argument he could understand.  "I've
nothing against that, certainly.  But I think I should have been
consulted about it.  Now that the diggers are here, I want the work on
the Great Hall finished as soon as possible so that we can start
operations in the mosque."

Von Wahlczek stared at him through his monocle.  "The mosque?  Yes,
yes, of course.  But, with the men we have in ten days, a fortnight,
the work on the Hall is finished, _termin_!"

His answer produced an unpleasant impression on Melissa.  He's too
glib, she thought, he's lying.  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask
him how many of the remaining working force were really competent to
carry on with the work still to be done on the Hall; but she hesitated,
loth to give young Boulton away.  While she was debating the matter in
her mind, the Baron came whirling in upon them, casting off his fur cap
and heavy fur-lined overcoat all speckled with snow and wheezing
apologies for being late; and they went in to dinner.


The dining-room, guard-room of the Castle under the Tsars, was under
the Great Hall, with a groined ceiling and a row of high, narrow
windows along one side, overlooking the inner yard.  Some trophies of
arms, survivals of the Russian occupation--bucklers bristling with
old-fashioned bayonets, brass-handled swords, rifles of ancient
pattern--made geometric designs on the naked stone walls between the
windows.  An immense mahogany buffet elaborately carved from the
Baron's Geneva stock--he told them it came from a Lisbon
palace--imposingly filled one end of the hall, a huge fireplace with a
blazing fire the other, while a great Dutch dresser laden with pewter
faced the windows; but even their massive lines were dwarfed by the
lofty proportions of the chamber.

They dined at one end of the long refectory table, of solid oak from an
English country-house, just the four of them in the rather ghostly
radiance of the beeswax candles, fat and yellow, set in heavy brass
candlesticks.  Outside the wind whistled and tore at the windows, with
flurries of snow that whirled against the panes--the wildness of the
night, however, seemed far removed from the pleasant warmth and studied
quiet surrounding the little party, with Charles, grave as an image,
and the dark-faced Ali, moving noiselessly in the shadows beyond the
candlelight.

That night von Wahlczek did most of the talking, as, indeed, he usually
did.  He was an excellent raconteur, with a fund of curious stories
about Court life in the Vienna of the Emperor Francis Joseph and his
period of active service as a cavalry subaltern in the campaign against
the Russians in the war.  On this evening, before even they had started
on their caviar, he embarked upon a description of the Jewish Rabbi's
family at Lodz on which he had been billeted during the operations in
Poland, and soon had them chuckling with him over the "Rav," his large
progeny and their countless relations, and imitations of their
contorted Yiddish-German.

It seemed to Melissa that her father listened to their guest with some
unwillingness at first--she could guess that Steve was impatient to
tackle the Baron about Grenander's action in dismissing the Rumanians,
as well as about Grenander's behaviour in general.  But von Wahlczek
was a finished actor.  He knew how to win and hold an audience, and it
was not long before he had Stephen listening to him as intently as the
others and laughing as heartily at his mimicry.

It was a good story, but a long one, and it was still unfinished when,
half-way through dinner, Ali brought the Baron a note.  Von Wahlczek
broke off while de Bahl found his glasses and, with a muttered
"Pardon!" broke the seal.  With a perfectly stolid face he read the
message, then, flinging down his napkin, stood up.  "If Miss Selmar
will excuse me," he said to Selmar, and without further explanation
went rapidly out through the door at the far end of the dining-hall,
leading to the corridor where the staff quarters were situated.

Von Wahlczek resumed his tale.  Ali removed the fish plates and Charles
served the sweetbreads.  Melissa let her attention wander.  She was
thinking of Boulton out there in the snow, wondering what sort of life
he had, a lone Englishman marooned among so many different
nationalities.  She remembered Steve's idea that Boulton might act as
liaison officer between him and the working staff and decided it was
time something was done about it.  She saw no reason why the young man
should not take his meals with them.  He would be a useful counterpoise
to Grenander; besides, it would annoy Grenander--she had a score to pay
off against her _bte noire_.

It appeared to her, as dinner proceeded, that some kind of disturbance
was going on outside.  Her ear caught a growing murmur of voices and,
turning towards the windows, she was aware of flickering lights in the
snow without.  Stephen seemed to hear something, too, for, brusquely
interrupting von Wahlczek, he said sharply, "Listen!  What's that
noise?"

In the silence that fell sounds of tumult welled in to them out of the
night.  Von Wahlczek laughed.  "It is nothing.  The men have received
their first wages this evening and maybe one or two of them have drunk
a little too much schnaps--so it was always in the army, too, on pay
nights."  But Selmar said, "Please!" quite crossly and twisted his head
round to Charles, who was behind his chair, serving the wine.  "What is
it?  What's happening?" he demanded irritably.

The valet went to the window.  "It is the workmen who come into the
inner yard, monsieur," he informed Selmar with his usual impassive air.
The voices were now much louder.  Confused shouts and cries rang in the
inner yard and a sudden, fitful glare danced from outside.  Selmar
rushed to the window, flung it open.  The court was thronged with
defiant, gesticulating men, some carrying torches.  Von Wahlczek jumped
to his feet and hurried to the door through which the Baron had
disappeared.  Selmar would have followed, but von Wahlczek stopped him.
"Please, you stay here and take care of Miss Selmar," he entreated
earnestly.  "I find out what is the matter and let you know."  He
stormed out.

Peering over her father's shoulder as he gazed from the window Melissa
saw by the light of the torches that the crowd in the yard was gathered
about a solitary figure, a man who, with collar torn and face bleeding,
was plunging in the grip of two shaggy-looking workers.  It was
Apostolou.  The crowd swayed about him as he tried to free himself,
while angry cries, in which one word was constantly repeated, echoed
from their ranks.

Then without warning it happened.  There was a red flash somewhere out
there against the snow and a report that shook the windows and seemed
to awaken every echo of the castle; Apostolou spun round so violently
that he jerked himself out of the grasp of the men who held him,
pitched forward on his face, twitched and lay still.  The crowd fell
away like magic, swirled about and closed in again while a stentorian
voice reverberated through the yard, excitedly shouting orders.

Selmar had sprung back from the window.  Melissa had a glimpse of him
vanishing into the adjacent living-room and followed after.  She caught
up with him under the turret entrance.  With a line of tossing torches
the crowd was trailing away to the outer yard, leaving the inner court
empty and dark, save for the lightening effect of the snow.  The body
on the ground had disappeared.  As Melissa and her father stood there
they saw two figures move into the path of light flung by the vestibule
lamp.  It was the Baron and Grenander, arguing in angry tones.  Selmar
cried, "What's going on here?"

De Bahl turned swiftly.  At the sight of the two Americans, his manner
changed on the instant.  "A little trouble with the men, Mr. Selmar.
But's it's settled now," he said reassuringly.

"But, good God, man, Apostolou's been shot," Selmar exclaimed.  "Look!"
He pointed downward.  There was blood on the trodden snow.  "What
happened?"

It was Grenander who replied.  "Best you keep out of this, I t'ink, Mr.
Selmar!" he said thickly.

"Keep out of it?"  Selmar's tone was apoplectic.  "Don't you realise
that a man's been killed, shot under our very eyes?  Who shot this man
and what did they have against him?  I insist on knowing."

The engineer grunted.  "You leave this to us, ja?  Meanwhile, you take
Miss Selmar and go back inside the house!"  "Just a minute..." Stephen
broke in, but Grenander was loudly apostrophising the Baron.  "What for
ve stand here, vasting time?" he roared.  Seizing de Bahl by the arm,
he hurried the other across the yard at a shambling run and disappeared
into the court beyond.

"By the Lord Harry, I won't stand for this," Stephen trumpeted.  "Hey,
you, Grenander!" he cried, setting off in pursuit of the two men.  The
Baron had disappeared when they reached the gateway, but Grenander's
squat outline bulked black against the lantern under the arch.  Selmar
began to bluster.  "Look here, Grenander----"

The other cut him off.  "You heard my order----"

"Order?  Who's giving me orders?"

"I am.  You go back to the house and stop there, ja?  And from now on
see that you and the girl don't pass this gate without my permission."

Stephen's anger flamed.  He sprang forward.  "Now you listen to me, you
dumb Swede..."  But the darkness under the gateway had swallowed
Grenander up.  In his place a stalwart figure, fur-capped and armed
with a rifle, barred the way.

"This is my house--you can't stop me!" the American shouted.  But the
sentry, muttering some unintelligible phrase, menaced him with his
rifle.

Melissa had followed her father to the gate.  While he was engaged in
his altercation with the guard, a firm hand seized her by the arm and
drew her into the shadow beside one of the buttresses of the great
hall.  It was Boulton.  "Listen," his fierce whisper rustled, "you must
get your father back to the house and keep him quiet, or they'll kill
him, the same as they killed Apostolou."

She stared at him aghast, unable to speak.  He went on, "They accused
Apostolou of dickering with the Russians across the river.  I don't
know who shot him, but it was deliberate murder.  I'm telling you this,
not to scare you but so that you'll restrain your father from raising
trouble.  For the present, let him think it was a drunken brawl,
anything, as long as it isn't the truth, because if I know anything of
him, once he hears the truth he'll fly straight off the handle and then
we're all in the soup."

"But why should they want to harm my father?" she asked earnestly.

He was glancing rapidly about him.  "I've no time for explanations now.
I've to get through that gate and back to my quarters before I'm
missed.  But make up your mind to this--you and your father are
prisoners here for the present."

In the dim light under the arch they saw that the iron gate had been
shut.  Stephen was visible plodding across the snow-covered ground.
They heard him call, "Melissa!  Melissa!  Where are you?"

Boulton gave her hand a little squeeze.  "That sentry mustn't see me
talking to you.  Remember what I told you--try and keep your father
quiet!"

She stepped out of the shadow to meet Stephen while Boulton slipped
away into the darkness.




CHAPTER XV

BOULTON BLOTS HIS COPYBOOK

In the excitement of their dash from the dinner-table, Melissa had not
noticed that the snow had stopped.  Clouds hid the moon, but the night
was dry and clear.  The cold was pitiless--in the silence that had
dropped down upon the dark void of the inner yard she could hear the
dull reports of the ice in the river.  All about her the castle walls
stretched upward to the stars--the oblong of sky above the court was
gemmed with them blazing brightly in the frosty air.

Earlier in the day the workmen had made a path through the snow from
the Green Turret to the dividing gate.  Melissa ran along it now to
meet her father, who came hurrying towards her, spluttering with wrath.
"It's unbelievable!" he stormed.  "There's a dumb sentry on the gate
who refused to let me pass, and when I tried to brush past him, darn
nearly shoved my ribs in with his rifle.  This is Grenander's doing,
and I'm not standing for it, no, by heck!  Where's de Bahl?  I'll have
somebody's blood for this.  By Gad, it's worse than a sit-down strike
back home!"

Melissa took his arm.  She felt pierced through with the cold: she had
only a fur thrown across her shoulders and she was shivering.  Now she
discovered that her father was bare-headed and without even a muffler.
"What you're going to do," she said, "is to march straight back to your
dinner.  We shall both catch our death of cold if we stay out here."

"I'll show them who's boss of this outfit," Selmar raged.  "They shoot
a man and when I demand an investigation, all they give me is a rifle
in the ribs.  But I'll get to the bottom of this business, if it means
canning the whole bunch, de Bahl included, gosh darn it!"  But he
allowed his daughter to shepherd him indoors.

Charles, lantern-jawed and unmoved, was at the turret entrance looking
for them.  "I put the sweetbreads back on the fire, Monsieur, but I
fear they're spoiled," he said gravely.  "Shall I go on serving the
dinner or will Monsieur wait for the other gentlemen?"

"Serve the dinner, Charles," Melissa bade him.  "We won't wait for the
others."

"I'll wait for nobody," her father barked.  "Get on with the dinner,
damn it, and listen!--you can mix me a highball, and make it strong!"

The dining-room, with napkins flung aside and chairs pushed back as
they had quitted it, welcomed them with its warmth and quiet.  But
Melissa found herself thinking of that scarlet stain in the snow; it
was hard to realise that a man's life had been sheared away in the few
minutes during which they had been absent from the table.  There was
where von Wahlczek had sat and made them laugh with his story; there
beside her plate the handkerchief with its Paris perfume he had
praised; a few ticks of the clock and the peace of that
dinner-hour--indeed it might be of the whole long winter before
them--had been rudely shattered.  She shuddered a little.  Boulton's
warning cast a black shadow over her mind.  He had told her that
Apostolou had been killed because he was believed to be a Russian spy.
Did it have something to do with the Pasha's treasure?  She felt
bewildered and much disturbed in mind.  She wished the Baron might
come.  He was always a tower of strength; he would make everything
clear.

Charles brought Stephen his whisky and soda and Stephen drained it at a
gulp.  Melissa watched him wiping his moustache with a determined
expression on his pink and healthy face; she saw no longer the retired
business man on holiday, but the hard-bitten American industrialist
used to having his own way.  From now on--she read it in his eye--he
meant to make his authority felt; it might not be easy, she reflected,
to carry out Boulton's injunctions to keep him in check.

When Charles reappeared with the sweetbreads, Selmar said, "Tell Ali to
find Baron de Bahl and say I wish to see him here at once."

"Ali is not here, monsieur."

"Then go yourself, damn it!"

Melissa signed privately to the valet to disregard the order.  "Now,
Steve," she said, "you're going to calm down and finish your dinner.
You can give everybody hell afterwards."

Her father shook himself unwillingly, but resumed his place at the head
of the table.  "Do you know what I think?" he growled.  "There's been
some monkey business about the treasure.  It's always the same
story--where there's hidden gold, there's trouble.  Well, de Bahl can't
say that I gave anything away.  It's one of these fellows of his, I
guess--you can't expect a secret to be kept that's shared between half
a dozen people."

At that moment Ali came in and pulled out his master's chair.  And here
was the Baron himself, sliding into his seat with his little cough.
"My dear friend," he declared, picking up his napkin, "I cannot say how
sorry I am for our friend Grenander's unpardonable rudeness to you
to-night.  But, _mon Dieu_, you know him, how he is, a rough diamond,
and he was much upset by this unfortunate accident.  I hope you will
not bear ill-feeling towards him."

"_Accident?_" Selmar snapped back.  "Accident, my foot!  The man was
shot, and shot deliberately, wasn't he?  He's dead, isn't he?"

"I fear--yes."

"Who shot him?"

The Baron helped himself to bread.  "We don't know yet.  Grenander is
inquiring into the matter now."

"Are you aware that one of your dumb workmen prevented me by force from
leaving the inner court to-night?  He had a rifle.  Who gave him a
rifle?"

De Bahl sighed.  "I shall ask you to be very patient, patient and
understanding.  I have not mentioned it before in order not to alarm
you, but the Soviet people have been giving us a little trouble.  We
have a few rifles--this is a fairly unsettled region, remember--and it
seemed wise to distribute them to-night--you know to keep the men in
check."

Stephen laid down his knife and fork.  "The Soviet people?  What in
hades have they to do with it?  This isn't Soviet Russia."

"No.  But Soviet Russia is only just across the river, as you know.
For more than a hundred years this was a Russian province.  The Soviet
secret service is very active on this side of the Dniester."

"But..."

De Bahl cast an appealing glance at Melissa.  She said, "Steve, you
might let him explain."

"The gentlemen across the river," said the Baron composedly, starting
in upon his sweetbread, "are apparently incapable of believing that you
are restoring the castle as a private residence.  Our activities here
appear to have aroused their strongest suspicions."

"You mean, they've got wind of the treasure?"

"If it were only that."  The Baron's tone was gently condescending.
"No, dear friend, they appear to have taken into their heads the idea
that Castle Orghina is being put back on a military footing in
connivance with the Rumanian General Staff and, well, in short, we have
reason to believe that they have planted spies among the workmen.  The
best way to do this was to take advantage of the unskilled labour
recruited more or less as it could be found in the immediate
neighbourhood.  That is why our good friend Grenander has taken the
first opportunity to get rid of the bulk of the unskilled labour
to-day--all the Rumanians and such Russians and Ruthenians as we had:
the Ukrainians, who are bitterly opposed to the Bolsheviki, we can
trust.  But it seems he was too late."  He swallowed a little wine
thoughtfully.  "To speak ill of a dead man I do not like, especially of
one for whose engagement you are certainly entitled to hold me
responsible, but I'm afraid that Apostolou--with whom, I may tell you
now, I was never very favourably impressed--was in touch with the
Soviet secret service."

Stephen glanced at him sternly from under his bushy eyebrows.  "That's
a pretty serious charge, Baron.  Apostolou struck me as being a
harmless enough sort of guy.  What proof have you?"

"A Soviet questionnaire, a favourite device of all secret services for
obtaining information, was found on him as well as a considerable sum
of Russian money."

Selmar grunted.  "I can't for the life of me see what the Soviet people
could discover here."

"Agreed, but who knows what stories this Apostolou has not told them?
He might have dropped a hint about the treasure, for example--the
Russians, having occupied Castle Orghina for so many years, might
certainly think they had a claim to it."  His eyes rested tentatively
on Selmar's face.

Melissa spoke up.  "How did you get on to the fact that Apostolou was
spying for the Bolsheviks?" she asked him.

"He was seen drinking in the village with a notorious Russian agent,"
was the impressive answer.  "When he returned to the Castle some of the
men accused him of being in the Soviet employ.  They were paid to-night
and some of them were a little drunk, there was a row and, well,
somebody shot him."

Stephen pushed his plate away.  "Well, spy or not, the murderer has to
be found and handed over to the Rumanian authorities for punishment.
Is that clear?"

"But, of course, Mr. Selmar, of course."  His voice became silky.  "In
the meantime, feeling is high among the workmen and I think it is wise,
especially as we have a young lady with us"--he bared his teeth in an
expansive smile at Melissa--"that you do not leave your quarters for
the present."

Selmar was in the act of selecting a cigar from his case.  He looked up
sharply.  "Did Grenander send you to me with that message?"

The Baron spread his hands.  "Let me remind you that I had nothing to
do with the hiring of the labour.  That was Grenander's job, and if he
reports that political passions among the workmen are so inflamed that
it's unsafe to..."

The door communicating with the living-room was rapped, then opened.
Young Boulton was there.  He advanced to Stephen at the head of the
table.  Hand to his cap, he saluted.  "Mr. Grenander's compliments, Mr.
Selmar, and you and Miss Selmar will please not leave this wing of the
Castle until further orders.  I was to add that armed guards have been
posted at the doors to see that these instructions are complied with."

Stephen crimsoned.  Making a visible effort to control himself, he
threw himself back in his chair.

"Is that so?  Well, young man, you can trot right back to Grenander and
tell him that this is my house and no one's going to give me orders as
to what I can do and can't do."

The messenger hoisted his shoulders.  "You can please yourself about
that: I'm merely carrying out my instructions.  But if you take my tip,
you'll stay indoors until this unpleasantness has blown over.  The men
are devilish worked up about that dirty rat Apostolou and his Communist
pals across the river, and they suspect everybody of being in league
with him."

Selmar laughed shortly.  "Me, too, perhaps?"

"Certainly.  They say that modern America is run by Communists...."

Melissa cast an agonised glance at Boulton.  Communism was to Steve as
a red rag to a bull: Fascism was an almost equally sore point with him.
She could not think what possessed the young man to get into such an
argument with her father.  "They'd suspect _me_ if they didn't know I
was heart and soul a Fascist," Boulton added calmly.

Selmar stuck out his chin.  "Well, I'm not, so you'll oblige me by
taking your Fascism and getting the hell out of here."

The young man laughed.  "Right-oh.  But I shouldn't try and leave this
wing until Grenander gives you the word, or you might get shot."  He
turned to de Bahl.  "Grenander would like to see you in the office.  He
said it was urgent."

The Baron rose.  "I'll have a word with Grenander," he promised Selmar
confidentially.  "In the meantime, if you'll take my advice, you'll go
to bed."

Boulton stood back to let him pass.  De Bahl went out, the young man at
his heels.  Melissa who had been staring wrathfully at Boulton was
about to avert her gaze contemptuously as the Englishman passed in
front of her when, as their glances crossed, she saw his right eyelid
flutter at her in an unmistakable wink.




CHAPTER XVI

MELISSA HAS A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

She and her father usually played backgammon after dinner.  Back in the
living-room, she brought out the board and set the pieces, her mind
busy with her thoughts.

One had to face the fact--she was scared.  She could not rid her memory
of that vision of Apostolou crumpling up in the snow in the light of
the torches or banish from her ears the primitive hate in the angry
voices crying out against him as the rabble seethed around.  The Baron
had told them that the murderer was unknown: she wouldn't put the deed
past Grenander, she told herself, Grenander with his flaccid cheeks and
piggy eyes, and brutal, hectoring air--she shivered at her recollection
of him.  After all, it was Grenander who was behind everything.  True,
the Baron was nominally in charge at the Castle, but actually it was
Grenander who appeared to be running the show.  It was he who had
filled the place with roughnecks of his choosing, he who had cleared
out the real workmen, if Don Boulton was to be believed.  If the Baron
could do nothing about it, it meant that he, who had brought the Swede
in, was as much his dupe as she and her father were.  Of course, de
Bahl was a charming and delightful companion, but, on looking back, she
began to have a vague feeling that he had not supported them very
vigorously.  Steve had sent for Grenander but he had not showed up, and
there was no sign of the Baron, either.

Her eye rested on her father, smoking his cigar with a froward air and
absently watching her as she arranged the board.  Knowing him as she
did, she guessed he was more concerned with Apostolou's death than any
consideration of their own safety.  He had always taken a high stand
regarding his responsibilities towards his dependants.  At the Selmar
works they had idolised him and there had been no labour troubles as
long as he was President--she knew he felt himself morally liable for
this man's death and responsible for bringing the murderer to justice.
She must not let him suspect that she was frightened, she reminded
herself.  Once she came into it, nothing would stop him from clashing
with Grenander, and then anything might happen.  She wished she could
have a word in private with Boulton.  That steady regard of his lent
her courage.  She found herself anxiously looking forward to seeing him
again.  She had the feeling that somehow, before very long, he would
contrive another meeting between them.

They started their game and for a time the rattle of the dice was the
only sound.  Presently Selmar broke a long silence to say unexpectedly,
"Do you know what I was thinking when we saw that blood on the snow out
there to-night, Melissa?"

"What, darling?"

He moved his pieces forward.  "I was thinking how many men must have
died by violence in this old place since it was first built.  Why, the
very walls are red, as though the mortar were mixed with blood."

"But, Steve, what a horrible thought!"

They both started for the door had opened softly.

"Do I disturb Monsieur?"  It was Charles.

"What is it, Charles?" said Melissa.

"I thought Monsieur should know, Mademoiselle"--his manner was as
restrained as ever--"the doors are guarded.  At the Turret entrance, at
the back, everywhere, there are men with rifles posted--they will not
let me out."  For Selmar's benefit he spoke in his broken English.

"It's merely a precaution, Charles, on account of the trouble
to-night," Melissa replied.

The valet lingered.  "There was something else, Mademoiselle."  He
hesitated.  "As I heard this Englishman tell Monsieur that Mademoiselle
and Monsieur were not to leave your rooms for the present, I thought I
would see about supplies.  I rang up Rabinovici, the Jew who keeps the
village shop at Orghina, but the telephone does not function.  One
would say that the wires have been cut."  He made a pregnant pause.

Stephen's face was expressionless.  "Very good, Charles.  I'll speak to
the Baron about it in the morning."

"Then good night, Monsieur, good night, Mademoiselle!"

But when the door had closed behind the servant, Selmar put down the
dice-box and stared blankly at his daughter.  "Oh, my darling," he
said, greatly moved, "what a mess this crazy notion of mine has landed
us in!"

She went round the table to where he sat opposite her and slid her arms
about him.  "That's all right, Steve.  It's my fault as much as yours.
Because you don't suppose I'd have let you begin all this unless I'd
been as keen on this treasure hunt as you were."  She kissed the top of
his head.  "But I want you to be sensible, darling.  Don't go blowing
off steam all over the place until we know what this man Grenander is
up to!"

He drew away from her.  "What do you mean?  What should he be up to?"
he demanded suspiciously.

"I don't know," she answered hastily.  "But what's certain is that the
Baron can deal with him much more efficiently than you can.  So let's
stay home as he suggests and see what happens, shall we?"  She went
back to her seat.  "It's your throw, old timer.  You'd better make it a
double six or you're sunk!"

He shook his head and with a sudden gesture of the hand swept the
draughtsmen together.  "I can't concentrate to-night.  Let's take the
Baron's advice and go to bed.  I'll leave my door open so that I'll
hear you if you call.  Here!"  His hand dived into his hip pocket and
produced a small automatic.  "You'd better have this: I have another, a
bigger one, upstairs.  Are you sure you're not scared?"

The cold touch of the metal as he laid the pistol in her hand sent a
wave of fear chilling down her spine again.  But she was determined to
show nothing.  "What's there to be scared of, with guards outside to
protect us?" she lied bravely.

His hand caressed her hair.  "I used to be sorry you weren't a boy.
But it's the girls who have all the pluck, nowadays, it seems to me.
When I think of that white-livered rabbit to-night, ranting about
Fascism!  Well, out he goes, first thing to-morrow!"

She thought of Boulton's cheerful wink and suppressed a smile.  They
moved to the door together and Stephen switched off the light.  There
was a moment of quiet in which the ring of iron-shod boots came to them
from without and from the darkened room, against the faint greyness of
the snowy yard they discerned the silhouette of a man with a rifle
slowly passing the window.  Selmar said nothing but Melissa felt his
fingers tighten on her arm.  Then they climbed the turret stair
together.


They were unloading stores again under the Boyar Tower.  From her
bedroom window Melissa had a glimpse of lights moving about the gateway
under the other flanking turret facing her across the long vista of
castle wall while the sound of voices and sundry thumps as of heavy
weights being unloaded came to her over the frosty air against the
steady throbbing of the lorry engines.  Far below, the ice in the river
made booming noises in the darkness.

This was her favourite hour at Orghina when the peace of night
descended upon the Castle and, secure in the intimacy of her bedchamber
with its fantastically thick walls and curiously timbered ceiling, she
could surrender herself to the romantic thoughts that invaded her mind.
In just such a setting, she would reflect as she sat at her mirror with
its shaded lights and creamed her face for bed, millions of women in
the Middle Ages had passed their lives, loved and brought forth
children, laughed and cried and died.  Girls like herself must have sat
in that very room between those self-same grim walls, brushing out
their hair as she brushed out hers and listening to the tramp of the
sentries on the battlements, the cracking of the ice below.

Her preparations for the night ended, she shed her wrapper and switched
off the light.  Facing the foot of her bed was the long window giving
on her little crow's nest of a balcony.  The night was too cold to
leave the balcony door open, she decided, and clambering on to the
wedge-shaped seat of the other window, hooked it back.  The cold air
streaming upon her in her thin nightdress almost took her breath away,
but she lingered there an instant, peering out.  It was still dark but
somewhere behind the fleecy white clouds that covered the sky the moon
was shining, silvering here and there the snowy cloak of roofs and
pinnacles.  Under the Boyar Tower the unloading still went forward,
with a voice shouting orders.

She recognised the voice.  It was Boulton driving his gang.  She found
it consoling to have him within hail.  The sound of his voice,
punctuated by sundry grunts and answering shouts as the men responded
to his objurgations, pursued her as, shivering with cold, she crept
into bed.

Snuggled under the blankets, she suddenly remembered that she had not
bolted the door leading to the balcony.  But the icy air from the open
window made her reluctant to hop out of bed again: after all, she told
herself, the balcony was hung like a swallow's nest high up on the
outside wall of the turret, a good ten feet below the battlements--no
one could enter that way.  She felt for the gun under her pillow and
composed herself to sleep.


She never knew what awakened her, unless it was the freezing draught
that blew her hair about her ears as she lay in bed.  In terror she sat
up to find the room bathed in moonlight and the balcony door open.  A
tall figure stood in the doorway right in the path of the moonbeams.
"Don't be scared," said a hushed voice in English.  "But I had to see
you and this was the only way."

She clicked on the bedside lamp and Don Boulton in his fur cap and
muffled up to the eyes against the cold, stepped into the room.




CHAPTER XVII

WHEN A NAIL IS NOT A NAIL

She said, "What is it?  What happened?"  He had moved silently to the
door leading to the staircase and was trying it.  "I locked it before I
went to bed," she explained.  He nodded.  "I don't want your old man
busting in here, demanding my intentions," he remarked, eyeing her
bleakly.

The bedroom was bitterly cold.  The wall hangings shivered in the
glacial breeze blowing in through the open window and from the balcony.
Her knees up to her chin, Melissa had dragged the satin quilt about
her.  "Hand me that dressing gown," she ordered, pointing to where her
wrapper lay at the foot of the bed, "and for the love of mike, close up
some of those windows--I'm perishing."  He took the wrapper and tossed
it to her--she noticed that he dawdled over shutting the window and
balcony door to give her time to struggle into it.  "How on earth did
you get here?" she demanded.

"Over the roof of the Great Hall and so on to the battlements."
Momentarily, his expression relaxed.  "Romeo went up the ladder, I came
down it, although, to be accurate, it was a rope!"

"A rope?  You're crazy.  You might have broken your neck!"

He moved his shoulders.  "There was no choice--there are guards on
every entrance to this part of the Castle.  And I had to see you."

"Was it so urgent that it wouldn't keep till morning?"

"There's no time like the present--I may not be able to see you
to-morrow.  Listen, is your father in the gun-running business?"

So saying, he sat down on the bed.  With a severe air she drew her feet
away.  She prided herself on being modern-minded and the circumstances
were unusual, to say the least of it.  But she wasn't having any young
man breaking into her bedroom in the middle of the night and sitting on
her bed as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.  "Do you
mean to say you come dangling in here at the end of a rope in the
middle of the night to ask me such a ridiculous question as that?" she
demanded indignantly.

"So ridiculous that I risked my neck to get an answer.  Is he or isn't
he?"

"Of course he isn't.  Who's he supposed to be running guns to?"

He made a little pause.  "Well," he said slowly, "across the river here
is the Ukraine.  They call it 'the granary of Europe.'  They say that
Germany would like to get her hands on it--the Ukrainian crops would
solve many of her problems.  The Ukrainian Nationalists have no use for
the Soviets.  They'd rise if they could, and a rising in the Ukraine
might very easily bring about a European war.  But before they can
rise, they must have arms."  He gazed at her tentatively.  "The arms
traffic pays thumping good dividends.  And, after all, your respected
parent's a good business man, presumably."

"My father's a decent citizen.  He'd rather be found dead than put a
nickel into any such thing.  What do you take him for?"  Her voice had
an angry ring.  "And who asked you to sit down on my bed?" she added
with acerbity.

He stood up languidly.  "Sorry.  You needn't get into such a wax.
After all, he could be financing a stunt like this and you'd be none
the wiser, couldn't he?"

"Certainly not.  My father tells me everything: besides, he has a
perfect horror of the arms trade."

"He knew Ardza, didn't he?"

"Ardza?"

"The armaments king, the fellow who died at Monte Carlo when you were
there."

"Only in a casual sort of way.  Why, he never even tried to see him at
Monte Carlo, although we lived in the same hotel!"  She furrowed up her
smooth forehead.  "I remember now, you tried to pump me about my father
and this Ardza person that first day I met you, at Monte Carlo.  What's
all this about gun-running anyway?"

"This," he answered simply.  His hand dipped into the pocket of his
windbreaker.  "These men were unloading trucks to-night.  They
contrived to drop one of the cases and a handful of these fell out.
And what was even more curious, I was the only one to be surprised."

He opened his hand.  A clip of cartridges rested on his palm.  "That's
rifle ammunition, Mauser.  The box was labelled 'Nails.'  The point is
that we've handled at least a hundred similar boxes during the past two
weeks and to-night the trucks brought another dozen whopping big cases,
as heavy as lead, marked 'Steel Ties.'  The whole lot went into the
cellars under the Boyar Tower.  I may be inquisitive, but I ask myself
if 'Nails' means cartridges, what does 'Steel Ties' stand for?"

She gazed at him with frightened eyes.  "You mean that all these stores
they've been bringing in are really arms?"

"Not all, but a good percentage, I'd say."  His manner grew faintly
excited.  "Look," he said, sitting down on the bed again, "the cover's
perfect.  Here's your father, a well-known American industrialist of
the highest standing, importing building materials into this remote
corner of Europe.  Nobody can say anything against it--if any questions
are asked, he's restoring this castle he's been left.  What's simpler
than to slip a few cases of rifles or machine guns in with every load?
It's been done before.  There was hell to pay at the League of Nations
a few years back when the Italians were caught running machine guns
into Bavaria for the Hitler boys in cases labelled 'corned beef.'"

"You're squashing my feet.  No, you needn't get up.  Just shift over
and don't fidget and tell me what's the idea!"

"I've told you already.  All this stuff's headed for the Ukraine, I
believe.  I think they're planning a raid."  He paused.  "You know,
only a small percentage of these fellows of ours are workmen.  Most of
them are soldiers of fortune.  Some of them fought with Wrangel, others
were with the French Foreign Legion and two or three deserters from the
Foreign Legion in Spain."

"And you seriously believe that my father's in this?"

"It's he who's putting the money up, isn't it?"

"That's to restore the Castle!"

He gave a dry laugh.  "Do you know what Grenander really does for a
living?"

"Isn't he an engineer?"

"He's an arms salesman, representing some of the biggest international
syndicates.  And Frangipani's an aeroplane manufacturers' tout, who, up
to the other day, when the Great Powers started putting their foot
down, was recruiting foreign pilots for the war in Spain, he didn't
give a damn on which side--the more airmen available, the more planes
the big boys would sell!  Von Wahlczek's in the business, too!  These
blighters would cheerfully plunge the world in war, drench our cities
with poison gas, blow our women and children to pulp, so's they'd earn
their three-quarters of one per cent. commission.  God, you can smell
death on them a mile away.  And your father's backing these rats!"

"It's not true!" she cried hotly.

"How can you deny it?" he flashed back, his mouth bitter.  "Do you take
me for a fool that you think I'd fall for all this elaborate camouflage
of restoring an old ruin, situated at the back of beyond, in
mid-winter?  If you ask me, the whole thing's a plant.  They spotted
the castle as the ideal jumping-off point for this raid or whatever
they're up to and bought it from the Countess Boreanu's heirs: all that
stuff about the will was just to throw dust in your eyes!"

"That at least is not true," she told him haughtily.  "I've seen the
lawyer's letter."

"That could be faked."

"It wasn't faked.  My father corresponded with this firm of attorneys."

"All right.  Let's suppose the will _was_ genuine--does that explain
why your father, a wealthy man with castles all over the world to
choose from if he was so minded to buy one, should be willing to bury
himself and you here for the entire winter, let alone the money it's
costing him?"

On that she was silent.  She must come to Steve's defence, she told
herself: she would have to explain about the treasure.  It was very
still in the room.  Outside the wind blustered about the battlements
and the stealthy chug-chug of the electric light plant blended with the
dull noises from the river.  Boulton was prodding the quilt with his
finger.  "I know you're loyal to your father," he said more gently.
"But we have to face facts, haven't we?  And this business has cost
more than one man's life already."

"More than one man?" she said in surprise.  His glance fell away.  "One
life, anyhow."

She hesitated.  Then, "You don't know the whole story," she said.
Thereon, to the accompaniment of the wind battering the castle, she
told him about the Pasha's treasure.

He listened impassively until she had reached the end.  Then he uttered
a mocking laugh.  "It's good psychology," he commented, "but it don't
explain those Mauser rounds."

"How do you mean 'good psychology'?" she demanded.

"De Bahl.  Psychology's his long suit.  He's deep: he studies his man."

"I don't know what you mean.  Are you implying that the treasure
story's a fake?"

He made a weary gesture.  "Oh, let it go!"

"Do you suggest that the Baron's in this with Grenander and the
others?" she persisted.

"He brought Grenander and Co. into it, didn't he?"

"Is Baron de Bahl an armaments salesman, too, or what are you driving
at?"

He shook his head.  "The worthy Baron's a very different cup of tea,
believe me!" he told her firmly.

She shook her head.  "You're wrong about the Baron.  He's a dupe like
the rest of us.  He's in Grenander's hands."  She recounted the
conversation at dinner.  "I think we should consult him," she said
stoutly.

Aghast, Boulton broke in upon her.  "For heaven's sake!  For the
present you must treat what I've told you to-night in the strictest
confidence.  If your father's as innocent as you say, we'll have to
open his eyes.  But it must be in my own good time.  And that won't be
until I know more of what they're up to."

"Whatever it is, they're out to keep it from my father--that's why the
doors are guarded."

"That's in his favour, certainly.  But I wish he weren't so thick with
the Baron."

She sighed impatiently.  "First it's my father, then the Baron.  Don't
you trust anybody?"

He looked down at her hand as it lay on the coverlet.  "I'd trust you."

"Why me?"

He glanced at his watch.  "A quarter to four.  They change the sentries
at four.  If you can put up with me for another ten minutes or so I
mean to try and slip back while the relief is on."

"Why do you trust me?" she repeated.

He moved his shoulders in an imperceptible shrug.  "Instinct.  Do you
remember that morning at Monte when I crashed into your car?  I didn't
really want a cup of coffee so badly as all that, but I thought I'd
test you.  I like testing people."

"And was the test satisfactory?"  Her tone was gently sarcastic.

He let her question pass.  "I said to myself, 'Here's a millionaire's
daughter.  Let's see whether she's as nice as she looks.'"  He gave her
one of his rare smiles.  "And you were!"

She laughed.  "I suppose if I'd had a long red nose and pince-nez, you
wouldn't have bothered?"

"'The girl who is bespectacled, rarely has her neck-tickled,'" he
quoted with a grin.  "You're certainly nice to look at--'easy on the
eyes,' as you say in America--especially in bed.  I mean, now that
you've taken the paint off and let nature have a chance.  You'd be
surprised how few women nowadays can stand that test."

"Yes," she answered demurely.  "All my men friends tell me that."  He
looked so startled that she broke into a laugh.  "Because, you know,"
she added, "it's a regular thing among us half-civilised Americans for
the unmarried girls, especially millionaires' daughters, to receive
strange young men in their bedrooms in the middle of the night."

"Now you're pulling my leg!"

"Instinct again, is it?"

With a reflective air he smoothed out the coverlet with his hand.  "As
a matter of fact," he answered simply, "when I realised that the only
way I had of seeing you alone was by busting in on you like this, I
said to myself, 'If she comes up to specification, she'll be perfectly
sensible about it.'  In other words, I thought it most improbable that
you'd go all Victorian on me and holler blue murder."

"You were quite sure of it, were you?"

He nodded with a little sigh.  "Yes.  I knew you trusted me.  I knew it
from the first moment I saw you."

She was about to make some flippant rejoinder when she caught the
serious, almost wistful look in his eyes.  "It's true," she said.  "I
do trust you.  I don't know why, but I do.  I wish you'd tell me who
you really are."

He consulted his watch again.  "Five minutes to go," he announced.
Then he was off in his light mood again.  "As the saying goes, me
father was a vicar--only in my case, it happens to be true.  Like most
country parsons he lived in a rectory that was much too big for us, on
a stipend that was much too small.  I had a horrible time at a cheap
public school and went from there into the Air Force.  From nineteen to
twenty-four I had the five most wonderful years of my life."  His eyes
shone.  "You've no idea what flying does to a fellow--to soar out into
the dawn over the Euphrates, for instance, as I used to do when we were
Mespot, makes you feel like a god.  Then I had a crash--a morning of
fog on Salisbury Plain.  I'd had crashes before, of course, but this
was the real stuff.  My sergeant, poor devil, was burnt up.  They
pulled me clear, but my flying days were over.  I've a silver plate in
my shoulder and it's about all I can do to shift gear with my left
hand.  So there I was jobless with a tiny pension and the slump going
full blast.  I drifted from tea-planting into rubber, from rubber to
being a store manager in West Africa and later, foreman on irrigation
works in the Soudan, always moving on, as one job after the other
folded up on me.  I've knocked about all over the shop and done
everything, including driving a taxi in New York and washing dishes in
a bar at Tia Juana."

"How old are you?"

He laughed rather ruefully.  "Twenty-nine, I think.  Or it might be
twenty-eight.  It matters so little, I don't always remember."

"And you're still drifting?"

He nodded.  "The British Empire's full of chaps like me.  We're
hoboes--the hoboes of Empire."

She said, "It's too bad.  You never had the breaks."

He laughed.  "I'm not asking for sympathy.  I loathe self-pity.  I've
had a very amusing life in some ways--I don't complain.  But don't
let's talk about me--let's talk about you."  He held his wrist out to
the light.  "I've still two minutes left.  How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

"Why aren't you married?"

"Maybe, I wasn't asked."

"That's nonsense."

She laughed.  "Well, perhaps, it's just that my father's enough trouble
for one woman to manage.  Are you married?"

"God forbid!"  He added more gently.  "I've never met a girl I wanted
to marry, I expect."  His eyes were on her face.  She was annoyed to
feel the blood rising in her cheeks and looked away.

He sighed and said irrelevantly, "You've such a lovely name!"  Then he
put on his cap and wound his muffler about his throat.  "Well, you'll
be hearing from me.  In the meantime, stay home and mum's the word.  I
think you'd better put out the light: there's a sentry in front of the
Boyar Tower."

She switched off the bedside lamp and he opened the balcony door.  "Be
careful, going back!" she entreated, as the cold air filled the room.

He nodded.  "Trust me!"  Then the balcony door closed noiselessly and
where the tall figure had been, was only the moonlight.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE LIGHT BEGINS TO BREAK

"Mademoiselle!  Mademoiselle!"

The urgent, hurried voice came to Melissa out of a loud knocking.  She
stirred restlessly in her bed.  "Mademoiselle!  Mademoiselle!"  She
opened her eyes.  The turret room was grey with the mournful daylight
of another snowy morning, the air raw.  Through the open widow the snow
came whirling: it was piled deep on the window seat.

She sat up abruptly, glanced at the clock beside the bed.
Seven-fifteen--Charles did not usually call her until eight-thirty.  It
was Charles at the door now, rattling the handle and knocking.  "What
is it?" she called.

"Mademoiselle, it is Monsieur.  He is not well.  I think you should
come.  I have brought your hot water."

She was out of bed, into her dressing-gown and at the door in a second.
Charles fully dressed in his invariable black was outside, a brass can
in his hand.  "I ask your pardon, Mademoiselle, but Monsieur rang for
me.  He is in much pain and I think a has temperature.  He says it is
the lumbago.  He asked for you."

Melissa sighed.  "Oh, dear!"  She knew Steve's lumbago of old.  When he
got one of his attacks, to be in the house with him was like being
caged with a Bengal tiger.  She took the can.  "All right," she said.
"I'll be along in two minutes."

Her first thought was that her father's illness momentarily disposed of
the danger of a fracas with Grenander.  Usually these attacks lasted
several days--it should not be difficult to persuade the doctor to let
nobody approach the patient.  She wondered about a doctor.  There must
be one in the village, she supposed, although he would probably speak
nothing but Rumanian.  Then she remembered that the telephone was not
working.  Well, Charles or Ali would have to go the village: it cheered
her to think that they would re-establishing communication with the
outer world.

Her father's bedroom was the counterpart of hers, but without the
balcony.  It was more sombre, too, with its crimson damask tapestry and
the period furniture, French and Italian, they had brought from France.
There was a big four-poster bed.  Steve was groaning and tossing about
in it under the brocade canopy, eyes haggard, face flushed.  "Well," he
growled, "it was about time one of you came.  I was ringing for that
damned Charles for hours.  Ouch, my back!"

She sat down beside him and took his hand.  It was hot to the touch.
"Where's the salicylate, darling?"

"Charles gave me a dose already."

"I brought you some aspirin.  You're running a temperature you know."

"I've had all the aspirin I mean to take.  Gosh, my back's giving me
hell!"

"What about a hot water bottle?"

"Charles has given me a couple."  He closed his eyes and moaned.

"It was crazy, the way you rushed out into the snow last night without
a coat.  It was asking for trouble.  Well, what you have to do now is
to stay in bed and keep warm.  Meanwhile, I'll see about getting you a
doctor."

Selmar opened angry eyes.  "The doctor'll keep.  It's Grenander I want
to see.  Why didn't he come last night when I sent for him?  I'll show
that dumb squarehead where he gets off, by heck, putting guards on the
doors and threatening me with rifles!"

"Now, now, darling, don't go exciting yourself!"

"Excite myself?  You bet I'm exciting myself.  Do you realise a man was
killed last night, one of my staff, and I'm to do nothing about it?
What's this fat slob done about identifying the murderer, will you tell
me that?  Have the police been informed?  Ring for Charles, or Ali, or
someone, d'you hear me?  Let them get Grenander now, at once.  Or if
not Grenander, then de Bahl.  I want some action on this business and
by God, I intend to have it."  A spasm crossed his face and he dapped
his hand to his back.  "Gosh, this pain is awful!"

She stood up resolutely.  "It's very bad for you to work yourself up
like this.  If I find Grenander for you, will you promise to see the
doctor afterwards?"

"Anything you like, as long as you bring me Grenander."

She patted up his pillows for him and crept away.  She had no intention
of approaching Grenander: she meant to find the Baron--this was a
matter for him to settle.  It was not much after half-past seven by the
time she came downstairs, but she knew by the aroma of Turkish
cigarettes that de Bahl was already about.

The sound of voices came from the dining-room.  They grew louder as she
crossed the living-room.  She recognised, the Baron's hoarse tones; but
a new note in his voice brought her to a full stop outside the closed
communicating door.  He was speaking French--with a sudden chill at her
heart she realised that he was chattering with rage.

"And who gave you orders to shoot, _maudit_?" he railed.  "Are you
aware that, but for you, we'd have caught not only this rat, Apostolou,
but also his accomplice?  I don't give a damn what Grenander told
you--I'm master here and you should know by this what happens to
ignorant apes like yourself who disobey my orders!"  The hoarse voice
rose to a scream.  "I'll smash you, you dog, as I've smashed men worth
ten of you!  Get out, before I choke the life out of you!  Get out!
Get out!"

The other voice seemed to expostulate; but the Baron's shrill
trumpeting bore it down.  "Out of my sight!" it thundered.  "Out of my
sight!"  A door slammed.  Then silence, and Melissa found herself
trembling on the threshold, knowing that beyond it the door had closed
on Apostolou's murderer.

In a daze she sat down on the nearest chair.  Her eyes were open how.
Grenander didn't count.  It was de Bahl who, as he had put it himself,
was "master here!" and he knew--he had probably known all along--who
had shot Apostolou.  She had a sudden feeling of being trapped.  She
realised now how greatly they had depended on the Baron.  The discovery
that he was behind the dark plans of which Boulton had warned her was
shattering.  She had a vision of him, like the ruthless spider in an
old Walt Disney cartoon that had remained in her mind, luring her and
Steve like flies into his web.  She wondered whether the whole story
about the Pasha's treasure wasn't a plant.  Boulton had seemed to think
so when he spoke of it as "good psychology."  "He's deep," he had told
her, speaking of the Baron.  "He studies his man."

She was appalled.  For a full five minutes she sat there, staring in
front of her, wondering how she would grapple with the situation, with
Steve sick and Boulton inaccessible.  At last, she stood up and,
pausing a moment at the door to collect herself, walked purposefully
into the dining-room.  The Baron was at breakfast.  At the sight of
Melissa he scrambled hastily to his feet, wiping his hands on his
napkin, and kissed her hand ceremoniously, as he always did at their
first meeting of the day.  "You're down early," he said.  "You have
breakfasted, yes?"!

"I only want a cup of coffee," she told him.  "Please don't let me
disturb you--I can get it myself."  Remembering what Boulton had said
about him, that he "studied his man," she tried to put the customary
warmth into her voice.  Not very successfully, she felt, for she was
aware of the Baron's eyes following her as she went to the hotplate on
the sideboard.  Placidly, he prepared to resume his seat.

"I trust you passed a good night, dear Miss Melissa, notwithstanding
the highly superfluous military dispositions of our excitable friend,
Grenander?" he observed.

"The hypocrite," she said to herself, "the hypocrite!  Always this
pretence that Grenander is to blame for everything!"  Aloud she
remarked: "My father's ill.  I'm afraid he caught a chill last night by
going out into the yard without an overcoat."  To lighten her tone, so
as to sound as normal as possible, she added with a laugh, "When
Steve's ill, it's a major disaster, let me tell you.  He's in
considerable pain, poor lamb, groaning with agony and filling the air
with the most horrible imprecations against everything and everybody,
Mr. Grenander and his sentries in particular."

As she spoke she perceived by the expression of the Baron's eyes that
he had already heard that her father was ill.  But he did not admit
it--characteristically, as she thought.  Instead, he emitted his little
cough and said, "Dear, dear, that's bad.  I'm sorry.  He should have a
doctor, shouldn't he?"

"Is there a doctor in the village one could get?"

"Hlas, no!  There's not a doctor within ten or fifteen miles of
Orghina that I know.  But as it most fortunately happens, there's a
very clever doctor at the Castle right now, Dr. Metzger, from the
Russian side of the river--he came across to see a relative of his, one
of our Ukrainian foremen, and they gave him a bed for the night as the
snow was so heavy."

She looked at him dubiously.  "A Bolshevik, is he?"

"Indeed, no.  His sympathies lie quite the other way.  As his name
indicates, he's of German descent, member of a German family settled
for many years in the Ukraine, and, although I believe he's a Russian
subject, he's honorary German Vice-Consul at Mirapol, you know the
little town across the river--the Metzgers have been German Vice-Consul
at Mirapol for generations.  If you wished, I could bring him to see
your father after breakfast.  I understand he speaks a little English."

The suggestion was made so tentatively, with such an air of
friendliness, that for the moment she felt her distrust weaken.  It was
like the Baron to come to their aid--all through their acquaintanceship
he had always showed himself ready with a solution for every problem.
"That's terribly kind of you," she said.  "But there's someone Steve
insists on seeing before he'll let any doctor come near him, and that's
Grenander."

De Bahl grunted.  "It is about this wretched Apostolou, I suppose."  He
shrugged his strapping shoulders.  "What does he want Grenander to do?"

"He expects him to unearth the murderer and hand him over to the
police."

"Tchah!" The big shoulders went up again.  "The thing is not so simple.
These Ukrainians, they hold together like that"--he crossed his slim
fingers: "so easy it will not be to bring the guilty one to justice.
As a matter of fact, Grenander will be going over this morning to the
county seat to report this unfortunate affair to the authorities.
Meanwhile, he has given the men the day off, to cool down."  His tone
grew persuasive.  "By to-morrow, you see, the guards will be removed,
_hein_?  In any case I will have a word with your father when I take
the doctor to him."

She had not noticed until then the unusual air of peace resting over
the Castle.  At that hour the workmen should already be making the
place ring with their clatter, but this morning all was silence.  The
snow fell softly outside--through the window she could see the muffled
figure of a sentry huddled under the eaves for shelter from the
whirling flakes.

The door was rapped.  A sallow face looked in.  Black eyes swept
interrogatively from de Bahl to his companion.  It was Guido Miklas,
the Baron's architect.  He was the only one of de Bahl's associates
Melissa had not met before arriving at Orghina--the Baron had presented
him when, the day after their arrival, she and Stephen had made the
tour of the Castle.  She had scarcely exchanged a word with Miklas; but
he had a clammy handshake that repelled her and she did not like the
way his lack-lustre eye dwelt upon her whenever they met.  With an
effusive bow and a smile that flashed the whitest of teeth, he
addressed her first, saying in English, "Pardon, Miss Selmar, if I
disturb."  Then, glancing about the dining-room, "Did I put my gloves
down anywhere when I was in here just now?" he asked de Bahl.

The Baron, who was lighting a cigarette, interrupted the operation long
enough to fling a contemptuous finger in the direction of the dresser.
"Ah, there they are!" cried Miklas joyfully and advancing to the
dresser, he gathered up a pair of fur gloves that lay there.  "In
weather like this, one can't go without gloves, eh?" he observed
chattily to Melissa, lingering while his sensuous glance dwelt on her
face.  But de Bahl made him a gesture of dismissal, and with his rather
swaggering gait he went out.

Melissa sat very still in her chair, staring down into the empty coffee
cup before her.  The thought of those lewd eyes made her feel rather
sick.  She realised now that they were the eyes of Apostolou's assassin.




CHAPTER XIX

A SUMMONS FROM CHARLES

When the Baron had departed in search of the doctor, Melissa mounted
the turret stair again to her father's bedside.  Steve had dozed off
and did not wake up till around noon when de Bahl's arrival with the
doctor roused him.  On catching sight of the Baron, his first words
were, "Where's Grenander?"

"He's gone to the police, dear friend, to report the affair of last
night," was the soothing reply.  "I shall bring him to you as soon as
he returns."

The man in the bed repressed a groan.  "The murderer must be found, you
understand that, de Bahl?"

"But, of course, my dear Selmar, of course: that's why Grenander has
gone to the police.  In the meantime, allow me to present our good
friend, Dr. Metzger.  I have put our staff medicine chest at his
disposal and he will give you something to relieve your pain."

Dr. Metzger was a cadaverous individual with a sallow face deeply
pock-marked and a drooping black moustache like a mandarin's.  He was
dressed in rusty black and carried a small handbag.  On being
introduced he made a stiff little bow, first to Selmar, then to
Melissa, then, drawing a pair of steel spectacles from a battered case,
popped them on his nose and staring hard at Melissa said, "You go now.
I mek exemination."

Melissa returned to the living-room.  The mail was wont to arrive
before lunch--a mail orderly went to the village every day to fetch it.
But there was no mail to-day, not even the _Paris Herald-Tribune_.

She rang for Charles.  The mail had not arrived, he said.  The kitchen
boy had told him the mail orderly had not gone to the village that
morning; the whole working force was confined to the Castle.  And the
telephone was still out of order.  Charles lingered as though he would
have liked to discuss the situation with her.  But she sent him away.
She was not inclined to clear her mind of the increasingly alarming
thoughts that oppressed it with anyone save Boulton and her father.
But Boulton was not available and she was resolved not to say anything
to add to Steve's troubles as long as he was in pain.

Presently, there were footsteps on the stone stairs.  It was the Baron
and Dr. Metzger.  De Bahl stayed behind with her for a reassuring word.
She was not to alarm herself about her father--a day or two's rest in
bed would put him right, the doctor had said: he had left some capsules
for the patient, one to be taken after every meal.  Yes, Mr. Selmar was
still worrying about Grenander.  But Grenander would be back for lunch:
he had undertaken to bring him round after, the Baron declared.  She
thought she would lunch upstairs with her father, Melissa said, and not
downstairs as usual.  To which the Baron replied that the arrangement
would suit him very well: he felt he should lunch at the staff mess
with the others and hear Grenander's report of his interview with the
police.

Charles brought her lunch to her father's bedside.  Stephen was grumpy
and taciturn.  He took a little soup after much persuasion then, giving
Melissa his keys, bade her bring him his cheque-book from the desk.  He
pored over it for a long time, making notes with his pencil and
groaning at intervals.  Melissa had given him his capsule and was
finishing her coffee when Charles came in and said the Baron and Mr.
Grenander were below.  Selmar perked up at once.  "Ah!" he said and put
his cheque-book away under his pillow.  "How'd you like to do a little
fade-away?" he remarked to his daughter with a touch of his old humour.

"Not on your life, big boy!"

He stuck out his chin.  "I mean it, sweetheart.  I'm going to handle
this alone, and I don't want you around.  It'll be fighting words I'll
be using to that big palooka and you'll only cramp my style.  And so,
honey"--he pressed his lips to her forehead as she leaned over to shake
up his pillows--"duck!"

"You've no business to see him while you're ill.  You'll only upset
yourself.  Besides, he's a common brute--with all this trouble going
on, you never know what he might do!"

Her father laughed grimly.  "I know what I'm going to do and that's to
beat the tar out of the big stiff.  He'd gum us up here with his
guards, would he, cut off our telephone, stop our mail?"  There was a
knock at the door.  "Come in, Baron, come in," he called.  To Melissa
he said, "Go on, sweetheart, leave us now!"

The realisation that Charles had told him of the steps taken to isolate
them from the outer world made her feel that she should have taken her
father into her confidence about the true nature of his friend, the
Baron, and the plot that was afoot.  But it was too late now.  Here was
Grenander, like a white slug, his fat face sullen and enigmatic behind
the horn-rimmed glasses, and the Baron rather wheezy after the climb up
the stairs, but wreathed in smiles.  Stephen from the bed clinched
matters.  "My daughter was just leaving," he said.  "Sit down,
gentlemen, sit down!"  He waved to Melissa.  "So long, honey, I'll be
seeing you!"

Head high she went out of the door, past the bowing figures of de Bahl
and his companion.  A feeling of desperation gripped her.  If she could
only see Don Boulton again!  Until she did she felt bound by the
secrecy he had imposed on her.  If they had shot Apostolou because he
was a spy, they would show as little mercy to the Englishman once they
suspected him of giving their plans away--Boulton's life might well be
in her hands.  Down in the living-room, seated before the fire with the
door leading to the vestibule open, she found it impossible to
concentrate her attention on the month-old American magazine she had
picked up.  Voices drifted down to her from the floor above.  From time
to time she recognised her father's, harsh and angry--her uneasiness
deepened.  Unceasingly the snow fell, blanketing the Castle with quiet:
the early winter afternoon was drawing in.

At last she heard the clank of a latch, the echo of a cough, then a
light footstep upon turret stair.  That patter of feet was the only
sound in the hush of the ancient house: with beating heart she
listened, feeling that the very air was sultry with the presage of
disaster.

The lamp had not yet been lit in the lobby and the stone hall was full
of shadows.  The Baron, his forehead puckered in a frown, stood at the
foot of the stair waiting for Grenander who came clattering down in the
grey-green "Loden" suit and knee boots he always wore about the works.
De Bahl barked something to him to which the other muttered a reply,
then, snatching up his fur coat that lay on a chair, slung it about his
shoulders and strode out through the turret entrance.  The snow whirled
in as he opened the door and they heard the sharp challenge of the
sentry without.  Then the door slammed.

"Baron!" called Melissa from the living-room threshold.  De Bahl, lost
in thought, started as he saw her there, then crossed to where she
stood.  "_Eh bien_, why so downcast?" he rasped, giving her cheek a
little friendly pat.  "Everything's in order now.  To-morrow the
sentries will be withdrawn, and all will be as it was before.
Meanwhile, your father's asleep and if I were you, I wouldn't disturb
him.  I'll see you at dinner!"  So saying, with another encouraging
pat, he turned to the door and head down to the eddying flakes,
vanished into the snow.

The look she had surprised on his face, Grenander's forbidding scowl as
he had passed, belied his words.  Well, Steve would tell her the truth,
and this time he in his turn should hear the truth from her.  Up the
corkscrew stair she sped.  Her father was asleep, even as the Baron had
said.  She tidied the coverlet, set the window open a few inches to air
the room, in case he were only dozing and might hear her.  But he never
stirred, lying on his back, breathing rather stertorously--"poor
darling," she thought, "he's worn out."  Switching on the bedside lamp
she picked up the newspaper that lay there.  But presently the
headlines began to swim.  She was conscious of feeling deathly tired;
her broken night, the strain she had borne all day alone, had quite
worn her out.  She closed her eyes and let the peace of the dim, quiet
room steal over her.  The newspaper slipped from her lap....

"Mademoiselle!  Ps-st, Mademoiselle!"

Charles stood before her, shaking her gently.  She sat up, rubbing her
eyes.  "I must have dropped off," she said.  He laid a finger to his
lips.  "Let us not disturb Monsieur," he warned, and she saw that
Stephen was sleeping on.  "Ali went with cables to the village
post-office for Monsieur le Baron," the cautious whisper went on.  "If
Mademoiselle will come with me, I will show her something."  She then
perceived that he carried the racoon coat she used for sleighing over
his arm and had her bret and muffler in his hand.  "Follow me," he
said.  "But quickly, or we may be too late!"

Without pausing for a reply he brought her to the staircase.  At the
bottom he was waiting for her, holding out her coat.  "Mademoiselle
will need it," he remarked, helping her into it.  "But, Charles," she
asked, "where are we going?  And what about the guards?"

With another brusque "_Suivez-moi!_" however, he was off again, through
the living-room this time, the dining-room and thence, by way of the
service door, into the kitchen where the clock on the wall marked ten
minutes past six.  From the kitchen a succession of small dependencies
brought them to a little inside court with a glass roof darkened by its
weight of snow.  Here Charles switched on a flash lamp and revealed
across the court the entrance of a shed stacked with wood.

They entered the shed and Charles, once more with finger laid to lips,
silently closed the door.  At the far end of the shed where a space had
been cleared of the billets, a trapdoor stood wide.  A wooden stair led
down.  Her escort signing to her that they were to descend, she
followed him down.  At the bottom of the short flight, the beam of the
torch showed the damp masonry of a low and extremely narrow passage,
not much broader than a man.  It brought them to another wooden stair
which mounted into darkness.  Then the flash light was extinguished and
Charles's whisper, light as a sigh, was in her ear, "Not a sound now,
as you value your life!"

She was aware then of a faint murmur of voices from above.  Charles's
hand found hers in the dark and step by step, stealthily, he drew her
up the stairs behind him.  They emerged into a dank, vault-like place
with an opening in the far wall through which fell a faint glimmer of
light.  Noiseless as a shadow, Melissa's companion crept forward and
the girl, setting her pace by his, went after: through an archway they
came into a black, icy little room reeking of bats and birds, with a
small hatch set shoulder-high in the wall and screened with intricate
oriental woodwork.  It was through this opening that the faint radiance
they had perceived appeared.  Voices were audible beyond it.

Charles motioned to her to approach.  She stole across to where he
stood, peering through the hatch: she realised that, with darkness all
about them, they must be invisible to anyone in the room beyond.  She
found herself gazing into an oblong chamber lit by a single naked bulb
hung on the end of a wire suspended from the high beamed roof.  The
striped red and white arches on slender columns, the central ablution
tank, the band of Arabic inscriptions running along the top of the
tiles sheathing the walls, told her that she was looking into the
little mosque--she had visited mosques in Algeria and Egypt with her
father.

The air was chill and filled with tobacco smoke.  A group of men sat at
a table set up on trestles parallel with the opposite wall.  At the
head of the board, dominating them all by his presence, was de Bahl.




CHAPTER XX

IN THE MOSQUE

The Baron was finishing a speech.  He was speaking in his elegant
French.  He leaned back in his chair, his beautiful hands lightly
poised on the table before him, his head turning from side to side as
his glance languidly considered the faces of his hearers.  Along the
table Melissa perceived Grenander, stolidly puffing a large cigar, and
von Wahlczek, and Miklas; the pock-marked doctor, too, and two men she
could not place who sat at the end.  The place smelt musty and was
bitterly cold, so that the Baron's breath ballooned about him: all were
well wrapped up and wore their hats.  The girl looked in vain for
Boulton: Frangipani, the Italian, was missing, too.

In their rich furs the two strangers made striking figures.  One was a
patriarchal type, his chest barred with a great spread of beard: his
companion was much younger, handsome in an aquiline way, with a dark,
passionate face.  It was to them that the Baron appeared principally to
address himself.  "My friends," he said, "you've heard the plan: you've
also visited the stocks in the tower.  Well, there'll be another
hundred machine guns, another hundred thousand rounds of ammunition as
well as the hand grenades you asked for added to them by the time the
moon's right for us, and that should be the middle of next week.  If
you or your comrade have any comments, friend Rypnik, now is the time
to speak."

The great beard nodded condescendingly.  "Your plan appears to be
remarkably comprehensive," he observed in measured French.  "If to me
it seems somewhat over-bold..."

His younger companion struck in hotly.  "Boldness is what we want," he
cried, eyes flashing.  "With the arms you will bring in," he told de
Bahl, "we need fear nothing.  Our organisation across the river is more
than adequate to master local opposition by a swift _coup de main_, and
the first shot fired on the Dniester will bring the whole Ukraine to
its feet eager to shake off the cursed chains of Red oppression."

The doctor sprang up.  "Yes, and within twenty-four hours--what do I
say, within twelve, nay, six hours--the whole anti-Bolshevik _bloc_ of
Europe will rally to our support!"  He glared at the grey bearded man.
"You will not deny that, Rypnik?"

The old man cocked his head.  "If you rely on foreign intervention for
the success of our enterprise, you are likely to be disappointed.  If
you wish foreign intervention to follow swiftly, then you must link a
_casus belli_ to our undertaking.  A frontier incident, maybe."  He
turned his rheumy eyes towards his young companion.  "I spoke of this
to you, Vassenko."

The doctor gave a sudden, cackling laugh.  "They shall have their
frontier incident, never fear," he declared stridently.  He glanced
towards de Bahl.  They all glanced towards de Bahl.  Vassenko said: "I
confess I am curious to know what you have in mind."

The Baron cleared his throat.  "We will speak of this again," he said,
eyes veiled.  "The matter will be taken care of, depend on it."  He
stood up.  "I think that is all for the moment..."

Charles was tugging at Melissa's sleeve.  She shook him off, fearful of
missing a word of what was said.  Then she was dimly aware that Charles
was no longer with her, and it seemed to her presently that her ear
caught a muffled thud.  When she peeped through the hatch again, the
party was breaking up--the two strangers were leaving.  On the far side
of the table was a small, iron-studded door--the mosque entrance.  The
strangers were moving towards it now when Grenander stopped them.  "The
side door is more direct: it brings you to the Boyar Tower.  Here,
Miklas, show them!"

Miklas minced over--to Melissa's horror he led the way straight to
where she stood at the grill.  On noiseless feet she fell back through
the archway to the outer room where was the trap-door by which she and
Charles had entered.  By this time her eyes had grown accustomed to the
darkness, and she repressed a cry of dismay on discovering Charles gone
and the trap closed.  The flap had a ring at which she tugged; but it
resisted all her efforts.  The outer room had two doors.  One seemed to
lead into the mosque; the other was set up a few steps in the wall.
But she had no time to try it for now she heard voices close at hand on
the other side of the wall, and the sound of a door opening.  There was
nothing for it--she would have to retreat to her post in the inner room.

She was only just in time.  Flattened against the archway and peering
out, she saw the door swing inward.  A flash-lamp sprang into life: it
showed the three men as they crossed the outer room and disappeared
through the door in the wall.  She was appalled: she realised that she
was caught between two fires.  Voices still resounded from the mosque;
at any moment Miklas might return from the Boyar Tower and find her
there.  De Bahl's laugh rumbling through the emptiness drew her to her
spy-hole again.

She saw that the party had risen from the table and was clustered about
the Baron who was chaffing the doctor.  There was a good deal of
laughter, but she understood the doctor to say that they could count on
him in every way: the idea was "really ingenious."  But he added that
he thought "our Ukrainian friends" were much too optimistic.  The
Ukraine would not rise so easily.  On that Grenander rumbled a wheezing
laugh.  "What do we care?" he grunted.

The laugh ran round the circle.  "The great thing is secrecy," the
Baron struck in.  "Let these idiotic conspirators believe what they
like--we don't give the signal until the moment is ripe."

Von Wahlczek's rather snarling voice interposed.  "Why talk of secrecy
when this animal of a Miklas has given the game away?  What was the
sense of shooting that rat right under Selmar's nose?"

"If we hadn't shot him, we'd have had the whole Soviet Secret Service
on our backs by this," was Grenander's angry retort.

"Wally is right," said the Baron judiciously.  "Evidently there were
other equally efficient ways of dealing with the traitor.  But what's
done is done.  You may take it from me that our friend Guido will know
how to restrain his trigger finger in future."

"That may be," von Wahlczek rejoined.  "But in the meantime, what do we
tell Selmar?"

De Bahl laughed.  "Don't you think you can leave Selmar to me?  After
all, I brought him here!"

Grenander chortled joyfully.  "Treasure, eh?"  He smote the wall beside
him with a resounding slap.  "Hear the coins rattle, children!  The
place is full of money!"

"And jewels, Axel!  Don't forget the Pasha's jewels," the Baron put in
archly.

The engineer chuckled.  "You're a double-crossing scoundrel, Alexis,
but you're smart.  That Turkish document was an inspiration, but the
bailiff's letter was a masterpiece: I wouldn't have thought of that."

De Bahl hoisted his shoulders.  "Psychology, my dear Axel!  When you
bait a mouse-trap you have to know what a mouse likes best to eat.
There are not many of us who can resist the lure of buried gold."

"Agreed.  But now you've got Selmar here, how are you going to keep him
quiet?" von Wahlczek demanded.  "He expects to start in on this
treasure hunt right away."

"And why not?" retorted Grenander.  "We can dig up the floor for him,
can't we?"

"With the working force available, this place can be turned inside out
in a couple of days," von Wahlczek declared.  "The Yankee is no fool.
Let him once smell a rat, and he'll cut off the money.  What do we do
then?  Our fellows have to be paid, you know."

De Bahl shook his head, narrowing his eyes until they were mere slits.
"He won't cut off the money," he said softly.  There was a sinister
ring in his voice that sent a shiver along Melissa's spine as she
crouched beside the hatch.

"And what about the girl?" von Wahlczek persisted.

"Maybe I shall find a use for her, too," was the composed rejoinder.

A sudden commotion without brought them all whirling about to face the
grating where Melissa stood.  She ducked and at the same time heard a
door bang, voices and footsteps outside.  As she cowered there, a
cluster of figures went storming through the gloom on the other side of
the archway and burst into the mosque.  It was the Italian, Frangipani:
in his wake followed three of his truck-drivers in their leather
jackets dragging a struggling figure in a peaked fur cap.  At the sight
of the cap Melissa felt her heart miss a beat--she was so sure it was
Boulton.

But it was not Boulton.  The prisoner was taller than Boulton, heavier
too, and a stranger to her.  Frangipani shouted in his broken English:
"It is the secret agent of the Ogpu, Apostolou's man.  We find 'im on
the stairs in the Boyar Tower."  A sudden silence fell, and out of it
came de Bahl's voice, cool and collected: "You'd better question him,
Axel."

The engineer strode forward, chin out, and growled at the captive in
Russian.  The prisoner was a burly fellow with a broad Slav nose and
tilted eyes: his air was savagely morose.  One or two sentences were
exchanged and then, without warning, Grenander dealt him a blow with
his fist that rang like a pistol shot under the high roof.  The
prisoner reeled backward with the blood running down his chin: Melissa
saw that his hands were tied behind him.  The engineer broke into a
torrent of angry Russian to which the man's only rejoinder was a
contemptuous shrug.  "Well, well, what does he say, Axel," the Baron
demanded irritably.

"Nothing we want to hear," replied Grenander, balefully regarding his
victim, solidly held by his guards.

Melissa had her eyes on the Baron's face.  She was shocked by the
change that came over it.  It was as though with a handkerchief the air
of purposeful bonhomie that was its customary expression had been wiped
away, leaving in its place a look of cold ferocity that filled her with
panic.  But when he spoke his voice was as huskily gentle as ever.
"He'll talk all right," he said, and turned to Grenander.  "Tell him in
Russian, my good Axel, that we shall know how to make him speak."

Grenander addressed the Russian.  This time the man laughed brazenly
and spat on the ground.  Grenander would have struck him again, but the
Baron elbowed him out of the way.  Then he raised his eyes aloft, to
where great beams supported the roof, and dropping his gaze to the
captive, said softly over his shoulder: "Let somebody bring me a rope!"

A faint sound in the outer room distracted Melissa's attention from the
scene.  She turned her head and perceived beyond the archway a lanky
figure in the gloom, making frantic signs to her.  She glanced once
more through the grill before she obeyed.  The whole party was
clustered about the prisoner; from under a pile of beams against the
wall Frangipani and one of the truck-drivers were drawing a long rope.
When they had it clear, on a gesture from de Bahl, they flung an end
over one of the roof beams.

She waited to see no more.  She scarcely knew how she reached the
archway.  In the obscurity of the room beyond Charles was a shadow that
kept beckoning: she saw that the trap in the floor was open.  But now
she perceived that the door into the mosque stood wide: to reach the
trap she would have to pass in front of it, in full view of the men in
the mosque.  She drew back, her heart thumping, measuring the distance
with her eye.

At that moment a long, gurgling cry shattered the silence.  Glancing
backward through the grating she had left, she had a glimpse of a
sack-like, dangling thing being jerked unsteadily upward to the roof.
It was the Russian.  They were hauling him up on the roof attached to
his wrists tethered behind his back.  He gyrated wildly, legs kicking,
while scream upon scream broke from him.  Melissa lost all sense of
caution then.  Darting across the opening she fell half fainting into
Charles's arms.  The trap closing noiselessly behind them shut off
those terrible cries.  "Oh Charles," she gasped, "did you see what they
were doing to that wretched man?"  But the valet said nothing: grasping
her firmly by the arm he hurried her along the passage and so up to the
kitchen.

In the light and warmth of the kitchen under the solemnly ticking clock
she broke from him and cried: "We must do something.  It's horrible.
That fiendish creature!  Why did you leave me?"

The Frenchman outlined an almost imperceptible shrug, "Ali came back
with the stores.  He was calling me.  If he had found us there..."

"We must stop them," she struck in frantically.  "When I tell my
father, even though he's in pain, he'll get up and stop them.  Come on,
Charles!  I don't care if he is asleep; I'm going to wake him."

But her companion made no move.  "Your father, Mademoiselle..." he
began, and paused, moistening his lips.  She saw the dismay in his
regard, and stared at him in consternation.  "Nothing's happened to my
father, Charles?" she exclaimed faintly.

The man swallowed once, then nodded briefly.  "Mademoiselle, he has
vanished!  I've searched the whole wing.  They must have come when we
were down there, and taken him away."

On that without a word she fled from him and sped through the dark
rooms to the turret lobby and up the winding stair.  Her father's door
was open, the bed empty, and when she looked about her, it was to
discover that his clothes, which had been piled on a chair, had
likewise disappeared.  Aghast, she sat down on the bed.  To her ears,
out of the snowy silence, mounted the ring of the sentry's feet on the
flags under the eaves in the yard below.




CHAPTER XXI

THE MAN ON THE BALCONY

This was disaster.  Disaster black and irretrievable.  She was
conscious of Charles speaking to her, but she did not answer him and
presently, without quite knowing how she got there, she found herself
crouched on the settee before the fire in the living-room, alone.

How right Boulton had been to distrust de Bahl.  Anger flamed within
her at the thought of him.  From the beginning he had been playing a
game with them.  One lie after the other--he moved in an atmosphere of
lies.  The Pasha's treasure, this bunch of arms touts he had wished on
her father in the guise of assistants, even his story to her that the
mosque, which they were using for their secret meetings, was filled
with rubbish and could not be visited--wherever she put her mind back,
she came upon lies.  And now, not content with filching her father's
honourable reputation to cover their gun-running and his money to pay
for it, they had dared to kidnap him.  At the thought of Steve, so
upright and decent-minded and square, and the way they had mocked him
in the mosque, she felt sick with rage and indignation.

What did they mean to do with him?  De Bahl's remark to von Wahlczek in
the mosque, spoken with hideous malignity, crept into her mind.  "_He
won't cut off the money!_"  At the recollection she sprang irresolutely
to her feet, the blood draining from her face.  They relied on Steve
for the weekly pay-cheques: without money they could not keep their
unruly gangs in hand.  But no one could order her father about.  He was
the type of man who would refuse to the last to pay ransom to a
kidnapper, but would bid him go ahead and do his damnedest.  What would
they do to him?  In terror she remembered the look in de Bahl's eyes,
the glimpse she had had of that screaming figure slowly jerking aloft,
and had to cram her handkerchief into her mouth to repress a scream.

To steady her nerves she lit a cigarette and sat down before the fire
again.  Sombre thoughts seemed to stream from the stone walls about
her, every block saturated with deeds of medival violence, their very
hue evoking, as Steve had said, memories of the blood spilled there.
The silence enveloping her broken only by the tramp of the sentries,
the sense of impending danger--these things, she reflected, were of the
very essence of the atmosphere of Stephen cel Mare's stronghold.  Thus
down the centuries women must have sat in the Castle, perhaps in that
very room, wrestling with their fears while their men were away at the
wars, quaking at the thought that defeat would bring inexorably a cloud
of arrows darkening the sun, an onrush of thousands of rancid savages,
sweeping across the ice on their shaggy ponies--it was odd to think
that it was the Baron who had described to her such moments in the
Castle's history.  An hour or two away by air was Bucharest with its
gay boulevards and shops, and the Orient Express waiting to whisk one
off to Paris, to Havre, to the snug luxury of the _Queen Mary_ or the
_Normandie_, with the twentieth century seething along Fifth Avenue at
the end of the journey.  Yet here she was, behind the ring of sullen,
unfriendly guards, utterly cut off from civilisation as though, by some
Wellsian time machine, she had been thrust back into the Middle Ages.

She heard the tinkle of a tray behind her.  Charles was there with tea.
She felt herself drawing courage from the square, ugly French face:
with Don Boulton, if he ever succeeded in getting in touch with her
again, Charles was now her only ally.  "Charles," she said desperately
as he set down the tray beside her, "what are we going to do to find my
father?"

His saucer eyes regarded her mournfully.  "It will not be easy with
sentries at every door."  He paused.  "I think I know why they take
Monsieur.  I was outside his bedroom this afternoon, when the Baron and
this other one were with Monsieur, and I heard Monsieur say he would
sign no more cheques."  He wagged his head shrewdly.  "I think it will
be bad for Monsieur, if he resists.  These are desperate men,
Mademoiselle.  They have this project, as it would seem to bring arms
into the Ukraine.  It is not the habit of revolutionaries to let a
single man stand in their way."

"They're not revolutionaries, Charles, they're vulgar gun-runners.
Grenander, and von Wahlczek, and Frangipani are nothing but a lot of
armaments salesmen--the Baron, too, I expect.  All they care about is
to sell the stuff.  They don't give a damn for these wretched
Ukrainians--they admitted as much when they were talking among
themselves in the mosque this evening."

The Frenchman veiled his eyes.  "So," he said, "this I did not know.  A
million of my fellow-countrymen, my three brothers among them, died for
France in the name of liberty; but now it seems it was only to make the
world safe for those who profit by war."  His face darkened.  "No
matter, the time is coming when outraged humanity will rise and
exterminate these monsters."  He broke off abruptly, abashed by the
white heat of passion underlying his words.  "For the present, we are
prisoners here, Mademoiselle--we must recognise it," he went on more
calmly.  "If we would not make things worse for Monsieur, we must not
seem to oppose these _coquins_.  Let us rather see how we can outwit
them."

"But, Charles, what are we going to do?"

"The Baron and these gentlemen will be at dinner.  The important thing
is that they should not guess that we suspect anything.  Fortunately I
locked your bedroom door when we went to the mosque: I told Ali that
you were lying down and that I had been in the cellar chopping wood, to
account for our absence.  It appears to me that the Baron must offer
some explanation of Monsieur's disappearance: for the rest we will see.
But in the meantime Mademoiselle must try and conceal her real
feelings."  He gave her his grave smile.  "It is not difficult for a
woman to dissemble, I have heard."

She sighed.  "All right, Charles.  But meanwhile, keep your eyes open
for any sign of Mr. Boulton----"

"Mademoiselle means the English chauffeur?"

"Yes.  Between ourselves, it was he who first warned me about what was
going on here.  He's on our side, Charles: you can trust him."

"_Tiens_!  This is something interesting."  He smiled again.  "It is
then the old alliance of the war days--France, England and the United
States."


But Melissa was destined to dine alone.  The Baron sent word by Ali,
excusing himself and the others.  When Charles brought her the message
she would have given Ali a note for de Bahl, asking what had become of
her father; but Ali had not waited.  She wrote a line just the same and
took it to the sentry at the turret door, asking him first in French
and then in her broken German to deliver it when he was relieved.  But
she could not make the man understand.  He only growled and waved her
back with his rifle so that she was forced to go indoors again.  She
felt more concerned than ever.  The fact that de Bahl had not troubled
to vouchsafe any explanation about her father's disappearance suggested
that he no longer felt the need of pretence.  He had thrown off the
mask.  She went to her lonely dinner with the sensation that the climax
was at hand.

All remained tranquil in the Castle, however.  The day's snow had given
place to a clear, starry night, so still that the strains of an
accordeon, of voices raised in song, were wafted to her from the men's
quarters in the outer yard as she sat by the living-room fire, trying
to occupy her mind with the muffler she was knitting for her father.
The voices were grave and resonant and harmoniously blended.  The
rather melancholy strains grated on her nerves: she felt the lowering
castle walls closing in on her.  If she might only get Steve back, she
promised herself, she would see to it that he took her away from
Orghina as quickly as possible for good and all.

With that she folded her knitting and went out into the turret
vestibule to go up to bed.  At the same moment Charles appeared from
the kitchen.  He told her he had been as far as the ante-room of the
mosque, hoping to discover the exit through the Boyar Tower, but all
the doors were now locked.  He had thought of bribing the sentries and,
as a preliminary step, had tried to make one understand that he should
take a letter to the police in the village, showing a wad of money, but
the man had brusquely refused.  Then he had formed the plan of making a
rope of sheets and letting himself down from her bedroom balcony.  But
even if they could fashion a rope long enough--it was a good
hundred-foot drop to the ground--there were guards posted all along the
river bank after nightfall now.  There was nothing to be done that
night: they would re-examine the position in the morning.  Meanwhile,
Mademoiselle need have no fear.  Let her lock her door and go to bed
tranquilly.  He would make up a bed for himself in the turret
vestibule: if she called out he would hear her.  And he showed her an
automatic pistol under his coat.

Up in her room the clanging gongs that sounded for "Lights Out!" put an
end to the music and singing.  From her window she saw a glimmer of
light under the Boyar Tower and the silhouette of a sentry at its foot.
Seated at her dressing-table, staring absently at her reflection in the
mirror, she tried to send a message of love and hope to Steve, wherever
he was, knowing that his thoughts were likewise with her.  The last
thing before she got into bed she unbolted the balcony door, breathing
a little prayer that Boulton would contrive to make his way across the
roofs to her again.  She took comfort from his memory: the image of his
cheerful, freckled face and steady, rather wistful grey eyes was with
her as she fell asleep.


A dazzling beam of light played upon her face.  A dim figure was framed
in the doorway of the balcony.  She was awake on the instant.  "Don!"
she cried joyfully and, stretching out an arm from under the
bedclothes, switched on the bedside lamp.  Then as the light went on
her two hands clawed at her cheeks in sudden terror.

"Don't scream!" said Miklas, and stepped into the room.




CHAPTER XXII

THE DNIESTER SQUARES AN ACCOUNT

For an instant he stood there and as he gazed at her she saw the
watchfulness fade from the heavily-lidded eyes and give way to a gleam
of gloating surprise.  He was hatless and, despite the rigour of the
night, the perspiration stood out in little drops among the thinning
hair and glistened on the pursy, livid cheeks.  He wore no overcoat and
his clothes were smeared with mortar and mud as he confronted her,
breathing hard.  He had a pistol in one hand, a flashlight in the
other.  A moment while his glance ran round the room, then the lewd
glitter of his eyes, searching her face, turned her blood to stone.
She remembered that this man was a murderer with the blood of his
victim fresh on him.

He staggered a little, catching at the back of a chair to steady
himself.  Then he thrust his torch into the opening of his jacket.  But
the automatic he kept levelled at the bed.  "'Allo, Missy," he said
rather thickly.  "Well, if this don't beat everything!  'Don!'"--he
mimicked her cry in a high falsetto and laughed ribaldly.  "Strike me
frozen, but ole Don seems to know where the fresh vegetables is kept!"

His English was indescribable, half-Cockney, half-French, the English
of the night guides who prowl the Paris boulevards offering to show
tourists "the rights"; his manner unspeakably familiar, a blend of
bully and "masher."  With despair Melissa realised that he had found
Boulton's route over the roof.  "I don't know what you're talking
about," she cried in a white rage.  "How dare you come into my bedroom?
And don't point that gun at me!  Get out of here at once!"

He chuckled while his snake-like eyes fastened themselves on a glimpse
of gleaming shoulder that protruded from under the bedspread.  Hastily
she drew the eiderdown closer about her.  "'Aughty, _hein_?" he
sneered.  "So this is where our 'ead foreman spends 'is nights."
Owlishly he wagged his finger at her.  "No use your denying it, girlie.
There's 'is rope an' 'is footmarks in the snow to prove it.  You _must_
'ave made it worth 'is while to come over the leads in the dark.  If I
'adn't of 'ad a couple I wouldn't 'ave risked it, not even to cash in
at the end of the trip, kiddo!"

She realised now that he was drunk.  "You're talking a lot of nonsense,
Miklas," she said rather tremulously.  "The painters left that rope
there.  Now please go away and let me sleep."

He laughed and bared his dazzling teeth.  "No painters 'ere, girlie!
That's my department, an' I know.  Why did you call out 'Don' just now
if you wasn't expecting him--answer me that!"  He took a step forward.
"Let's me an' you be friends.  We've a long winter in front of us."

Her hand found the bell-push on its cord.  "Stay where you are, or I'll
ring for Charles," she cried sharply.  "He's close by.  He's sitting up
to-night.  He's...."

"Don't make me laugh.  He's snoring like a pig in the hall downstairs.
And your old man won't wake up so soon, neither--he's sleeping off the
doctor's visit.  So ring as much as you like, girlie, ring as much as
you like."

She pressed the bell desperately as he came at her: she could hear it
pealing through passages below.  Then, with a sudden grab, he seized
her wrist and tore the bell out of her hand: the reek of liquor swept
her face.  He had laid his pistol away and with his free hand was
trying to pinion her other arm: she sought to throw him off by slipping
out of bed sideways.  But his grip on her wrist held firm: the burning
eyes, the liquor on his breath, came closer and closer....

Then she was aware that a tall figure in a fur cap was on the balcony.

It was Boulton.  He was no more than a shadow in the moonlight,
pointing silently towards the bedside lamp.  In a last convulsive
effort she twisted her hand, still imprisoned in that vice-like clutch,
until her fingers found the switch.  The light went out and on the
instant the moon flooded the room with silver.  At the same moment in a
noiseless, lightning spring the figure in the doorway came hurtling
through the air and her aggressor was plucked away so violently that,
his clutch on her wrist breaking only at the last, she was flung to the
end of the bed.

She saw that Boulton had one hand clapped firmly over the other's
nostrils and mouth: his other hand grasped Miklas by the arm, pulling
it down over one shoulder and at the same time twisting it.  Uttering
inarticulate cries of pain, Miklas was swept clear of the ground,
hoisted like a sack of corn on Boulton's back: then the Englishman
crouched, ducked, and his victim, heaved upward and outward, shot in a
wide parabola through the balcony door and over the balustrade.  The
quickness of it was uncanny.  At one instant there was the struggling
figure emitting muffled sounds: then there was only the hard moonlight
tracing patterns on the floor and the stillness broken by the straining
ice below.

Aghast, Melissa would have run out on the balcony.  But Boulton stepped
in her path.  "They'd spot you in white," he said, still rather
breathless.  "Better let me go."  She was aware of his silhouette black
against the moonlight without, then he was back at her side, closing
the balcony door, drawing the curtains.  "The snow took him," he
announced, tight-lipped and grim.  "They're not likely to find him
until spring.  The snow's deep on the ice, the sentry apparently didn't
hear a sound."

Her teeth were chattering with the cold.  "Did you ... did you have
to..."  she began huskily.

The grey eyes smouldered.  "It was him or us.  If he'd got away alive,
knowing I'd been up here before seeing you..."

"You heard what he said then?"

He nodded.  "I was close behind him on the balcony.  I followed him
when he left the mess--I had a hunch he was up to no good."  He
frowned.  "He had it coming to him.  He was a killer."

"You know it was he who shot Apostolou, then?"

"The rumour's all over the camp."

"It's true.  De Bahl was taxing him with it at breakfast time this
morning."  And she told him of the conversation she had overheard in
the dining-room.

He gave a short laugh.  "Well, the Dniester's put paid to a lot of old
accounts to-night, Apostolou's among the rest.  This is the second of
our friend Guido's victims, right here at Orghina."

"You mean, he killed someone else besides Apostolou?"

His face hardened.  "An Englishman called Armitage.  They found him in
the river.  It happened before you came, soon after your father was
here the first time."

"Steve knew nothing about it, or he'd have told me."

"That may well be.  As far as I know, Armitage was never at the Castle.
He never got beyond the village."

"But what was an Englishman doing at Orghina?"

"Officially, he was prospecting on behalf of a British oil syndicate.
But it might also be that certain people in London were interested in
our friend, the Baron."  He broke off.  "That nightie of yours looks
pretty airy to me."  He took her hand in his.  "My gracious, but you're
freezing.  Here, put this on and hop back into bed!"

He picked up her dressing-gown from the bed and hustled her into it.
She had flushed, realising for the first time that she was clad in
nothing more substantial than _crpe de chine_.  With the most
matter-of-fact air in the world he pulled back the bedclothes, helped
her into bed, and tucked her in.  She snuggled under the bedclothes.
"That brute frightened you, didn't he?" he said, gazing down at her.
"Are you sure you feel all right?"

She nodded, then put out her hand shyly and laid it on his.  "Thanks
for what you did.  It was ju-jitsu, wasn't it?"

He nodded.  "A Jap on the Pacific Coast once gave me some lessons."

"It was a tremendous decision to take.  It's rather a terrible thing to
kill a man."

"Not Guido Miklas.  Not a rat like that.  And I'd have as little
scruple in treating our friend, the Baron, the same way, if I had the
chance."

Her eyes rested thoughtfully on his face.  "You were right about de
Bahl and I was wrong.  I wish you'd tell me what you know about him."

His laugh was grim.  "Plenty, and none of it good.  For years he's been
running one of the most successful espionage bureaus in Europe, if you
know what that is."

"Not very well."

"They buy up military secrets and sell them to the highest bidder.
They also undertake specific commissions as in the case of a Power that
wants, let's say, the plans of a fortress or the design of a new
anti-aircraft gun.  It's a dirty business.  They go to work very
methodically to corner the person who can give them the information
they want.  Sometimes it's a highly placed staff officer, sometimes
only a clerk, but the procedure is always the same.  They discover
their victim's weakness--it may be gambling, or it may be women--and
use it to get him in their clutches.  Then he has to come across with
the information or else ... de Bahl specialises in this sort of thing.
Wherever he goes, he leaves a record of ruin, suicide, behind him.  And
the men he employs are absolutely ruthless, like this Miklas rat"--he
jerked his head backward towards the window.  "If they want to leave no
traces, they kill.  The Lord knows how many people de Bahl has
murdered, or caused to be murdered."

She shuddered.  "But it's too ghastly!  Knowing all this, why ever
didn't you warn us?"

He shook his head.  "I didn't know what your father was doing mixed up
with a man of his stamp.  De Bahl has always had plenty of capital.  We
never knew where it came from--it certainly didn't come from this
antique business of his.  I'm pretty sure now that Ardza supplied it."

"Ardza?  What had he to do with espionage?  I thought he was in the
arms industry."

He laughed.  "And what's better for the arms trade than seeing that
everybody knows just what the other fellow has got tucked away in the
way of secret weapons?  But de Bahl's never been in the arms business
and I must say I'm puzzled to know what he's up to here, hobnobbing
with a bunch of gun-runners like Grenander and the rest of them.  He's
never had anything to do with gun-running to my knowledge, and Heaven
knows, there's been enough of it going on, these past few years."  He
clutched his shoulder suddenly.  "Do you mind if I sit down for a
minute?"  He dropped down on the bed.

She had switched on the bedside light and in its pinkly shaded ray saw
that his face, glistening with perspiration, was twisted with pain.
"Oh, you're hurt!" she cried.

He held up a restraining hand.  "I'll be all right in a minute.  It's
only this old shoulder of mine."

"Let me get you some brandy.  I've a flask in my dressing-bag."

"Please.  It's nothing really.  I'm not so good at all-in wrestling
since my crash.  And that hold of mine just now wasn't as clean as I'd
have liked."  He began to rotate his arm.  "I don't think the internal
ironmongery has suffered.  You know, I'd like a word with your father
if you think he could stand the shock of finding me here.  Is it too
late to wake him up?"

She stared at him in consternation.  "Then you didn't hear about Steve?"

He frowned.  "No."

"They've kidnapped him."

He gazed at her blankly.  "That's bad!" he said and shook his head.
"That's damned bad.  What happened?"

She told then of the day's events--the doctor's visit, de Bahl's and
Grenander's interview with Stephen, her adventure in the mosque.  When
she described the torture scene she had witnessed, Boulton's face
hardened.  "I saw them bring the poor devil in," he said, "I thought
they'd give him the works.  Well, there's the real de Bahl for you--a
naked savage behind all that sleek faade."

"What became of him, do you know?"

He outlined a little shrug.  "Some of the boys took him away in a
lorry.  He was still alive, but by this I guess he's in a ditch
somewhere, under the snow."  He took her hand.  "It won't help,
thinking about it.  Go on with your story."

"I shouldn't worry too much about your father," he said when she had
finished.  "After all, he's the goose that lays the golden eggs: so
long as he controls the purse strings, nothing very much can happen to
him."

She shook her head.  "You don't know Steve.  He's as obstinate as a
mule.  He'll pay no ransom.  Don, I'm so scared for him."

"He knows you're in their power, remember--he'll do nothing to make
things worse for you.  But you can leave this to me.  De Bahl doesn't
suspect me yet--I'll find some means of discovering what they've done
with your father and of getting into touch with him.  For the rest, I
confess I'm still puzzled.  These guys haven't a hoot in Hades chance
of starting a successful rising in the Ukraine and de Bahl, who's
nobody's fool, knows it as well as I do."

"I forgot to tell you," she said.  "In the mosque this afternoon the
old fellow with the beard said they'd have to have a frontier incident
in order to bring the anti-Bolshevik Powers in."

His expression quickened.  "The only Power in question is Germany and
she's not going to risk war with Russia for the sake of a rabble of
crazy Ukrainian agitators."

"The doctor seemed to think she would.  And he's German Consul at
Mirapol, so he ought to know."

"Only by courtesy, and Vice-Gonsul at that.  It's the only thing German
about him: otherwise he's Ukrainian through and through and as
woolly-headed as the rest of them.  But he's the German representative
all right and he might well cook up something to embroil the two
Powers."  He puckered his brow.  "A frontier incident, eh?"

He picked up her hand again.  "As for the famous treasure, I had a
notion, from the moment you told me about it, that the whole thing was
a ramp.  Of course, de Bahl forged those documents or, more likely,
hired some out of elbows hack at Bucharest to forge them for him."  He
looked at her speculatively.  "De Bahl spoke of not starting before the
middle of next week, didn't you say?  That gives us a little breathing
space, anyway."

She said, "You always give me courage.  I don't know what I'd do
without you.  Are you sure the Baron doesn't suspect you?"

He gave her his cheerful grin.  "With that whited sepulchre you can
never be sure of anything.  But my little fracas with your father made
quite a hit with him.  De Bahl has an eye on me, no doubt, as he has on
everybody, and Grenander still thinks of me as his chauffeur he picked
out of the gutter; but I get on famously with von Wahlczek--I've an
idea that our Wally may prove useful yet."  He glanced at his watch.
"I must be on my way.  I have to lay a good, strong alibi that I was
asleep between the blankets when our friend Miklas was last seen, in
case they find the body."  His glance was rather wistful.  "I bet you
never talked to a fellow who'd just killed a man before."

She pressed his hand.  "You don't think I'd hold that against you, Don?
When do I see you again?"

"To-morrow night, maybe.  At any rate, I'll think up some way of
communicating with you."

"Is your shoulder good for that rope?  Hadn't you better return by the
stairs and the turret entrance?"

He shook his head.  "The sentry might let me pass but he'd be bound to
report it.  I shall manage the rope somehow."  He stood up.  "Good
night, Melissa!"

She put out her hand.  "Good night, Don."  She paused.  "You've told me
who de Bahl is.  Won't you tell me who you are?"

He smiled at her, her hand in his.  "'No names, no court martials!'" he
answered.  Then, with gentle deliberation, he replaced her hand on the
coverlet, plucked open the balcony door and was gone.

She sprang from her bed and followed him out upon the balcony.  A
knotted rope trailed there.  Clouds veiled the moon: she saw him as a
dark mass against the darker masonry above her head.  He was going up
steadily hand over hand but as it seemed to her with agonising
slowness.  At last he reached the top and the rope at her feet was
whisked aloft.  A lonely figure on the battlements he raised an arm in
greeting and she waved back.  Then she was alone, looking down upon the
scar in the whiteness all about that had received Guido Miklas for
burial.




CHAPTER XXIII

STEPHEN HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD

Stephen Selmar stirred from a deep sleep.  He had no idea where he was.
At first he fancied himself back in his palatial hotel bedroom at the
Monte Carlo and looked instinctively for the dazzling Riviera sunshine
greenly filtered through Venetian blinds.  Then he remembered that he
was at Castle Orghina and with eyes still dulled with slumber sought
for the familiar setting of his turret bedroom--the old Moldavian
chest, the Italian bureau with the ancient print of Stephen cel Mare
above it, the big table with its litter of blue prints over which he
liked to pore in his dressing-gown at bedtime.

He felt terrible.  His head was splitting, his tongue furred--he had
not had such a hang-over since his days as a young engineer.  What had
happened to him?  A violent twinge in the back as he struggled into a
sitting posture brought the immediate past back to him with a rush.  He
called out "Charles!" fretfully and only then perceived that he was in
a strange room.  And what a room!  Whitewashed walls blotched with
damp, an uncarpeted floor, heavily barred windows half blocked with
snow, and in place of the large four-poster he was accustomed to with
its linen sheets and silk-bound, fleecy blankets, he found himself
lying in a hard truckle bed covered with rugs that smelled of the
stable.

He was still at the castle---through the window he could see the angle
of the Boyar Tower bathed in brilliant sunshine.  "Charles!" he
bellowed in a fury and at the same time, looked around him for his
watch.  He found it on his wrist.  The hands pointed to ten-twenty.
Good God, he must have slept almost round the clock.  He glanced about
for a bell.  But there was no bell.  "Charles!" he roared again.

A door behind him opened.  He turned his head to perceive the Baron,
freshly shaved, his face shining with soap, peering ingratiatingly in.
At the sight of him Selmar began to collect his thoughts.  The last
thing he remembered, the Baron had brought Grenander to see him and
there had been a furious row.  The engineer had wanted him to sign a
cheque for twenty-five thousand dollars but Selmar had told him that he
was gravely dissatisfied with the way things were being run, that he
was the boss and meant to stay the boss, that he would have no guards
restricting his liberty, and that henceforth he would take charge
himself.  Meanwhile, not another cent would he advance until the murder
of Apostolou was cleared up.  Resentfully, he recollected that the
Baron had done nothing to support him, hovering aimlessly in the
background while Grenander stormed that he must have the money at once
to settle customs charges on stores at railhead and pay the men.  At
the end of a stormy scene Grenander had flung out.  Selmar's last
remembrance was of falling back among his pillows exhausted with rage
and pain and the Baron giving him some of the medicine the doctor had
left.

Observing that Selmar was awake, de Bahl hobbled briskly in, his lips
pursed in a cajoling smile.  The other did not give him the chance to
open his mouth.  "What the devil's the meaning of this?" he barked.
"Why was I moved in here?  Where's Charles?  What's going on?"

The Baron drew a deep sigh.  "My dear fellow, how shall I begin to
explain?"

"Answer my question!" Selmar trumpeted.  "What am I doing in this
filthy room?  How did I get here?"

"Please!"  White hands fluttered to appease him.  "You are ill, Herr
Selmar, you must not excite yourself!"

"Ill, nothing!  What I want to know is----"

"I shall explain all, if you will give me time.  Both you and I are
victims of this scoundrel, Grenander."

"You mean that damned fellow had the gall----"

"He insists that he is in charge here.  He says you have not the right
to cause more trouble among the men by keeping back money due for
stores and wages.  I have argued with him, but he is like a mule.  I
think, maybe, it is wiser you let him have the twenty-five thousand
dollars.  After all, the money is owing."

"He's crazy.  I'll sign no more cheques, as I told him yesterday.
Where's my daughter?"

The Baron shrugged his shoulders.  "He is a dangerous fellow, this
Grenander, Mr. Selmar--you will gain nothing by provoking him.  I do
not wish to upset you but I must tell you he declares you shall stay
here, where he can keep his eye on you, until you sign that cheque."

The other crimsoned with anger.  "He said that, did he?  By the Lord
Harry, I'm going to tell that baby a few things."

He made to spring out of bed.  But de Bahl's hand restrained him.  "You
must take a practical view, my dear sir.  Why not humour him?  For a
man of your wealth the sum is not large.  Remember, we are miles from
anywhere and Grenander is master of the situation.  He has fifty men
absolutely under his orders--there's a guard outside in the corridor
now--and he can make things extremely disagreeable for you, for us all,
unless he gets that money."

"I'll see him in hades first!"

"Also"--with an apologetic cough he eased his collar with his
finger--"for Miss Melissa.  Forgive me for drawing your attention to
it, but she's entirely isolated in the Green Turret, surrounded by
Grenander's guards."

For the first time consternation showed in Selmar's face.  "You're not
telling me that he'd dare to harm Melissa?"  He thrust out his lower
jaw.  "How do I come to be here?"

"They brought you over last evening while you were asleep."

He frowned.  "Asleep?  Baloney."  He clenched his fist.  "Gosh, now I
know where I got this terrible head.  That medicine--it was drugged."
His voice rose angrily.  "By God, Baron, that doctor of yours--he
drugged me!"

De Bahl spread his hands.  "Pardon, he was Grenander's friend, not
mine.  I wouldn't put anything past Grenander, you know."

Selmar snorted.  "You'd better get this straight, de Bahl.  I shall
hold you responsible if anything happens to Melissa.  You engaged
Grenander: you told me he was a qualified engineer.  And now I discover
he's nothing but a blackmailer, a gangster and a kidnapper.  It's an
outrage!"

"He deceived me, Mr. Selmar.  His qualifications were beyond question.
But I do beg of you to use discretion in this matter.  If you sign this
cheque he will release you and you can join Miss Melissa."

"I'm signing nothing.  And you, get out of here--I want to think."

The Baron dropped his eyes.  Going to the door he signed to someone in
the corridor.  Boulton came in.  "If you will not listen to me," de
Bahl said to Selmar, "maybe you will listen to a fellow Anglo-Saxon."

The Englishman spoke up briskly.  "You sign that cheque, Mr. Selmar, or
there'll be trouble.  They're a wild lot in this camp and you don't
want them to start getting rough with Miss Selmar."

"You can go plumb to blazes," said Selmar.

Boulton remained unperturbed.  "Now don't go losing your shirt, Mr.
Selmar.  Can't you see we're only trying to help you, the Baron and I?
You're in a spot, we're all in a spot.  If you're sensible, you'll take
the Baron's advice.  Trust him, if you won't trust me.  He wouldn't lie
to you any more than your American Baron."

"What the devil are you talking about?  What American Baron?"

"Baron Pearl.  Jack Pearl," was the composed answer.

Selmar jerked up his head and surveyed the Englishman sharply.  De Bahl
smiled deferentially.  "An American Baron?" he observed with an amused
air.  "This is something I never heard of before.  Unless it is a beef
or an oil baron..."

Boulton laughed.  "It's just a name the people have given him.  Jack
Pearl is a celebrated figure in modern America, known for his rugged
honesty from coast to coast.  They say of him that the Baron cannot
tell a lie----"

"Like George Washington, eh?"

"Exactly."

He took de Bahl aside.  "Leave me with him," he said under his breath.
"I'll get that cheque out of him.  See, he's calming down already."

The Baron clapped him on the shoulder.  "Right, my dear boy.  Believe
me, it'll be better for all of us."  He smiled encouragingly and went
out.  When his footsteps had died away in the corridor, Selmar said
"Ouch!" and sat up stiffly.  "What do you know about our American
radio?" he demanded of Boulton sternly.

The young man grinned.  "Enough to have had many a good laugh at Jack
Pearl.  I drove in New York for a bit and I had a radio in my cab.
'The Baron' and 'Sharlie' were great favourites of mine.  Any time they
were on the air, I'd switch on."

Selmar's bright blue eyes searched the Englishman's face.  "You're not
so dumb as you look," he growled.  "'Baron Munchausen'--that's what
Jack Pearl calls himself on the air, isn't it?  So you were trying to
tell me that de Bahl's a liar, is that it?"

"He's deceived you from the first," replied Boulton, cocking his ear
towards the door.  "He's neither a Baron nor an antique dealer but a
notorious international espionage agent.  And what's more, there was
never any Pasha's treasure, either.  The whole thing was a plant to use
you to cover up this ruffian's nefarious activities."

"What activities?"

"Gun-running.  The Castle's full of arms they've smuggled in with your
building materials.  They're planning a raid into the Ukraine."

Selmar sat up with a jerk, then clutched at his back with a cry.
"Gosh, it's fearful to be crippled like this.  They're going to invade
the Ukraine, you say?  With fifty men?  They're crazy!"

"Not so crazy, Mr. Selmar.  They're all in the arms business.  At
least, Grenander has been for years the secret agent of various
international syndicates, you know, interlocking concerns that supply
the Powers indiscriminately with arms for use against each other.  Von
Wahlczek and Frangipani are in the racket, too.  Ukrainian Nationalists
have been here at the Castle hobnobbing with de Bahl and the others.
Actually the chances of a successful Ukrainian rising are about one in
a million, I'd say.  But de Bahl don't care anything about that.  All
he cares about is running the stuff across the ice and for that the
force he had here is more than sufficient.  What puzzles me is why they
should run this risk just for the sake of dumping a comparatively small
amount of stuff on the Ukrainians."

Selmar grunted.  "Well, the boys would sure sell a lot of merchandise
if the Ukraine went up in flames."

"There's not a chance of it.  What are the handful of men here and a
lot of wild-eyed Ukrainian revolutionaries going to effect against the
Red Army?"  He shook his head.  "No, Mr. Selmar, there's a link missing
somewhere in this business, but I don't seem able to detect it."

The American grunted.  "There should be a cigar case in my coat on that
chair.  Thanks!"  He took a cigar from the case Boulton brought him,
lit it and drew a couple of contemplative puffs.  "You reminded me of
something just now.  De Bahl was pretty close to Ardza, did you know
that?"

"Miss Selmar told me."

"Ardza was the king-pin of the munitions racket.  The old man
controlled a whole row of concerns--big corporations like the
Mannheimer Arms Factory, that Italian outfit they call the F.E.T.A.,
the Tourcoing United Chemicals.  Well, Ardza died.  You didn't know,
perhaps, that de Bahl had a call on large blocks of shares in all these
companies.  he sounded me out once about going in with him--he said,
with everybody arming all round, it was easy money.  But I never
speculate."  He paused to blow a long spiral of smoke.  "Do you know
what I think, son?  It's a flutter in armament stocks.  As you say,
they don't give a damn what happens in the Ukraine.  But a first class
war scare will send all armament shares soaring, and these babies will
be on velvet."

The other smote his brow.  "They spoke of a frontier incident.  By
Jove, sir, I believe you've got it."

Selmar ground his teeth on his cigar.  "The rats!  And to think that
we're isolated here!  We've got to sic the police or somebody on to
them, son, and quickly.  When I think of that poor girl of mine..."

"Miss Melissa's all right, sir."

"You've seen her?"

He nodded.  "It's not very conventional," he said with a grin, "but
I've found a way of getting to that balcony of hers at night over the
roofs.  I've no time to tell you more now.  What you have to do for the
present is to play for time.  Don't let de Bahl see that you suspect
him.  Temporise with Grenander, even if it means signing that cheque;
we might be able to stop it.  You might even make your own terms;
insist, for instance, that they allow Miss Melissa to leave the Castle:
as long as they're in their present mood she's in constant danger."

"They'll never agree to that.  She'd give the show away."

"I know.  But it's a talking point.  And we must gain time, if I'm to
get word to the authorities."  A loud clanging noise invading the room
cut across his words.  It was the gong for midday dinners.  Boulton
grabbed his cap.  "I must go.  Then I can tell Grenander you'll see
him?"

"O.K.  Just what's your interest in this man de Bahl?"

The young man's face became mask-like.  "I should have to refer you to
the firm I represent for an answer to that question, sir."

Selmar frowned.  "Munitions, too, is it?"

"In a manner of speaking."

The American grunted.  "Well, as long as we're both agreed that this
damnable conspiracy must be broken up ... How long have you been
trailing him, son?"

"Indirectly ever since Grenander and the others left Trieste."

There was a glint of humour in the blue eyes.  "You wished yourself on
to the big cheese, did you?  How did you work it?"

Boulton grinned boyishly.  "Well, it meant drinking his French
chauffeur under the table and locking him up in a coal cellar: I had to
tamper with the car a little, too.  Then, when they found their
chauffeur missing and the Isotta apparently busted, I just happened
along.  That's all!  But that's under your hat, remember!"

"O.K."

"And please to keep on remembering, Mr. Selmar," said Boulton from the
door.

"Dumb as a drum with a hole in it."  He uttered a faint groan.  "This
confounded back of mine."  He grasped the young man's hand.  "When do
you think you'll see Melissa again?"

"This afternoon, once it's dark, if I can manage it.  She's so eager
for news of you."

"My dear love to her!"

"I won't forget."

Selmar closed his eyes wearily as Boulton hurried out.


The Great Hall, a wilderness of scaffolding and painters' ladders, ran
above the room where Selmar lay.  Since the men were not working that
day the place was deserted save for a solitary figure that sprawled
full length on the floor with ear bent to a square opening disclosed by
the removal of a plate covering a heating flue.  The voices having
ceased in the room below, a white top-knot of hair moved among the
litter, and de Bahl hauled himself to his feet.  With extreme caution
he noiselessly replaced the plate and lingered a moment, listening.
When no sound save that of the men trooping to their dinners came from
without, he turned and, picking his way tiptoe through the disorder of
the hall, descended the circular stair of the entrance tower and
threaded the stone passage that led to his office in the staff wing.
As he reached the bottom step there was a movement in the shadow under
the stairs, but, immersed in thought, he failed to see it.

Melissa's engaging friend looked a good deal less engaging than usual
as, squeezing each hand alternately with a nervous gesture, he made for
the office.




CHAPTER XXIV

THE BARON HAS A PLAN

A blast of tobacco smoke rose in de Bahl's face as he entered the
office.  The windows overlooking the yard were shut, the stove glowed
redly.  Grenander was there, scowling over a cigar as he straddled a
chair and chatted with von Wahlczek who was warming his long legs
before the stove, while Frangipani was at the window, drumming a tattoo
on the pane.  At the sight of de Bahl, Grenander sprang up so violently
that his chair fell over with a thud.  With an oath he growled, "Where
vere you?  Ve search the whole place for you."

"Well?" queried the Baron, coolly.

"Guido, he's dead.  They yoost find him."

The heavily-lidded eyes were averted.  "Where?"

"His cap was hanging on a bush at the foot of the wall near the Boyar
Tower.  The body was in a snow-drift on the edge of the river.  His
neck's broken and most of his bones besides.  He was t'rown from the
girl's balcony, I guess."

The dark eyes snapped, but the face remained a marble mask.  "How do
you know this?"

Von Wahlczek spoke.  "We traced his footsteps on the roof--on the
balcony, too, while the girl was at her lunch.  There's a rope up there
on the battlements--that's the way he climbed down."

De Bahl drew deeply on his cigarette.  "Get me Boulton!"

Grenander looked at him enquiringly.  "Boulton?"

"He's been seeing the girl secretly."

Grenander cast him an angry glance.  "Impossible," he declared,
flushing.  "Vithout I know it, no one can pass my guards."

De Bahl's lip curled.  "Boulton did.  I'll tell you something else.  It
was he who killed Guido."

"Boulton?  That dumb Englishman?"

"Not so dumb as some people I know, Axel.  Do you suppose it was our
little Miss Melissa who pitched our poor friend off the balcony?
Boulton's been seeing her privately, at night in her room.  And shall I
tell you why he got rid of Guido?  Because Guido was smarter than the
rest of us, because he found out that this English rat is a spy."

The other's florid face darkened.  "A spy?  Who says so?"

De Bahl sat down heavily at the desk.  "There's a lot that goes on
under your nose without your knowing it, my friend.  I don't forget
that it was you who pushed this nosey Parker, as the English say, on to
us--well, it might interest you to hear that he tampered with your car
at Trieste, and made your chauffeur drunk in order to be able to report
on your movements."

"It's a lie!" declared Grenander.

"It may be.  All I know, he was boasting about it to Selmar just now.
Maybe, he was only making it up."

The other growled.  "Who's he working for?  Did he tell Selmar that?"

"He said it was for some arms concern, but I believe he's a British
Secret Service man.  He must tell us himself which it is."  He helped
himself to a cigarette from the box on the desk.  "Fetch him, will you,
Axel?"

In a sort of blind run Grenander, his eyes suffused with blood, made
for the door.  It opened outward and as he flung it back, it
momentarily hid a figure that flattened itself against the wall.
Without looking round Grenander swung the door to behind him, and went
scurrying along the passage.  At the same instant the eavesdropper
stepped swiftly into the doorway and remained there, dividing his
attention between the murmur of voices within the office and the sound
of Grenander's departing steps.  As soon as they had died away, he
skipped out and after a preliminary glance had told him that the
corridor was deserted, ran lightly along it and up the circular flight
leading to the Great Hall.  When the bend of the stairs concealed him
from view from below he halted a moment to doff his fur cap and mop his
streaming brow.  Running his fingers through his fair hair he pursed
his lips in a noiseless whistle.  "Plenty trouble," he murmured.  Then
the ring of iron-shod boots on the flags below sent him flying upstairs.

It was Grenander coming back.  "He's not at mess with the others," he
announced as he re-entered the office.  "I've sent to find him."

De Bahl gazed at him from under his black eye-brows.  "He hasn't left
the Castle?" he questioned sharply.

The other cast him an injured glance.  "I gif an order; it is obeyed,"
he declared with an oracular air.  "Nobody can enter or leaf vithout my
permission.  For the form, I ask at the main gate.  No one has passed
out, they say."

The Baron nodded, drew a lungful of smoke, coughed and said: "This
affair has precipitated matters.  We shall have to strike at once.
Meanwhile, the important thing is to get our orders in"--his glance
travelled to the desk clock--"ready for the stock markets when they
open to-morrow."  He drew a fat wallet from his pocket and from it took
a type-written slip.  "I have here the list of stocks we discussed,
with the amount each of us proposes to take set against his name.  The
European _bourses_ may be a little slow at first to-morrow, but by the
time New York opens--with the seven hours difference, that will be at 5
p.m. here--I fancy things will be livelier."  He smiled round the
circle.  "I've prepared the code message for Schlesinger at Geneva"--he
showed a couple of typewritten sheets--"to be despatched as soon as the
job at the Ferryman's House is completed."

"And when will that be?" said Grenander suspiciously.

"But to-night, Axel.  I said we should strike at once."

"To-night?  So soon?"

"Certainly.  I shall have the _troika_ waiting outside and take the
message to the telegraph myself.  Schlesinger will break the news
promptly; it will be in all the newspapers to-morrow, and then"--he
rubbed his hands slowly--"and then, my friends, I think you will see
the pot begin to bubble.  Meanwhile, there's the list.  Will each of
you kindly initial it so that there'll be no recriminations after?"

He handed the paper to Grenander.  "And Guido's share?" he muttered.

"I shall assume that."

The fat man scowled.  "With twenty points rise you make a fortune, I
t'ink!"

De Bahl laughed.  "Twenty points?  Wait until we cross the river.
Twenty points, indeed!  A great Power affronted, the Ukraine in
flames--you'll see a jump of a hundred, two hundred!"

"And I who brought you the idea...?"

"Without me where would you have been?  Didn't I produce Selmar and his
castle?  I discovered the practical execution of the plan: therefore,
I'm entitled to the lion's share."

"The fox's, you mean," said von Wahlczek.

The Baron blinked indolently.  "If you will.  But come, gentlemen,
sign!  And Frang will run this bunch of telegrams down to the village
in the caterpillar."

The list went round, each man initialling it.  De Bahl carefully stowed
it in his letter-case, then gave the Italian a sheaf of wires.  Frang
clumped out on his short legs.  The Baron sat at his desk, wreathed in
smoke, puffing at his cigarette and thoughtfully contemplating
Grenander.  "This Englishman of yours is a problem, Axel," he remarked
mildly.  "When I encounter problems I like to dispose of them."  He
paused, eyeing the other, "Boulton must be disposed of."

Grenander nodded stolidly.  "I t'ink yes!"

"I believe I have a way--I think you'll admit it's ingenious.  It has
the advantage of killing two birds with one stone."

A loud knock at the door interrupted him.  Von Wahlczek answered it.  A
shaggy sheepskin cap was visible in the corridor--one of the overseers
was outside.  There was an interchange of words, then von Wahlczek
swung round to de Bahl.  "Boulton can't be found," he said.  "They've
hunted the whole place for him.  They're certain he hasn't left the
Castle..."

Grenander clenched his fists.  "If them damned guards let him t'rough,
they answer to me, by yimini!"

The Baron laughed softly.  "Bah!  You could look for an entire
battalion in a rabbit warren like this and never find it."

"Ask him, did they search the Green Turret, Wally?" Grenander called
out.

Von Wahlczek turned to the overseer again.  "He says the Green Turret's
out of bounds," he spoke back.  "But he questioned the sentries, and
they swear that no one has been in or out."  The engineer was about to
ask another question when the Baron restrained him.  "Let the man go!"
he bade von Wahlczek.  Then he drew towards him the typewriter that
stood on the desk, put in a sheet of paper and, laying his eternal
cigarette aside, tapped out a couple of lines, scanned them carefully,
then pulled out the sheet.  "A morsel of cheese for the trap," he told
Grenander, handing him the sheet.  "Let Wally see it," he went on, when
Grenander had read it.  "This is a job for Wally."

Grenander's small eyes twinkled behind their glasses.  "If it vorks,
it's good," he declared.

Von Wahlczek glanced over the sheet, then shrugged his shoulders.  "If
it works!"

The Baron indulged in one of his velvety laughs.  "We must see that it
does work."  He lowered his voice.  "Here's my idea..."




CHAPTER XXV

THE FERRYMAN'S HOUSE

Twenty-four hours had elapsed since Stephen's disappearance.  No word
of him came to the Green Turret isolated behind its guards: the Baron
and his companions remained invisible.

To Melissa, devoured with anxiety about her father, the time dragged
insufferably.  All day long a sense of unreality haunted her.  It had
started at her first waking.  Opening her eyes upon the early morning
sunshine streaming in from the balcony, she found herself wondering, as
the occurrences of the night came back to her, whether it was not all a
dream.  Things simply did not happen with such tragic violence.  Yet
they had happened to her, and there were muddy footmarks on the blue
rugs to prove it.  It was unbelievable.  Before coming to Orghina she
had never seen a dead body: now in swift succession two men had been
killed under her eyes, not to mention the poor wretch she had seen put
to the torture.  Yet more incredible even than these experiences,
Steve, her natural protector in the midst of the perils surrounding
them, had been silently and mysteriously torn from her.

Charles had no news when he brought her breakfast.  Neither Ali nor the
kitchen boy had turned up, he told her: the day's provisions had been
left outside the kitchen door.  Rather anxiously the valet asked
whether she had been disturbed in the night: very honestly he admitted
that, having laid down on his truckle bed in the lobby, he had dropped
off to sleep and awakened only to hear the gongs sounding for reveille.
He seemed so contrite that she had not the heart to tell him the truth:
besides, she was not sure how Charles, a Frenchman, would interpret a
young man's nocturnal visits to her room.  She contented herself with
warning him that Boulton might try to communicate with her, and bade
him look out for a message.

To while away the endless morning she devised a series of tasks for
herself, such as shampooing her hair, washing out gloves and stockings,
and pressing a frock.  When Charles called her to lunch, the sight of
her father's empty chair gave her such a pang that she asked Charles to
bring her a tray to the living-room.  Here, luncheon over, she remained
at her old place by the fire busy with her knitting, while the short
afternoon wore on and the early dusk set in.

It was snowing again.  The sentries in the yard powdered in white
suggested the Retreat from Moscow.  Her needles flying in the
firelight, Melissa made a brave effort to master her nerves.  She must
not worry any more about Steve, she told herself.  If she was to
preserve her self-control, life must proceed as before at the Castle,
just as if Steve were there.  No more pigging it with trays: that
evening she would change her frock as usual and dine, if needs be, in
solitary state, in the dining-room.  Meanwhile, she fixed her thoughts
deliberately on the approaching night: knowing her great anxiety about
her father, surely Don would try to reach her with news of him.

She announced her decision to Charles when he brought the tea.  Dinner
at eight as usual in the dining-room.  "Then if Mademoiselle can spare
me," the servant informed her, "since I shall have the dinner to
prepare and serve, I will go and change now."  He said this with an air
conveying that in the circumstances he might be relieved of the
necessity of putting on his evening dress.  But Melissa did not take
the hint.  She meant to see that the normal routine was observed, just
as, she felt sure, Steve would have wished.  "Very well, Charles," she
said.  "I don't need you at present.  Let me have a cocktail here at a
quarter to eight."

The Frenchman had a room in the rear of the Green Turret above the
kitchen.  She remembered that it was well out of earshot of their
living quarters when, having switched on the lights and drawn the
curtains, he padded away.  A door slamming in the distance stressed the
silence ensuing on his departure: she felt a little nervous as she
poured herself a cup of tea.  Then a sound behind her brought her round
in a panic and she saw von Wahlczek in the doorway leading to the
vestibule.  His fur cap and short hunting jacket with its deep fur
collar were all speckled with snow and he carried a pair of fur gloves.

She was on her feet in a moment.  "Where's my father?" she cried
hysterically.  "What have you done with him?"

He motioned her down with his hands.  "Please, I come to take you to
him.  But you must make no noise.  Please, Miss Melissa!"

Her sense of relief was so immense that the tears welled into her eyes
and she sank back upon the settee: for the moment she was unable to
speak.  Von Wahlczek said in a whisper, "The Englishman, Boulton, sent
me.  He couldn't fetch you himself, but he gave me a note."  With a
cautious glance at the door he drew a folded piece of paper from his
sleeve.

The note was typewritten.  Melissa read: "_I have found your father.
He is at the Ferryman's House down along the river.  I am with him now.
Sorry not to have reached you earlier, but it was impossible.  You can
trust v. W.  He will take you to the place.  Go with him, but hurry._"
A "D" scrawled in pencil served as signature.

Von Wahlczek said, "It's now or never.  De Bahl and the others are out
of the way for the moment and I've fixed the guards.  I've a sleigh
waiting outside the Boyar Tower.  You'll want to wrap up.  Where's your
coat?"

"In the hall."  She wavered for an instant.  Von Wahlczek was one of
the gang and she could not help remembering his sneering remarks about
Stephen in the mosque.  But the note must be authentic: no one could
possibly know that she and Boulton had been seeing one another.
Besides, hadn't Boulton told her that he was on friendly terms with von
Wahlczek and hoped to make use of him?

She sprang up, the letter fluttering to the ground.  "I'm ready.  But
you must let me tell Charles."

Her companion stamped his foot imperiously.  "There's no time.  If
anyone sees that sleigh of mine we're lost.  This is your one chance to
release your father.  Do you want to ruin everything?"  So saying, he
grabbed her by the arm and fairly ran her into her lobby, helped her
into her racoon coat that lay there, thrust her bret and gloves into
her hands.  Then he plucked open the heavy, ironbound door.  A smother
of snow blew into their faces, the door fell to with a bang behind them
and they were out in the icy dark all a-flutter with the falling
flakes.  The sentry was a whitened pillar under the arched entrance: he
made no move as they hurried by.

If there was a guard under the Boyar Tower, they did not see him.  A
horse coughed out of the blackness outside and in the faint radiance of
two old-fashioned carriage lamps the graceful lines of a small sleigh
were discernible.  Melissa had seen a similar sleigh among the Royal
carriages at Versailles, a narrow affair to hold a single passenger
with a saddle-like seat behind for the driver, who straddled his feet
on the runners.

It was quite dark but between the snow-clouds spread low in the sky and
the whitened fields all about enough lightness survived to show the
track cleared between the drifts winding beside the snowy chasm that
was the ice-bound river.  The horse was fast: the sleigh flew, bells
jingling, the snow spouting up on either side.  Presently, Melissa made
out ahead the outline of a crazy shack, its starred wooden walls very
black against the whiteness, cocked perilously on piles to overhang the
stream.

Melissa knew about the Ferryman's House.  She had seen it from her
balcony, bleak and forlorn with a ramp descending to the ice.  In
summer, the Baron had told her, the house, besides accommodating the
ferryman and his family, was used as a tavern where the peasants could
take a dram while waiting for the ferry.  But since the opening of the
new bridge some miles downstream the ferry was little used.  The
Ferryman's House had fallen on evil days and in winter, when the river
traffic was suspended, the ferryman closed the place up and retired
with his wife and family to the village.

But now as, having tethered the sleigh to a ring in the wall, her
companion led the way up a steep flight of dilapidated steps to a
tavern door, Melissa perceived a light within the house.  Pulling a
leather latch-string, von Wahlczek ushered her into a sordid tap.  A
lighted oil-lamp placed on the little bar revealed a low, smoke-grimed
ceiling, crumbling wattle walls, an iron stove glowing almost red-hot
in a corner.  The place reeked of damp and a deathly silence reigned.
The girl hung back in the doorway.  "But there's nobody here," she
said.  "Where's my father?"

"Ps-st!  He's upstairs!"  Her escort crossed to a built-in stair that
mounted beside the bar and pulled open a door.  "Follow me, please!  I
take you to him, no?" he said, waiting for her.  The tavern door,
blowing to behind her in the glacial draught, settled it.  She joined
von Wahlczek at the foot of the stair.  A light shone down from a door
at the top.  They went up and her companion opened the door.  The
yellow radiance of a hanging lamp disclosed a typical peasant bedroom,
clean enough, with the inevitable ikon in the corner, a dismantled bed
and a great tiled stove.  Melissa swung to her escort.  "Why have you
brought me to this place?" she demanded hotly.  "Where's Mr. Boulton?
Where's my father?"

Von Wahlczek had remained at the door.  "Gently, gently," he said.  "A
little moment and I am back, I go to tell them you are here, no?"
Before she could speak he was outside, closing the door behind him.
The next instant the key was turned.

She hurled herself at the door, frantically rattling the handle.
"Unlock this door at once!" she cried.  "Von Wahlczek, let me out, do
you hear?"  She hammered at the panels with her fists until the
slamming of the front door below told of his departure.  A moment
later, the faint jingle of sleigh-bells drifted in from without.

He had locked her in there and returned to the Castle.  Not a mouse
stirred as she stood there listening--there was not a soul in the place
but herself.  In a sudden burst of panic she tried the handle again.
At the same moment the lamp trembled and the bare boards under her feet
vibrated to a heavy footstep that seemed to come from the adjoining
room.  The next instant she heard a familiar rasping cough.  The blood
drained from her face as, turning her back on the door, she gazed in an
agony of fear about her.  There was a small door beside the bed.  The
footsteps had stopped on the other side of it: the door handle was
slowly turning.  Someone coughed.  Then the door swung inward.

De Bahl stood gazing at her from the threshold.




CHAPTER XXVI

"NOT OF THE LION, BUT THE FOX"

In the few seconds in which they silently faced one another, terror
swept over her in icy waves.  She could neither move nor speak, held in
the grip of a cataleptic force that paralysed her body but left her
mind unimpaired.  Indeed, the shock seemed to quicken her perceptive
powers.  Unconsciously, she found herself registering the smallest
detail about him, as, for instance, the fact that he was smoking a
cigarette of normal size instead of one of his customary brobdingnagian
brand or that his heavy fur driving gloves dangled from a cord about
his neck.

He was dressed in the garb in which he had met them at the railway on
their first arrival at Orghina--in the high-peaked fur cap and
long-skirted pelisse with its deep sable collar; he might have been one
of Stephen cel Mare's boyars come back to life.  The ear flaps of his
fur bonnet were down--the fur setting stressed the fine chiselling of
his features: now that his hair was concealed, the sternly handsome
face had the vigour of a man of thirty.  It was a face of alabaster, as
bloodless and as unchanging.  Only the eyes lived, eyes that had the
hard gleam of jade, fixed upon her in a questioning, enigmatic stare.
Confronting him there with her heart making wild leaps, she was aware
of a subtle change that had come over him.  The old indolence was gone.
A strange vitality seemed to burn with a cold fire behind the menace of
his regard.  She remembered the look of ferocity she had surprised on
his face in the mosque when they had questioned the Russian spy: it was
as though the same expression was permanently stamped on the stony
countenance framed in its oval of fur.  The thought came to her that
the agreeable companion of their Monte Carlo days had never been
anything more than a figment of her imagination.  Behind the mask of
the charming man of the world, the heartless unscrupulous monster
Boulton had depicted was lurking; and she was now meeting him face to
face.

It was she who broke the tension at last.  Pride, and the realisation
that to betray her abject fear would be fatal, came to her aid and gave
her back her tongue.  "I was told that my father was here," she said in
a voice that sounded to her exceedingly unsteady.  "Where is he?"

"Your father?  Ha!"  He gave a barking laugh and snapped his strong
jaws together.  "As far as I know, your father's back in your quarters
at the Castle, waiting for you!"  She looked at him curiously.  Even
his voice had changed.  It was fuller, deeper, and almost without a
trace of its usual huskiness.

He closed the door behind him and came in.  He pointed to a chair
behind her.  "Sit down!" he ordered brusquely.

She sat down blindly.  She was beset with terror about Boulton.  He had
asked her to meet him there, but there was no sign of him.  A dread
suspicion seized her and simultaneously hardened into conviction.  That
note, typewritten with its scrawled signature, was a forgery!  It was
meant to lure her there--Boulton, too, perhaps.  But why?  She took
hold of herself then.  She did not know how much they had found out
about Boulton but she realised she must be careful not to give him away.

De Bahl's first question filled her with dismay.  "You came here to
meet your friend, Boulton, didn't you?" he said.

He was standing in front of her, taking the last puffs of his cigarette
and drawing the smoke deeply into his lungs, as was his habit.  Through
the operation of lighting a fresh cigarette from the butt of the old
and of stamping the butt out on the uncarpeted boards, his eyes
scarcely left her countenance.  "I came to find my father," she
answered stoutly.

Strange, how the light came and went in his eyes!  They were like twin
lamps burning in a tomb, so cold and white was his face.  He ignored
her reply.  "People who interfere with me never have any luck, remember
that," he said, and added, "Have you forgotten Apostolou?  He, too, was
a spy."

He spoke with unwavering calm.  It only enhanced her fear.  The silence
of the house pressed in upon her.  The dusty, untenanted room, the
shuttered windows, a subtle, aromatic fragrance that seemed to spread
about her as she sat there--remembering that she was alone with him in
that isolated, snow-girt tavern, lapped in the hush of the winter
evening, the atmosphere of the place was unbearable to her.  She did
not know whither she could flee; but she must escape, she told herself.
Could she make a dash for the door?  It would have to be the small door
by which he had come in, since the other was locked.  He was between
her and the small door.  Could she elude him?

The room was intolerably close--a long pipe from the stove in the tap
below warmed it.  She longed for air: her head was throbbing.  Suddenly
she was aware that de Bahl was offering her a cigarette from his case.
To gain time she took one and let him light it for her.  "Don't make
this English rat's mistake," he told her over the flaming match.
"Those who have dealings with me know the penalty of treachery."  He
chuckled.  "Or do they know it?  How much do we know in the next
world?"  The match burned out and he dropped it.  "Don't get your
fingers burnt, too, little Melissa.  Be warned in time!"

He laughed again.  It struck her that his laugh had an hysterical ring.
Everything about him was odd to-day.  He seemed bigger and taller than
before, looming over her in his long-skirted overcoat.  The aromatic
fragrance she had noticed before was stronger than ever in the heated
atmosphere: the room was swimming about her.  Her cigarette tasted
vile.  She laid it down in the ash-tray that stood on the table beside
her and pressed her hands to her temples.  De Bahl's voice seemed to
come to her out of the distance on a rising note, curiously gabbling.

"Loud-mouthed imbeciles like this Grenander think that the world is
ruled by bluster and violence," he declaimed.  "Oh, no, it isn't--it's
ruled by craft.  Only when craft fails does violence become necessary;
but craft will not fail if under the velvet glove the steel fist is
felt.  Did you ever read _The Inferno_?"

She felt his eyes drilling her through and through.  Against her will
she took her hands from her face.  She tried to withstand the power of
his regard, but it was too strong for her.  Slowly she raised her eyes
to him.  He repeated his question.  "Some of it, at my finishing
school," she answered at random.

The strange eyes glittered.  "One of those whom Dante met in hell was
Guido de Montefeltro.  Ah, there was a man after my own heart!  In his
prime he was a mighty condottiere, a man of blood: only in his old age
did he repent of his crimes and do penance for them in the habit of a
Franciscan monk.  When Dante asked Montefeltro who he was, the reply
was, 'When I was on earth as a man my deeds were not of the lion, but
of the fox.'  Of the fox!"

He laughed wildly.  "That's what they call me.  'The Fox'!  Let fools
like this Grenander be the lions, going about roaring and baring their
fangs: let me be the little fox, creeping by and never seen."

The room had stopped revolving: her mind was clearer now: she was
noticing things again.  She wondered whether he was under the influence
of some drug--the brightness of his eyes, his ghastly pallor, the
incoherence of his speech, suggested it.  She remarked that from time
to time he seemed to be listening, his head turned, now towards the
windows, now the door, and more than once he glanced at his watch.  She
had the impression he was expecting someone.  Was it Boulton?

Boulton's name struck on her ear.  De Bahl had asked her another
question.  Her mind grappled with it through a fog of renewed fear.
"Who sent Boulton here to spy on me?" he had demanded suddenly.

The imminence of danger helped her to regain her self-control.  She was
on the alert at once.  "What makes you think I know anything about it?"
she retorted disdainfully.

His eyes searched her face.  "I thought you might be in his confidence."

"Servants aren't in the habit of taking me into their confidence."

He thrust his head forward.  "Or of visiting you in your bedroom at
night?"

She sprang up.  "I don't propose to sit here and let you insult me."

Again the lodent flame leaped from his eyes.  "Don't play act with me!
I know who killed Miklas and how he was killed."  He seemed to gnash
his teeth.  "I ask you for the last time, who sent this Englishman here
to spy on us?"

"And I tell you for the last time I don't know anything about it!"

It sounded brave, but inwardly she was quaking, the beating of her
heart so loud in her ears that she thought it must be heard in the
room.  She made a bold effort to brazen it out, but before the deadly
menace of his glance, she felt her resolution slipping from her and
when she tried to avert her eyes, found she was unable to look away.
"For business reasons," he said rather thickly, "it's imperative that I
should have this information."  His voice became shriller.  "I'll have
it from you or I'll have it from him."  With lightning rapidity his
hands shot out, grasping the scarf that she had loosened about her neck
and twisting the two ends in his powerful fingers.  "What does this
Englishman want here?" he screamed.  "Who are his accomplices?  Was
Apostolou in his pay?  Why did you kill Guido, the pair of you?  Answer
me, before I choke the life out of you!  Answer me, I say!"

"Let me go!" she gasped, beating on his broad chest with her hands.
"Let me go!"

With a high-pitched laugh he suddenly released his grip of her scarf
and slipped his arms about her.  She struggled frantically, but she was
powerless in his embrace.  "What does this English tramp mean to you?"
he cried stridently.  "Why should you and I who have been good friends
quarrel about him?"  Of a sudden his voice grew soft.  "Many women have
loved me, my little Melissa," he murmured in velvety tones.  "Am I so
unattractive to you?  Come, look into my eyes!  Why do you struggle
against me?  Why not lie quietly in my arms and let me tell you how
lovely you are, _ma belle_, so proud and straight and white!  _Melissa
mia, carissima, bellissima!_"

As he spoke he was drawing her to him.  The reek of wet fur was rank in
her nostrils: the moisture pearling on his fur collar brushed her cheek
damply.  His eyes bore down on her with irises oddly dilated: his mouth
was a cruel line.  Desperately she sought to free her hands.  She felt
her senses slipping--she must go on struggling if she was not to faint.
But her arms were pinioned: do what she would, she could not tug her
hands away; and all the time now the full mouth was approaching her
lips, while a string of endearing words, the sense of which she had
lost the ability to follow poured from him.

Then she saw his expression change.  In a flash he had let her go and
had sprung back, swinging round to face the door leading out on the
landing: in the second of silence that followed she heard a step on the
wooden stairway leading from the room, below.  De Bahl's air was
triumphant.  "Is that you, Wally?" he called.

The door handle turned: she remembered that the door was locked on the
outside.  "If the door's locked, come round by the other door," the
Baron ordered, at the same time casting a malicious glance at his
companion.  The key turned in the lock, the door facing them swung
open.  But no one appeared.  With a muttered exclamation de Bahl took a
pace forward, at the same time drawing an automatic from his coat.  In
the same moment Melissa saw the smaller door behind him silently open.
A lightning glance the Baron flung her as he advanced towards the other
door to investigate, showed her gazing intently behind him.  On the
instant he whipped round.  But he was a fraction too late.  As he
turned a figure that had noiselessly appeared in the doorway between
the two rooms launched itself upon him: de Bahl tried to bring his gun
into play but found his hand seized and held high.  By leaping backward
he broke the grip but the next moment he was butted by a charging head
fair in the middle of the stomach.  As he doubled up a flying fist
caught him on the point of the jaw with a crack that rang through the
room, he tottered, spun half round, then crashed to the floor.  He
grunted once and collapsed.

"Nine, ten and out!" said a cheerful voice.  Through a mist that swam
before her eyes Melissa was aware that Don Boulton was grinning at her
across the prostrate form.




CHAPTER XXVII

FRONTIER INCIDENT

He caught her as she fell forward.  "Hullo, hullo, hold up!" he said.
But she did not faint: she just clung to him, her head against his
coat.  He was sniffing, his nose in the air.  "What's been going on
here?" he demanded.  He dived forward and retrieved de Bahl's cigarette
as it lay smoking on the ground, smelled it.  "Reefers!" he snapped.
Then his eye fell on the ash-tray on the table.  He pointed to the
smear of lipstick on the butt of the cigarette she had discarded.  "Did
he give you one?" he demanded.

She nodded.  "But I couldn't smoke it.  It made me ill.  My head's
still spinning from it."

He frowned.  "I'm not surprised.  It's hasheesh.  Drug addicts smoke
these cigarettes.  They call them 'reefers.'  They're made of
marijuana--that's Indian hemp."

De Bahl, sprawled like a sack at their feet, had not moved.  Boulton
stooped suddenly and with a brisk tug detached the automatic from the
clenched fingers and dropped it in his pocket.  "I thought he was
drugged," said Melissa.  "He talked so wildly and acted so strangely.
He'd have killed you, Don, if you hadn't knocked him out."

He nodded and stuck out his under-lip.  "They're wise to me--I only
discovered it this morning at lunch-time and promptly went to cover in
a hiding-place I've found under the rafters of the Great Hall.  A nice
sort of idiot you were to walk into their trap.  Your old man's given
them their cheque and as per schedule they've let him go back to your
quarters and taken off the guards.  I had it all set to whisk the pair
of you off to the village when you have to go and disappear.  If I
hadn't found that decoy note on the table in the living-room--hullo,
hullo, what's the trouble?"

With a little cry she had fallen against him, covering her face with
her hands.  He caught her in his arms.  She was sobbing convulsively.
"Sorry!" he murmured.  "But I've been almost out of my mind with
anxiety about you.  When I found that you'd disappeared ... what has
that brute been saying to you?"

She shook her head.  "It doesn't matter.  Nothing matters now that I
know you're all right."  She looked up at him through wet lashes.  "Oh,
Don, I was so frightened about you!"  She clung to him desperately,
burying her face against his snow-wet jacket.  "Melissa!" he cried in
an anguished voice, then his arms drew her closer and his mouth brushed
her hair, her eyes.  On that she raised her tear-stained face to his
and, her arms about his neck, gave him her lips.

"You don't know the hell I've been through since I discovered you were
missing," he told her.  "It seemed to me that I'd die if anything
happened to you."

Her fingers toyed with a button of his jacket.  "I never thought you
cared anything about me."

"Ever since that first morning I met you in Monte Carlo, I've done
nothing but think about you.  I've a job to do here, maybe, the most
important job of my life, but it's you I think of all the time.  It's
all wrong, I know, but----"

"All wrong to think of me?"

"To fall in love with you."

"Do you love me, Don?"

He nodded, sighed and looked away.  With gentle hands she turned his
face towards her.  "You've made me very happy because--well, because
I've never met a man I could care anything about before I met you," she
said with great simplicity.

He shook his head.  "People don't fall in love suddenly like this.  We
say these things to one another because we're out of the world here,
centuries away from to-day, just the two of us in this forgotten little
house clinging to one another because danger has brought us together.
When you get back to New York, everything will seem different----"

"Not to me, darling.  I'm not making any mistake, I knew it the first
time I saw you."

He folded her in his arms again.  "You're my girl," he said, smiling
down at her, "and that's no make-believe, my love.  From now on
there'll never be any woman in the world for me but you, but I'm
telling you now, we can't go on with it.  All the same, I'm going to
remember this moment, Melissa darling, and bask in its lovely, sunny
memories and bless you for them, to the very end of my life."

The figure on the floor had stirred, breathing stertorously.  "My
gracious," the young man exclaimed, "I declare I'd forgotten all about
him.  Well, the quicker we're out of this, the better.  But first to
get rid of our horizontal champion."  Swiftly his gaze ran round the
room.  "Open that cupboard, will you, Melissa?"

There was a vast built-in press in the corner, with door ajar.  The
press was empty.  Boulton had turned de Bahl over and was going through
his pockets.  From one he took a bulky wallet which he appropriated,
from another two typewritten sheets, which he carried to the light.
"By Gad," Melissa heard him mutter, "it's the frontier incident."  He
held up one of the sheets.  "It's a code message addressed to Geneva
all ready to be sent," he said, "and here's the message in plain
language written in above the code words in the carbon copy.  Look!"

The transcription was in French.  She read:


"Dr. Gustav Metzger German Vice-Consul Mirapol Ukraine stabbed to death
to-night at Ferryman's House Orghina Bessarabian side of frontier by
unknown assassins believed to be Soviet emissaries who afterwards set
fire to premises and escaped stop Metzger prominently identified
pro-German party Ukraine and crime created greatest sensation
throughout region stop Metzger was in close touch Ukrainian
Nationalists and widespread reprisals feared."


The message was signed "Lhabed."  Boulton showed Melissa the signature.
"'De Bahl' spelt backwards," he pointed out.  "I don't understand
this," he said, "because they're hand in glove with Metzger--it may
interest you to know that those pills he gave your old man were drugged
so that they could carry him off more easily.  Nevertheless, it's
pretty clear what's going to happen.  Everything's set for the raid.
Up at the Castle Grenander and the boys have been checking arms and
ammunition all day and getting sleds packed.  What they're waiting for
is the frontier incident which is to justify the expedition."

"And Dr. Metzger is to be murdered to give them their incident, is that
it?"

"That seems to be the idea.  I don't understand it very well because
he's in this conspiracy up to the neck and as thick as thieves with de
Bahl and the gang----"

"That wouldn't worry de Bahl any."

"I expect you're right.  Well, Metzger's to be bumped off, in this very
house, to-night, and then the fun starts.  The first thing we know
there'll be what this telegram calls 'reprisals,' that's to say, the
raid, the object being to set the Nazis and the Bolshies at one
another's throats, and there's your war scare.  Armament stocks will
soar, which is all de Bahl and his pals care about.  Your worthy parent
says the whole thing is nothing but an attempt to rig the market and,
by Jove, he's right."

His attention drifted to the unconscious figure at their feet.  "He
left the troika outside, tucked out of sight in the lane," he said.
"We'll borrow it and drive to the village and try to ginger up the
police, then return with them to the Castle and collect your old
man--the rest we can leave to the Rumanians, I guess.  But first we'd
better dispose of old Beastly here.  Lend me a hand with him, will
you?"  Between them they half lifted, half hauled the dead weight
across the floor and lodged it in the deep closet.  "He's not dead, is
he?" Melissa questioned rather tremulously, staring down at the
frowning, livid face.  Boulton shook his head.  "Not on your life."  He
grinned across at her.  "A sweet upper cut, wasn't it?  If I knew
anything about my job, I'd finish him off.  But there..."

He was looking for the closet key.  But there was no key, and the bolt
was broken.  "No matter," he said, shutting the door.  "We'll be well
out of this before the old devil emerges from dreamland."

He raised a hand in warning, sprang to the lamp and blew it out.  The
last glimpse Melissa had of his face showed it watchful and alarmed.  A
sleigh was approaching the house at a furious pace--they could hear the
smothered clip-clop of hoofs on the snow, the sleighbells' chime.  They
heard it stop--in the long silence that ensued Melissa's hand found her
companion's in the stuffy darkness, gripped it tightly.  Footsteps
climbing the stairs to the front door broke the taut suspense.  A hinge
groaned in the room below and an icy draught whistled through the
uneven planking.  Von Wahlczek's unmistakable drawl, curiously muted,
mounted to their ears.  He was speaking German.  "You're sure you've
got everything, Herr Doktor?" he said.

Melissa felt Boulton's fingers tighten on her elbow as he held her arm
in the dark.  The rather snarling voice that answered was Metzger's.
It resounded from the foot of the boxed-in stair.  "Had we not better
see whether de Bahl is still here?" he said in German.  They heard the
door at the foot of the flight open and a little light from the room
below shone in upon them.

"There's no one here.  Can't you see it's all dark upstairs?" von
Wahlczek retorted, his voice much nearer now.  "He's gone and taken the
girl with him."

"We didn't meet the troika----"

"He spoke of going to the village to send that telegram.  Hand me that
gear of yours."

The voices drifted away from the staircase.  They heard von Wahlczek
say, "It's the right watch, is it?" and Metzger's answer, "It's
inscribed with my name.  If you don't believe me, look inside!"

A long silence then, broken presently by a quiet "glug-glug-glug" as of
liquid being poured.  Von Wahlczek's voice came up, "Give us some more
of those shavings."  Silence again, then, "He wouldn't have come and
gone?"  It was the doctor speaking.

His companion's strident laugh rang out.  "He hadn't left the Castle
when we started out, had he?  And if he had, we must have passed him on
the road.  Come on, he mustn't find us here.  Besides, that horse won't
stand.  Let's join the others."

"And if he doesn't come?"

"He'll come all right, now that he's found that note."

"I'd rather do it here."

"So would Axel.  But you know de Bahl.  He won't risk a shindy here on
account of the frontier guards, and he's right.  The Englishman is
tough and likely to put up a fight.  It's safer and surer on the
road...."

The murmur of their voices was swallowed up in the slamming of the
front door.  Boulton's hand on Melissa's arm restrained her as they
stood in the darkness during the long pause that followed.  Then came
the sound of a departing sleigh with the jingle of bells receding in
the distance.

Boulton stole to the door, opened it, listened.  All was deathly still.
He raised his head and sniffed.  "Petrol!" he said: as he came back to
Melissa she saw in the faint light shining from the room below that his
face was set in grim lines.  "Now I get the idea," he told her.  "I was
meant to find that decoy letter.  They used you to lure me here.  I was
never very happy about the guards being taken off and I made up my mind
to slip out of the Castle unseen, just in case it was a trap.  It's a
good job I did, also that I avoided the direct road, or I'd be cold
meat by this."  He laughed.  "They certainly meant to have that
frontier incident."

"But that telegram speaks of Dr. Metzger----"

"They never intended to kill Metzger--I was to take his place.  Don't
you realise, the plan was to decoy me here to this shack, knock me on
the head on the way, dump me here among certain articles belonging to
Metzger such as this watch he spoke of and fire the place.  Metzger
would conveniently disappear and my charred remains would have been
claimed as his by de Bahl and the gang.  Those fellows below stairs
have been laying the train--the whole place reeks of gasoline.  The
sooner we're out of it, the better."  He tucked the telegrams back into
de Bahl's wallet and placed it in Melissa's hands.  "It'll be safer
with you than me.  Wait there: I'm going to see if the coast is clear.
When I whistle, come down, and we'll make a bolt for it."

He stooped to her lips and for a brief instant they clung together.
Then, drawing from his pocket the big automatic he had taken from de
Bahl, he cocked it and disappeared down the stairs.

She heard the woodwork creak as he crept down.  Then suddenly the wind
from the floor blew about her feet, a door banged below, there was a
shout, a deafening report, another, a crash of glass, a thud.

At the same instant, her ear caught a slight movement behind her.  She
swung about.

The closet door was open.  De Bahl stood in front of it, with blood
running down his chin, swaying unsteadily on his feet.




CHAPTER XXVIII

THE POT BEGINS TO BOIL

Her first thought was of the wallet in her hand.  She paused just long
enough to thrust it down the front of her jumper, then darted for the
door.  The hesitation was fatal.  Her feet were on the threshold when
she felt herself grasped by the shoulders from behind, pulled violently
back and flung against the wall with a violence that shook the breath
from her body.  As she collapsed in a heap on the floor, she had a
fleeting glimpse of de Bahl dashing past her to the staircase.

For an instant she lay there dazed.  Then a strange, crackling noise
came to her ears and at the same time she smelt smoke.  As she
struggled to her feet de Bahl reappeared in the doorway, snatched her
up in his arms and carried her out to the stairs.  She screamed "Don!"
despairingly, but a flabby hand was clamped over her mouth.  The air
was laden with the acrid fumes of burning wood, wisps of smoke rose to
meet them, a lurid light flickered in her eyes, as she was borne
swiftly down.

The lower room was on fire.  A sheet of flame ran from the shattered
fragments of the lamp overturned on its table to the floor, shooting
out across the uncarpeted boards.  The front door was swinging in the
wind and, fanned by the draught, the flames roared and crackled amid
dense clouds of smoke that caught them by the throat.  Struggling
frantically she freed herself from the gag of the imprisoning hand and
called "Don!" once more.  But as far as she could see for smoke the
tap-room was empty.  Remembering the shots she had heard, "Boulton,"
she cried to de Bahl, "he's here somewhere.  Oh, please, wait--we must
rescue him."

But her captor paid no heed.  With lowered head he drove through the
growing sea of flame and smoke for the entrance, lurching perilously,
colliding with the furniture, gasping, coughing.  Halfway across the
floor, he tripped and almost fell: as he recovered himself, Melissa
perceived a motionless form stretched out at his feet.  The tumbled
flaxen hair, the rough brown tweeds--"Stop!" she entreated.  "Stop!
It's Boulton!  Oh, you can't leave him here to die!"

Inexorably de Bahl stumbled on and the only result her desperate
efforts to liberate herself achieved was to increase the vice-like grip
that pinioned her.  Out of the flaming house and down the greasy steps
into the snowy yard they slithered and the next thing she knew she was
pitched into a pile of furs in a waiting sleigh, her companion
scrambled in beside her and they were scudding through the biting dark.
Then only did her resistance give out and she slumped among the furs,
closing her eyes.  By and by the cold revived her.  At the sight of de
Bahl, his face, dim in the reflected light of their lamps, a mask of
dried blood and black smears, she uttered a little cry.  As though he
read her thoughts he said bluntly, "The man was already dead."

"How can you know that when you wouldn't wait to see?"

"I saw him there when I first went down.  Was I to risk our lives for a
dead man?  Another minute and the place would have been a torch.  Look
back!"

They were dashing along the road beside the river, headed for the
Castle.  Behind them a smother of flame and smoke crimsoned the
surrounding whiteness.

In bitter anger she swung to her companion.  "You lured him there to
kill him.  Even if he did attack you, it was only to defend me.  You
might have saved him--if you'd a spark of humanity in you, you might
have saved him.  To leave him there, perhaps to be burnt alive..."  She
began to sob.

With a hard laugh he lashed the horses.  "The man who lays hand on me
may count himself lucky to be dead.  I told you I was a bad one to
oppose.  The law of Moses has always been good enough for me--an eye
for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.  _Hol, halt!_"

Tugging at the reins he pulled up the three horses yoked abreast.
Round a turn of the road, where a great tree thrust its bare branches
into the sky, figures moved in the light of their lamps.  Von
Wahlczek's little sleigh stood on the road, the horse steaming and
panting, a man in furs and shaggy sheepskin busby at its head.  Three
other men similarly attired stepped with arms outspread in the path of
the troika.  Then von Wahlczek, smothered from head to foot with snow,
emerged into the path of their lights.  "De Bahl!" he cried in
astonishment, peering at the other's grim and livid face.  "Man, you're
wounded!  Your face is covered with blood.  Have you come from the
Ferryman's House?"

"Quiet!" growled the Baron at his stamping and straining team.  "It's
no thanks to you if I have," he told von Wahlczek, glaring at him oddly.

"But how comes it that the house burns already?  The Englishman has not
passed."  He turned for confirmation to the men about him, speaking to
them in Ukrainian, and they replied in unison.

De Bahl was breathing hard.  "Not only did he pass but he attacked me,
you bungling fool.  If this is your idea of carrying out orders..."

"But we carried out your orders to the letter, and not a quarter of an
hour ago," said von Wahlczek, his eyes on the other's face.

"It didn't occur to you to see if the girl was still there?"

"The place was in darkness.  We thought you'd gone to the telegraph in
the village and taken the girl with you.  How were we to know..."

"They could have turned out the light, couldn't they, idiot?  What's
Metzger doing back there?"

Von Wahlczek turned colour.  "There was an accident.  When we were
coming away, the horse bolted and Metzger got left behind.  I couldn't
hold the cursed brute--I believe he'd have taken me clear back to the
castle if these fellows hadn't scared him and landed us in a drift.  I
thought Metzger would have followed on foot.  Where is he?"

"Back there on the floor with a bullet through his head.  The
Englishman, too."

Von Wahlczek gazed past the speaker towards the reddening sky.  "Good
God!" he murmured.

De Bahl veiled his eyes.  "It is the best solution.  For now at least
we shall have the evidence that a crime has been committed, if the fire
leaves any evidence.  Is your horse all right?"

"Yes."

"Then take this wire to the village.  It's the code telegram to
Schlesinger..."  He was fumbling in his pockets.  "It's gone.  My
wallet, too!  That blasted English rat--I must get back to him before
it is too late."  He swung to Melissa, whipping the sleigh robes away.
"Get out!  Get out!  I'll send that wire myself," he told von Wahlczek.
"Take the girl back to the castle--she can join her father in their
quarters in the Green Turret but see that no one has access to them.
Let two of these men come with me: the others can return to the
castle."  Von Wahlczek spoke an order and two of the men clambered into
the troika even as it was turning.  De Bahl whipped up the horses and
the sleigh dashed away by the way it had come.

Von Wahlczek had caught Melissa in his arms as she stumbled from the
sleigh.  She cried hysterically, "He's lying!  He didn't have time to
see whether he's alive or dead.  Follow him!  Take me back!  Oh, don't
you understand?  Boulton's in that burning house back there.  We must
try to save him!"

Already the troika had disappeared into the dark.  "Look!" said von
Wahlczek, pointing.  Above the curve of the snowladen bushes a pillar
of orange flame, smoke-tipped, reared itself torch-like against the
sky.  "Come," he told her, slipping his arm into hers, "I take you back
to your father.  If Boulton is still living, de Bahl will rescue him."
Tears blinded her: she let von Wahlczek help her into the sleigh.  The
sleigh moved off, passing as it went the two remaining men who were
trudging through the snow back to the castle.

They had driven some way in silence when von Wahlczek said: "I fear you
think badly of me."  A sob was his only answer.  "We're all in the
power of this man," he went on.  "For me there was no choice.  I had my
orders and I had to carry them out."

"You knew it was a trap," she burst out furiously.  "You knew they
meant to kill him.  Yet it was you who used me to lure him there."

With a meditative air he laid his whip across the horse.  "It was
Boulton or me.  Believe me, I could not help myself.  De Bahl has it in
his power to send me to my death.  A word from him to the new
government in Austria, for example, about--about certain matters in my
past, would doom me as surely as if you were to put a bullet through my
head.  I'm sorry about Boulton because I like Englishmen.  But he was
playing a dangerous game.  First Miklas and now as it would appear,
Metzger.  Believe me, Miss Melissa, you waste your sympathy upon this
English spy."

Her eyes flamed.  "If there's one thing I hate more than a coward, it's
a hypocrite.  Please leave me alone--I don't want ever to speak to you
again."

He shrugged his shoulders and plied his whip once more for they were
approaching the ramp leading to the Castle gates.  The great doors were
closed but on recognising the sleigh, the guard tugged the bell and
they were admitted.  The outer yard was full of movement with men
passing to and fro and figures silhouetted against the double line of
lighted windows marking the barrack rooms.  As they drove through to
the inner yard they were aware of a great bustle under the Boyar Tower.
The sentry outside the Green Turret clanged the bell and brought
Charles running.  Behind him Melissa perceived a familiar figure in a
velvet smoking jacket.  The next moment she was in her father's arms.

She was hysterical, incoherent.  But in the quiet warmth of the
living-room, with Stephen's arm about her, she blurted out her story.
The high colour slowly ebbed from his face as she proceeded but he said
no word until she had finished.  Then with icy calm he spoke.  "We're
surely in a spot, honey," he said.  "But what matters most to me just
now is that I've got you back safe and sound with me and that's an ace
point.  For the time being we're at the mercy of this scoundrel de Bahl
and there's nothing very much we can do about it.  But if we come out
of this mess I'll get that big gazeebo, if it means following him to
the ends of the earth and costs me my last dollar.  And let me tell you
this--the British will help.  Did Boulton tell you that he was Secret
Service man?"

She shook her head.  "He used to be an Air Force officer--that's all I
know about him.  But von Wahlczek says he's a spy."

"De Bahl's a notorious espionage chief, isn't he?--the thing sticks out
a foot.  He was a fine young fellow and he gave his life for his
country: if it's any consolation to us we can be sure the British will
avenge him--they go to the bat for their own people, I'll say that for
them."

She was fumbling in her jumper.  "He took de Bahl's wallet--he gave it
to me to look after for him.  You'd better have it, Steve."  She drew
the wallet from her dress, holding it for an instant as the thought
came to her that it was almost the last thing those strong, brown hands
had touched before their tragic parting.

Selmar took the wallet.  It was full to bursting: money, a wad of
English five pound notes--Stephen counted them: there were sixty of
them, three hundred pounds; visiting cards, a mass of letters.  Melissa
picked out the typewritten slip, the message destined for Geneva, and
unfolded it.  "It's the telegram about the frontier incident," she
said.  "He went off to send it--he could write it out again, I guess.
It's probably on the way by this."

Selmar put on his glasses.  "'Widespread reprisals feared,' eh?  That's
the raid, of course."  He tapped the paper.  "Here's the fuse and the
raid's the charge that's to blow the price of armament stocks sky-high
everywhere.  Humph!"

He began to turn over the remaining contents of the wallet.  "There's
nothing much here."  he muttered disgustedly, glancing through one
letter after the other.  Then he uttered a sharp exclamation.  "Gosh, I
knew it.  It's a market flutter.  Look!"  He held up a sheet of
note-paper covered with figures.  "Here's a list of the gang's orders
to their brokers in London, Paris, Amsterdam, New York, mainly New
York--de Bahl, Grenander, Frangipani, von Wahlczek.  Well, I may not be
very familiar with the European stock exchanges, but the New York
market I do know something about."  He glanced at the paper again,
"Whew!  They're certainly gone a flyer--they're in up to their necks.
The rats!  As long as they can start an arms boom, they think nothing
of sending all these boys to their deaths."  His eyes clouded over.
"And to think that we're corralled here, that there's nothing we can do
to stop it."  He shook his head.  "It's too tragic about young Boulton.
The kid had guts, and he could use his brains.  If only we had him here
with us now--why, Melissa!"

His daughter had fallen into a storm of weeping.  "Why, honey?" he said
and slid his arm about her shoulder.  Presently she dried her eyes on
the handkerchief he offered, stood up.  "Come with me to my room,
Steve," she said.

Arm-in-arm they climbed the turret stair to her bedroom where she led
him out on the balcony.  The snow had left off.  The moon had not yet
risen and the stars hung like jewels in the wide expanse of sky.  Far
below, where the white trough of the frozen river curved away, the
Ferryman's House was a dying beacon with sparks that whirled up and
little figures moving against the glow.  In the immediate foreground
two discs of light moved rapidly along the river road towards them to
the jingle of sleighbells--it was the troika being driven furiously
towards the castle.

But Melissa's eyes were fixed on the burning house.  With a shuddering
sigh she spoke.  "It's like a Viking's funeral," she murmured, then
clung to her father.  "Oh, Daddy!" she sobbed.  He remembered she had
not called him that since she was a little child.  "Melissa, darling!"
he said, greatly moved.

"It's as though I'd left a part of me down there to die with him," she
faltered through a mist of tears.  "He loved me, Steve, and I loved
him.  Now he's gone, and I just can't face it."  She shivered.  "Let's
go inside.  I'm so cold."

Back in her room, he told her that Charles was getting her some dinner.
She didn't want to eat she protested.  When Stephen tried to reason
with her, she exclaimed impatiently, "Oh, won't you please leave me
alone?  Can't you see I want to cry?"

Seating himself on the bed, he drew her down beside him.  "Listen,
Melissa," he said.  "You say you loved this Englishman.  All right.
But remember, he was on a job and for that job he gave his life.  They
got him but we're here to carry on in his place.  That's what he'd want
us to do, isn't it?  Or do you think he'd like us to quit?"

She sniffed forlornly.  "You know he wouldn't."

"Then chin up, sweetheart!  Grieving won't help him, and it certainly
won't help us.  There's a damnable conspiracy going on here; what we
have to do is to put our two heads together and see if we can't stop
it, as young Boulton was trying to do.  Am I right?"  She nodded and
groped for his handkerchief.  He patted her hand.  "That's the spirit,
darling.  Now look.  For the time being we're isolated here.  When I
gave Grenander his cheque he promised to take the guards off.  But I
might have known--the moment he got his hands on the money, he broke
his word.  The men are still confined to their quarters, Charles said,
so that the only ones who can move in and out of the castle freely are
de Bahl and the heads, I guess.  Which means that we've a pretty poor
chance of getting a message out.  I wonder if one could fix Ali..."

"Bribe him, is it?"

"Sure."

"He's devoted to the Baron.  You could never trust him.  But there's
von Wahlczek."

"Von Wahlczek?  He's hand and glove with the Big Boy, surely?"

"He hates him, he told me so himself.  Besides, he's a rat--I think you
might 'fix' him, as you call it."

Her father was radiant.  "Can do.  But how are we going to get hold of
him?"

For some time they had been conscious of a growing tumult rising
faintly to their ears from the interior of the castle, a medley of
shouts and cries.  The noise was louder now and Selmar, going to the
staircase door, opened it and listened.  "It sounds as if they were
holding a meeting," he remarked as the distant hubbub welled into the
quiet room.  "Shut the door," said Melissa.  "I can't bear to hear it."

He closed the door and came back to where she sat on the bed.  "Well,
they haven't started yet, by the looks of it," he observed.  "But it's
kind of warming up, I guess."  He seated himself beside Melissa again
and put his arm about her.  She did not speak or look at him, but one
tear after the other rolled down her face.  So they sat in silence for
a long spell as gradually the distant clamour died and the only sign of
life were the long fingers of the Russian searchlights across the river
framed in the balcony window as they restlessly groped in the sky.




CHAPTER XXIX

A TAP AT THE WINDOW

Under the four-square tower which was the main entrance of the castle
the great doors were shut when the troika came cavorting up the ramp.
No guard was visible and one of the men in sheepskin busby who
descended from the sleigh had to ring a series of peals on the bell
before a wicket opened in the gate and a gold-tressed monkey-jacket
gleamed in the light of the lamps.  "Son of a hundred fathers, child of
the pig," the Baron snarled in his fluent Arabic as he flung aside whip
and reins, "why am I kept waiting?  Is there no sentry?  And why are
the gates closed at nine o'clock?"

As his master clambered to the ground Ali recoiled before the livid
face, smeared with blood and grime.  With eyeballs that glistened
whitely in the dimness, "Sidi," he said in an awed voice, "they shut
the gates an hour before the time by order of the _Mefetish_."
_Mefetish_ or Inspector was Ali's Arabic title for Grenander.  "There
is trouble among the workers, _Sidi_.  The word goes round that the
German _Hakim_ and the English foreman were murdered to-night and the
men are murmuring--there is much disorder."

With a grunt de Bahl stepped through the wicket, pausing under the
archway to contemplate the scene.  The outer yard was full of men
standing about in groups, arguing, gesticulating.  He did not enter the
yard but, turning right-handed under the tower, took the stone corridor
that led to the staff wing.  There were voices in the office, but he
passed it and entered his bedroom.  Here Ali was waiting to relieve him
of his outdoor things.  A can of hot water stood in the basin and,
stripped to his shirt, he washed the blood and grime from his face.

His mouth was swollen.  He lingered for a moment before the glass,
examining the bruise and staring sourly at the burning eyes and leaden
countenance reflected in the mirror.  "Ali!" he called presently and
made a cryptic gesture with his fingers to the servant.  The native
went to a drawer and returned in a moment with a tiny hypodermic
syringe which he handed silently to his master.  Rolling back his shirt
sleeve, de Bahl plunged the syringe deep into his fore arm, already
marked by a series of tiny punctures, then sank down wearily into a
chair.  On noiseless feet the servant came forward and, kneeling, drew
off his master's wet top boots, replacing them with dry shoes he had
brought with him.  Sitting back on his heels with his limpid, black
eyes wistfully regarding the other, he said, "My lord is tired.  Will
my lord eat?"

The Baron shook his head.  "A man thwarted me to-night and now he has
escaped my vengeance," he observed sombrely.  "That has never happened
to me before, Ali!"

"My lord is all-powerful!" replied the Tunisian, dropping his eyes.

"A woman lured me," said de Bahl, frowning.  "When a woman steps
between a man and his goal, Ali, it is rarely that he attains it."

"Women, it is well known, will turn a man's bones to water, _Sidi_!"
was Ali's humble rejoinder.

"I allowed myself to be diverted from my purpose this evening and I
feel it bodes evil."

The Tunisian threw him a diffident glance.  "I told my lord I was
against this undertaking from the start.  I read the stars and saw no
good there."

A warmer tint had crept into the Baron's face.  "Bah!" he said.  "I am
not guided by the stars.  I write my own fate and tell the stars what
they shall prophesy.  The cigarettes, Ali!"

The servant darted to the bedside table and brought an open box of the
big cigarettes.  Lighting one and inhaling deeply, his master said,
"Where is that uniform I bought in Bucharest?"

"In the black suitcase, _Sidi_."

"Unpack it and hang it in the wardrobe.  I may have need of it.  Wait!
It will do presently."  He smoked for a moment in silence.  "Now pay
heed to what I say.  At seven o'clock to-morrow evening we start off
across the river.  At six o'clock you will take my smallest suitcase
with one suit and a change of linen to that disused outhouse that
stands against the Castle wall beyond the Boyar Tower.  You know it?"

"Yes, _Sidi_."

"You will find the caterpillar tractor there.  You will place my
suitcase in it and wait there for me.  Frangipani and I will join you
there as soon after seven o'clock as possible.  Is it understood?"

"It is understood, _Sidi_."

"And not a word of this to anyone, is that clear?  Neither to the
_Mefetish_ or von Wahlczek or any of them."

"My lord's wish is law."

He leaned forward and pulled the servant's ear.  "It had better be, imp
of Shaitan, or I'll tear your black tongue out by the roots."  He stood
up.  "Now find me a clean collar!  I must go to the office!"

With a firm tread he moved to the mirror, his equanimity quite
restored.  He was smiling secretively as he ran a comb through his
white pompadour of hair and sprayed eau de cologne on a clean
handkerchief.  "At six o'clock to-morrow," he reminded Ali and tripped
blithely out.

In the office Grenander and von Wahlczek, drinking slivovitz, the local
prune brandy, heard his rasping cough as he approached along the
corridor.  Von Wahlczek was saying, "You know what he's like when he's
been at the smoke.  He was high, I tell you--his eyes glittered like
fireflies.  He's never so violent as when the stuff's cold in him.
With the men in this mood we're in for trouble, Axel..."

His companion motioned him to silence as the door opened.  "Man is born
to trouble as the sparks fly up," said de Bahl gaily.  "But I don't see
that that is any reason for you two to be glooming here as though the
world were coming to an end.  And getting fuddled on that filthy
schnapps.  The affair's in train, you know.  As Wally has probably told
you, Axel, the Englishman did the job for us and our code message is
already on its way to Geneva."  He rubbed his hands together
cheerfully.  "My friends, by this time to-morrow the pot will be
boiling."

The two men exchanged dumbfounded glances.  Except for the bruise on
his lower lip, the Baron was his normal self.  Behind his old mask of
imperturbability his air was as alert, his eyes under their heavy lids
as calm and confident, as ever.  "But I thought you told me that
Boulton took that code telegram when he stole your wallet?" said von
Wahlczek.

"He did.  But I could write it out again, couldn't I?"

"Without the code?  You didn't telegraph it in plain language, I hope?"

The Baron laughed quietly.  "I sent it in code, of course.  Any message
I turn into code myself I do not forget.  A simple feat of memory.  You
should cultivate a photographic memory, Wally.  It has its uses."  He
drew on his cigarette.  "As for my wallet, it has gone up in flames at
the Ferryman's House, I'm afraid."

Grenander's small eyes stirred into life.  "They're both dead, then?"

"Burnt to a crisp, if what's left of Metzger is any proof.  They were
able to reach him as he was lying just inside the door: they identified
him by his watch and the buckle of his belt with his initials which
were found close by.  They haven't been able to get in far enough to
reach the Englishman--the place is a furnace.  I doubt if they'll ever
find anything of him--you and the doc made a good job of it, Wally."

"What about the police?" Grenander demanded.

"The gendarmes and the frontier guards are at the scene, of course,
together with every man, woman and child from the village.  There's
nothing to connect Metzger with us here for the moment and if they
inquire at Mirapol all they'll discover is that he left some days ago
to go to Bucharest on business.  Meanwhile, the post-mortem will in all
probability reveal the fact that he was murdered and if it doesn't, you
can leave it to me to spread sufficient rumours to confirm our message
to Geneva.  As for the Englishman, they're unlikely to find enough of
him to trace him to the Castle, but we must be prepared for a visit
from the captain of the frontier guards.  To-morrow, therefore, we
resume work on the restoration of the Castle until dark, when we'll
issue the arms and despatch the party across the ice."

The engineer scowled.  "With all the gendarmes and frontier guards
assembled at the fire, better we strike to-night, I t'ink."

De Bahl shook his head.  "We must give the kettle time, my friend.
First the incident to start it simmering, then, at twenty-four hours'
interval, the raid to bring it to boiling point, as it was planned.  It
is all to the good that the attention of the frontier authorities will
be focussed for the next twenty-four hours on the investigation into
events at the Ferryman's House.  For the rest, our original plan
developed in agreement with Rypnik and Vassenko must stand.  While the
first party under young Vassenko makes a feint at crossing the river
opposite the Castle, the main body led by us will slip over at the
point we selected at the bend of the stream half a mile above the
Castle.  The Ukrainian leaders will be here this afternoon.  I shall
tell them I've decided that zero hour is 7 p.m. to-morrow night."

"If we can vait so long," Grenander rumbled.  "The men are pretty
excited.  First they get a rumour that Metzger's been killed by Russian
spies, then they hear that Boulton's missing, too, and since then,
there's been no holding them.  The Englishman was pretty popular round
the Castle, you know--the boys regarded him almost as one of
themselves."  He raised his hand.  "Listen to them outside, how they
buzz like a lot of angry vasps!"  A growing volume of sound was audible
from the yard.  "They're for starting at vunce--to-night," he explained.

"I'll not have the ship spoiled for a ha'porth of tar," declared de
Bahl crisply.  "This little venture of ours is not going to go off at
half-cock if I can help it.  On the other hand, we can't risk the
gendarmes arriving and finding the place in a turmoil.  I'd better
speak to them--I can manage Rumanian, if I can't Ukrainian."  So saying
he unlocked a drawer of the desk from a key on his bunch and drew out a
bundle of greasy papers.  "These are the papers of that Russian spy we
dealt with the other night," he said to von Wahlczek.  "Wally, you know
where Boulton bunks.  There's no one in the barrack rooms just
now--they're all out in the yard.  Plant those papers in Boulton's
locker, will you?  And if he has any of his own, bring them to me here.
But be quick about it while the coast is clear."

He pitched the bundle to von Wahlczek, who hurried out.  "Open that
window, will you?" he bade Grenander.  "They're in a dangerous mood,
Alexis," said the other.  "If that's all that worries you," retorted
the other contemptuously.  Shouldering him aside the Baron plucked the
casement wide.  "Men," he cried in a clear, rather shrill voice that
came echoing back from the battlements.  "Men, listen to me, your
leader!"

The hubbub in the quadrangle ceased on the instant.  All faces swung
towards the figure framed in the lighted window and there was a
concerted rush towards the speaker.  "A dastardly crime was committed
at the Ferryman's House to-night," said de Bahl when silence fell.
"Dr. Metzger, German Vice-Consul at Mirapol across the river, was
struck down by a Soviet assassin."

A shout of rage arose from the yard.  From the front rank of the crowd
massed under the window a man sprang forward.  "And how long shall we
idle here at the mercy of the Red scum?" he vociferated furiously.
"What are we waiting for to avenge our German brother?"  A chorus of
voices answered him.  "Forward!  Forward to the Ukraine!"

"Peace!" cried de Bahl.  "It is I who command here.  We start when I
give the word, and not before!"

"We wait too long!" the spokesman of the rabble shouted back.  "We have
the arms, we have the men.  Forward, to-night!"  The crowd bellowed its
approval, shouting in a medley of languages, "That's it!  Forward
to-night!"

With unwavering calm the Baron replied.  "So you want to see the inside
of a jail, do you?" he trumpeted.  "At any moment the gendarmes may
come to the Castle inquiring into this crime.  If you don't wish to see
your vengeance frustrated, you'll disperse now.  To-morrow evening,
maybe----"

But fresh protests cut him off.  "To-night!" they cried.  "Forward
across the Dniester to-night!"  Others yelled, "Where's the murderer?
Hand the dirty Red over to us!  Kill him!"  There was a surge of men
outside the window.

De Bahl faced them unmoved, waiting for the wave of passion to be
shattered out upon his rock-like impassivity.  Gradually the air of
authority he radiated asserted itself and quiet fell again.  "The
murderer perished in the fire at the Ferryman's House," he announced.
"He is known to you all, a vile bond-slave of Moscow who wormed himself
into your confidence as into mine."

"The name," came a great shout back.  "Give us the name!"

"It is the English foreman, Boulton."

A howl of execration went up, mingled with defiant shouts and cheers.
It was a full minute before the Baron could make himself heard.  "This
miserable ruffian has met with his just deserts," he cried.  "We have
long suspected him to be a Soviet emissary, and I should like his
comrades of the barrack-room to search his locker for evidence of his
association with our enemies.  Meanwhile, all I ask of you is a little
trust and a little patience.  To-morrow morning let the Castle present
once more the spectacle of peaceful industry so that no suspicions may
be aroused if the frontier guards come prying, and when night falls, on
my faith as your Chief, men, I will lead you across the river.  Is it
agreed?"

A wild cheer came rolling back at him: the men began to disperse to
their barrack-rooms.  The Baron stepped back and closed the window.
"The curs!" he said to Grenander.  "All they needed was a crack of the
whip."

The engineer looked at him anxiously.  "It's for to-morrow, then?" he
said, adjusting his glasses.

"To-morrow it is.  There's no drawing back now."

"And the full moon?"

"They'll be across before it's up.  The moment they knock off work at
four, we'll start with the issue of arms and ammunition.  You'd better
see the foreman about getting the orders out at once."

Still Grenander lingered.  "They'll be massacred to a man."

The Baron laughed softly.  "We should worry, Axel."

His companion grunted.  "You say that, but how do we manage?"

"You and I will keep together.  We will slip away at the first
opportunity.  From eight o'clock on Frang will have the tractor waiting
for us at the main gate."

"And the plane?"

"Everything is in order.  It will be standing by for us at the Chisinau
airport."

His companion indulged in a throaty chuckle.  "You t'ink of everyt'ing,
by yimini!"

De Bahl dropped his eyes.  "I try to, Axel."  He gave his little cough.

But the other still had something on his mind.  "And which of us is to
lead the column?  This old fool Rypnik will be with the first files: he
will expect one of us to accompany him."

The Baron smothered a yawn.  "Wally's a soldier.  His place is in the
front line."

"It will not be so easy for him to get avay."

"Is it so important?"

"Ve don't vait for him, then?"

"We don't wait for anybody, Axel."

Von Wahlczek's monocle glittered in the doorway.  "Rypnik and the other
delegates are here," he announced stolidly.

"Where are they?" de Bahl asked.

"At the main gate.  And pretty excited."

"I'll see them here--alone.  Send them along, will you?"

Von Wahlczek gave him a quick glance, shrugged his shoulders and
disappeared.  "Best I go see about those orders now," said Grenander,
draining his glass.  "You arrange with Frang about the tractor, yes?
Eight o'clock outside the main gate."

"Leave it to me."

"Best ve stick together vunce ve start to-morrow so there's no slip up,
I t'ink."

"Definitely."

The Swede clumped out.

"We don't wait for anybody, Axel," de Bahl said softly, looking after
the retreating figure, and smiling.


Up in Melissa's bedroom in the Green Turret Stephen Selmar looked at
his watch.  "A quarter to ten.  I don't believe they're planning to
start to-night," he said.  He patted his daughter's hand.  "Come on,
honey.  I'm going to take you downstairs and have Charles fix you a
sandwich and maybe a glass of wine."

She stirred unwillingly from her immobile pose.  "I don't want to eat,
Steve--truly I don't," she told him.  "I guess I'll go to bed."  Then
he felt her grow rigid in his encircling arm.  The balcony window was
softly rapped--a shadowy figure was visible outside.  With a scream
Melissa sprang to her feet.  "It's Don," she cried and flew to let him
in.




CHAPTER XXX

THE CAT'S NINTH LIFE

As Melissa pulled the balcony door open, Boulton swayed towards her and
would have fallen if she had not caught him.  Her father running to her
aid, between them they lifted him on the bed.  He was hatless with hair
and eyebrows singed, his face as black as a sweep's, and a very dirty
handkerchief was bound round one of his hands.  "Quick, Steve, he's
fainted," she cried, and would have sprung up but for a grimy hand that
restrained her.  "I've some brandy in my room," exclaimed Selmar.

Boulton had opened his eyes.  "Make it a whisky and soda, a large one,"
he murmured--though he panted with exhaustion his air was still faintly
mocking.  Selmar hurried out.  The young man smiled through his grime
at Melissa's anxious face.  "I'm all right," he gasped.  "Just petered
out, I guess--that last bit over the roofs.  It's--extraordinary.
Whenever you see me--so grubby!"  He closed his eyes wearily.

She laid her face against his.  "Oh, Don, darling, thank God, you've
come back to me.  When I saw you lying there among the flames..."

With a little sigh he snuggled his cheek against hers.  "Now that I've
found you again, I feel like never letting you go."

She held him to her in her arms.  "Don't talk, rest."

His hand stroked her hair.  "I was out of my mind with anxiety about
you when I found you'd disappeared to-night.  I thought you were
trapped upstairs, but the rooms were empty."

"De Bahl carried me off----"

"I guessed he had when I met the troika coming back and saw that he was
alone: I had just time to duck down behind the hedge before he spotted
me."

"He thinks you're dead.  He said he saw you lying dead on the floor."

His laugh was rather hollow.  "They're not so easily rid of me."  He
closed his eyes.  "I thought I'd never get here, through the snow.  But
I had to discover what had become of you.  I've been outside the main
gate for ages, trying to get in.  Then a party of Ukrainian delegates
arrived and I managed to dodge in behind their sleighs."  His eyes were
open again and smiling up at her.  "By rights I should have gone to the
gendarmerie before coming here.  But I couldn't rest until I knew you
were safe."  He fondled her hand.  "Now that I know you are, nothing
matters, not even that I've fallen down on my job."

Selmar bustled in with a tray.  "Here you are, my boy," he said,
bringing him his drink.  "Down that!  No, stay as you are!"

But the young man insisted on struggling up.  "I'm all right, sir."  He
raised his glass.  "Well, here's to the cat's ninth life!"  He drained
his drink at a gulp.  "My goodness, I wanted that."  He grinned through
the black smears that streaked his face.  "Don't look so serious, Mr.
Selmar.  They can't kill me, you know."

"They seem to have had a darn good try," said Stephen.  "Melissa here
has been crying her eyes out over you.  What happened?  And why aren't
you dead?"

He laughed.  "That was the little cherub's doing--you know, the one
that sits up aloft.  I expect Melissa has told you how we tackled that
scoundrel--well, when I went downstairs to investigate, there was this
fellow, Metzger, just coming in at the front door.  I told him to put
his hands up, but I didn't notice he had a gun.  He was a game fellow
and promptly let fly at me, missed and then--maybe his gun jammed--he
flung it at me just as I fired.  His gun crashed the lamp and took me
on the temple.  When I came to, there I was on the floor with the
flames all around me and the doctor lying dead just inside the door."

"But weren't you terribly burnt?" said Melissa.

"Only one of my hands.  And my boots and gaiters are a bit singed, but
nothing to speak of."

The girl ran to the travelling medicine chest that had been her
father's gift to her.  She returned with alcohol, lint and adhesive
tape.  "Let's see this hand of yours," she bade Boulton.  He winced as
she unwrapped it--it was badly blistered.  "And you climbed over the
roofs with a hand like this?" she demanded as she cleansed it.  He
nodded, biting his lip.  "It wasn't so pleasant, but I managed it.  The
raid's for to-morrow night," he told Selmar.  "I heard de Bahl telling
the men just now: he was making a speech to them in the outer yard.
There's been a spot of trouble with the boys over Metzger's death,
apparently.  De Bahl denounced me as Metzger's murderer and said I was
a Soviet spy.  The chaps didn't half howl for my blood.  It'll make it
a bit awkward, getting out again."

Melissa was just completing her bandaging.  "You're not thinking of
leaving the Castle again, surely?" she said anxiously.

He laughed, but rather shortly.  "Ah, but I am.  We have to stop this
raid.  It'll mean lying doggo for a bit and watching my chance, but I
must get word to the gendarmerie before nightfall to-morrow when the
fun is due to begin.  Indeed, the sooner I can warn them the better,
because the frontier guards are pretty scattered and in the village
itself there's only a sergeant and a couple of gendarmes.  To bring
these madmen to their senses, the Castle will have to be surrounded,
and that means troops.  And with the roads in their present state----"

"There's no need for you to go," the girl broke in.  "Can't we find
some other way of sending a message?"

He shook his head.  "There's no one I can trust.  We can't afford to
run any risk."

"What about von Wahlczek?  He hates the Baron--he told me so himself."

"Melissa thinks he could be squared," Selmar put in.

"He's yellow," Boulton agreed sombrely, "he'll do nothing to imperil
his own skin.  He may hate de Bahl, but he's scared to death of him.
You could try what a bribe would do, but I wouldn't trust our Wally
even then.  He might serve as a second string, but it'd be a precious
weak one.  No, there's only one person to take that message to the
village, and that's me."

"But can you get out?" asked Stephen dubiously.

"If I got in, I can get out--it stands to reason," the young man
answered placidly.  "I'll get out all right although, as I say, I'll
probably have to bide my time--maybe, later on in the night, while
they're changing the guards before dawn.  The main thing is that we
know the raid's fixed for to-morrow night.  We have to stop it,
therefore it will be stopped."

Selmar nodded.  "I expect you'd like a wash.  Charles will take you
down to my bedroom and fit you out with clean things of mine.
Meanwhile, stay under cover.  The Baron thinks you're dead, so see that
you stay dead as far as he's concerned."

There was a knock at the door.  The valet's rather woebegone face was
thrust in.  "Herr von Wahlczek is below," he announced.

"Von Wahlczek?" Selmar echoed, glancing from his daughter to Boulton.
"What does he want?"

"He does not say, Monsieur.  He asked for Monsieur."

Stephen's face cleared.  "It's in the bag," he pronounced.

"You intend to see him?" Boulton asked frowning.

"You bet!"

"Don't trust him, Steve!" cried Melissa.

Her father laughed.  "Not me.  I'm going to bribe him."

"You'll lose your money, sir," said Boulton crisply.

Selmar stuck out his chin.  "Watch me."  Then he handed the guest over
to Charles and went quickly downstairs.




CHAPTER XXXI

MONEY TALKS

"You asked for me?"

Von Wahlczek, nonchalantly smoking a cigarette in the Green Turret
lobby, turned to see Selmar descending the stairs.  He dropped his
cigarette on the floor and set his foot on it.  "If I'm not
intruding..."

"Come in," said Stephen, ushering him into the living-room.  He fetched
a box of cigars from the desk.  "Cigar?"

"Thanks."  Von Wahlczek, still elegant, his rough outdoor clothes
notwithstanding, gave him an inquiring glance as he helped himself from
the proffered box.  He seemed a little puzzled by his host's manner,
noncommittal, bland almost.  He lit his cigar at the match Selmar
struck for him then, affecting to scrutinise the tip, remarked, "I was
anxious to hear that Miss Selmar is none the worse for her adventure
this afternoon."

"I feel sure my daughter will be grateful for your inquiries," Stephen
replied stolidly.  Said the visitor, looking about him, "If I might sit
down..."

"By all means."

They found chairs.  Von Wahlczek said after a pause, "I have been your
guest, Mr. Selmar: it has been my privilege to break bread with you.  I
am a gentleman and I find myself much distressed at having been the
unwilling instrument of the occurrences of this afternoon."

With a detached air his host was carefully piercing his cigar.  "From
what Melissa told me," he observed judicially, "I gather that you, like
ourselves, are not a free agent."

The other snatched at the olive branch.  "This is very magnanimous and
very like your charming daughter, Mr. Selmar."  He cleared his throat.
"It is because I am in this false position, do you see? that I wish to
make to you what amends I can."

Stephen laughed dryly.  "That shouldn't be difficult."

"Please?"

"I say, you can very easily make amends--by getting us, my daughter and
me, out of this place as soon as possible."

He shook his head firmly.  "That, I fear, I cannot do."

"It would only mean a wire to the American Legation in Bucharest."

"Impossible!"

"At a pinch it would probably be sufficient if you rang up the local
police."

He sighed and shook his head again.  "It would be as much as my life is
worth."

Selmar flicked a fragment of ash from his sleeve.  "And if I made it
worth your while?" he inquired casually.

"You couldn't--I should be signing my own death warrant.  You don't
know the man we have to deal with, my dear sir.  He has ears
everywhere: if I should betray him he would certainly find it out and
that would be the end of your poor friend, Otto von Wahlczek.  And
anyway," he went on confidentially, "you can take it from me that the
present restriction of your liberty will be over very soon.  Now that
Grenander has his cheque, he will not trouble you further--in fact,
between ourselves, I think I can promise you that at this time
to-morrow you will once more be master in your own house."

Selmar's blue eyes rested on him steadily.  "You mean that de Bahl and
his friends will have cleared out?"

Von Wahlczek indulged in a series of rapid nods.  "All gone"--he made a
gesture with his hands as though shovelling something away.  "Pouf!
Like that!  You'll have the place to yourselves.  But that remains a
secret between us, eh?"  He laid a well-manicured finger on his lips.
"There is, therefore, as you see, no need to alarm your Legation or to
summon the police--you would find the Rumanian police very
troublesome."  He blew a cloud of smoke.  "Nevertheless," he went on,
"there is perhaps a small service I can render you--because, as I say,
I am a gentleman and anxious to show myself not unworthy of your esteem
and Miss Melissa's in spite of the part I was forced to play this
afternoon."  He paused.  "Mr. Selmar, I flatter myself I know
Americans.  I have not yet visited your great country, but I have many
American friends and, well, I know I know you to be a practical people.
You appreciate the value of money, _nicht wahr_?"

"When we have any...."

The other laughed extravagantly.  "Excellent, excellent, a
millionaire's joke.  But it seems to me, my dear sir, that even though
you are a millionaire, you would not be averse from making a great deal
of money quickly."  He stuck his glass in his eye and surveyed him
expectantly.

Stephen shrugged his shoulders.  "Who wouldn't?"  His tone was casual,
his eyes half-closed against the smoke curling upward from the cigar
firmly grasped in his teeth.  But between their lids his eyes were very
watchful.

"If I were to let you into a secret, a secret that would enable you to
realise an immense profit on the Stock Exchange, would it be worth
paying for?"

His manner was tense.  The American remained unmoved.  "It'd depend on
the secret," he remarked, shifting his cigar round in his mouth.

Von Wahlczek leaned forward in his chair.  "Suppose I gave you the
names of certain stocks that will have a colossal rise on the New York
market within the next twenty-four hours?"

Selmar shook his head.  "I don't play the markets."

"You don't understand, Mr. Selmar.  This is not speculation: it's
certainty."  He moved his hands.  "This murder will be a political
sensation.  As soon as the news becomes known armament shares will
soar.  Moreover, as I may tell you in confidence, arising out of this
incident, certain events are impending that will lead to an even more
sensational rise.  As it happens I'm in a position to know the stocks
that will be principally affected.  You're a rich man, you have
abundant capital.  Profiting by my advice you can make what I think you
call a killing."  He beamed at him through his monocle.

"Humph."  With a thoughtful air his companion flaked the ash from his
cigar.  "And how do you propose that I should avail myself of this tip
of yours?  The telephone's cut off and I can't reach a cable office."

Von Wahlczek glanced cautiously around.  "The others must know nothing
of it, but I can smuggle a message down to the telegraph office if you
wanted to cable your broker."

Selmar fingered his moustache, contemplating him appraisingly.  "And
the price of the information?"

"That I would gladly leave to you, _lieber Herr_, except that I find
myself in an unfortunate predicament.  Time has hung heavy on our hands
here and, well, to be frank, I have allowed myself to be drawn into
various games of ecart with our friend, Grenander--in short, I find
myself in immediate need of--ten thousand dollars."

The American shook his head.  "Too high."

Von Wahlczek stiffened.  "I would remind you, Mr. Selmar, that I am an
officer and a gentleman--it's not becoming that we should haggle like a
couple of horse-dealers.  The modest sum I ask will enable me to settle
my debt of honour and at the same time, as I hope, put the ocean
between myself and this abominable ruffian who calls himself the Baron
de Bahl."

"I'll pay you ten thousand dollars to do as I asked you, to notify the
American Legation and at the same time, the local police."

The other blanched.  "No," he said between clenched teeth.  "No!  I
have told you already, this I dare not do.  But a cable to your broker
in New York I will send and for the profit you will make, ten thousand
dollars is not too high a price."

Selmar rubbed his nose reflectively.  Then he took from his pocket a
battered leather portfolio and drew from it a packet of paper, clean
and crisp.  "I tell you what I'll do," he said firmly.  He held up the
wad.  "There's three hundred pounds in English money here.  Five pound
notes--you can change 'em anywhere.  Send off the cable I'll give you
for my broker and the money's yours.  You can pay for the cable out of
it and keep the change.  Three hundred pounds--fifteen hundred
dollars--isn't a bad tip for a messenger, my friend."

He spoke with a snap, his manner blithe and keen.  Von Wahlczek had
stood up.  He stared at the packet of notes in Selmar's hand.  "All
right," he said at last rather sullenly and put out his hand.

"Not so fast!" Selmar observed.  "I shall want proof that my cable has
actually been sent.  Half now and half when you bring me my receipt
from the telegraph office."  Wetting his finger he counted through the
notes, making two packets of them.  His companion glared at him.  "You
don't trust me, _Herr_?"  The other chuckled.  "I'll say not.  How do
you think I got rich?  I never trusted anybody in my life--not in money
matters anyway.  That list of securities, please!"

He beckoned with his finger.  Glowering still, von Wahlczek eased a
slip of paper from his inside pocket and gave it to his companion who
thereupon placed one of the two wads of notes in his hand.  "Now for
that cable!  Excuse me!"  Selmar went to the desk, unlocked a drawer,
found a small book and for the next five minutes the tapping of the
portable that stood on the desk was the only sound in the room.  Then
Selmar pulled out the sheet, detached it from its carbon and handed it
to the visitor.

Von Wahlczek put in his eyeglass to examine it.  "But it's in code!" he
objected.

Stephen laughed.  "I don't want to boast, but my name stands for
something on Wall Street.  Don't you realise that if I cabled orders of
this magnitude in plain language it would immediately affect the price?
Use your brains, man!"  The other indulged in a surly nod and buttoned
the cable away.  "You shall have your receipt within the hour.  In the
meantime, not a word to anybody, you understand?"

"Trust me!" said Selmar and von Wahlczek stalked out.  A moment later
an indignant voice spoke from the door.  "Steve!"

It was Melissa.  "I was outside and heard every word," she said.  "I
could scarcely believe my ears.  Why, Steve, to think that you'd let
these gangsters run you into their miserable speculations!  And was it
really necessary to pay that horrible von Wahlczek all that money for
something we already know?  Have you gone crazy or what?"

He chuckled.  "That money wasn't for the tip, sweetness, it was for
acting as messenger."

"You mean to say you give a man three hundred pounds just to send off a
cable?"

He began to laugh.  "It wasn't my money, honey--it was our friend the
Baron's, those five pound notes he had in his wallet.  You see," he
went on chuckling heartily, "that fellow von Wahlczek gave me an idea.
I just had to send that cable."

"I don't see anything of the kind.  Don't you realise you're every bit
as bad as they are, buying these shares for a rise?"

"I'm not buying," he gasped out.

"Not buying?"

He shook his head, holding his sides and shaking with laughter.  "That
stuffed shirt doesn't know it because my cable to Bob Sylvester is in
my private code.  But I'm going to sock this bunch of chisellers where
it'll hurt them the most, and that's plunk in the old wad.  We're not
buying, sweetheart--_we're selling_!"

She stared at him, her eyes shining, her lips breaking into the
tenderest of radiant smiles.  "Oh, Steve, you old devil!" she exclaimed
rapturously.  "You darling, foxy old devil!"

"It's a bear raid!" he cried.  "Watch me force the price back
to-morrow!  We may be prisoners here, but your old man still knows a
trick or two.  Money talks, they say, but I'm going to make it holler.
Raid or no raid, I can hold these punks, I guess; but they're relying
on this filibustering expedition into the Ukraine to convulse Europe
and send arms stocks rocketing, and if Don can fetch help in time,
whew! the cat'll be right among the pigeons.  Bucharest is seven hours
ahead of New York time, so, as the New York market opens at ten, we
shan't have any news until some time after five o'clock to-morrow
evening.  But then, I promise you, you'll see the fur fly.  Whoopee, I
haven't enjoyed myself so much in years!  And what makes it such fun,
de Bahl, the big cheese, is footing the bill!"




CHAPTER XXXII

A SHOT IN THE DARK

Since the hammering of the gongs had doused the last light and banished
the last burst of sound in the men's quarters, a great stillness had
rested over the Castle.  For the first time for many nights no stealthy
noises under the Boyar Tower broke the silence, no caterpillar treads
thumped thunderously up the ramp to the gate, and the chugging of the
electric light dynamo in its cellar behind the Green Turret tapped as
quietly upon their accustomed ears as the tick of a clock in a
sick-room.  Boulton remarked upon the stillness.  "They're giving them
a good night's rest.  It's the calm before the storm," he observed.

Refreshed with food and in a clean shirt of his host's, though he had
resumed his shabby working kit, he seemed to have regained his old spry
air, Melissa observed, when, on von Wahlczek's departure, she and her
father joined Boulton upstairs.  As their living quarters on the ground
floor were always exposed to a surprise visit from de Bahl or one of
the others, they had decided that Boulton might best remain unobserved
in Stephen's bedroom until such time as he had to leave the Castle.
The night was dry and clear, and a full moon high in the sky made
everything as bright as day.  But clouds were coming up and the young
man's plan was to wait on the chance of the moon being obscured to make
his way across the roofs to the main gate.  There he would remain in
hiding until he saw an opportunity of slipping out.

It was snug in the turret room with the curtains closed and their three
chairs drawn up round the great tiled stove.  Boulton, pipe in mouth,
absorbed in examining the contents of the Baron's wallet, had not
spoken for some time.  His air was relaxed.  It was Selmar who seemed
to be on edge, chewing his cigar to rags and continually jumping up to
go to the door and listen.

For the sixth time since he and Melissa had come upstairs after von
Wahlczek's visit, Stephen consulted his watch.  "Half past eleven
nearly!" he fumed.  "He won't come now."

"It's a brilliant idea, sir," said Boulton, holding up one of the
letters in the wallet against the light.  "Nemesis striking from across
three thousand miles of ocean to rob these callous ruffians of their
ill-gotten gains--there's something God-like about it.  But"--he wagged
his head dubiously--"I didn't want to dash your hopes when you told me
about this cable of yours, but I've a secret feeling that we've seen
the last of our dashing friend, von Wahlczek."

"There's a hundred and fifty pounds waiting for him to collect when he
brings that receipt."

"Agreed.  But the hundred and fifty he's already had from you will be
more than enough to take him out of harm's way--why, it'd pay his
passage to South America which, as old Sam Johnson said about
patriotism, seems to be the last refuge of every scoundrel.  You know
the saying about rats leaving the sinking ship!"

"But, gosh darn it, he's in this flutter up to the ears like the rest
of them.  Surely to goodness he'd want to stick around and see it
through?"

The Englishman shrugged his shoulders.  "You may be right.  But if he'd
sent off that cable he'd have been back with your receipt long before
this.  I admire the diabolical ingenuity of your plan to turn the
tables on de Bahl and his pals, and I wish you luck with it.  But what
happens on Wall Street won't affect the position here.  The raid's
going forward--in fact, when they find the market turning against them,
they'll be more determined than ever to push on with it, to keep the
pot a-boiling."

He held up the wallet.  "I'll take charge of this, if you don't mind.
There are one or two things here they'd like to look at in London."

"Go ahead," said Selmar.  "It's your prize.  Or Melissa's."

Boulton's eye sought out Melissa with a great tenderness.  She met his
gaze with a brave smile.  "My particular worry just now," said he,
shuffling the papers together and restoring them to the wallet, "is
whether I can get the troops here in time.  This place is so out of the
way that there are no troops anywhere within easy reach: one point in
our favour is that, as soon as it hears about Metzger, the Rumanian
Government is likely to start moving troops over to this region of the
frontier as a precaution.  You see, Soviet Russia has never recognised
the Rumanian annexation of Bessarabia and the Rumanians are always a
bit windy about this frontier.  Whatever happens, it looks like being a
darn close call.  Though they have no real chance of success, once the
raiders get across the ice, they'll find plenty of hot-heads among the
Ukrainian Nationalists ready to join them and the fat'll be properly in
the fire."

He knocked out his pipe in the wood-box beside the stove.  "But that's
not my head-ache, that's up to our Foreign Office," he remarked
cheerfully.  "My particular pigeon was to find out what out old friend,
Baron de Bahl, was up to, and that I've accomplished.  But I shan't
consider my job done until I have him safely under lock and key.  If I
can pull that off, I shall feel I haven't lived in vain."  With a
sombre air he sucked his empty pipe.  "So many better fellows than I
have had a go at it and failed.  And some of them never came back."

"The British have been after him for a long time, have they?" Stephen
put in.

"Ever since the war.  What a run he's had for his money!"  He frowned.
"He's a killer, a man-eating tiger, and like a man-eater raiding a
peaceful Indian village, wherever he appears he spreads terror,
destruction and death."  With mechanical movements he began to fill his
pipe from the battered pouch he took from his pocket.  "You know," he
went on, "the de Bahl type, like the man-eating tiger, used to be an
isolated specimen.  But to-day, with the rule of violence spreading
throughout the world, it flourishes like the green bay tree.  The wild
beasts have come out of the jungle in troops to attack the villages,
and honest folk can no longer sleep quietly in their beds.  Well, you
can't handle these people with kid gloves any more than you can a tiger
that has tasted human blood.  Actually, I never killed a man before but
I've killed two since I came to Orghina, and I'd do it again if I had
to."  Raising his eyes to Selmar, he went on rather shyly, "I'm telling
you this, sir, because I don't want you to think of me as a sort of
gunman, a cold-blooded brute who makes nothing of shooting a man as I
had to shoot that poor devil of a doctor this evening, and sitting down
calmly to a good dinner after."

Selmar clapped him on the arm.  "Don't give a thought to it."  he said
rather gruffly.  "If I had a chance of putting a bullet into that smug
villain, de Bahl, I'd take it, believe me!  And that goes for his fat
friend, the Swede, too."

Boulton laughed and stood up.  "Let's take a look at the moon," he said
and, going to the window, peered through the curtains.  "It's clouding
up nicely," he announced.  "I'll have to be on my way."

"I'll just see what Charles has done about that ladder..."  Stephen
bustled out.  "Ladder?" echoed Boulton, looking at Melissa.

"To reach the battlements from my balcony," she explained.  "I thought
it would spare your poor burnt hand."

He smiled at her.  "You think of everything."

"Why did you speak to Steve just now as though you weren't coming back?"

"I wasn't speaking to Steve."  He flushed.  "I wanted _you_ to
understand."

"Then it wasn't necessary.  All my memories of you are sweet, Don.  But
you haven't answered my question."

His eyes fell away.  "I'll come through all right, Melissa."

"Don't fence with me.  Tell me the truth.  It's dangerous, isn't it?
One of those hit-or-miss things?"

He shrugged his shoulders.  "I shan't fail, because I can't afford to
fail."  He paused.  "I have to get out of the Castle now, before it's
light.  If I fell into the hands of the men, they'd tear me to bits,
after what they've been told about me."  His teeth closed doggedly on
his pipe.  "But I'll manage somehow."

She said desperately, "I've been so happy to-night, sitting with you
over the fire.  Why do you have to go?  What's the Ukraine, what are
all their stupid politics, to you and me?  You've done enough, Don.
Why should you risk your life again?"

"It's my job," he answered stolidly.  "A man has to stick to his job,
whatever the risk, Melissa.  It's my job and I have to finish it."

"Do I mean nothing to you?" she cried passionately.  "Don't you care
for me at all?"

He sighed deeply.  "God, and how much!"  Then she was in his arms.
"It's madness," he told her, brushing her brown hair back from her
forehead, "but it's lovely.  Because nothing can come of it, you know,
my love.  An ex-Air Force flight lieutenant on 300 a year and Stephen
Selmar's daughter--it doesn't make sense."

"Money isn't everything, Don."

He shook his head.  "Isn't it, though!  Look at your father, pulling
strings from here.  I can only capture old de B. and chuck him in a
cell.  But your old man can beggar him and not only him but everybody
even remotely connected with this ramp."  He drew her to him and laid
his face against hers.  "Don't let's spoil this little moment of
happiness by talking of money, darling.  Let me just hold you and
pretend it's for ever."

She clung to him desperately.  "Don, I can't let you go.  It seems to
me that I never began to live until I met you."

He smiled down at her.  "I've felt that way ever since that first
morning at Monte Carlo, but I never dreamed that you did.  Since I had
to give up flying nothing has seemed to matter particularly.  I've been
in some tight places in this funny job of mine, but I never seemed to
give a damn whether I came through or not, not because I'm especially
brave or especially reckless, but because I'd always found existence
pretty drab and hardly worth living for.  But since I've known you
everything's changed.  It's as though someone had come along with a
damp cloth and rubbed all the dirt and grime off the world, leaving it
bright and shining.  And I want to live--gosh, how I want to live!
It's such a big world and I've seen so much of it, without liking any
of it very much.  Yet all the time it held someone like you, and I
never knew it.  God, it's like looking at the sunrise!"

She had listened to him with lips parted, her head thrown back, eyes
shining.  Now she dropped her eyes and he found himself thinking what
long and glossy eyelashes she had.  "And still you want to leave me?"
she murmured huskily, fingering a button on his rough tunic.

He nodded.  "And you're going to tell me to go!" he said.

She looked up at that.  "Go then, Don, and God go with you!"

He took her in his arms again.  "I'll be thinking of you every minute
of the time," he whispered, "and the memory of this moment will be like
a light to guide me."  He stooped to her lips.  "Now I must be on my
way and you must go to bed."


A garden ladder was reared on Melissa's balcony.  Ragged brown masses
of cloud had drifted across the face of the moon, but beyond their
edges the sky was full of light.  Charles had come up with a flask and
a packet of sandwiches: Stephen and Melissa watched silently as he
helped the Englishman on with the suede jacket Stephen had lent him.
Charles himself had contributed a bret and a dark scarf--muffled up to
the eyes Boulton held out his hand to his host.  "Good night, sir, and
thanks for everything," he said.  "With any luck you'll see me back
before dark this evening."

"Take care of yourself, son.  You'll be a sight for sore eyes."

"_A tantt_, Charles, _et merci!_"

"_A tantt, monsieur, et bonne chance!_"

He took Melissa's hand and held it for a moment without speaking.
"Come back safe, Don," she said.  "Don't make me go through another
night like this is going to be."

He gave her his vagrant smile.  "I'm the bad six-pence--I always turn
up.  _Eteignez_, Charles!"

The light went out and plunged the room in darkness.  They saw him for
an instant framed in silver in the doorway, then he lifted his arm in
salute and was gone.  Charles was visible for a moment peering out,
then he in turn disappeared.  Sundry bumping noises followed and the
end of the ladder protruded into the room.  Stephen and Melissa helped
to bring it inside.  The light went on again.

"_a y est!_" said Charles, shutting the door and drawing the curtains.
"He was up the ladder like a squirrel, that one.  A _chic type_!"  He
shouldered the ladder.  "With Monsieur's permission, I go to bed.
Monsieur and Mademoiselle will be wise to follow my example, for it
seems we may have an exciting day to-morrow."

"Good night, Charles!"

"Good night, Monsieur, good night, Mademoiselle!"  With Stephen holding
the door for him, he edged out with his burden.

Melissa had not spoken.  Lost in a reverie she was staring at the
window as though her eyes could penetrate the curtains into the night
beyond.  Her father put his arm about her.  "I like your young man.  He
gives me a good feeling.  He's reliable.  He'll be back--you see if he
isn't."

"I want to marry him, Steve," she said.

He bent his keen gaze at her.  "What does he say?"

"He says it's impossible."

"Hitched up already, is he?"

She shook her head.  "No.  But he hasn't any money, and he thinks I've
too much."

He grinned.  "So you have.  Never mind, sweetheart--it's a better
reason for turning you down than if you had none."

She squeezed his arm.  "Darling Steve, you always think of such
consoling things to say."

Then they heard the shot.

It was a single shot fired in the distance.  It shattered the silence
of the night and died away to be succeeded by the deathly stillness
reigning about them, so absolute now that they could hear the ring of
the sentry's feet on the frozen path far below.




CHAPTER XXXIII

VON WAHLCZEK COMES BACK

In the early morning sunshine the Castle hummed with activity.  Hammers
rang and saws whirred, and there was the metallic scrape of shovels
from the courtyards where lines of men were clearing the snow away and
dumping it into wheelbarrows.  To Melissa after a sleepless night of
torturing anxiety all this busy stir was sheer agony.  It took her mind
back to their first days at Orghina when life was pleasantly enlivened
by the fascinating prospect of a treasure hunt, the Baron's pleasant
companionship and the propinquity of a not too unpresentable young man.

The blank silence following upon that solitary shot ringing out of the
night was hardest to bear.  She would have run down to the yard to find
out what it portended had not Stephen forcibly restrained her.  If
anything had happened to Don, they would learn of it soon enough, was
his argument: if he had survived the shot but had been recognised on
escaping, any curiosity they displayed might reveal the fact that they
had harboured him and jeopardise the success of his mission.  So they
had remained upstairs in Stephen's bedroom, crouched in the window with
the light out, gazing down upon the black quadrangle at their feet,
their ears strained for any sound from the massive pile about them.

But no sound came.  Little solace the silence brought to Melissa,
realising as she did that they were too far removed from the main gate
for their ears to detect any noises less penetrating than a shot, the
shrilling of whistles or the clanging of the great Castle bell.  She
had visions of guards with lanterns sallying forth into the snow and
picking up a poor broken body lying at the foot of the battlements.

She was forced to play a part to induce her father to leave her and go
to bed.  She let him think she was pacified by his declaration that the
unbroken hush was a sure sign that Don had got away; but her heart was
heavy as she climbed the winding stair to her room.  Lying in bed with
the vast expanse of moonlit firmament framed before her eyes in the
open doorway of her balcony, she fancied she saw him there again, alert
and imperturbable in his fur cap and stained working clothes.  The
whole of their adventure at Castle Orghina was so fantastic, it might
have been a dream.  Must it be that he was merely a part of it, an
unsubstantial figure melting into nothing with the coming of day?  Day
appeared in the sky as she lay there tossing, the last grey shadows of
the night dissolving into an angry dawn that flooded her chamber with
crimson fire.  At long last the clash of iron on iron gonged the Castle
into reluctant life and she knew that another day had begun.  A
critical day for them all, for her in particular, feeling as she did
that on its outcome her whole happiness depended.

At breakfast with her father, she saw through the dining-room window a
procession of men emerging from the Boyar Tower carrying planks, bags
of cement and the like.  Most of the men seemed to be engaged on such
menial tasks.  She remembered that Don had told her, that there were
not ten skilled hands among the remaining working force, and mentioned
it to Stephen.  "Camouflage, in case the police come nosing around," he
growled, "But wait till it's dark and they'll be goose-stepping, the
whole pack of 'em!"

There was no news, he told her.  Charles had questioned the orderly who
had brought the day's supplies, but the man professed ignorance of any
untoward happening in the night.

Suspense was everywhere.  Soon after breakfast they had a glimpse of
Grenander disappearing under the archway of the Boyar Tower and a
little later the Baron picked his way delicately across the inner yard
among the busy snow-shovellers.  He did not as much as cast a glance in
the direction of the Green Turret but with preoccupied mien bobbed out
of sight under the tower.

Stephen was nervous.  He paced up and down the living-room champing on
his cigar.  He was halfway through his second cigar of the morning when
he called Melissa to the window.  "Hell's begun to pop!" he exclaimed.
"Look at Frang, will you?"

She put down her knitting and joined her father at the window.  The
stocky figure of the Italian was visible scudding across the
quadrangle, his hands full of telegrams.  His dark eye rolled and the
perspiration glistened on his swarthy face in the dazzling sunshine.
He, too, vanished under the Boyar Tower.  Stephen glanced at his watch.
"London and Paris are open by this," he remarked, "and these are the
first reactions, I guess.  New York doesn't open till 5 p.m. our time.
I wonder if we shall hear anything before the balloon goes up."  He
ground his teeth together.  "That pill, von Wahlczek!  And I thought I
had those ruffians where I wanted them!  Gosh, how I hate to miss the
fun!"  Melissa tried to pacify him.  But he would not be pacified,
fretting and fuming and stamping up and down.

Lunch was a listless affair, with Stephen frowning down at his plate
and his daughter starting every time Charles came in with the dishes
and making the merest pretence of eating.  And then the miracle
occurred.  They were at coffee in the living-room when without warning
von Wahlczek stood before them.  "Not a word," he said impressively,
closing the door behind him.  "I couldn't get here before.  De Bahl has
gone to the telegraph in the tractor and Grenander's snoring like a pig
in the mess...."

Selmar had jumped up.  At the sight of his irate countenance von
Wahlczek laughed softly.  "You thought I'd run out on you, didn't you?
You tell yourself you kiss good-bye to your hundred and fifty pounds,
no?"

"Did you send off that cable?"

"But, of course.  At about ten-thirty last night."

"And the receipt?"

"_Voil!_"  He placed a printed slip of paper on the coffee tray.  "My
messenger was shut out of the Castle on returning and couldn't get in
till this morning."

Stephen had snatched up the receipt and was scrutinising it eagerly.
"Good!" he exclaimed.  He was radiant.  He drew an envelope from his
pocket and dropped it on the table.  "There's the balance of your fee.
The other hundred and fifty pounds--count 'em!"

Swiftly von Wahlczek ran his eye over the wad of notes, smiled
seraphically and stuck them in his tunic pocket.  "Thanks," was his
languid acknowledgment.  "You know," he went on, "you could have safely
made it the ten thousand dollars I asked and never missed it.  Our
friend Metzger is on all the front pages this morning: the worthy
Doctor dead has kicked up a fuss he'd never have achieved in life.  The
bourses are in a turmoil, government bonds dropping, munition stocks
shooting up.  Hitler has flown from Berchtesgaden to consult with his
Generals, all Rumanian troops are confined to barracks, the Russians
are reinforcing the Ukraine garrisons."  He laughed triumphantly.  "And
it only begins!  Wait till New York opens this evening, wait especially
for the latter part of the session, because before the market closes
there'll be news that'll send all arms securities soaring like a
firework display."

His voice rang exultant, his rabbit mouth was curved in a gleeful
smile.  Without warning his listeners saw his face change.  His
eyeglass rattled against his jacket, his eyes widened with fear, his
chin dropped.  At the same instant a slim hand swooping down between
Melissa and her father as they stood with their backs to the fire
snatched up the cable receipt where Stephen had laid it down among the
coffee cups.

It was de Bahl.  He had entered unperceived from the dining-room.  In a
tense silence he scrutinised the receipt.  "New York, _hein_?" he
rasped in a choking voice, tapping the paper with his finger.  "The
sentry on the main gate reported that a man tried to get out last
night, but the lying hound declared he scared him back with a shot.
Who took this telegram?"

His gaze rested on Selmar, then shifted, when the American remained
silent, to von Wahlczek, who had lost all his normal poise.  The
perspiration pearled on his high forehead and ran down his livid
cheeks: under the neat moustache his lower lip dandled vacuously.  De
Bahl's countenance darkened.  "It was you, was it?"

"No, no, I swear..."

"Who took this telegram?"

The shifty eyes dropped away.  "One of the Ukrainians."

"The name?"

"Starenki."

The heavy brows came down.  "I might have known you wouldn't have had
the guts yourself.  What did this telegram contain?"

Von Wahlczek seemed past speech.  He made a feeble gesture towards
Selmar who took it as an invitation to speak.  "It was to my broker,"
he said calmly.

The Baron's eyes returned to the paper.  "'Robsyl Newyork,'" he read
out and nodded.  "Yes.  I recall the address now.  I remember you have
sent cables to this address before.  Well?"

Stephen shrugged his shoulders.  "Herr von Wahlczek thought that, as a
business man, I might be interested in making a little money in the
market."  He outlined a vague movement of the hands.  "He was good
enough to give me a quiet tip..."

De Bahl's glance swung suspiciously from one to the other.  "In which,
I'm bound to say," Selmar went on, "he showed a greater sense of
loyalty than you've displayed, seeing that we've been partners since
the start."

The other seemed nonplussed.  "Do you mean to say..." he began.

Stephen nodded briskly.  "Just that.  After all, a flutter's a
flutter--why be selfish about it?"

"Then this cable of yours?"

"Following your lead, Baron, I'm in this operation of yours for all the
traffic'll stand."

The Baron made one of his wheezing noises.  "A true American, eh?
Business first, and all that!  So your high sentiments melt away when
there is a profit to be made, my friend?"

Stephen moved his shoulders.  "I don't see why I should turn down the
chance of making a little easy money," he retorted, assuming a sulky
air.  "Von Wahlczek tipped me off and I've gone banco on his
information.  I hope you're not going to tell me I've slipped up?"

De Bahl's good humour seemed to be restored.  "On the contrary," he
said amiably.  "I'm in for as much as I can afford myself, but if you'd
care to carry me, say, for another hundred thousand dollars....
There's still time to get New York on the telephone before the market
opens."

Selmar shook his head.  "Sorry, Baron, but I've gone my limit."

"And how much does _he_ get out of it?" He jerked his head
contemptuously in von Wahlczek's direction.

By this von Wahlczek had regained some of his composure.  "If a
gentleman cannot reimburse a debt of hospitality by disinterested
service..." he began, mopping his brow.

The Baron tittered.  "Sure, sure."  He swung to Selmar.  "What did you
have to pay the weasel?"

Stephen drew himself up.  "I wouldn't have insulted a man in von
Wahlczek's position..."

A dry laugh answered him.  "All right.  But if you won't tell me, he
will!"  Plunging forward in a lightning movement he grabbed von
Wahlczek by the collar.  "To the office, rat!  You and I and the good
Axel must have a little conference!"  Brushing past Melissa and driving
his captive before him, he swept out.

Left alone with Melissa, Stephen said, "How was my act?"

She smiled at him lovingly.  "It was swell, Steve."

He blew out his cheeks.  "It was a close call.  I wonder what's going
to happen to the poor devil if they find that money I gave him just
now.  I bet old de B. has the numbers of those notes."

By way of response, Melissa opened her fingers.  The wad of notes was
reposing there.  "They were in his outside pocket, sticking out--I was
terrified the Baron would spot them so I fished them out as they pushed
past me.  It seemed safer."

Her father clapped his arms about her.  "Bully for you!" he cried.
"Just wait till New York opens, sweetheart!  We're going to town!"

She drew a deep sigh.  "I don't give a damn where we're going until I
know what's happened to Don," she answered brokenly.




CHAPTER XXXIV

MONSTERS OUT OF THE NIGHT

The clock on the mantel-piece chimed five times.  Selmar took out his
watch.  "There we go!" he remarked.  "New York's opening now.  Your
throw, sweetheart!"

It was quite dark outside now, the evening wild and blustery, though
dry.  As they sat at the backgammon board in the living-room, they
heard the wind go romping through the quadrangle.  An hour before the
gongs had called the men from work.  Normally to the trample of feet
and the clatter of tools being laid aside as the men trooped off to
their barrack rooms a period of peace succeeded.  But on this evening
the whole Castle seemed to be astir with noises vague and undefined.

Suddenly Charles slid into the circle of light cast by the table lamp.
"Monsieur!"

"Well, Charles?"

"They've taken off the guards."

"Ah!" said Selmar, his eye on the board.  "Then they're preparing to
start.  Do you suppose one can go as far as the outer courtyard and
take a look?"

"Monsieur had better wait while I reconnoitre."  He glided away.
Melissa put down the dice-box.  "It's no good, Steve.  I can't go on.
Oh, why hasn't Don showed up?  I can't stand this suspense."

Stephen continued to study the pieces.  "Chin up, honey!" he said
composedly.  "My money's on Don and it's your throw!"

Notwithstanding her distress, Melissa found herself studying her
father.  His fresh, good-humoured face was untroubled as he bent over
the board in the strong light.  There was an inch-long ash on the end
of his cigar, which he smoked with evident enjoyment and unruffled
calm: he seemed to have no difficulty in concentrating on the game.
Looking at him she realised that this was the sort of strain familiar
to him in his business career.  Imperceptibly he had slipped back into
the groove of his old life in which courage, the ability to take
lightning decisions and nerves of steel had laid the foundations of his
fortune.

She cast the dice.  Stephen said, "I'm banking on Don arriving with the
marines in time to stop this raid.  It's either that or they get off
before de Bahl discovers that another kind of raid is on in New York:
otherwise, the old devil is apt to come nosing around to find out just
what was in that code cable of mine and we're in for a spot of
trouble."  He threw and restored the dice to the box.  "I can't move.
It's your turn, Melly."

Melissa uttered a little cry.  "Charles, how you frightened me!"

The valet had come back.  "I go as far as the outer yard," he announced
tersely.  "They are distributing arms in the barrack rooms.  There are
men in steel helmets in the yard, and mitrailleuses on little carriages
and bombs which they hand out, two to each man."  He smote the back of
the settee violently with his hand.  "Shall we do nothing to stop them?
Poor deluded fools, the free Russian proletariat will rise as one man
in its might and blast them out of existence."

Selmar had his eye on the clock.  "I didn't realise that you were a
Communist, Charles," he observed absently.

"All the dead of the World War are Communists," was the passionate
reply.  "I count myself among them for, if my body survived, my soul
lies there with my three brothers under their wooden crosses.  Can we
not prevent this crime?  Are we to stand by and see these unfortunates
butchered to make a profit for this de Bahl and his _canaille_?"

"Profit, Charles?"  His employer shook his head.  "You can take it from
me, they'll make no profit.  For the rest..."  He shrugged his
shoulders.  "How long will it be before they start, do you think?"

"Some time yet.  The men are not yet formed up.  They wait for their
leaders."  His air was sullen.

"Where are the Baron and the rest of them?"

"In the office.  They telephone."

Stephen's eye lit up.  "I wonder whether New York has come through yet.
Is there any way of finding out?  If von Wahlczek were anywhere around,
he might tell you, if you said I was inquiring."

Charles nodded sombrely.  "I go.  Meanwhile, let me thank Monsieur for
the great consideration he has shown me while I was in his service..."

"But, Charles, you're not leaving us?"

A shadow seemed to fall across his face.  "If all other means fail,"
the lanky figure spoke from the threshold, "I shall know how to act."
So saying he opened his hand, showed a flat, black object that lay
there and vanished into the lobby, shutting the door behind him.
Stephen jumped up.  "Charles, come back!"  He swung to Melissa in
consternation.  "My gracious, did you see what he had?  It was a bomb."

But Melissa, rigid in every line, was staring past him at the door
beside the fireplace, the door that led to the dining-room and beyond
it, to the staff wing.  There was a step outside, a throaty cough, then
the door was violently flung back.

The Baron was dressed for out of doors in his fur cap and pelisse.
Leather leggings protruded from under his long overcoat.  He walked up
to Selmar and fairly hissed at him, "So you'd trick me, would you?"

Selmar's glance, keen and very cool, took in the glittering eyes, the
leaden pallor of the face, the fluttering hands, of the man confronting
him.  With a challenging air he stuck his cigar in his mouth.  "So
what?" he enunciated clearly.

De Bahl seemed to struggle for words.  His chalky countenance was
distorted with fury: like a fox's mask it seemed to snarl, with nose
ruffled and mouth dragged down in a grimace that bared the teeth.
"They're forcing the price back in New York," he chattered.  "It's a
bear raid.  That code message you bribed this treacherous rat to send
for you, where is it?  I mean to see it, and I want to see it in plain
language."

With elaborate nonchalance the American shook the ash from his cigar.
"I'm afraid you're out of luck--I didn't keep a copy."

The Baron's clenched fist whirled above his head.  "Don't lie!" He
seized the other by the shoulder.  "You're coming to the telephone with
me now to call your New York broker and cancel those orders.  And
you'll tell him to buy, d'you hear?"

Selmar shook him off.  "I'll see you in hell first.  And keep your
hands to yourself!"

A demented flame appeared in de Bahl's face.  He ground his teeth
together and snarled.  "So you'd defy me, would you?  You poor fool,
I'll show you who's master here.  I'll make sausage meat of you and
feed you to the Castle dogs, you and your daughter, too.  But first
you'll give those orders to your broker, d'you understand?"

"Not on your life," said Stephen.  "And now get out!"  His hand dived
into his pocket, but quick as a flash a pistol was thrust in his face.
"Steve!" Melissa screamed and flung herself on her father, dragging him
back.  "Stay where you are, both of you," the Baron shouted.

At that moment heavy footsteps reverberated on the flags of the lobby.
A figure in a steel helmet loomed up in the doorway.  It was Grenander,
his pudgy face crimson, his pig-like eyes under the steel visor
distraught with fear.  "Frontier guards," he cried, "two sleighs of
them, approaching along the river road!"

De Bahl lowered his weapon.  "Tell them at the main gate to parley with
them but not to admit them.  Their commander may be permitted to enter
as far as the guard-room: I will see him there.  Are the men ready?"

"Ready and standing by!"

"Warn them to be prepared to move off at a moment's notice.  Jump to
it, and quickly."

Grenander stormed out.  The Baron looked at his watch.  "Are you coming
to the telephone with me?" he said to Selmar.  The latter shook his
head.  "The jig's up, you know.  This is only the start of it."

Footsteps thundered without.  Grenander poked a panic-stricken face in
the door.  "Tanks!" he gibbered.  "They're approaching from all sides!"
He did not wait, but flung out.  The Baron, with a face of death,
elbowed Melissa and her father from his path, and rushed out after him.
Rapturously, Melissa gazed at Stephen.  "Oh, Daddy, he's done it!" she
murmured in a dying voice.  Her father laughed gaily.  "Didn't I tell
you?"  He caught her arm.  "Let's go to your room.  There's a view from
there."

The wind was savage on the balcony.  Beyond the river the Russian
military posts explored the sky with long pencils of light from their
searchlights, but in the plain below their observation post the night
lay like a black mantle with only the faint pallor of the snow to
lighten it.  Out of the darkness eerie noises, a great awe-inspiring
clanking and chugging, came rumbling and presently they made out
bizarre objects, swart against the ubiquitous whiteness, lurching
rapidly from several convergent directions towards the Castle.
Suddenly without warning the balcony was bathed in blinding light.  A
projector mounted on one of the crawling monsters blazed full upon the
Castle, and turret, buttress and pinnacle, every lichen-encrusted
stone, was revealed in its dazzling beam.  Stephen was staring in
fascination at the scene when his sleeve was violently plucked.  "What
are we waiting for?" cried Melissa.  "Don't you realise that Don must
be back?  Come on down!"




CHAPTER XXXV

UNDER THE BOYAR GATE

As they crossed the inner quadrangle they perceived through the
dividing arch the redness of torches on the age-worn masonry of the
enclosure beyond.  The wind blew the flames out like plumes: in the
ragged glare the yard with its heaps of dirty snow was seen to be a
jostling mass of helmeted figures.  Overhead the oblong of sky was
criss-crossed with the wheeling beams of the search-lights, picking out
details of buttress and chimney-stack as they swung.  The air was loud
with the crepitation of the advancing tanks.

They went as far as the central arch and scanned the crowd for any sign
of Boulton.  But it was evident that the Castle was still
inviolate--the lines of men in steel helmets, with rifles slung on
their backs, the little sleds strapped down with canvas, proclaimed as
much, and here was Grenander, his red face streaming with perspiration,
pushing his way through the press: if Don Boulton had arrived he must
be still outside.  De Bahl was nowhere to be seen, but they had a
glimpse of Ali running from group to group, as though in search of him.

There was much confusion and noise.  But as they stood there in the
shadows under the arch the tumult began to abate and they were aware
that here and there in the rabble heads were turned and fingers pointed
aloft.  From somewhere outside the Castle--probably from the high
ground beside the river--a searchlight had come to rest on the roof of
the Great Hall.  Between roof and parapet a solitary figure stood
bathed in silvery radiance.  Melissa clutched her father's arm.
"Steve," she whispered ecstatically, "it's Don!"

With hands planted on the coping stone he calmly surveyed the scene.
Then the searchlight swung on and he was lost to view.  But the crowd
below had recognised him and a medley of angry cries went up.  When the
travelling beam wheeled round once more, halted for a spell and caught
him in its glare again, he was no longer alone.  A tall figure was
beside him.  The Englishman raised his hand, then in ringing tones
spoke a phrase.  Melissa could not understand the language--it was
Rumanian or Russian, she supposed.

The quadrangle was in a ferment.  Rifles were unslung, fists
brandished, infuriated shouts hurled back.  Then Boulton's companion
stepped forward and with his first few words quiet was restored--it was
von Wahlczek.  He spoke and turned to Boulton who cried in English,
"Tell them I don't know enough of their language to make a speech in
it: tell them that I'm not a Bolshevik spy but their friend who has
come to warn them.  The Castle is surrounded with machine guns trained
on every gate: tell them if they don't want to be massacred to lay down
their arms."

He paused while von Wahlczek translated in a growing din.  There was a
sudden scuffle in the crowd.  Beside a man who held a blazing pine
torch aloft a rifle was pointed, then struck down, and from their post
under the arch Stephen and Melissa saw Grenander, rifle in hand,
struggling with the crowd who were trying to disarm him.  Boulton was
speaking again.  "Your leaders have betrayed you," he proclaimed.
"They told you you were to free the Ukraine--comrades, it's a lie.
These men are speculators in armament stocks, whose only object is to
make money on the stock exchange at the expense of your lives.  Tell
them what I say, von Wahlczek!"

The searchlight had circled on again by this and von Wahlczek's voice
resounded out of the dark.  The light came back as Boulton resumed,
"The Castle is surrounded and the Soviet frontier guards are everywhere
on the alert.  Don't be less clever than your leaders who are looking
for the first chance to abandon you and save their skins.  If you don't
believe me, find if you can the Baron de Bahl!"

He uttered the last words gaily with hand upraised to shield his eyes
from the glare and stepped back to make way for von Wahlczek to
interrupt.  At that moment a detonation rang out from below and a
bullet screamed in the air.  Grenander had broken away from the group
about him and stood out in the light of the guttering torches, a
smoking rifle in his hand.  High up on the roof, von Wahlczek, fully
revealed in the blazing beam, was seen to clutch violently at his
chest, fall half forward and collapse upon the parapet.  But the
parapet was low and his fall carried him over: he went crashing down to
the flagged yard below even as the light swung on and darkness once
more enveloped the battlements.  Simultaneously a tremendous uproar
started outside, with the bell at the main gate pealing and a vast
hammering at the doors.  Panic seized the crowd.  On all sides men were
flinging down their rifles and scrambling for safety.  Now the very
atmosphere trembled to the thunder of the tanks and presently, with
shattering suddenness, the whole interior of the Castle, the inner and
outer quadrangle alike, was bathed in blinding light as the
searchlights sent their beams through the main gate on the one side,
and under the archway of the Boyar Tower on the other.  With arms
upraised men were seen scudding this way and that in the brightness,
fleeing before lines of steel-helmeted soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms
pouring in from two directions.

Melissa, her mind numbed by the tragedy she had witnessed on the roof,
felt her arm clutched as Stephen rushed her back to the shelter of the
Green Turret.  From the entrance they watched the soldiers driving the
men who had bolted into the inner court back to the outer yard.  The
gates of the Boyar Tower hung from their hinges where they had been
battered in and the projector on the tank outside, blazing like a great
eye, shot its long beam under the vaulted entrance, lighting up the
groined roof and below it the moss-grown flags of the carriage way,
where a wooden hatch marked the cellar entrance.  A party of soldiers
directed by an officer was trying to lift the flap.

Then Melissa saw Don.  He came running to them across the quadrangle, a
jaunty, lithe figure.  "The nightmare's over," he said when he stood
before them.  "Mr. Selmar, you're master of Castle Orghina once more."
But his eyes were on Melissa.

"Are you all right, Don?" she said.

He nodded, but rather bleakly.  "I should feel happier if I could put
my hands on that ruffian, de Bahl.  He seems to have vanished into thin
air.  Grenander, too.  With that poor devil, von Wahlczek, dead, it
looks as if all the heads had escaped us."  He broke off.  "But wait!
I think I speak too soon."

He was looking towards the mosque with its low porch.  The door was
open: lights and figures moved about inside.  A party of soldiers was
emerging, dragging a rotund, protesting figure in a steel helmet.
"Grenander!" the Englishman exclaimed and darted forward.

The engineer was almost apoplectic with rage.  "You find dot de Bahl
and I settle him for you, the dirty, double-crossing rat!" he roared.
"He and dot no-good Italian were to take me with them in the tractor to
Chisinau where de Bahl has an airplane chartered, and they ran out on
me, by heck.  You call the airport at Chisinau and you'll catch him,
Don: he's not gone above the hour.  And tell the Rumanians that it was
I what gif you the tip.  Maybe, they make it easier for me, yes?  You
vant information about the famous Baron de Bahl, you kom to me and I
tell you plenty."

Boulton laughed.  "Where did you find him?" he asked the officer in
French.

"Hiding in the cellars under the mosque."

"You didn't come across anybody else down there?"

"No, Monsieur."

The prisoner was hustled away.  Boulton rejoined Stephen and Melissa.
"De Bahl's bolted," he said.  "Apparently he's making for Chisinau
where he has a plane waiting--I'll have to phone the airport at once
and get them to hold him."  He was staring out across the courtyard to
the Boyar Tower.  "I wonder if those fellows realise that there's
enough explosive in that cellar to blow the Castle sky-high," he
observed.

The party they had remarked before investigating the cellar entrance
under the Boyar Tower had successfully removed the hatch and the last
of them was just disappearing down the trap.  Just then a Rumanian
officer emerged from the shadow of the wall and strolled unconcernedly
towards the gateway.  "I really think they should be told," said
Boulton and called to the officer, "Hey, Monsieur!"

But the officer paid no attention.  He walked resolutely on into the
path of light under the arch until he found his way blocked by the
yawning cellar entrance.  He paused an instant and his wheezing cough,
echoing under the vault, came back to them.  "God!" cried Boulton
suddenly.  "It's de Bahl!"  Even as he spoke a figure stepped out of a
small doorway under the gateway and stood silhouetted in the bright
light between the officer and the gate.

It was Charles.  "_Halte!_" he cried and flung up his hand.  A pistol
roared thunderously under the arch.  Charles was swallowed up in the
shadow lying black along the edges of the lighted path but something
flat and black, something that smoked and hissed, fell on the
carriage-way and, ricochetting off the stones, rolled down the open
hatch.  Boulton flung his arms about Melissa.  "Back!" he shouted,
driving her and Selmar across the threshold of the lobby.  "On your
faces!  It's a bomb!"  Crouching there, they saw de Bahl spring
forward.  Then there was an ear-splitting roar, the air rocked and the
earth trembled and their ears were filled with the crash of falling
masonry and the clang of broken glass.




CHAPTER XXXVI

EPILOGUE IN THE FOG

"Potts, my old salt!"

"Blow me down if it ain't Mr. Boulton!  Lord love a duck, sir, it's
quite the stranger you are!"

"What a stinking day!  Do you never see the sun in this cursed town?"

"We 'ad it fine over Christmas, sir.  But it's been nothing but fog
ever since the Noo Year."  He closed the front door and shut out the
blurred vista of the square and the raw January air.  The warmth and
light of the hall surrounded them.  The doorman helped the visitor out
of his heavy ulster.  "Miss 'Ancock was jest askin' if you 'ad
arrived," he confided.  "You know the way, sir?"

Miss Hancock was seated at her desk typing with flying fingers.  She
wore mittens and a grey wool sweater.  There was fog in the room.  An
electric fire glowed redly.  "So it's you, is it?" she remarked and
typed to the end of the line.  "Why haven't we had your expense
account?  How do you suppose we can run this office when people like
you are two months behind with their expense sheets?"  She whipped the
sheet out of the machine, ran her eye over it rapidly, dropped it in a
tray, and in the act of inserting another sheet in the typewriter,
looked up.  Her expression softened.  "Why, Don, what's happened to
you?"

He made a wistful grimace.  "It's a fearful suit, I know.  I had to buy
it off the peg in Bucharest, The only clothes I had when I left Orghina
were those I stood up in and they made me look like Robinson Crusoe
dressed in skins.  There was this damned investigation by the Rumanian
War Ministry--I couldn't go before the board looking like an Arctic
explorer."

She said, "It isn't your clothes, silly."  She leaned back in her chair
and surveyed, him critically.  "You're not ill, are you?  The old
shoulder hasn't gone back on you?"

He had helped himself to a cigarette from the open packet on the table
and was turning it over in his fingers, staring down at it with a
brooding air.  He shook his head.  "You look--well, different," she
proclaimed.  "Older, or something."  She paused.  "Don," she said,
"it's not by any chance that you've grown up?"

Very deliberately he tore the cigarette across and dropped the bits in
the waste-paper basket.  "It might be that," he answered glumly.  He
raised his eyes to her appealingly.  "Hanky," he said, "life's gone
sour on me.  I want to get away.  Away from telephones and wireless,
away from palace hotels and a pack of painted women.  Can't you
persuade the Chief to find me another assignment like that one I had in
the Sudan?"

"But you're only just back!"

"I don't give a damn.  I'll leave to-morrow--to-night, if you like.
Now I know what those fellows feel like when their girl chucks them and
they go out shooting big game in wildest Africa.  I'd grab three
months' leave and go on safari myself, if I had the money."

She smiled, at him indulgently.  "Haven't you had all the big game
hunting you want lately?  After all, de Bahl was a pretty good specimen
to bag.  I suppose he's really dead?"

"I guess so.  The explosion wrecked the whole of that wing of the
Castle, the mosque as well as the Boyar Tower--the Selmars and I would
have been for it, too, if we hadn't had a fifteen-foot wall of solid
masonry to protect us."

"And that Frenchman who threw the bomb?"

"We never found him, either.  But for him de Bahl would have got away.
We discovered in the ruins of the wall outside the Castle the remains
of the caterpillar tractor with Frangipani, one of the gang, and Ali,
de Bahl's Arab servant, dead inside.  Like de Bahl Frangipani was
wearing Rumanian uniform--I guess it would have taken them clear
through to Chisinau where they had a plane waiting."

She had picked up a file from the pen tray and was using it on her
nails.  "You did a good job, Don.  The old man's really pleased.  He
has someone with him for the moment, but as soon as he's free, in you
go and collect your laurels.  Doesn't that set you up?"

"If you only knew how cold all these things leave me."

She sighed.  "My gracious, you _have_ got the blues."  She glanced at
him narrowly.  "By the way, that Miss Selmar's been ringing you up!"

He swung to her eagerly.  "Miss Selmar?  From where?"

"From all over Europe, it seems to me.  First, from Bucharest..."

He nodded.  "I know.  Immediately after the explosion Selmar insisted
on whisking her off, that very night.  She called me at Orghina, but I
was away, at military headquarters at Chisinau, and when I reached
Bucharest, she and her father had already left for Paris."

"She's 'phoned two or three times from Paris, How do you suppose she
got this number?  Did you give it to her?"

"No.  But Peregrine Dyson of Belgrade was in Bucharest when she was
there and she probably wormed it out of him.  She's rather a determined
person."

"You're telling me!  She's been on the 'phone already twice to-day."

"Are they still in Paris?"

"She's here in London."

"In London?"  His air was dismayed.  "Hanky, what did you tell her?"

"That you'd be here at five-thirty!"

"Oh, my gracious.  Where is she staying?"

"At Claridge's.  She wants you to call her up."

"At Claridge's!  Oh, my goodness!"

She laughed rather acidly.  "You sound as though she scared you.  Don't
you want to meet her?"

"Want to meet her?  Oh, Hanky, you don't know how much."  He planted
his two hands on the desk and leaned towards her.  "Tell me, Hanky,
what do you think of a poor man who marries millions?"

"A man who marries for money is a louse."

"Suppose he's in love, not with the money, but with the girl?"

"Then he's a fool if he doesn't marry her.  But if you must get
married, why not choose a nice, sensible English girl?"

He slipped his arm about her.  "Because the only nice, sensible English
girl I'd ever want to marry is wedded to her work.  And she wouldn't
have me, anyway!"

"How right you are!" she retorted feelingly.  But she did not remove
his arm.  The buzzer sounded twice.  "That's for you!" she said.  "And
it's not a minute too soon.  You've held up my work quite long enough."
He stooped and planted a kiss on the top of her head and ran out.
Mechanically, her hand went to her hair, restoring it to its pristine
smoothness.  Then she sniffed, looked for her handkerchief, found it
and blew her nose.  Turning to the sheet of paper in the typewriter,
with rather unnecessary force she typed the date, then reached for her
handkerchief again.


The fog had thickened when Boulton left the office: he could no longer
make out the outline of the square railings.  The side-lamps of a coup
drawn up at the kerb thrust feeble pencils of light into the brown murk.

The young man halted under the porch.  Melissa had not telephoned
again.  Should he ring her?  It was no more than common manners, she
had called him so often.  Besides, knowing that he was in London, she
and her father would expect him at least to inquire for them after the
vicissitudes the three of them had undergone together--maybe, he ought
to send Melissa some flowers: American girls expected such attentions.
He turned back towards the door: he would call Claridge's from the
telephone in the hall.  But on the instant he changed his mind--he
would go to his club and see how he felt after having a drink: he could
telephone from the club.

Once more he faced the fog, stepping out on the pavement and peering
through the clinging mist.  Not a cab in sight, not a sign of any
vehicle, indeed, except the coup parked there.  The Chief's car, he
surmised--a pretty snappy-looking bus for the old man to drive, he
reflected, running his eye over it.  Then he started.  That bold
streamlining, the coquettish rake of the radiator, seemed
familiar--gosh, it was a Selmar Eight.  And the door was opening.  He
caught a glimpse of a small hand, an expanse of silk stocking, and a
familiar voice said, "Are you coming quietly, or do I have to get out
and grab you?"

He went to the door.  "Melissa!" he exclaimed incredulously.

"Do you realise I've been sitting here for nearly an hour and a half
waiting for you?" she cried.  "I'm frozen to the bone.  Hop in!  Steve
wants to see you.  He has a cheque for you."

He drew back suspiciously.  "A cheque?"

"Will you please get in and shut that door, or do you want me to get
pneumonia?"  With a slightly dazed air he obeyed.  "You needn't be
stuffy about it," she went on.  "It's your commission on that bear raid
of his.  He cleaned up a packet and this is your whack--fifty thousand
dollars!"

"Fifty thousand dollars!  I couldn't possibly accept it.  Why, it's a
fortune!"

"He's going to offer you a job, too."

"A job?"

"Uh-huh.  Which way do we go from here to get to Claridge's?"

"Straight to the end of the square and turn left."  The engine sprang
into life and they drew away.  He rubbed the screen with his hand.
"Can you see where you're going?  It's as thick as the devil."

"I can manage."

"Then follow the kerb."

"O.K.  It's a job in the Selmar works.  They're going to manufacture
planes and they'll want someone to take charge of the experimental
department.  Wow, we were almost on the side-walk then!"

"Hadn't you better let me drive?"

"Certainly not.  Are we going right?"

"Yes.  This'll bring us into the main road.  Hey, mind that car!"

Head-lamps bore down on them.  The girl pulled out and stalled the
engine.  "How'd you like to go to work for my old man?" she said,
setting the automatic starter in action.  When he did not answer, she
turned her head to look at him.  "Melissa!" he said hoarsely.  Then,
"Watch out!" he cried, there was a crash, a jangle of glass, a
crunching sound and the car came to an abrupt halt, wedged against a
post on the pavement.  The young man was about to spring out, but she
laid a hand on his arm.  "Don!" she pleaded.

The car lights had gone out, shattered by the impact: the fog swirled
about them.  "Why did you run away from me?" she questioned
reproachfully.

He gazed at her hungrily.  "I told you--too much money."

"Was that the only reason?"

"You know it was."

With a little sigh she drew him to her and laid her head on his
shoulder.  "Then that's all right.  You can marry me now since you're a
millionaire."

"A millionaire?"

"Certainly.  You have fifty thousand dollars.  At two hundred lei to
the dollar it puts you way up in the class of millionaires---in
Rumania.  The only difference between you and Steve is that he's a
dollar millionaire and you're a Rumanian one.  If one millionaire can't
marry another millionaire's daughter, I ask you!  Aren't you going to
kiss me, Don?  Wait, I'll put out the light."  Her hand moved to the
instrument panel and clicked off the little dash light that cast a
feeble radiance on their faces.  As the darkness closed in upon them
all the sweetness and softness of her was in his arms, and their lips
met.




THE END




VALENTINE WILLIAMS


HIS "CLUBFOOT" BOOKS

  The Crouching Beast
  The Gold Comfit Box
  The Spider's Touch
    and
  A Clubfoot Omnibus


HIS MYSTERY, SPY, AND DETECTIVE BOOKS

  The Fox Prowls
  The Three of Clubs
  Death Answers the Bell
  Mannequin
  The Eye in Attendance
  The Red Mass
  The Key Man
  Mr. Ramosi
  The Knife Behind the Curtain
  The Clock Ticks On
  The Portcullis Room
  Masks Of at Midnight
  The Clue of the Rising Moon
  Mr. Treadgold Cuts In
    and
  Fog, by Valentine Williams
  and Dorothy Rice Sims


HODDER & STOUGHTON




[End of The Fox Prowls, by Valentine Williams]
