Part 83 (1/2)

He took from his pocket a piece of white paper, square, and with apparently nothing on it. He laid it on the table, and produced a red pencil.

”May I trouble you for a small pair of scissors, my dear friend?”

Brand stepped aside to a writing-desk, and brought him the scissors; he was scarcely thinking of Calabressa, at all; he was thinking of the message he would send to Naples.

Calabressa slowly and carefully cut the piece of paper into four squares, and proceeded to fold these up. Brand looked on, it is true, but with little interest; and he certainly did not perceive that his companion had folded three of these pieces with the under side inward, the fourth with the upper side inward, while this had the rough edges turned in a different direction from the other three.

”Now, Mr. Brand,” said Calabressa, calmly, ”if one were drawing lots, for example, what more simple than this? I take one of these pieces--you see there is nothing on it--I print a red cross with my pencil; there, it is folded again, and they all go into my cap.”

”Enough, Calabressa,” Brand said, impatiently; ”you show me that you have questioned me closely enough. There is enough said about it.”

”I ask your pardon, my dear friend, there is not,” said Calabressa, politely; ”for this is what I have to say now: draw one of the pieces of paper.”

Brand turned away.

”It is not a thing to be gone over again, I tell you; I have had enough of it; let it rest.”

”It must not rest. I beg of you--my friend, I insist--”

He pressed the cap on him. Brand, to get rid of him, drew one of the papers and tossed it on to the table. Calabressa took it up, opened it, and showed him the red cross.

”Yes, you are again unfortunate, my dear Monsieur Brand. Fate pursues you, does it not? But wait one moment. Will you open the other three papers?”

As Brand seemed impatient, Calabressa himself took them out and opened them singly before him. On each and all was the same red mark.

But now Brand was indifferent no longer

”What do you mean, Calabressa?” he said, quickly.

”I mean,” said Calabressa, regarding him, ”that one might prepare a trick by which you would not have much chance of escape.”

Brand caught him by the arm.

”Do you mean that these others--” He could not complete the sentence; his brain was in a whirl; was this why Natalie had sent him that strange message of hope?

Calabressa released himself, and took his cap, and said,

”I can tell you nothing, my dear friend--nothing. My lips are sealed for the present. But surely one is permitted to show you a common little trick with bits of paper!”

”But you _must_ tell me what you mean,” said Brand, breathlessly, and with his face still somewhat pale. ”You suggest there has been a trick.

That is why you have come from Naples? What do you know? What is about to happen? For G.o.d's sake, Calabressa, don't have any mystification about it: what is it that you know--that you suspect--that you have heard?”

”My dear friend,” said Calabressa, with some anxiety, ”perhaps I have been indiscreet. I know nothing: what can I know? But I show you a trick--if only to prepare you for any news--and you think it is very serious. Oh no; do not be too hopeful--do not think it is serious--think it was a foolish trick--”

And so, notwithstanding all that Brand could do to force some definite explanation from him, Calabressa succeeded in getting away, promising to carry to Natalie any message Brand might send in the evening; and as for Brand himself, it was now time for him to go up to Lisle Street, so that he had something else to think of than idle mystifications.

For this was how he took it in the end: Calabressa was whimsical, fantastic, mysterious; he had been playing with the notion that Brand had been entrapped into this service; he had succeeded in showing himself how it might have been done. The worst of it was--had he been putting vain hopes into the mind of Natalie? Was this the cause of her message? In the midst of all this bewildering uncertainty, Brand set himself to the work left unfinished by Reitzei, and found Ferdinand Lind as pleasant and friendly a colleague as ever.

But a few days after he was startled by being summoned back to Lisle Street, after he had gone home in the afternoon. He found Ferdinand Lind as calm and collected as usual, though he spoke in a hard, dry voice. He was then informed that Lind himself and Beratinsky were about to leave London for a time; that the Council wished Brand to conduct the business at Lisle Street as best he could in their absence; and that he was to summon to his aid such of the officers of the Society as he chose. He asked no explanations, and Lind vouchsafed none. There was something unusual in the expression of the man's face.