Part 68 (1/2)
”If there is to be war, can't you understand the importance to us of those plans?” asked the Princess in a low, quiet voice.
”To--'us'?” he repeated.
”Yes, to _us_. I am Russian, am I not?”
”Yes. I now understand how very Russian you are, Princess. But what has Turkey----”
”What _is_ Turkey?”
”An empire----”
”No. A German province.”
”I did not know----”
”That is what the Ottoman Empire is today,” continued the Princess Mistchenka, ”a Turkish province fortified by Berlin, governed from Berlin through a Germanised Turk, Enver Pasha; the army organised, drilled, equipped, officered, and paid by the Kaiser Wilhelm; every internal resource and revenue and development and projected development mortgaged to Germany and under German control; and the Sultan a n.o.body!”
”I did not know it,” repeated Neeland.
”It is the truth, _mon ami_. It is inevitable that Turkey fights if Germany goes to war. England, France, Russia know it. Ask yourself, then, how enormous to us the value of those plans--tentative, sketchy, perhaps, yet the inception and foundation of those German-made and German-armed fortifications which today line the Dardanelles and the adjacent waters within the sphere of Ottoman influence!”
”So _that_ is why you wanted them,” he said with an unhappy glance at Rue. ”What idiotic impulse prompted me to put them back in the box I can't imagine. You saw me do it, there in the taxicab.”
Ruhannah said:
”The chauffeur saw you, too. He was looking at you in his steering mirror; I saw his face. But it never entered my mind that anything except idle curiosity possessed him.”
”Perhaps,” said the Princess to Neeland, ”what you did with the papers saved your life. Had that chauffeur not seen you place them in the box, he might have shot and robbed you as you left the cab, merely on the chance of your having them on your person.”
There was a silence; then Neeland said:
”This is a fine business! As far as I can see murder seems to be the essence of the contract.”
”It is often incidental to it,” said the Princess Mistchenka serenely.
”But you and Ruhannah will soon be out of this affair.”
”I?” said the girl, surprised.
”I think so.”
”Why, dear?”
”I think there is going to be war. And if there is, France will be concerned. And that means that you and Ruhannah, too, will have to leave France.”
”But you?” asked the girl, anxiously.
”I expect to remain. How long can you stay here, Jim?”
Neeland cast an involuntary glance at Rue as he replied: