The Riddle of the Sands
it may not. Supposing he defies us? There’s the girl, you see—she ties
our hands, and if he once gets wind of that, and trades on our
weakness, the game’s up.”
“What are you driving at?”
“We want to detach him from Germany, but he’ll probably go to any
lengths rather than abandon his position here. His attempt on you is
the measure of his interest in it. Now, is to-day to be wasted?” We
were passing through the public gardens, and I dropped on to a seat for
a moment’s rest, crackling dead leaves under me. Davies remained
standing, and pecked at the gravel with his toe.
“We have got two valuable clues,” I went on; “that rendezvous on the
25th is one, and the name Esens is the other. We may consider them to
eternity; I vote we act on them.”
“How?” said Davies. “We’re under a searchlight here; and if we’re
caught——”
“Your plan—ugh!—it’s as risky as mine, and more so,” I replied, rising
with a jerk, for a spasm of cramp took me. “We must separate,” I added,
as we walked on. “We want, at one stroke, to prove to them that we’re
harmless, and to get a fresh start. I go back to London.”
“To London!” said Davies. We were passing under an arc lamp, and, for
the dismay his face showed, I might have said Kamchatka.
“Well, after all, it’s where I ought to be at this moment,” I observed.
“Yes, I forgot. And me?”
“You can’t get on without me, so you lay up the yacht here—taking your
time.”
“While you?”
“After making inquiries about Dollmann’s past I double back as somebody
else, and follow up the clues.”
“You’ll have to be quick,” said Davies, abstractedly.
“I can just do it in time for the 25th.”
“When you say ‘making inquiries’,” he continued, looking straight
before him, “I hope you don’t mean setting other people on his track?”
“He’s fair game!” I could not help saying; for there were moments when
I chafed under this scrupulous fidelity to our self-denying ordinance.
“He’s our game, or nobody’s,” said Davies, sharply.
“Oh, I’ll keep the secret,” I rejoined.
“Let’s stick together,” he broke out. “I shall make a muck of it
without you. And how are we to communicate—meet?”
“Somehow—that can wait. I know it’s a leap in the dark, but there’s
safety in darkness.”
“Carruthers! what are we talking about? If they have the ghost of a
notion where we have been to-day, you give us away by packing off to
London. They’ll think we know their secret and are clearing out to make
use of it. _That_ means arrest, if you like!”
“Pessimist! Haven’t I written proof of good faith in my pocket—official
letters of recall, received to-day? It’s one deception the less, you
see; for those letters _may_ have been opened; skilfully done it’s
impossible to detect. When in doubt, tell the truth!”
“It’s a rum thing how often it pays in this spying business,” said
Davies thoughtfully.
We had been tramping through deserted streets under the glare of
electricity, I with my leaden shuffle, he with the purposeful forward
stoop and swinging arms that always marked his gait ashore.
“Well, what’s it to be?” I said. “Here’s the Schwannallée.”
“I don’t like it,” said he; “but I trust your judgement.”
We turned slowly down, running over a few last points where prior
agreement was essential. As we stood at the very gate of the villa:
“Don’t commit yourself to dates,” I said; “say nothing that will
prevent you from being here at least a week hence with the yacht still
afloat.” And my final word, as we waited at the door for the bell to be
answered, was: “Don’t mind what _I_ say. If things look queer we may
have to lighten the ship.”
“Lighten?” whispered Davies; “oh, I hope I shan’t bosh it.”
“I hope I shan’t get cramp,” I muttered between my teeth.
It will be remembered that Davies had never been to the villa before.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Finesse
The door of a room on the ground floor was opened to us by a
man-servant. As we entered the rattle of a piano stopped, and a hot
wave of mingled scent and cigar-smoke struck my nostrils. The first
thing I noticed over Davies’s shoulder, as he preceded me into the
room, was a woman—the source of the perfume I decided—turning round
from the piano as he passed it and staring him up and down with a
disdainful familiarity that I at once hotly resented. She was in
evening dress, pronounced in cut and colour; had a certain exuberant
beauty, not wholly ascribable to nature, and a notable lack of
breeding. Another glance showed me Dollmann putting down a liqueur
glass of brandy, and rising from a low chair with something of a start;
and another, von Brüning, lying back in a corner of a sofa, smoking; on
the same sofa, _vis-à-vis_ to him, was—yes, of course it was—Clara
Dollmann; but how their surroundings alter people, I caught myself
thinking. For the rest, I was aware that the room was furnished with
ostentation, and was stuffy with stove-engendered warmth. Davies
steered a straight course for Dollmann, and shook his hand with
businesslike resolution. Then he tacked across to the sofa, abandoning
me in the face of the enemy.
“Mr——?” said Dollmann.
“Carruthers,” I answered, distinctly. “I was with Davies in the boat
just now, but I don’t think he introduced me. And now he has forgotten
again,” I added, dryly, turning towards Davies, who, having presented
himself to Fräulein Dollmann, was looking feebly from her to von
Brüning, the picture of tongue-tied awkwardness. (The Commander nodded
to me and stretched himself with a yawn.)
“Von Brüning told me about you,” said Dollmann, ignoring my allusion,
“but I was not quite sure of the name. No; it was not an occasion for
formalities, was it?” He gave a sudden, mirthless laugh. I thought him
flushed and excitable; yet, seen in a normal light, he was in some
respects a pleasant surprise, the remarkable conformation of the head
giving an impression of intellectual power and restless, almost
insanely restless, energy.
“What need?” I said. “I have heard so much about you from Davies—and
Commander von Brüning—that we seem to be old friends already.”
He shot a doubtful look at me, and a diversion came from the piano.
“And now, for Heaven’s sake,” cried the lady of the perfume, “let us
join Herr Böhme at supper!”
“Let me present you to my wife,” said Dollmann.
So this was the stepmother; unmistakably German, I may add. I made my
bow, and underwent much the same sort of frank scrutiny as Davies, only
that it was rather more favourable to me, and ended in a carmine smile.
There was a general movement and further introductions. Davies was led
to the stepmother, and I found myself confronting the daughter with
quickened pulses, and a sudden sense of added complexity in the issues.
I had, of course, made up my mind to ignore our meeting of yesterday,
and had assumed that she would do the same. And she did ignore it—we
met as utter strangers; nor did I venture (for other eyes were upon us)
to transmit any sign of intelligence to her. But the next moment I was
wondering if I had not fallen into a trap. She had promised not to
tell, but under what circumstances? I saw the scene again; the misty
flats, the spruce little sail-boat and its sweet young mistress, fresh
as a dewy flower, but blanched and demoralised by a horrid fear,
appealing to my honour so to act that we three should never meet again,
promising to be silent, but as much in her own interest as ours, and
under that implied condition which I had only equivocally refused. The
condition was violated, not by her fault or ours, but violated. She was
free to help her father against us, and was she helping him? What
troubled me was the change in her; that she—how can I express it
without offence?—was less in discord with her surroundings than she
should have been; that in dress, pose and manner (as we exchanged some
trivialities) she was too near reflecting the style of the other woman;
that, in fact, she in some sort realised my original conception of her,
so brutally avowed to Davies, so signally, as I had thought, falsified.
In the sick perplexity that this discovery caused me I dare say I
looked as foolish as Davies had done, and more so, for the close heat
of the room and its tainted atmosphere, succeeding so abruptly to the
wholesome nip of the outside air, were giving me a faintness which this
moral check lessened my power to combat. Von Brüning’s face wore a
sneering smile that I winced under; and, turning, I found another pair
of eyes fixed on me, those of Herr Böhme, whose squat figure had
appeared at a pair of folding doors leading to an adjoining room.
Napkin in hand, he was taking in the scene before him with fat
benevolence, but exceeding shrewdness. I instantly noticed a faint red
weal relieving the ivory of his bald head; and I had suffered too often
in the same quarter myself to mistake its origin, namely, our cabin
doorway.
“This is the other young explorer, Böhme,” said von Brüning. “Herr
Davies kidnapped him a month ago, and bullied and starved him into
submission; they’ll drown together yet. I believe his sufferings have
been terrible.”
“His sufferings are over,” I retorted. “I’ve mutinied—deserted—haven’t
I, Davies?” I caught Davies gazing with solemn _gaucherie_ at Miss
Dollmann.
“Oh, what?” he stammered. I explained in English. “Oh, yes, Carruthers
has to go home,” he said, in his vile lingo.
No one spoke for a moment, and even von Brüning had no persiflage
ready.
“Well, are we never going to have supper?” said Madame impatiently; and
with that we all moved towards the folding doors. There had been little
formality in the proceedings so far, and there was less still in the
supper-room. Böhme resumed his repast with appetite, and the rest of us
sat down apparently at random, though an underlying method was
discernible. As it worked out, Dollmann was at one end of the small
table, with Davies on his right and Böhme on his left; Frau Dollmann at
the other, with me on her right and von Brüning on her left. The
seventh personage, Fräulein Dollmann, was between the Commander and
Davies on the side opposite to me. No servants appeared, and we waited
on ourselves. I have a vague recollection of various excellent dishes,
and a distinct one of abundance of wine. Someone filled me a glass of
champagne, and I confess that I drained it with honest avidity,
blessing the craftsman who coaxed forth the essence, the fruit that
harboured it, the sun that warmed it.
“Why are you going so suddenly?” said von Brüning to me across the
table.
“Didn’t I tell you we had to call here for letters? I got mine this
morning, and among others a summons back to work. Of course I must
obey.” (I found myself speaking in a frigid silence.) “The annoying
thing was that there were two letters, and if I had only come here two
days sooner I should have only got the first, which gave me an
extension.”
“You are very conscientious. How will they know?”
“Ah, but the second’s rather urgent.” There was another uncomfortable
silence, broken by Dollmann.
“By the way, Herr Davies,” he began, “I ought to apologise to you
for——”
This was no business of mine, and the less interest I took in it the
better; so I turned to Frau Dollmann and abused the fog.
“Have you been in the harbour all day?” she asked, “then how was it you
did not visit us? Was Herr Davies so shy?” (Curiosity or malice?)
“Quite the contrary; but I was,” I answered coldly; “you see, we knew
Herr Dollmann was away, and we really only called here to get my
letters; besides, we did not know your address.” I looked at Clara and
found her talking gaily to von Brüning, deaf seemingly to our little
dialogue.
“Anyone would have told you it,” said Madame, raising her eyebrows.
“I dare say; but directly after breakfast the fog came on, and—well,