The Palace of Darkened Windows Part 28

So much Billy had already arranged and now after a hasty breakfast he was off to the consul, where he proceeded to unfold his story while the consul drew little circles on his blotter and looked out of the corners of his eyes at this astonis.h.i.+ng young man.

He made no comment when Billy paused. Perhaps he could think of none adequate, or perhaps, after all, he had ceased to be amazed. He merely said slowly and thoughtfully, "Of course the dancer's story is all you really have to go upon. You had better bring her here."

"Nothing easier," Billy declared, and thinking a cab as prompt as a telephone he drove briskly off.

The hotel held a shock for him. Fritzi Baroff was gone. She had gone the evening before, the clerk reported, consulting the register, and she had paid her bill. As he had not been the one on duty then he knew nothing more about it. She had left no address.

Ultimately the clerk who had been on duty was unearthed in the labyrinths of the hotel's backgrounds, but he could supply very little further except the certainty that she had paid her bill in person, and the vague belief that she had been accompanied. This belief was companioned by a hazy notion that some one had called on her that evening.

Even Billy's sense of humor was unstirred by the half-cynical sympathy of the night-clerk's gaze; Billy didn't feel a laugh anywhere within him. He was balked. The dancer had vanished with her story, and that story was essential to the consul. Like a fool he must return empty-handed with this yarn of her disappearance and the consul would be justified in declaring that he had no actual proof to act upon. Which was precisely what the consul did, but he offered, impressed with Billy's earnestness, "to take the matter up," with the proper authorities.

It seemed the best that could be done. Billy urged him to prompt action, and to himself he promised some prompt action of a totally unofficial character. He knew now what he was going to do, or rather he thought he did, for the day still held its unsettling surprises for him, and as he set forth on business bent that afternoon he found himself besieged by a skinny little boy in tattered blue robes, who danced around him with a handful of dirty postcards.

"Be off," said Billy, in vigorous Arabic, and the little boy answered proudly, in most excellent English, "I am a messenger, sir.

I am the boy who held the canoe that night. Buy a postcard, sir?

Only six piastres a dozen, six piastres, Views of Egypt, the Sphinx, the Nile, the----"

Impatiently Billy cut him short.

"Never mind the bluff. No one is listening. What's your message?"

"The streets have ears, sir. Buy a postcard?... I have come from the palace. I brought in the bread. I--_I_ got in under their nose while the big Mohammed was turned away without sight of his uncle,"

bragged the little Imp. "I am a clever boy, I. No one else so clever to find out things. The American man did well to come to me."

"What the devil, then, did you find out?"

"Five piastres a dozen, then, only five.... Go on walking, sir, I will run alongside. Keep shaking your head at me--very good.... I find out where she are."

"Where _who_ are?"

The little braggart had roused Billy's suspicions. He determined to be wary.

"The young girl with the very light hair. Mohammed send me to ask of her. You know, sir," the little fellow insisted, hopping up and down beside him. "Only four a dozen--very cheap!" he screeched at him in a tone that must have carried for blocks. "I run in with the bread and take it to the kitchen where women are working. And I pretend make love to one very pretty girl, tell her how I come marry her when I old enough and make enough, and hold up piece money to show how rich I am. And the rest they think I just make game, but I whisper to her quick how much you pay her for news of that lady upstairs with the fair hair, and I give her some money. It are not much, sir. I promise her to come back with more."

"Go on," demanded Billy, stopping short. "What did she tell you?"

"Walk along, sir, walk along. Just half a dozen then--very cheap, very beautiful!" cried the little rascal with deep enjoyment of his role. Billy found his hands clenching frenziedly. The Imp proceeded, "She are much afraid, that girl, to say things, but I tell her how safe it is an' I tell her you great big rich man who pay her well. I make her honest promise to come back with money--and she very poor girl. She whisper quick what she know, looking backward over shoulder like this." Turning his face about after this dramatic ill.u.s.tration the Imp caught sight of Billy's countenance, and rolled the rest of his narration into one speedy sentence.

"She are gone," he cried.

"Gone?"

"Took away.... Take these cards, sir, stop and look at them.... Yes, she are took away. It happen very quick; early that morning after the other lady go in the night. Everyone much excited that night, great noise about, and no one know just what happen. But the Captain give orders quick, and early the motor car is ready and the strange girl go away. Old woman go, too. n.o.body know where."

"That would be Sunday morning," Billy cried excitedly. "Are you sure there is no mistake? There were lights in that room on Sunday night."

"I tell what the girl tell. She are very honest girl," the Imp insisted. "She say the other lady run away with her lover an'

Captain afraid the new lady has a lover so he send her away quick."

"But he didn't go himself?"

"No, he have something with his reg-reglement," gulped the Imp hastily, "that day and he stay and he there now--but now he sick."

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know, sir, but I know the doctor comes because she say to me to come back and say I am boy from doctor with medicine, and if I don't see her I must say I lost that medicine and go away, and come again as I can till I bring that money to her. She are very much afraid, sir."

Billy shuffled the postcards with absent hands and stared down at them with unseeing eyes. She was gone--and the Captain was not with her! That much at least was gain. And the fellow was here sick from his shot hand, apparently. "I hope gangreen sets in," he said between his teeth.

"You are pleased with me, sir?" the Imp was demanding. "You are glad of so much clever boy? And you give me that money now to give that girl? I make her most honest promise--and you see, sir, I am very honest boy, I tell you all I know and I ask nothing of price yet. I know that you are honest American man."

At that Billy came out of his brown study and praised the tattered little Imp with hearty earnestness. He saw no reason to doubt the boy's story. If he had been trying to invent something in order to make capital out of him he would hardly have invented that story of Arlee's departure, for that put an immediate end to further remunerative investigations in the palace. Of course Billy might be mistaken, and the boy might be mistaken, but one had to leave something to probabilities. He was very generous with the boy, and the droll little brown face was lined with grins. Most navely he besought that the American would not reveal the extent of his donations to Mohammed, the one-eyed man, as the boys had promised their employer a just one-half.

It was the first laugh Billy had enjoyed in a long time. His spirits were vastly lightened by the news that Arlee was out of the palace where the Captain was staying. Fritzi had optimistically informed him that the Turk's courts.h.i.+p could be made most lengthy, but that had been a sadly slender hope and the picture of Arlee playing such a fearful game was simply horrible to him. So his relief at her departure was intense, although it complicated more and more the hope of speedy rescue.

For where was she now? In Cairo? In some of the outlying villages?

He felt swamped by the number of things were to be found out immediately. He must find where that big gray motor went so early on Sunday--surely there were people who had remarked it if they could only be found and induced to talk! And he must find where the Captain had other homes or palaces where he would be likely to hide a girl. And he must find out where the Captain was every instant of the day and night.

That was the most important thing of all. For the Captain unless delayed by extreme illness, or held back by a caution which Billy judged was foreign to his nature, would not wait long before he joined Arlee. He had evidently stayed behind for some review of his troops and also to be _au courant_ of whatever stir would result from Fritzi Baroff's reappearance in the world, and be on hand to disarm whatever further suspicions would result from it. The lights in the rose room that last night and the used look of the room, puzzled Billy, but he concluded that the Captain liked the room and there was a good deal in that palace that had better be left to no imagination whatever.

So back to the hotel went Billy to enter upon a period of waiting that frayed his nerves to an utter frazzle. Inaction was horrible to him, and now it was inevitable. He must wait for word from that agile web of little spies which the one-eyed man was weaving about the Captain's palace, and be ready to start whenever the word came.

He slept with his clothes on that Monday night, but he slept heavily for he was tired and his arm was no longer painful. The tear of wound he called a scratch was healing swiftly.

Tuesday morning pa.s.sed in the same maddening suspense. Captain Kerissen rode out that morning but only to the parade ground, where he took part in a review with his troops. It was noticed that his right hand was bandaged, but the injury could not have been severe for his thumb was free from the bandage and he occasionally used that hand upon the reins. It was the bright eyes of the Imp that were sure of that.

In the afternoon the Captain went again to the barracks and then to the palace of one of the colonels in his regiment. Then he went home.

Utterly disgusted with this waiting game Billy began to dress for dinner. All lathered for a shave he stood testing his razor on a hair when his unlocked door was violently opened and a panting little figure darted across to him. It was the Imp.

"Sir, he goes, he goes upon the minute," he panted out. "He is in the station. Quick!"

Like a streak of lathered lightening Billy went for his clothes. A centipede could have been no more active. He jerked up his suspenders; he jerked on a s.h.i.+rt; he jerked on a coat; he was wiping his face as he darted through the halls and down the stairs. No lift had speed enough for his descent. At the desk he flung some gold pieces at the clerk, cried something about being called out of the city, and asked to have his room kept; then he was down the steps and into the carriage that the Imp had magically summoned.

The drive to the station was a series of escapes. Between jolts the Imp gasped out the rest of the story. The Captain had ridden out in the automobile. The Imp had given chase and so had the one-eyed man, also on guard, and by dint of running for dear life they had kept the motor in sight until the crowded city streets were reached and a series of delays enabled them to catch up with it. As soon as they saw the motor stop before the station the boy had rushed for Billy while the Arab remained to shadow the Captain and learn his destination.

They themselves were at the station now, and Billy was still tying his cravat. Now they jumped down and pressed through the confusion, dodging dragomans, porters, drivers and hotel runners and making a vigorous way past hurrying travelers and through bewildered blockades of tourist parties. Suddenly over the bobbing heads they saw the face they sought. A single eye glared significance upon them. An uplifted hand beckoned furiously.

"a.s.siout," whispered the one-eyed man as Billy reached him.

"a.s.siout. That one goes to a.s.siout on the night express."

"My ticket? Got a ticket for me?"

Upturned palms bespoke the absence of ticket and the Arab's deep regret. "The price was much. I waited----"

Billy was off. There was no chance of his getting past that stolid guard without a ticket and he charged toward the seller's window, where a line of natives was forming for another train.

"_Siut_!" he shouted over their heads, and scattering silver and smiles and apologies he crowded past the motley line to the window and fairly s.n.a.t.c.hed the miles of green ticket from the Copt's quick fingers.