Mr. Standfast
from the movement of the lips that German was spoken and that this
rough peasant or that black-hatted bourgeois was not of Italian blood.
Early in the morning, soon after she awoke, Ivery had stopped the car
and offered her a well-provided luncheon basket. She could eat nothing,
and watched him breakfast off sandwiches beside the driver. In the
afternoon he asked her permission to sit with her. The car drew up in a
lonely place, and a tea-basket was produced by the chauffeur. Ivery
made tea, for she seemed too listless to move, and she drank a cup with
him. After that he remained beside her.
“In half an hour we shall be out of Italy,” he said. The car was
running up a long valley to the curious hollow between snowy saddles
which is the crest of the Marjolana. He showed her the place on a road
map. As the altitude increased and the air grew colder he wrapped the
rugs closer around her and apologised for the absence of a foot-warmer.
“In a little,” he said, “we shall be in the land where your slightest
wish will be law.”
She dozed again and so missed the frontier post. When she woke the car
was slipping down the long curves of the Weiss valley, before it
narrows to the gorge through which it debouches on Grünewald.
“We are in Switzerland now,” she heard his voice say. It may have been
fancy, but it seemed to her that there was a new note in it. He spoke
to her with the assurance of possession. They were outside the country
of the Allies, and in a land where his web was thickly spread.
“Where do we stop tonight?” she asked timidly.
“I fear we cannot stop. Tonight also you must put up with the car. I
have a little errand to do on the way, which will delay us a few
minutes, and then we press on. Tomorrow, my fairest one, fatigue will
be ended.”
There was no mistake now about the note of possession in his voice.
Mary’s heart began to beat fast and wild. The trap had closed down on
her and she saw the folly of her courage. It had delivered her bound
and gagged into the hands of one whom she loathed more deeply every
moment, whose proximity was less welcome than a snake’s. She had to
bite hard on her lip to keep from screaming.
The weather had changed and it was snowing hard, the same storm that
had greeted us on the Col of the Swallows. The pace was slower now, and
Ivery grew restless. He looked frequently at his watch, and snatched
the speaking-tube to talk to the driver. Mary caught the word “St
Anton”.
“Do we go by St Anton?” she found voice to ask.
“Yes,” he said shortly.
The word gave her the faintest glimmering of hope, for she knew that
Peter and I had lived at St Anton. She tried to look out of the blurred
window, but could see nothing except that the twilight was falling. She
begged for the road-map, and saw that so far as she could make out they
were still in the broad Grünewald valley and that to reach St Anton
they had to cross the low pass from the Staubthal. The snow was still
drifting thick and the car crawled.
Then she felt the rise as they mounted to the pass. Here the going was
bad, very different from the dry frost in which I had covered the same
road the night before. Moreover, there seemed to be curious obstacles.
Some careless wood-cart had dropped logs on the highway, and more than
once both Ivery and the chauffeur had to get out to shift them. In one
place there had been a small landslide which left little room to pass,
and Mary had to descend and cross on foot while the driver took the car
over alone. Ivery’s temper seemed to be souring. To the girl’s relief
he resumed the outside seat, where he was engaged in constant argument
with the chauffeur.
At the head of the pass stands an inn, the comfortable hostelry of Herr
Kronig, well known to all who clamber among the lesser peaks of the
Staubthal. There in the middle of the way stood a man with a lantern.
“The road is blocked by a snowfall,” he cried. “They are clearing it
now. It will be ready in half an hour’s time.”
Ivery sprang from his seat and darted into the hotel. His business was
to speed up the clearing party, and Herr Kronig himself accompanied him
to the scene of the catastrophe. Mary sat still, for she had suddenly
become possessed of an idea. She drove it from her as foolishness, but
it kept returning. Why had those tree-trunks been spilt on the road?
Why had an easy pass after a moderate snowfall been suddenly closed?
A man came out of the inn-yard and spoke to the chauffeur. It seemed to
be an offer of refreshment, for the latter left his seat and
disappeared inside. He was away for some time and returned shivering
and grumbling at the weather, with the collar of his greatcoat turned
up around his ears. A lantern had been hung in the porch and as he
passed Mary saw the man. She had been watching the back of his head
idly during the long drive, and had observed that it was of the round
bullet type, with no nape to the neck, which is common in the
Fatherland. Now she could not see his neck for the coat collar, but she
could have sworn that the head was a different shape. The man seemed to
suffer acutely from the cold, for he buttoned the collar round his chin
and pulled his cap far over his brows.
Ivery came back, followed by a dragging line of men with spades and
lanterns. He flung himself into the front seat and nodded to the driver
to start. The man had his engine going already so as to lose no time.
He bumped over the rough debris of the snowfall and then fairly let the
car hum. Ivery was anxious for speed, but he did not want his neck
broken and he yelled out to take care. The driver nodded and slowed
down, but presently he had got up speed again.
If Ivery was restless, Mary was worse. She seemed suddenly to have come
on the traces of her friends. In the St Anton valley the snow had
stopped and she let down the window for air, for she was choking with
suspense. The car rushed past the station, down the hill by Peter’s
cottage, through the village, and along the lake shore to the Pink
Chalet.
Ivery halted it at the gate. “See that you fill up with petrol,” he
told the man. “Bid Gustav get the Daimler and be ready to follow in
half in hour.”
He spoke to Mary through the open window.
“I will keep you only a very little time. I think you had better wait
in the car, for it will be more comfortable than a dismantled house. A
servant will bring you food and more rugs for the night journey.”
Then he vanished up the dark avenue.
Mary’s first thought was to slip out and get back to the village and
there to find someone who knew me or could take her where Peter lived.
But the driver would prevent her, for he had been left behind on guard.
She looked anxiously at his back, for he alone stood between her and
liberty.
That gentleman seemed to be intent on his own business. As soon as
Ivery’s footsteps had grown faint, he had backed the car into the
entrance, and turned it so that it faced towards St Anton. Then very
slowly it began to move.
At the same moment a whistle was blown shrilly three times. The door on
the right had opened and someone who had been waiting in the shadows
climbed painfully in. Mary saw that it was a little man and that he was
a cripple. She reached a hand to help him, and he fell on to the
cushions beside her. The car was gathering speed.
Before she realised what was happening the new-comer had taken her hand
and was patting it.
About two minutes later I was entering the gate of the Pink Chalet.
CHAPTER XIX
The Cage of the Wild Birds
“Why, Mr Ivery, come right in,” said the voice at the table. There was
a screen before me, stretching from the fireplace to keep off the
draught from the door by which I had entered. It stood higher than my
head but there were cracks in it through which I could watch the room.
I found a little table on which I could lean my back, for I was
dropping with fatigue.
Blenkiron sat at the writing-table and in front of him were little rows
of Patience cards. Wood ashes still smouldered in the stove, and a lamp
stood at his right elbow which lit up the two figures. The bookshelves
and the cabinets were in twilight.
“I’ve been hoping to see you for quite a time.” Blenkiron was busy
arranging the little heaps of cards, and his face was wreathed in
hospitable smiles. I remember wondering why he should play the host to
the true master of the house.
Ivery stood erect before him. He was rather a splendid figure now that
he had sloughed all disguises and was on the threshold of his triumph.
Even through the fog in which my brain worked it was forced upon me
that here was a man born to play a big part. He had a jowl like a Roman
king on a coin, and scornful eyes that were used to mastery. He was
younger than me, confound him, and now he looked it.
He kept his eyes on the speaker, while a smile played round his mouth,
a very ugly smile.
“So,” he said. “We have caught the old crow too. I had scarcely hoped
for such good fortune, and, to speak the truth, I had not concerned
myself much about you. But now we shall add you to the bag. And what a
bag of vermin to lay out on the lawn!” He flung back his head and
laughed.
“Mr Ivery—” Blenkiron began, but was cut short.
“Drop that name. All that is past, thank God! I am the Graf von
Schwabing, an officer of the Imperial Guard. I am not the least of the
weapons that Germany has used to break her enemies.”
“You don’t say,” drawled Blenkiron, still fiddling with his Patience
cards.
The man’s moment had come, and he was minded not to miss a jot of his
triumph. His figure seemed to expand, his eye kindled, his voice rang
with pride. It was melodrama of the best kind and he fairly rolled it
round his tongue. I don’t think I grudged it him, for I was fingering
something in my pocket. He had won all right, but he wouldn’t enjoy his
victory long, for soon I would shoot him. I had my eye on the very spot
above his right ear where I meant to put my bullet.... For I was very
clear that to kill him was the only way to protect Mary. I feared the
whole seventy millions of Germany less than this man. That was the
single idea that remained firm against the immense fatigue that pressed
down on me.
“I have little time to waste on you,” said he who had been called
Ivery. “But I will spare a moment to tell you a few truths. Your
childish game never had a chance. I played with you in England and I
have played with you ever since. You have never made a move but I have
quietly countered it. Why, man, you gave me your confidence. The
American Mr Donne....”
“What about Clarence?” asked Blenkiron. His face seemed a study in pure
bewilderment.
“I was that interesting journalist.”
“Now to think of that!” said Blenkiron in a sad, gentle voice. “I
thought I was safe with Clarence. Why, he brought me a letter from old
Joe Hooper and he knew all the boys down Emporia way.”
Ivery laughed. “You have never done me justice, I fear; but I think you
will do it now. Your gang is helpless in my hands. General Hannay....”
And I wish I could give you a notion of the scorn with which he
pronounced the word “General”.
“Yes—Dick?” said Blenkiron intently.
“He has been my prisoner for twenty-four hours. And the pretty Miss
Mary, too. You are all going with me in a little to my own country. You
will not guess how. We call it the Underground Railway, and you will
have the privilege of studying its working.... I had not troubled much
about you, for I had no special dislike of you. You are only a
blundering fool, what you call in your country easy fruit.”
“I thank you, Graf,” Blenkiron said solemnly.
“But since you are here you will join the others.... One last word. To
beat inepts such as you is nothing. There is a far greater thing. My