Chapter 66
Neeland said to Rue, lightly:
"That is true as far as I have been concerned with that amazing box.
It's full of the very devil--of that Yellow Devil! When I pick it up now I seem to feel a premonitory tingling all over me--not entirely disagreeable," he added to the Princess, "but the sort of half-scared exhilaration a man feels who takes a chance and is quite sure he'll not have another chance if he loses. Do you understand what I mean?"
"Yes," said the Princess unsmilingly, her clear, pleasant eyes fixed on him.
In her tranquil, indefinite expression there was something which made him wonder how many such chances this pretty woman had taken in her life of intellectual pleasure and bodily ease.
And now he remembered that Ilse Dumont apparently knew about her--about Ruhannah, too. And Ilse Dumont was the agent of a foreign government.
Was the Princess Mistchenka, patron and amateur of the arts, another such agent? If not, why had he taken this journey for her with this box of papers?
The pa.s.sage of the Boulevard was slow; at every square traffic was halted; all Paris crowded the streets in the early afternoon suns.h.i.+ne, and the taxicab in which they sat made little speed until the Place de la Concorde opened out and the great Arc--a tiny phantom of lavender and pearl--spanned the vanis.h.i.+ng point of a fairy perspective between parallel and endless ramparts of tender green.
"There was a lot of war talk on the _Volhynia_," said Neeland, "but I haven't heard any since I landed, nor have I seen a paper. I suppose the Chancelleries have come to some agreement."
"No," said the Princess.
"You don't expect trouble, do you? I mean a general European free-for-all fight?"
"I don't know, Jim."
"Haven't you," he asked blandly, "any means of acquiring inside information?"
She did not even pretend to evade the good-humoured malice of his smile and question:
"Yes; I have sources of private information. I have learned nothing, so far."
He looked at Rue, but the smile had faded from her face and she returned his questioning gaze gravely.
"There is great anxiety in Europe," she said in a low voice, "and the tension is increasing. When we arrive home we shall have a chance to converse more freely." She made the slightest gesture with her head toward the chauffeur--a silent reminder and a caution.
The Princess nodded slightly:
"One never knows," she remarked. "We shall have much to say to one another when we are safely home."
But Neeland could not take it very seriously here in the suns.h.i.+ne, with two pretty women facing him--here speeding up the Champs Elysees between the endless green of chestnut trees and the exquisite silvery-grey facades of the wealthy--with motors flas.h.i.+ng by on every side and the cool, leafy alleys thronged with children and nurse-maids, and Monsieur Guignol squeaking and drumming in his red-curtained box!
How could a young man believe in a sequel to the almost incredible melodrama in which he had figured, with such a sane and delightful setting, here in the familiar company of two charming women he had known?
Besides, all Paris and her police were at his elbow; the olive-wood box stood between his knees; a smartly respectable taxi and its driver drove them with the quiet _eclat_
And now the taxicab turned into the rue Soleil d'Or--a new street to Neeland, opened since his student days, and only one square long, with a fountain in the middle and young chestnut trees already thickly crowned with foliage lining both sides of the street.
But although the rue Soleil d'Or was a new street to him, Paris construction is also a rapid affair. The street was faced by charming private houses built of grey Caen stone; the fountain with its golden sun-dial, with the seated figure--a life-size replica of Mans.h.i.+p's original in the Metropolitan Museum--serenely and beautifully holding its place between the Renaissance facades and rows of slender trees.
Summer had not yet burned foliage or flowers; the freshness of spring itself seemed still to reign there.
Three blue-bloused street-sweepers with hose and broom were was.h.i.+ng the asphalt as their cab slowed down, sounding its horn to warn them out of the way. And, the spouting hose still in their hands, the street-cleaners stepped out of the gutter before the pretty private hotel of Madame la Princesse.
Already a butler was opening the _grille_; already the chauffeur had swung Neeland's steamer trunk and suitcase to the sidewalk; already the Princess and Rue were advancing to the house, while Neeland fumbled in his pocket for the fare.
The butler, bowing, relieved him of the olive-wood box. At the same instant the blue-bloused man with the hose turned the powerful stream of water directly into the butler's face, knocking him flat on the sidewalk; and his two comrades tripped up Neeland, pa.s.sed a red sash over his head, and hurled him aside, blinded, half strangled, staggering at random, tearing furiously at the wide band of woollen cloth which seemed to suffocate him.
Already the chauffeur had tossed the olive-wood box into the cab; the three blue-bloused men sprang in after it; the chauffeur slipped into his seat, threw in the clutch, and, driving with one hand, turned a pistol on the half drowned butler, who had reeled to his feet and was lurching forward to seize the steering wheel.
The taxicab, gathering speed, was already turning the corner of the rue de la Lune when Neeland managed to free throat and eyes from the swathe of woollen.
The butler, checked by the levelled pistol, stood dripping, still almost blinded by the force of the water from the hose; but he had plenty of pluck, and he followed Neeland on a run to the corner of the street.
The street was absolutely empty, except for the sparrows, and the big, fat, slate-coloured pigeons that strutted and coo-cooed under the shadow of the chestnut trees.
CHAPTER XXVI
RUE SOLEIL D'OR
Marotte, the butler, in dry clothes, had served luncheon--a silent, respectable, self-respecting man, calm in his fury at the incredible outrage perpetrated upon his person.
And now luncheon was over; the Princess at the telephone in her boudoir; Rue in the music-room with Neeland, still excited, anxious, confused.
Astonishment, mortification, anger, had left Neeland silent; and the convention known as luncheon had not appealed to him.
But very little was said during that formality; and in the silence the serious nature of the episode which so suddenly had deprived the Princess of the olive-wood box and the papers it contained impressed Neeland more and more deeply.
The utter unexpectedness of the outrage--the helpless figure he had cut--infuriated him. And the more he reflected the madder he grew when he realised that all he had gone through meant nothing now--that every effort had been sterile, every hour wasted, every step he had taken from Brookhollow to Paris--to the very doorstep where his duty ended--had been taken in vain.
It seemed to him in his anger and humiliation that never had any man been so derided, so heartlessly mocked by the G.o.ds.
And now, as he sat there behind lowered blinds in the cool half-light of the music-room, he could feel the hot blood of resentment and chagrin in his cheeks.
"n.o.body could have foreseen it," repeated Rue Carew in a pretty, bewildered voice. "And if the Princess Naa had no suspicions, how could I harbour any--or how could you?"
"I've been sufficiently tricked--or I thought I had been--to be on my guard. But it seems not. I ought never to have been caught in such a disgusting trap--such a simple, silly, idiotic cage! But--good Lord!
How on earth was a man to suspect anything so--so naturally planned and executed--so simply done. It was an infernal masterpiece, Rue.
But--that is no consolation to a man who has been made to appear like a monkey!"
The Princess, entering, overheard; and she seated herself and looked tranquilly at Neeland as he resumed his place on the sofa.
"You were not to blame, Jim," she said. "It was my fault. I had warning enough at the railroad terminal when an accident to my car was reported to me by the control through you." She added, calmly: "There was no accident."
"No accident?" exclaimed Neeland, astonished.
"None at all. My new footman, who followed us to the waiting salon for incoming trains, returned to my chauffeur, Caron, saying that he was to go back to the garage and await orders. I have just called the garage and I had Caron on the wire. There was no accident; he has not been injured; and--the new footman has disappeared!"