“He seems to have good taste in his travelling companions,” Fawley observed.
The coiffeur coughed discreetly.
“His nieces, sir. Charming young ladies. Very popular too, although the old gentleman seldom lets them out of his sight. My wife,” the man went on, dropping his voice a little, “was brought up in Germany. She is German, in fact. She knows the family quite well. She does not seem to remember these young ladies, however.”
“I wonder how long he is staying,” Fawley meditated.
“Only yesterday morning,” the man confided, “he told me that he was waiting for news from home which might come at any moment. He is rung up every morning from Germany. He brought his own private telephone instrument and had it fitted here. He has spoken to Rome once or twice too. It is my belief, sir, that he is up to some game here. From what I can make out by the papers, he is just as well out of Germany while things are in this mess. He has plenty working for him there.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Fawley observed indifferently. “… Just a snip on the left-hand side, Ernest,” he went on, glancing into the mirror.
“The usual time to-night, sir?” the man asked, stepping back to observe his handiwork.
His customer nodded. For several moments after the coiffeur had left him, he remained in his chair, glancing into the mirror. He was utterly free from vanity and his inspection of himself was purely impersonal. Something to thank his ancestry for, he reflected. No one, to look at him, would believe for a moment the story of his last night’s adventures; would believe that he had been for hours in peril of his life, in danger of a chance bullet, in danger of his back to a wall and a dozen bullets concerning which there would be no chance whatever; in danger of broken limbs or a broken neck, committing his body to the perils of the gorges and precipices with only a few feet between him and eternity. There were lines upon his healthy, slightly sunburnt face with its firmly chiselled features and bright hard eyes, but they were the lines of experiences which had failed to age. They were the lines turning slightly upwards from his mouth, the fainter ones at the corners of his eyes, the single furrow across his forehead. Life and his forebears had been kind to him. If he failed in this—the greatest enterprise of his life—it would not be his health or his nerve that would play him false. The turn of the wheel against him might do it… Below him the people were streaming into the Casino. He smiled thoughtfully as he reflected that amongst these worshippers of the world-powerful false goddess he was the one man of whom a famous American diplomat praising his work had declared, “Fawley never leaves anything to chance.”
CHAPTER X
Several minor surprises were in store for Fawley that morning. On the first tee, having to confess to a handicap of two at St. Andrews, and Krust speaking of a nebulous twenty, he offered his opponent a stroke a hole, which was enthusiastically accepted. Fawley, who had an easy and graceful swing, cut his first drive slightly but still lay two hundred yards down the course, a little to the left-hand side. Krust, wielding a driver with an enormous head, took up the most extraordinary posture. He stood with both feet planted upon the ground and he moved on to his toes and back on to his heels once or twice, as though to be sure that his stance was rigid. After that he drew the club head back like lightning, lifted it barely past his waist and, without moving either foot from the ground in the slightest degree and with only the smallest attempt at a pivot, drove the ball steadily down the course to within twenty yards of Fawley’s. The latter tried to resist a smile.
“Does Mr. Krust do that every time?” he asked Greta, who had attached herself to his side.
She nodded. “And you need not smile about it,” she enjoined. “You wait till the eighteenth green.”
For eleven holes Krust played the golf of an automatic but clumsy machine. Only once did he lift his left heel from the ground and then he almost missed the ball altogether. The rest of the time he played every shot, transforming himself into a steady and immovable pillar and simply supplying all the force necessary with his arms and wrists. At the eleventh, Fawley, who was two down, paused to look at the view. They all stood on the raised tee and gazed eastwards. The sting from the snow-capped mountains gave just that peculiar tang to the air which seems to supply the alcohol of life. Facing them was a point where the mountains dropped to the sea and the hillside towns and villages boasted their shelf of pasture land above the fertile valleys. Fawley turned towards the north. It was like a dream to remember that less than eleven hours ago he was committing his body to the mercies of those seemingly endless slopes, clutching at tree stumps, partially embedded rocks, clawing even at the ground to brake his progress.
“The frontier is over that way,” Krust remarked cheerfully.
“What? Into Italy?” Greta demanded.
“Into Italy,” Fawley replied. “A strange but not altogether barbarous country. Have you ever visited it?”
She indulged in a little grimace.
“Don’t try to be superior, please,” she begged. “Americans and English people are always like that. I studied in Milan for two years.”
“I was only chaffing, of course,” Fawley apologised.
“And I,” Nina confided, tugging at Krust’s arm, “have worked in Florence. This dear uncle of mine sent me there.”
A warning shout from behind sent them on to the tee. In due course the match was finished and Fawley tasted the sweets of defeat.
“I think,” he told his companion good-humouredly, “that you are the most remarkable golfer I have ever seen.”
Krust smiled all over his face.
“With a figure like mine,” he demanded, “what would you do? I have watched others. I have seen how little the body counts. Only the arms and wrists. I turn my body into a monument. I never move my head or my feet. If I do, I fail. It is an idea—yes? All the same, it is not a great amusement. I get stiff with the monotony of playing. I miss the exercise of twisting my body. Now you pay me the price of a ball and I stand drinks for everybody and lunch to follow.”
“The loser pays for lunch,” Fawley declared cheerfully. “I accept the cocktails, warning you that I am going to drink two.”
“And I also,” Greta remarked. “I must console myself for my partner’s defeat!”
Luncheon was a pleasant meal. They sat in the bald undecorated restaurant with its high windows, out of which they seemed in incredibly close touch with the glorious panorama of snow-capped hills rolling away to the mists.
“There is no worse golf course in the world,” Krust declared enthusiastically, “but there is none set in more beautiful surroundings. My heart is heavy these days, but the air here makes me feel like a boy. I make of life a failure—I come here with the disappointed cry of the people I love in my ears and I can forget.”
“We help,” Nina pleaded softly, laying her hand upon his sleeve.
“Yes, you help,” he admitted, with a curiously clouded look in his blue eyes. “Youth can always help middle age. Still, it remains a terrible thing for a man of action to remain idle. Would it break your hearts, my two little beams of sunshine, if we packed our trunks and sailed away northwards?”
“It would break mine,” Greta declared, touching Fawley’s hand as though by accident.
“And mine,” Nina echoed.
That was the last of serious conversation until they descended some short time after luncheon into the Principality. In the hall of the hotel Fawley handed his golf clubs to the porter and took his leave somewhat abruptly. He had scarcely reached