he said. “The police are all called up.”
“How did the fellow open the door?” Blute asked.
“Alas,” the manager confessed, “the keys are all the same. Still, nothing has been stolen,” he continued, looking round. “That is good. I am sorry that Mademoiselle was frightened. It is a difficult time.”
Patricia sat down. She was still trembling.
“You can have your room, please, Mr. Mildenhall,” she said. “The keys are useless. How could I sleep dreading every minute that that man would come back again? Perhaps both of them.”
The manager expressed his sympathy once more.
“The gentlemen have only a seat in the garden,” he told her. “If Mademoiselle does not object, they should lie down here. There is the couch for one gentleman, a rug and a cushion for the other. Remember, gentlemen, if you please, that this is only one night in a lifetime. I do my best, Herr Blute.”
“Quite right, Hauser,” Blute agreed. “If you do not object, Miss Grey,” he added, “we will be your protectors.”
She smiled on them both.
“I think it is a very good arrangement. Now I shall sleep in peace. As the manager has just told us, it is but one night in a lifetime.”
Charles threw himself down on the hearth-rug with a pillow under his head. Blute leaned a little anxiously over him and whispered in his ear.
“Sure they didn’t get at your papers?”
“There are no papers,” Charles whispered back. “The box is full of my soiled linen!”
Blute retired to his couch smiling. This was his own way of doing things. Charles was more than ever a young man after his own heart.
CHAPTER XXV
For some reason or other there was an air of greater calm about the place the next morning when Charles, after his morning coffee with Patricia in the garden, strolled down the road in front of the hotel smoking a cigarette. Some people were already taking their places in the train which, however, was not to start for another half-hour. Blute was engaged in conversation with the four guardians of his treasure who, having had their morning coffee and rolls brought to them, were sitting about on the steps of the van smoking. Herr Hauser, who seemed for some reason or other, Charles thought, to be avoiding him, was back in his place in his bureau collecting money from every one of the hotel visitors of the night before. Blute stepped over the paling which led on to the railway line and joined Charles.
“Get any sleep?” he asked.
“Not much,” Charles answered truthfully. “Cut myself shaving, too. I love cold water for everything in the world except to shave with.”
“You should have waited till we arrived in Zürich,” Blute told him. “All the luxuries in the world there, including a wonderful hairdressing establishment.”
Charles glanced around and dropped his voice a little.
“I have decided not to go on to Zürich,” he confided. “Once across the Swiss frontier you won’t need me any more. I have a small chateau, as you know, that I’ve used for a sort of headquarters when I’ve been doing my tramps round Europe. It’s a little place called Felsen, not many kilometres across the frontier. I have telephoned this morning for my plane to be put in order and got ready for me and I shall fly direct to England. That way I shall avoid all risk of getting into trouble.”
“What does Miss Grey say to that?”
“I haven’t told her yet. I think she’ll be glad. I shall ask her to come with me but I think she’ll decide that she must stay with you.”
“Well, that’s her affair,” Blute observed. “I can’t trust these country telephones. I shan’t attempt to speak to Paris until we get to Zürich, then I know I can find out Mr. Benjamin’s whereabouts. There is to be a passport examination here in the train before we start. They’ve just stuck up a notice.”
“What’s the idea?”
“A very good one, I should think. It will save at least an hour to an hour-and-a-half at the frontier town and here nobody’s doing anything until the line is clear for us to go on. The two passport men have just arrived in a car. I’ve taken a place for you in the dining saloon. There’s no service there, of course, but you won’t want that and I’d rather we both kept away from you as much as possible. Once across the frontier we can all join up. Miss Grey is still very nervous that if ever this expedition of ours is talked about you will get into trouble. I think I’ll go into the hotel and tell her to come and take her place. I’ll send your bags here, if you like.”
“Send out that lusty porter. I owe him a pourboire.”
The two passport men came and took their seats at the farther end of the dining car just as Charles settled down in his corner. The superior of the two recognized him and bowed. He came over and shook hands.
“Saving you a little trouble, Herr Mildenhall,” he said.
“A very good idea,” Charles replied. “You may as well start with me. How are your wife and family?”
“Excellently, I thank you, mein Herr.”
He took Charles’s passport to the desk, wrote the usual inscription, stamped and returned it with a little bow. He had always a great respect for diplomatic passports. Charles thrust it in his pocket and established himself comfortably with his luggage in the rack above him. He was just settling down when he noticed a car approaching at great speed along the level stretch of road by the side of the railway. He recognized it at once. Beatrice, who was alone, descended and disappeared in the station. A moment or two later she entered the dining car from the other end and presented herself to the passport examiners. She talked with them for some few minutes and it was obvious from her expression that there was some trouble. She looked around and recognized Charles. With a word to the passport chef she left his extempore desk and came to Charles’s corner.
“Mr. Mildenhall,” she said, “I think you must be more tired of seeing me than any woman on earth. I need your help. Again I am a suppliant.”
“What is there that I can do for you?” he asked a little dubiously.
“My passport,” she told him, “has been stolen.”
He raised his eyebrows slowly.
“That is rather a serious matter, isn’t it?”
She leaned towards him. He was looking at her curiously. The early morning sunlight treated her kindly but it was the face of a very serious woman which was inclined towards his. Her eyes, which had danced so often with joy, were full of trouble. She seemed somehow or other to belong to a different world.
“I slept last night,” she went on, “at the chateau of some friends—indeed, I might say a relative. Early this morning I was awakened by someone in my room. I gave the alarm.
