“Five minutes,” Krust begged. “I understand something of your profession, Major Fawley. I passed some time in our own Foreign Office. For the moment, though, it happens that I must disregard it. I have not the temperament that brooks too long delay. Answer me, please. Our friend in Rome spoke to you of my presence here? Did he give you any message, any word as to his decision?”
“None whatever,” Fawley replied cautiously. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know what you are talking about.”
A flaming light shone for a moment in the cold blue eyes.
“That is Berati—the Italian of him—the over-subtlety! The world is ours if he will make up his mind, and he hesitates between me—who have more real power in Germany than any other man—and one who must be nameless even between us; but if he leans to him our whole great scheme will go ‘pop’ like an exploded shell. Were you to make reports upon me? To give an opinion of my capacity?”
“I had other work to do here,” Fawley said calmly. “I was simply told to cultivate your acquaintance. The rest I thought would come later.”
“It may come too late,” Krust declared. “Berati cannot trifle and twiddle his thumbs forever. Listen, Major Fawley. How much do you know of what is on the carpet?”
“Something,” Fawley admitted. “Broad ideas. That’s all. No details. Nothing certain. I am working from hand to mouth.”
“Listen,” Krust insisted. “There is a scheme. It was Berati’s, I admit that, although it came perhaps from a brain greater than his—some one who stands in the shadows behind him. It called for a swift alliance between Germany and Italy. An Anglo-Saxon neutrality. Swift action. Africa for Italy. A non-military Germany but a Germany which would soon easily rule the world. And when the moment comes to strike, Berati is hesitating! He hesitates only with whom to deal in Germany. He dares to hesitate between one who has the confidence of the whole German nation, and a man who has been cast aside like a pricked bladder, whose late adherents are swarming into my camp, and the man whose name, were it once pronounced, would be the ruin of our scheme. And he cannot decide! I have had enough. I am forbidden to approach Berati—courteously, firmly. Very well. By to-morrow morning I come back to you with the truth.”
Fawley was mystified. He knew very well that his companion was moved by a rare passion but exactly what had provoked it was hard to tell.
“Look here, Herr Krust—” he began.
It was useless. The man seemed to have lost control of himself. He stamped up and down the room. He passed through the inner and the outer doors leading into the corridor. A few moments later Fawley, from his balcony, saw the huge car in which they had driven up to Mont Agel circle round by the Casino and turn northwards…Fawley, with a constitution as nearly as possible perfect for his thirty-seven years, felt a sense of not altogether unpleasant weariness as he turned away from the window. His night of strenuous endeavour, physical and mental, his golf that morning in the marvellous atmosphere of Mont Agel, had their effect. He was suddenly weary. He discarded his golf clothes, took a shower, put on an old smoking suit and threw himself upon the bed. In five minutes he was asleep. When he awoke, the sunshine had changed to twilight, a twilight that was almost darkness. He glanced at his watch. It was seven o’clock. He had slept for three hours and a half. He swung himself off the bed and suddenly paused to listen. There was a light shining through the chink of the door leading into his salon. He listened again for a moment, then he opened the first door softly and tried the handle of the second only to find it locked against him. Some one was in his salon surreptitiously, some one who had dared to turn his own key against him! His first impulse was to smile at the ingenuousness of such a proceeding. He thrust on a dressing gown, took a small automatic from one of the drawers of his bureau, stole out into the corridor and knocked at the door of the sitting room. For a moment or two there was silence. Whoever was inside had evidently not taken the
trouble to prepare against outside callers. A sound like the crumpling of paper had ceased. The light went out and was then turned on again. The door was opened. Greta stood there, taken utterly by surprise.
“A flank movement,” he remarked coolly, closing the door behind him. “Now, young lady, please tell me what you are doing in my sitting room and why you locked the door against me.”
She was speechless for a moment. Fawley crossed the room and stood on the other side of the table behind which she had retreated. His eyes travelled swiftly round the apartment. A large despatch box of formidable appearance had been disturbed but apparently not opened. One of the drawers of his writing desk had been pulled out.
“Is this an effort on your own behalf, Miss Greta,” he continued, “or are you trying to give your uncle a little assistance?”
“You are not very nice to me,” she complained pathetically. “Are you not pleased to find me here?”
“Well,” he answered, “that depends.”
She threw herself into an easy-chair.
“Are you angry that I have ventured to pay you a visit?” she persisted.
He sighed.
“If only the visit were to me! On the other hand, I find myself locked out of my own salon.”
“Locked out,” she repeated wonderingly. “Just what do you mean? So far from locking you out, I was wondering whether I dared come and disturb you.”
He moved across towards the double doors and opened them without difficulty.
“H’m, that’s odd,” he observed, looking around at her quickly. “I tried this inner door just now. It seemed to me to be locked.”
“I, too, I found it stiff,” she said. “I first thought that you had locked yourself in, then I found that it gave quite easily if one turned the key the right way.”
“You have been into my bedroom?”
She smiled up into his face.
“Do you mind? My uncle has gone away—no one knows where. Nina has gone motoring with a friend to Nice. I am left alone. I do not like being by myself. I come along here, I knock softly at the door of your sitting room. No reply. I enter. Emptiness. I think I will see if you are sleeping. I open both those doors without any particular difficulty. I see you lying on the bed. I go softly over. You sleep—oh, how you were sleeping!”
Her eyes met Fawley’s without flinching. There stole into his brain a faint recollection that some time during that deep slumber of his there had come to him a dreamlike suggestion of a perfume which had reminded him of the girl, a faint consciousness, not strong enough to wake him, of the presence of something agreeable. She was probably telling him the truth.
“I had not the heart to wake you,” she went on. “I stole out again. I sat in your easy-chair and I waited.”
“I perceive,” he pointed out, “that a drawer of my writing table is open and that my despatch box has changed its position.”
Her eyes opened a little wider.
“You do not think that I am a thief?”
“How can I tell? Why did you open that drawer?”
“To find some note paper. I thought that I would write some letters.”
“Why did you move my despatch box?”
“For the same purpose,” she assured him. “I found it locked, so I left it alone. Do you think that I came to steal something? Can you not believe that I came because I was lonely—to see you?”
He smiled.
“To tell you the truth,” he admitted, “I cannot see what else you could have come for. I have no secrets from Mr. Krust.”
“But you have,” she exclaimed impetuously. “You