beginning to lighten when she awoke. For a time she stared at the road, taking no notice of the wind blowing her hair about; then she took out a cigarette and tried to work her lighter. The breeze in the car was too strong for it and George, who was already smoking, passed his cigarette to her to light hers from. She thanked him quite normally. She made no reference to her outburst. No doubt she had forgotten about it. With Miss Kolin, he had decided now, anything was possible.
He finished his report to Mr. Sistrom and sealed it in an envelope. The post office might be open now he thought. He took the report and the cable and went downstairs.
He had left Miss Kolin over an hour before, when she had gone to her room. To his surprise, he saw her sitting in the cafe with the remains of a breakfast on the table in front of her. She had changed her clothes and was looking as if she had had a good night’s sleep.
“I thought you were going to bed,” he said.
“You said you were going to send a cable to your office. I was waiting to take it to the post office. They make so much chi-chi about cables there. They have so few. I did not think you would like to deal with them yourself.”
“That’s very good of you, Miss Kolin. Here it is. I’ve done my report, too. Air-mail that, will you?”
“Of course.”
She left some money on the table for the breakfast and was going through the lobby to the street when the desk clerk came after her and said something in French. George caught the word “telephone.”
She nodded to the clerk and glanced at George-in an almost embarrassed way, he thought.
“My call to Paris,” she said. “I had cabled my friends that I was on my way home. I wished to tell them that I would be delayed. How long do you think we will be?”
“Two or three days, I’d say.” He turned to go. “Pretty good work that, to get through to Paris from here in an hour,” he added.
“Yes.”
He saw her enter the telephone booth and begin speaking as he went upstairs, back to his room to sleep.
At eight o’clock that evening they met the old man with the Renault again, and began their second journey to the Sergeant’s headquarters.
George had slept fitfully for most of the day and felt a great deal wearier for having done so. In the faint hope that there might be a reply cable in from Mr. Sistrom, he had risen in the late afternoon and gone down to check. There had been nothing in. He had been disappointed but not surprised. Mr. Sistrom would have some thinking to do and some inquiries to make before he could send a useful reply. Miss Kolin had been out and, sitting beside her in the car, he noted that the leather satchel which she carried slung by a strap from her shoulder looked bulkier than usual. He decided that she had bought a bottle of brandy with which to fortify herself on the journey. He hoped, uneasily, that she would not hit it too hard.
Arthur was waiting for them at the same place and took the same precautions about shutting them in the back of the truck. The night was even warmer than the previous one and George protested.
“Is all that still necessary?”
“Sorry, chum. Got to be done.”
“It is a wise precaution,” said Miss Kolin unexpectedly.
“Yes, that’s right, miss.” Arthur sounded as surprised as George felt. “Did you bring the Sarge’s papers, Mr. Carey?”
“I did.”
“Good. He’s been worrying in case you’d forget. Can’t wait to know about his namesake.”
“I brought along a copy of an old photograph of him as well.”
“You’ll get a medal.”
“What’s been decided?”
“I don’t know. We had a chat last night after you’d gone but-anyway, you talk to him about it. There we are! All tucked up now. I’ll take it quiet.”
They set off up the twisting, rock-strewn road to the ruined house and went through the same routine as before when they reached it. This time, however, as they stood waiting among the pine trees while Arthur warned the sentry of their approach, George and Miss Kolin had nothing to say to one another. Arthur returned and led them to the house.
The Sergeant greeted them in the hall, shaking hands with George and clicking heels to Miss Kolin. He smiled, but seemed secretly ill at ease as though doubtful of their goodwill. Miss Kolin, George was relieved to note, was her usual impassive self.
The Sergeant led them into the dining-room, poured out drinks, and eyed George’s briefcase.
“You have brought the papers?”
“Sure.” George opened the case.
“Ah!”
“And a photo of the Dragoon,” George added.
“This is true?”
“It’s all here.” George took out a folder which he had brought from Philadelphia. Inside it there was a photostat or photograph of every important document in the case. “The Corporal didn’t have time to read the interesting part when he searched my room,” he added with a grin.
“Touche,” said Arthur, unmoved.
The Sergeant sat down at the table, glass in hand, his eyes gleaming as if he were about to be served with some ambrosial meal. George began to lay the documents one by one in front of him, explaining as he did so the origin and importance of each. The Sergeant nodded understandingly at each explanation or turned to Miss Kolin for guidance; but George soon saw that there were only certain documents in which he was genuinely interested-those which directly concerned the first Franz Schirmer. Even a photograph of Martin Schneider, the soft-drinks potentate who had amassed the fortune which the Sergeant might inherit, produced no more than a polite exclamation. The photostats of Hans Schneider’s Account, on the other hand, the church-register entries relating to the marriage of Franz, and the record of the baptism of Karl, he studied minutely, reading the German aloud to himself. The copy photograph of old Franz he handled as if it were a holy relic. For a long time he stared at it without speaking; then he turned to Arthur.
“You see, Corporal?” he said quietly. “Am I not like him?”
“Take away the beard and he’s your spitting image,” Arthur agreed.
And, indeed, for one who knew of the relationship, there was a strong resemblance between the two Schirmers. There was the same heavy strength in the two faces, the same determination in the two mouths, the same erectness; while the big hands grasping the arms of the chair in the daguerreotype and those grasping the photographic copy of it might, George thought, have belonged to the selfsame man.
There was a rap on the door and the sentry put his head in. He beckoned to Arthur.
Arthur sighed impatiently. “I’d better see what he wants,” he said, and went out, shutting the door behind him.
The Sergeant took no notice. He was smiling now over Hans Schneider’s account of Eylau and the photostat of a page of the Dragoon’s war diary, the one recording Franz Schirmer’s desertion, which George had placed beside it. That old act of desertion seemed to give him special pleasure. From time to time he would glance at the old man’s photograph again. George supposed that the Sergeant’s own failure to return to Germany when an opportunity presented itself (he could have taken advantage of one of the amnesties) had been a kind of desertion. Perhaps, what the Sergeant was enjoying now was the reassuring intimation from the past that, contrary to the beliefs of his childhood, sinners were not obliged to dwell with devils always, and that outlaws and deserters, no less than fairy princes, might live happily ever after.
“Have you decided yet what you’re going to do?” George asked.
The Sergeant looked up and nodded. “Yes. I think so, Mr. Carey. But first I would like to ask you some questions.”
“I’ll do my best to…” he began.
But he never learned what the Sergeant’s questions were. At that moment the door was flung open and Arthur came back into the room.
