The letter was brief and to the point:
“For faithful service, you will be rewarded; for treachery, there will be no net to break your fall.”
He shivered again. Then his impotence, his helplessness, enraged him, and he swore softly and weakly.
He was ignorant of the locality in which the interview had taken place. On his way thither he had tried in vain to follow the direction the shuttered motorcar had taken.
By what method the Four would convey their instructions he had no idea. He was quite satisfied that they would find a way.
He reached his flat with his head swimming from the effects of the drug they had given him, and flung himself, dressed as he was, upon his bed and slept. He slept well into the afternoon, then rose stiff and irritable. A bath and a change refreshed him, and he walked out to keep an appointment he had made.
On his way he remembered impatiently that there was a call to the Council at five o’clock. It reminded him of his old rehearsal days. Then he recollected that no place had been fixed for the council meeting. He would find the quiet François in Leicester Square, so he turned his steps in that direction.
François, patient, smiling, and as deferential as ever, awaited him. “The council was held at two o’clock,” he said, “and I am to tell you that we have decided on two projects.” He looked left and right, with elaborated caution.
“There is at Gravesend”—he pronounced it “Gwayvse-end”—“a battleship that has put in for stores. It is the Grondovitch. It will be fresh in your mind that the captain is the nobleman Svardo—we have no reason to love him.”
“And the second?” asked Bartholomew.
Again François went through the pantomime that had so annoyed his companion before.
“It is no less than the Bank,” he said triumphantly.
Bartholomew was aghast.
“The Bank—the Bank of England! Why, you’re mad—you have taken leave of your senses!”
François shrugged his shoulders tolerantly.
“It is the order,” he said; then, abruptly, “Au revoir,” he said, and, with his extravagant little bow, was gone.
If Bartholomew’s need for cutting himself adrift from the Red Hundred existed before, the necessity was multiplied now a thousand times. Any lingering doubt he might have had, any remote twinge of conscience at the part he was playing, these vanished.
He glanced at his watch, and hurried to his destination.
It was the Red Room of the Hotel Larboune that he sought.
He found a table and ordered a drink.
The waiter was unusually talkative.
He stood by the solitary table at which Bartholomew sat, and chatted pleasantly and respectfully. This much the other patrons of the establishment noticed idly, and wondered whether it was racing or house property that the two had in common.
The waiter was talking.
“… I am inclined to disbelieve the story of the Grondovitch, but the Embassy and the commander shall know—when do you leave?”
“Just as soon as I can,” said Bartholomew.
The waiter nodded and flicked some cigarette ash from the table with his napkin.
“And the Woman of Gratz?” he asked.
Bartholomew made a gesture of doubt.
“Why not,” said the waiter, looking thoughtfully out of the window, “why not take her with you?”
There had been the germ of such a thought in Bartholomew’s mind, but he had never given form to it—even to himself.
“She is very beautiful, and, it occurred to me, not altogether indifferent to your attractions—that kind of woman has a penchant for your type, and frankly we would gladly see her out of the way—or dead.”
M. Menshikoff was by no means vindictive, but there was obvious sincerity in his voice when he pronounced the last two words. M. Menshikoff had been right-hand man of the Grand Master of the Secret Police for too many years to feel any qualms at the project of removing an enemy to the system.
“I thought we had her once,” he said meditatively; “they would have flogged her in the fortress of St. Peter and Paul, but I stopped them. She was grateful I think, and almost human … but it passed off.”
Bartholomew paid for his drink, and ostentatiously tipped the obsequious man before him. He remembered as he did so that Menshikoff was reputably a millionaire.
“Your change, m’sieur,” said Menshikoff gravely, and he handed back a few jingling coppers and two tightly folded banknotes for a hundred pounds. He was a believer in the principle of “pay as you go.” Bartholomew pocketed the money carelessly.
“Good day,” he said loudly.
“Au revoir, m’sieur, et bon voyage,” said the waiter.
VI
Princess Revolutionary
The Woman of Gratz was very human. But to Bartholomew she seemed a thing of ice, passionless, just a beautiful woman who sat stiffly in a straight-backed chair, regarding him with calm, questioning eyes. They were in her flat in Bloomsbury on the evening of the day following his interview with Menshikoff. Her coolness chilled him, and strangled the very passion of his speech, and what he said came haltingly, and sounded lame and unconvincing.
“But why?” that was all she asked. Thrice he had paused appealingly, hoping for encouragement, but her answer had been the same.
He spoke incoherently, wildly. The fear of the Four on the one hand and the dread of the Reds on the other, were getting on his nerves.
He saw a chance of escape from both, freedom from the four-walled control of these organizations, and before him the wide expanse of a trackless wilderness, where the vengeance of neither could follow.
Eden in sight—he pleaded for an Eve.
The very thought of the freedom ahead overcame the depression her coldness laid upon him.
“Maria—don’t you see? You are wasting your life doing this man’s work—this assassin’s work. You were made for love and for me!” He caught her hand and she did not withdraw it, but the palm he pressed was unresponsive and the curious searching eyes
