The Vultures Part 27

"I do not know it," protested Kosmaroff, again taking her hand. "There is no one in all the world."

"There is the Princess Wanda Bukaty," said Netty, curtly.

"Ah! Does Cartoner admire her? Do they know each other? Yes, I remember I saw them together at the races."

"They knew each other in London," said Netty. "They knew each other when I first saw them together at Lady Orlay's there. And they have often met here since."

Kosmaroff seemed to be hardly listening. He was staring in front of him, his eyes narrow with thought and suspicion. He seemed to have forgotten Netty and his love for her as suddenly as he had remembered it in the salon a few minutes earlier.

"Is it that he has fallen in love--or is it that he desires information which she alone can give him?" he asked at length. Which was, after all, the most natural thought that could come to him at that moment and in that place. For every man must see the world through his own eyes.

Before she could answer him the town clocks struck ten. Netty rose hastily and drew her cloak round her.

"I must go," she said; "I have been here much more than five minutes.

Why did you let me stay? Oh--why did you make me come?"

And she hurried towards the gate, Kosmaroff walking by her side.

"You will come again," he said. "Now that you have come once--you cannot be so cruel. Now that you know. I am nearly always at the river, at the foot of the Bednarska. You might walk past, and say a word in pa.s.sing.

You might even come in my boat. Bring that woman with the black hair, your aunt, if necessary. If would be safer, perhaps. Do you speak French?"

"Yes--and she does not."

"Good--then we can talk. I must not go beyond the gate. Good-bye--and remember that I love you--always, always!"

He stood at the gate and watched her hurry across the square towards the side door of the hotel, where the concierge was so busy that he could scarcely keep a note of all who pa.s.sed in and out.

"It is all fair--all fair," said Kosmaroff to himself, seeking to convince himself. "Besides--has the world been fair to me?"

Which argument has made the worst men that walk the earth.

XX

A LIGHT TOUCH

Soon after ten o'clock Miss Mangles received a message that Netty, having a headache, had gone to her room. Miss Cahere had never given way to that weakness, which is, or was, euphoniously called the emotions.

She was not old-fashioned in that respect.

But to-night, on regaining her room, she was conscious, for the first time in her life, of a sort of moral shakiness. She felt as if she might do or say something imprudent. And she had never felt like that before.

No one in the world could say that she had ever been imprudent. That which the lenient may call a school-girl escapade--a mere flight to the garden for a few minutes--was scarcely sufficient to account for this feeling. She must be unwell, she thought. And she decided, with some wisdom, not to submit herself to the scrutiny of Paul Deulin again.

Mr. Mangles had not finished his excellent cigar; and although Miss Mangles did not feel disposed for another of those long, innocent-looking Russian cigarettes offered by Deulin, she had still some views of value to be pressed upon the notice of the inferior s.e.x.

Deulin had been glancing at the clock for some time, and, suspiciously soon after learning that they were not to see Netty again, he announced with regret that he had letters to write, and must take his leave.

Cartoner made no excuse, but departed at the same time.

"I will come down to the door with you," said Deulin, in the pa.s.sage.

He was always idle, and always had leisure to follow his sociable instincts.

At the side door, while Cartoner was putting on his coat, he stepped rather suddenly out into the street, and before Cartoner had found his hat was back again.

"It is a moonlight night," he said. "I will walk with you part of the way."

He turned, as he spoke, towards his coat and hat and stick, which were hanging near to where Cartoner had found his own. He did not seem to think it necessary to ask the usual formal permission. They knew each other too well for that. Cartoner helped the Frenchman on with his thin, light overcoat, and reaching out his hand took the stick from the rack, weighing and turning it thoughtfully in his hand.

"That is the Madrid Stick," said the Frenchman. "You were with me when I bought it."

"And when you used it," added Cartoner, in his quietest tone, as he led the way to the door. "Generally keep your coat in the hall?" he inquired, casually, as they descended the steps.

"Sometimes," replied Deulin, glancing at the questioner sideways beneath the brim of his hat.

It was, as he had said, a beautiful night. The moon was almost full and almost overhead, so that the streets were in most instances without shadow at all; for they nearly all run north and south, as does the river.

"Yes," said Deulin, taking Cartoner's arm, and leading him to the right instead of the left; for Cartoner was going towards the Cracow Faubourg, which was the simplest but not the shortest way to the Jasna. "Yes--let us go by the quiet streets, eh? We have walked the pavement of some queer towns in our day, you and I. The typical Englishman, so dense, so silent, so un.o.bservant--who sees nothing and knows nothing and never laughs, but is himself the laughing-stock of all the Latin races and the piece de resistance of their comic papers. And I, at your service, the typical Frenchman; all shrugs and gesticulations and mustache--of politeness that is so insincere--of a heart that is so unstable. Ah!

these national characteristics of comic journalism--how the stupid world trips over them on to its vulgar face!"

As he spoke he was hurrying Cartoner along, ever quicker and quicker, with a haste that must have been unconscious, as it certainly was unnatural to one who found a thousand trifles to interest him in the streets whenever he walked there.

Cartoner made no answer, and his companion expected none. They were in a narrow street now--between the backs of high houses--and had left the life and traffic of frequented thoroughfares behind them. Deulin turned once and looked over his shoulder. They were alone in the street. He released Cartoner's arm, through which he had slipped his left hand in an effusive French way. He was fingering his stick with his right hand in an odd manner, and walked with his head half turned, as if listening for footsteps behind him. Suddenly he swung round on his heels, facing the direction from which they had just come.

Two men were racing up the street, making but little noise on the pavement.

"Any coming from the other side?" asked Deulin.

"No."

"In the doorway," whispered the Frenchman. He was very quick and quite steady. And there is nothing more dangerous on earth than a steady Frenchman, who fights with his brain as well as his arm. Deulin was pushing his companion back with his left hand into a shallow doorway that had the air of being little used. The long blade of his sword-stick, no thicker at the hilt than the blade of a sailor's sheath-knife, and narrowing to nothing at the point, glittered in the moonlight.

"Here," he said, and thrust the empty stick into Cartoner's hand. "But you need not use it. There are only two. Ah! Ah!"

With a sharp little cry of delight he stepped out into the moonlight, and so quick were his movements in the next moments that the eye could scarcely follow them. Those who have seen a panther in liberty know there is nothing so graceful, so quick, so lithe and noiseless in animal life. And Deulin was like a panther at that moment. He leaped across the pavement to give one man a stinging switch across the cheek with the flat of the blade, and was back on guard in front of Cartoner like a flash. He ran right round the two men, who stood bewildered together, and did not know where to look for him. Once he lifted his foot and planted a kick in the small of his adversary's back, sending him staggering against the wall. He laughed, and gave little, sharp cries of "Ah!" and "La!" breathlessly. He did a hundred tricks of the fencing-floor--performed a dozen turns and sleights of hand. It was a marvel of agility and quickness. He struck both men on shoulder, arm, hand, head, and leg; forward, back-handed, from above and below. He never awaited their attack--but attacked them. Was it not Napoleon who said that the surest way to defend is to attack?

The wonder was that, wielding so keen a point, he never hurt the men.

The sword might have been a lady's riding-whip, for its bloodlessness, from the stinging cuts he inflicted. But the whistle of it through the air was not the whistle of leather. It was the high, clear, terrifying note of steel.

The two men, in confusion, backed across the road, and finally ran to the opposite pavement, where they were half hidden by a deep shadow.

Without turning, Deulin backed towards Cartoner, who stood still in the doorway.

"Even if they are armed," said Deulin, "they won't fire. They don't want the police any more than we do. Can tell you, Cartoner, it would not suit my book at all to get into trouble in Warsaw now."

While he spoke he watched the shadows across the road.

"Both have knives," he said, "but they cannot get near me. Stay where you are."

"All right," said Cartoner. "Haven't had a chance yet."