Polly the Pagan Part 23

"Women of all kinds accepted his hospitality, often bringing their husbands or lovers, generally just back from the front. They gathered in his rooms like bees about a honey-pot and much war news was exchanged or discussed. For some time a leak in high circles was suspected, but it took a pretty American woman, who, it seems, had had earlier reasons to distrust him, to get a dictagraph installed in his rooms. Soon it was discovered that when indiscreet remarks were dropped in his salon, the burden of them was mysteriously conveyed into Germany through packages of food to Russian prisoners. She surmised this first; later it was proved. The Prince was lunching at a restaurant with the American lady when he was arrested."

So the Polly whom I helped dress at the hotel and who gave me the bag must surely be Polly of the letters but I did not place her in the dark during the air raid although I, too, just a few days before the fatal Good Friday, had been lunching at the same hostelry the very hour the Prince was arrested. Suddenly there was a complete silence in the room. I looked up. All heads were turned toward the table where a blue-eyed man of Slavic type sat facing a fas.h.i.+onably dressed little blonde. The excitement was intense; the scene, dramatic, as if they were holding their pose for a tableau. He still sat there, the gendarmes at his side, his expression unchanging, looking intently at the woman opposite, while she returned his gaze not a whit less steadily. Neither spoke. Suddenly he leaped to his feet and might have gotten away had she not been too quick for him, and had flung herself in front of him. He threw her off roughly but it was too late. The gendarmes slipped on the handcuffs, and the woman followed them out, her lips white with pain and her right arm hanging helplessly by her side.

Then the dining room doors shut behind them and the room buzzed as if invaded by a swarm of flies. I inquired of the head waiter what it was all about, and he answered excitedly, "They have arrested a Russian Prince! The police think he is a spy--but surely there is some mistake." Then he added, "Why, the Prince has been here on and off for years--we know him well!"

"Who is the lady with him?" I inquired.

"I do not know," he answered. "They say she is an American, but she has never been at the restaurant before."

"Is this the first thing of its kind that ever happened here?"

"No, once a few months ago we had an arrest--but this time the police have surely made a mistake." Shrugging his shoulders, he continued, "Our police are sometimes stupid. We shall see the Prince here again in a few days, you may be sure."

But Boris never came back. After reading the letters and surmising who he was, I became greatly interested and tried to trace him through the interminable processes of the law. Everywhere I was baffled by blank stares, and "Pardon, madame," or "We do not recollect this case, madame." Perhaps he was swiftly and secretly executed. Who knows?

Surely he was Polly's suitor in the Roman days of years ago. How they renewed their friends.h.i.+p, I cannot surmise. Possibly the little blonde lady may be in hiding for military reasons; perhaps our last meeting was the hour of her death. But I am left a reluctant legatee of her lover's letters and those written by her gay young self.

ISABEL ANDERSON.

THE LADY FOUND

Dear Friend of Good Friday Night,

Can this book which is now being advertised really be made of extracts from letters that were in my black bag, and that I thrust into the hands of a certain kind person on the night when the German bombing planes were making our hotel a place of peril? I verily believe they are, and shall be so happy to have them again. I will call at the publishers.

I tried without success to find you in the cellar where I crouched with many others that dreadful Good Friday night when the building was struck. The next morning I took an early train for Bordeaux to embark for America, so I never saw any of the advertis.e.m.e.nts which the book notices say that you inserted in the Paris papers.

When the war was ended, my husband, A. D. of the letters, went to Russia with the American Red Cross, but alas! he has been thrown into prison--perhaps the work of the Prince. The latter was released in Paris through some pressure brought to bear by his influential friends. My husband saw him in Moscow where Boris is at present in high standing with the Soviet authorities. Our government is only just now making an effort to have its citizens released, and I am starting in a few days for Europe, hoping to meet A. D. at the frontier.

I hesitate about asking you to withdraw the book from publication at this late date. Ordinarily I should feel ashamed to have correspondence so personal go before the world, even anonymously. But under these circ.u.mstances I feel differently. I should like to see the Prince shown up in his true light. I feel that the American people ought to be warned against their sense of indifference and false security, and more and more publicity given to the true condition of affairs, namely, that their countrymen do not receive the protection of their own government, in Russia, in Mexico, and in other countries, where _de facto_ administrations can throw any of their fellow citizens into prison and keep them there months and years with impunity.

Therefore you have my permission to publish the letters, and I sign myself again, as you have been used to seeing me,

POLLY THE PAGAN.

THE END