The Moonlit Way Part 32

"Garry, there is so much the matter that I don't know how to tell you.... And yet, I have n.o.body else to tell.... Is that maid of yours German?"

"No, Finnish."

"You can't be certain," she murmured. "Your guests are all American, are they not?"

"Yes."

"And the little Soane girl? Are her sympathies with Germany?"

"Why, certainly not! What gave you that idea, Thessa?"

The music ran down; Westmore, the indefatigable, still keeping possession of Dulcie, went over to wind up the gramophone.

"Isn't there some place where I could be alone with you for a few minutes?" whispered Thessalie.

"There's a balcony under the middle window. It overlooks the court."

She nodded and laid her hand on his arm, and they walked to the long window, opened it, and stepped out.

Moonlight fell into the courtyard, silvering everything. Down there on the gra.s.s the Prophet sat, motionless as a black sphynx in the l.u.s.tre of the moon.

Thessalie looked down into the shadowy court, then turned and glanced up at the tiled roof just above them, where a chimney rose in silhouette against the pale radiance of the sky.

Behind the chimney, flat on their stomachs, lay two men who had been watching, through an upper ventilating pane of gla.s.s, the scene in the brilliantly lighted studio below them.

The men were Soane and his crony, the one-eyed pedlar. But neither Thessalie nor Barres could see them up there behind the chimney.

Yet the girl, as though some unquiet instinct warned her, glanced up at the eaves above her head once more, and Barres looked up, too.

"What do you see up there?" he inquired.

"Nothing.... There could be n.o.body up there to listen, could there?"

He laughed:

"Who would want to climb up on the roof to spy on you or me----"

"Don't speak so loud, Garry----"

"What on earth is the trouble?"

"The same trouble that drove me out of France," she said in a low voice. "Don't ask me what it was. All I can tell you is this: I am followed everywhere I go. I cannot make a living. Whenever I secure an engagement and return at the appointed time to fill it, something happens."

"What happens?" he asked bluntly.

"They repudiate the agreement," she said in a quiet voice. "They give no reasons; they simply tell me that they don't want me. Do you remember that evening when I left the Palace of Mirrors?"

"Indeed, I do----"

"That was only one example. I left with an excellent contract, signed.

The next day, when I returned, the management took my contract out of my hands and tore it up."

"What! Why, that's outrageous----"

"Hus.h.!.+ That is only one instance. Everywhere it is the same. I am accepted after a try-out; then, without apparent reason, I am told not to return."

"You mean there is some conspiracy----" he began incredulously, but she interrupted him with a white hand over his, nervously committing him to silence:

"Listen, Garry! Men have followed me here from Europe. I am constantly watched in New York. I cannot shake off this surveillance for very long at a time. Sooner or later I become conscious again of curious eyes regarding me; of features that all at once become unpleasantly familiar in the throng. After several encounters in street or car or restaurant, I recognise these. Often and often instinct alone warns me that I am followed; sometimes I am so certain of it that I take pains to prove it."

"Do you prove it?"

"Usually."

"Well, what the devil----"

"Hus.h.!.+ I seem to be getting into deeper trouble than that, Garry. I have changed my residence so many, many times!--but every time people get into my room when I am away and ransack my effects.... And now I never enter my room unless the landlady is with me, or the janitor--especially after dark."

"Good Lord!----"

"Listen! I am not really frightened. It isn't fear, Garry. That word isn't in my creed, you know. But it bewilders me."

"In the name of common sense," he demanded, "what reason has anybody to annoy you----"

Her hand tightened on his:

"If I only knew who these people are--whether they are agents of the Count d'Eblis or of the--the French Government! But I can't determine.

They steal letters directed to me; they steal letters which I write and mail with my own hands. I wrote to you yesterday, because I--I felt I couldn't stand this persecution--any--longer----"

Her voice became unsteady; she waited, gripping his hand, until self-control returned. When she was mistress of herself again, she forced a smile and her tense hand relaxed.

"You know," she said, "it is most annoying to have my little love-letter to you intercepted."

But his features remained very serious:

"When did you mail that letter to me?"

"Yesterday evening."

"From where?"

"From a hotel."

He considered.

"I ought to have had it this morning, Thessa. But the mails, lately, have been very irregular. There have been other delays. This is probably an example."

"At latest," she said, "you should have my letter this evening."