Part 23 (2/2)

Looking across the room Trent saw two long French windows lighting it.

One was open. Instead of the balcony upon which the intruder a.s.sumed these windows opened, they led into a large courtyard some eighty feet long and forty feet wide. He did not understand how it was this great open s.p.a.ce should have its being in the middle of the castle. There seemed no reason why it existed in a building of this sort. He was to find later that its origin was accidental. What was now a paved and open courtyard had been the magazine of the castle during the Turkish occupation of Croatia. The castle itself had never given in to the Ottoman conqueror. It had been sh.e.l.led in the Reformation uprising in 1607 and a ball shot had exploded the ammunition. The chamber had never been rebuilt but a century later was turned into a pleasant garden.

Trent stepped through the open window and down three steps into the courtyard. It was plainly much used. There were lounges and chairs and tables. Pausing at one of them he saw London and New York papers which he had brought up from Fiume earlier in the week. There were French novels and bon-bons and a feather fan. Evidently the prince was not without his feminine companions.h.i.+p. In one of these big chairs Trent sat down and looked about him. The room from which he had come faced due east. To the north and south were plain solid walls without windows.

Only to the West at the other end of the s.p.a.ce could he see that the walls were pierced with French windows. As he looked these were suddenly illuminated. He made no motion. He felt reasonably certain that he was in such a position as to be un.o.bserved.

But he grew less calm when the count's unmistakable figure pa.s.sed up and down before the two windows and finally opening one stepped out into the courtyard. Behind him came Hentzi who should have been in bed long ago.

The two pa.s.sed so close he could have touched them. They were speaking rapidly and in what he supposed must be the Croatian tongue. Twice he heard his name mentioned. The count always called him by the a.s.sumed name of Alfred p.r.o.nouncing it ”Arlfrit.”

It was not pleasant hearing. They might be, for all he knew, discussing his already discovered absence from his room. It was true he had bolted the door but someone from the outside might have detected the dark-clad climber making his unlawful ascent. Already a search might be in progress which would eventually claim him as the third failure. Count Michael was often so excited about trivial things that the listener was not able to guess whether his present mood was the outcome of some small irritation or of something far more sinister. There recurred frequently the name of Pauline and once or twice the count pointed to the windows where slept the man whom his people had mourned as dead.

There was one moment of dreadful antic.i.p.ation for the American. He noticed that Hentzi was permitting himself to argue with his master.

Suddenly as the twain pa.s.sed by Trent's refuge the count buffetted his secretary on the head. It was Count Michael's favorite expression of annoyance. Trent himself had suffered thus on the golf links. Hentzi ducked in time to receive merely a glancing blow but he gripped the arm of Trent's chair to steady himself. If he had taken his eyes off the count's still upraised hand he could not have failed to see the intruder.

For a full half hour Anthony Trent sat quiet. Then the count and Hentzi left him alone. Now that immediate risk of detection seemed past Trent a.s.sured himself that his evening had been well spent. Undoubtedly Count Michael's rooms, the rooms he wanted to investigate--were those through whose windows the two had come and gone. He memorized as well as he could the position in the corridors the doors would occupy. The discovery of this courtyard three floors in depth helped him to understand what had baffled him in his explorations of the corridors many of which came to abrupt meaningless ends. In other days they had continued across the s.p.a.ce that had once been a.r.s.enal, magazine and strong room.

He made his way through the open window and past the sleeping men without mishap. In the corner of a panel in the _armoire_ he bored two small holes and blew away the dust that fell from them. He descended the copper pipe prepared to find his room invaded by vengeful servants. But it was as he had left it. It was not for his arrest that the count had dragged Arlfrit into his conversation.

CHAPTER TEN

_THE GREATER GAME_

Trent was annoyed next morning to learn from Hentzi that he was to accompany Pauline and the count to the links. The only redeeming thing about the expedition was that he himself could get a few strokes in the demonstration.

The count was in high good spirits and gracious to them all.

”Ah, Arlfrit,” he cried, ”this is my last game for two weeks. Yes, I shall be too busy playing another and a greater game. And you, too, will be busy. Tell me you know the roads to Fiume, Zengg and Agram well?”

”I could set them to music,” Trent said forgetting that it was Alfred Anthony who was answering his august employer. He waited until the count drove. He saw that the autocrat broke every rule of the many which go to make a perfect drive yet sent his ball every inch of two hundred yards.

Never had Count Michael done such a thing before.

”Let us see you beat that,” he said dramatically.

Trent pressed. He wanted to outdrive the other by fifty yards and ordinarily would have done so. He took too much earth and sent a rocketting ball skyward which dropped full fifty yards behind the other.

”That was very tactful of you,” Pauline whispered. ”His Excellency will be in a good temper the whole day.”

”Do you think I tried to do that?” he asked.

”Why not?” she asked, ”I only know you are of a timid disposition. I hate timid men.”

”I can't help being timid,” he said grinning genially, ”it's my nature.”

So gratified was the count by his unusual showing at the game that he did not notice how close Pauline kept to Alfred Anthony. It was nervous work for Anthony and he answered the girl abruptly trying to keep her attention on the game.

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