The Woman of Mystery Part 38

Paul thought for a moment and then said:

"Lend me a hand."

They pushed the body towards the ditch by the road-side, rolled it in and covered it with dead branches.

"I shall go back to the villa," he said. "You walk on until you come to the first cl.u.s.ter of houses. Wake the people and tell them the story of how Karl was murdered by his chauffeur and how you ran away. The time which it will take to inform the police, to question you and to telephone to the villa is more than I need."

She took alarm:

"But the Comtesse Hermine?"

"Have no fear there. Granting that I do not deprive her of her power of doing mischief, how could she suspect you, when the police-investigations will hold me alone to account for everything?

Besides, we have no choice."

And, without more words, he started the engine, took his seat at the wheel and, in spite of the woman's frightened entreaties, drove off.

He drove off with the same eagerness and decision as though he were fulfilling the conditions of some new plan of which he had fixed every detail beforehand and as though he felt sure of its success.

"I shall see the countess," he said to himself. "She will either be anxious as to Karl's fate and want me to take her to him at once or she will see me in one of the rooms in the villa. In either case I shall find a method of compelling her to reveal the name of the castle in which elisabeth is a prisoner. I shall even compel her to give me the means of delivering her and helping her to escape."

But how vague it all was! The obstacles in the way! The impossibilities!

How could he expect circ.u.mstances to be so complaisant as first to blind the countess' eyes to the facts and next to deprive her of all a.s.sistance? A woman of her stamp was not likely to let herself be taken in by words or subdued by threats.

No matter, Paul would not entertain the thought of failure. Success lay at the end of his undertaking; and in order to achieve it more quickly he increased the pace, rus.h.i.+ng his car like a whirlwind along the roads and hardly slackening speed as he pa.s.sed through villages and towns.

"Hohenstaufen!" he cried to the sentry posted outside the wall.

The officer of the picket, after questioning him, sent him on to the sergeant in command of the post at the front-door. The sergeant was the only one who had free access to the villa; and he would inform the countess.

"Very well," said Paul. "I'll put up my car first."

In the garage, he turned off his lights; and, as he went towards the villa, he thought that it might be well, before going back to the sergeant, to look up Bernard and learn if his brother-in-law had succeeded in discovering anything.

He found him behind the villa, in the clumps of shrubs facing the window with the balcony.

"You're by yourself?" said Bernard, anxiously.

"Yes, the job failed. elisabeth was in an earlier motor."

"What an awful thing!"

"Yes, but it can be put right. And you . . . what about the chauffeur?"

"He's safely hidden away. No one will see him . . . at least not before the morning, when other chauffeurs come to the garage."

"Very well. Anything else?"

"There was a patrol in the grounds an hour ago. I managed to keep out of sight."

"And then?"

"Then I made my way as far as the tunnel. The men were beginning to stir. Besides, there was something that made them jolly well pull themselves together!"

"What was that?"

"The sudden arrival of a certain person of our acquaintance, the woman I met at Corvigny, who is so remarkably like Major Hermann."

"Was she going the rounds?"

"No, she was leaving."

"Yes, I know, she means to leave."

"She has left."

"Oh, nonsense! I can't believe that. There was no immediate hurry about her departure for France."

"I saw her go, though."

"How? By what road?"

"The tunnel, of course! Do you imagine that the tunnel serves no further purpose? That was the road she took, before my eyes, under the most comfortable conditions, in an electric trolley driven by a brakesman. No doubt, since the object of her journey was, as you say, to get to France, they shunted her on to the Corvigny branch. That was two hours ago. I heard the trolley come back."

The disappearance of the Comtesse Hermine was a fresh blow to Paul. How was he now to find, how to deliver elisabeth? What clue could he trust in this darkness, in which each of his efforts was ending in disaster?

He pulled himself together, made an act of will and resolved to persevere in the adventure until he attained his object. He asked Bernard if he had seen nothing more.

"No, nothing."

"n.o.body going or coming in the garden?"

"No. The servants have gone to bed. The lights are out."

"All the lights?"

"All except one, there, over our heads."

The light was on the first floor, at a window situated above the window through which Paul had watched Prince Conrad's supper-party. He asked:

"Was that light put on while I was up on the balcony?"

"Yes, towards the end."

"From what I was told," Paul muttered, "that must be Prince Conrad's room. He's drunk and had to be carried upstairs."

"Yes, I saw some shadows at that time; and nothing has moved since."

"He's evidently sleeping off his champagne. Oh, if one could only see, if one could get into the room!"