That day passed quite merrily. We lunched together, took a drive in the pretty Bois de la Cambre, and after dining, went to the Monnaie to see Madame Butterfly. On our return to the hotel I found a note from Bindo, and saying good-night to Valentine I went forth again to keep the appointment he had made in a café in the quiet Chausée de Charleroi, on the opposite side of the city.
When I entered the little place I found the Count seated at a table with Blythe and Henderson. The two latter were dressed shabbily, while the Count himself was in dark-grey, with a soft felt hat – the perfect counterfeit of the foreign courier.
With enthusiasm I was welcomed into the corner.
“Well?” asked Bindo, with a laugh, “and how do you like your new wife, Ewart?” and the others smiled.
“Charming,” I replied. “But I don’t see exactly where the joke comes in.”
“I don’t suppose you do, just yet.”
“It’s a risky proceeding, isn’t it?” I queried.
“Risky! What risk is there in gulling hotel people?” he asked. “If you don’t intend to pay the bill it would be quite another matter.”
“But why is the lady to pass as my wife? Why am I the Count de Bourbriac? Why, indeed, are we here at all?”
“That’s our business, my dear Ewart. Leave matters to us. All you’ve got to do is just to play your part well. Appear to be very devoted to La Comtesse, and it’ll be several hundreds into your pocket – perhaps a level thou’ – who knows?”
“A thou’ each – quite,” declared Blythe, a cool, audacious international swindler of the most refined and cunning type.
“But what risk is there?” I inquired, for my companions seemed to be angling after big fish this time, whoever they were.
“None, as far as you are concerned. Be advised by Valentine. She’s as clever a girl as there is in all Europe. She has her eyes and ears open all the time. A lover will come on the scene before long, and you must be jealous – devilish jealous – you understand?”
“A lover? Who? I don’t understand.”
“You’ll see, soon enough. Go back to the hotel – or stay with us to-night, if you prefer it. Only don’t worry yourself over risks. We never take any. Only fools do that. Whatever we do is always a dead certainty before we embark upon the job.”
“Then I’m to understand that some fellow is making love to Valentine – eh?”
“Exactly. To-morrow night you are both invited to a ball at the Belle Vue, in aid of the Hospital St. Jean. You will go, and there the lover will appear. You will withdraw, and allow the little flirtation to proceed. Valentine herself will give you further instructions as the occasion warrants.”
“I confess I don’t half like it. I’m working too much in the dark,” I protested.
“That’s just what we intend. If you knew too much you might betray yourself, for the people we’ve got to deal with have eyes in the backs of their heads,” declared Bindo.
It was five o’clock next morning before I returned to the Grand, but during the hours we smoked together, at various obscure cafés, the trio told me nothing further, though they chaffed me regarding the beauty of the girl who had consented to act the part of my wife, and who, I could only suppose, “stood in” with us.
At noon, surely enough, came a special invitation to the “Comte et Comtesse de Bourbriac” for the great ball that evening at the Hôtel Belle Vue, and at ten o’clock that night Valentine entered our private salon splendidly dressed in a low-cut gown of smoke-grey chiffon covered with sequins. Her hair had been dressed by a maid of the first order, and as she stood pulling on her long gloves she looked superb.
“How do you find me, my dear M’sieur Ewart? Do I look like a comtesse?” she asked, laughing.
“You look perfectly charming, mademoiselle.”
“Liane, if you please,” she said reprovingly, holding up her slim forefinger. “Liane, Comtesse de Bourbriac, Château de Bourbriac, Côtes du Nord!” and her pretty lips parted, showing her even, pearly teeth.
When, half an hour later, we entered the ballroom we found all smart Brussels assembled around a royal prince and his wife who had given their patronage in the cause of charity. The affair was, I saw at a glance, a distinctly society function, for many men from the Ministries were present, and several of the Ambassadors in uniform, together with their staffs, who, wearing their crosses and ribbons, made a brave show, as they do in every ballroom.
We had not been there ten minutes before a tall, good-looking young man in a German cavalry uniform strode up in recognition, and bowing low over Valentine’s outstretched hand, said in French —
“My dear Countess! How very delighted we are to have you here with us to-night! You will spare me a dance, will you not? May I be introduced to the Count?”
“My husband – Captain von Stolberg, of the German Embassy.”
And we shook hands. Was this fellow the lover? I wondered.
“I met the Countess at Vichy last autumn,” explained the Captain in very good English. “She spoke very often of you. You were away in Scotland, shooting the grouse,” he said.
“Yes – yes,” I replied for want of something better to say.
We both chatted with the young attaché for a few minutes, and then, as a waltz struck up, he begged a dance of my “wife,” and they both whirled down the room. Valentine was a splendid dancer, and as I watched them I wondered what could be the nature of the plot in progress.
I did not come across my pretty fellow-traveller for half an hour, and then I found that the Captain had half filled her programme. Therefore I “lay low,” danced once or twice with uninteresting Belgian matrons, and spent the remainder of the night in the fumoir, until I found my “wife” ready to return to the Grand.
When we were back in the salon at the hotel she asked —
“How do you like the Captain, M’sieur Ewart? Is he not – what you call in English – a duck?”
“An over-dressed, swaggering young idiot, I call him,” was my prompt reply.
“And there you are right – quite right, my dear M’sieur Ewart. But you see we all have an eye to business in this affair. He will call to-morrow, because he is extremely fond of me. Oh! if you had heard all his pretty love phrases! I suppose he has learnt them out of a book. They couldn’t be his own. Germans are not romantic – how can they be? But he – ah! he is Adonis in the flesh – with corsets!” And we laughed merrily together.
“He thinks you are fond of him – eh?”
“Why, of course. He made violent love to me at Vichy. But he was not attaché then.”
“And how am I to treat him when he calls to-morrow?”
“As your bosom friend. Give him confidence – the most perfect confidence. Don’t play the jealous husband yet. That will come afterwards. Bon soir, m’sieur;” and when I had bowed over her soft little hand, she turned and swept out of the room with a loud frou-frou of her silken train.
That night I sat before the fire smoking for a long time. My companions were evidently playing some deep game upon this young German, a game in which neither trouble nor expense was being spared – a game in which the prize was a level thousand pounds apiece all round. I quite appreciated that I had now become an adventurer, but I had done so out of pure love of adventure.
About four o’clock next afternoon the Captain came to take “fif-o’-clock,” as he called it. He clicked his heels together as he bowed over Valentine’s hand, and she smiled upon him even more sweetly than she had smiled at