The Woman of Mystery Part 41

"Well, what's he waiting for, your _Herr Leutnant_?"

The lieutenant was making a rapid investigation at the entrance to the tunnel. The men who had gone down it came running back, half-asphyxiated by the fumes of the explosion. As for the sentry, whom Bernard had been forced to get rid of, he was losing blood so profusely that it was no use trying to obtain any fresh information from him.

At that moment, news arrived from the barracks, where they had just learnt, through a courier sent from the villa, that Prince Conrad had disappeared. The officers were ordered to double the guard and to keep a good lookout, especially at the approaches.

Of course, Paul had counted on this diversion or some other of the same kind which would delay his execution. The day was beginning to break and he had little doubt that, Prince Conrad having been left dead drunk in his bedroom, one of his servants had been told to keep a watch on him.

Finding the doors locked, the man must have given the alarm. This would lead to an immediate search.

But what surprised Paul was that no one suspected that the prince had been carried off through the tunnel. The sentry was lying unconscious and was unable to speak. The men had not realized that, of the two fugitives seen at a distance, one was dragging the other along. In short, it was thought that the prince had been a.s.sa.s.sinated. His murderers must have flung his body into some corner of the quarries and then taken to flight. Two of them had succeeded in escaping. The third was a prisoner. And n.o.body for a second entertained the least suspicion of an enterprise whose audacity simply surpa.s.sed imagination.

In any case there could no longer be any question of shooting Paul without a preliminary inquiry, the results of which must first be communicated to the highest authorities. He was taken to the villa, where he was divested of his German overcoat, carefully searched and lastly was locked up in a bedroom under the protection of four stalwart soldiers.

He spent several hours in dozing, glad of this rest, which he needed so badly, and feeling very easy in his mind, because, now that Karl was dead, the Comtesse Hermine absent and elisabeth in a place of safety, there was nothing for him to do but to await the normal course of events.

At ten o'clock he was visited by a general who endeavored to question him and who, receiving no satisfactory replies, grew angry, but with a certain reserve in which Paul observed the sort of respect which people feel for noted criminals. And he said to himself:

"Everything is going as it should. This visit is only a preliminary to prepare me for the coming of a more serious amba.s.sador, a sort of plenipotentiary."

He gathered from the general's words that they were still looking for the prince's body. They were now in fact looking for it beyond the immediate precincts, for a new clue, provided by the discovery and the revelations of the chauffeur whom Paul and Bernard had imprisoned in the garage, as well as by the departure and return of the motor car, as reported by the sentries, widened the field of investigation considerably.

At twelve o'clock Paul was provided with a substantial meal. The attentions shown to him increased. Beer was served with the lunch and afterwards coffee.

"I shall perhaps be shot," he thought, "but with due formality and not before they know exactly who the mysterious person is whom they have the honor of shooting, not to mention the motives of his enterprise and the results obtained. Now I alone am able to supply the details.

Consequently . . ."

He so clearly felt the strength of his position and the necessity in which his enemies stood to contribute to the success of his plan that he was not surprised at being taken, an hour later, to a small drawing-room in the villa, before two persons all over gold lace, who first had him searched once more and then saw that he was fastened up with more elaborate care than ever.

"It must," he thought, "be at least the imperial chancellor coming all the way from Berlin to see me . . . unless indeed . . ."

Deep down within himself, in view of the circ.u.mstances, he could not help foreseeing an even more powerful intervention than the chancellor's; and, when he heard a motor car stop under the windows of the villa and saw the fl.u.s.ter of the two gold-laced individuals, he was convinced that his antic.i.p.ations were being fully confirmed.

Everything was ready. Even before any one appeared, the two individuals drew themselves up and stood to attention; and the soldiers, stiffer still, looked like dolls out of a Noah's ark.

The door opened. And a whirlwind entrance took place, amid a jingling of spurs and saber. The man who arrived in this fas.h.i.+on at once gave an impression of feverish haste and of imminent departure. What he intended to do he must accomplish within the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes.

At a sign from him, all those present quitted the room.

The Emperor and the French officer were left face to face. And the Emperor immediately asked, in an angry voice:

"Who are you? What did you come to do? Who are your accomplices? By whose orders were you acting?"

It was difficult to recognize in him the figure represented by his photographs and the ill.u.s.trations in the newspapers, for the face had aged into a worn and wasted mask, furrowed with wrinkles and disfigured with yellow blotches.

Paul was quivering with hatred, not so much a personal hatred aroused by the recollection of his own sufferings as a hatred made up of horror and contempt for the greatest criminal imaginable. And, despite his absolute resolve not to depart from the usual formulas and the rules of outward respect, he answered:

"Let them untie me!"

The Emperor started. It was the first time certainly that any one had spoken to him like that; and he exclaimed:

"Why, you're forgetting that a word will be enough to have you shot! And you dare! Conditions! . . ."

Paul remained silent. The Emperor strode up and down, with his hand on the hilt of his sword, which he dragged along the carpet. Twice he stopped and looked at Paul; and, when Paul did not move an eyelid, he resumed his march, with an increasing display of indignation. And, all of a sudden, he pressed the b.u.t.ton of an electric bell:

"Untie him!" he said to the men who hurried into the room.

When released from his bonds, Paul rose up and stood like a soldier in the presence of his superior officer.

The room was emptied once again. Then the Emperor went up to Paul and, leaving a table as a barrier between them, asked, still in a harsh voice:

"Prince Conrad?"

Paul answered:

"Prince Conrad is not dead, sir; he is well."

"Ah!" said the Kaiser, evidently relieved. And, still reluctant to come to the point, he continued: "That does not affect matters in so far as you are concerned. a.s.sault . . . espionage . . . not to speak of the murder of one of my best servants. . . ."

"Karl the spy, sir? I killed him in self-defense."

"But you did kill him? Then for that murder and for the rest you shall be shot."

"No, sir. Prince Conrad's life is security for mine."

The Emperor shrugged his shoulders:

"If Prince Conrad is alive he will be found."

"No, sir, he will not be found."

"There is not a place in Germany where my searching will fail to find him," he declared, striking the table with his fist.

"Prince Conrad is not in Germany, sir."

"Eh? What's that? Then where is he?"

"In France."

"In France!"

"Yes, sir, in France, at the Chateau d'Ornequin, in the custody of my friends. If I am not back with them by six o'clock to-morrow evening, Prince Conrad will be handed over to the military authorities."

The Emperor seemed to be choking, so much so that his anger suddenly collapsed and that he did not even seek to conceal the violence of the blow. All the humiliation, all the ridicule that would fall upon him and upon his dynasty and upon the empire if his son were a prisoner, the loud laughter that would ring through the whole world at the news, the a.s.surance which the possession of such a hostage would give to the enemy; all this showed in his anxious look and in the stoop of his shoulders.

Paul felt the thrill of victory. He held that man as firmly as you hold under your knee the beaten foe who cries out for mercy; and the balance of the forces in conflict was so definitely broken in his favor that the Kaiser's very eyes, raised to Paul's, gave him a sense of his triumph.

The Emperor was able to picture the various phases of the drama enacted during the previous night: the arrival through the tunnel, the kidnapping by the way of the tunnel, the exploding of the mines to ensure the flight of the a.s.sailants; and the mad daring of the adventure staggered him. He murmured:

"Who are you?"