The Dark Star

CHAPTER XXXII

THE CERCLE EXTRANATIONALE

The suite of rooms into which they were ushered appeared to be furnished in irreproachable taste. Except for the salon at the further end of the suite, where play was in progress, the charming apartment might have been a private one; and the homelike simplicity of the room, where books, flowers, and even a big, grey cat confirmed the first agreeable impression, accented the lurking smile on Sengoun’s lips.

Doc Curfoot, in evening dress, came forward to receive them, in company with another man, young, nice-looking, very straight, and with the high, square shoulders of a Prussian.

“Bong soire, mussoors,” said Curfoot genially. “J’ai l’honnoor de vous faire connaitre mong ami, Mussoor Weishelm.”

They exchanged very serious bows with “Mussoor” Weishelm, and Curfoot retired.

In excellent French Weishelm inquired whether they desired supper; and learning that they did not, bowed smilingly and bade them welcome:

“You are at home, gentlemen; the house is yours. If it pleases you to sup, we offer you our hospitality; if you care to play, the salon is at your disposal, or, if you prefer, a private room. Yonder is the buffet; there are electric bells at your elbow. You are at home,” he repeated, clicked his heels together, bowed, and took his leave.

Sengoun dropped into a comfortable chair and sent a waiter for caviar, toast, and German champagne.

Neeland lighted a cigarette, seated himself, and looked about him curiously.

Over in a corner on a sofa a rather pretty woman, a cigarette between her jewelled fingers, was reading an evening newspaper. Two others in the adjoining room, young and attractive, their feet on the fireplace fender, conversed together over a sandwich, a glass of the widely advertised Dubonnet, and another of the equally advertised Bon Lait Maggi – as serenely and as comfortably as though they were by their own firesides.

“Perhaps they are,” remarked Sengoun, plastering an oblong of hot toast with caviar. “Birds of this kind nest easily anywhere.”

Neeland continued to gaze toward the salon where play was in progress. There did not seem to be many people there. At a small table he recognised Brandes and Stull playing what appeared to be bridge whist with two men whom he had never before seen. There were no women playing.

As he watched the round, expressionless face of Brandes, who was puffing a long cigar screwed tightly into the corner of his thin-lipped mouth, it occurred to him somewhat tardily what Rue Carew had said concerning personal danger to himself if any of these people believed him capable of reconstructing from memory any of the stolen plans.

He had not thought about that specific contingency; instinct alone had troubled him a little when he first entered the Café des Bulgars.

However, his unquiet eyes could discover nothing of either Kestner or Breslau; and, somehow, he did not even think of encountering Ilse Dumont in such a place. As for Brandes and Stull, they did not recognise him at all.

So, entirely reassured once more by the absence of Ali-Baba and Golden Beard, and of Scheherazade whom he had no fear of meeting, Neeland ate his caviar with a relish and examined his surroundings.

Of course it was perfectly possible that the stolen papers had been brought here. There were three other floors in the building, too, and he wondered what they were used for.

Sengoun’s appetite for conflict waned as he ate and drank; and a violent desire to gamble replaced it.

“You poke about a bit,” he said to Neeland. “Talk to that girl over there and see what you can learn. As for me, I mean to start a little flirtation with Mademoiselle Fortuna. Does that suit you?”

If Sengoun wished to play it was none of Neeland’s business.

“Do you think it an honest game?” he asked, doubtfully.

“With negligible stakes all first-class gamblers are honest.”

“If I were you, Sengoun, I wouldn’t drink anything more.”

“Excellent advice, old fellow!” emptying his goblet with satisfaction. And, rising to his firm and graceful height, he strolled away toward the salon where play progressed amid the most decorous and edifying of atmospheres.

Neeland watched him disappear, then he glanced curiously at the girl on the sofa who was still preoccupied with her newspaper.

So he rose, sauntered about the room examining the few pictures and bronzes, modern but excellent. The carpet under foot was thick and soft, but, as he strolled past the girl who seemed to be so intently reading, she looked up over her paper and returned his civil recognition of her presence with a slight smile.

As he appeared inclined to linger, she said with pleasant self-possession:

“These newspaper rumours, monsieur, are becoming too persistent to amuse us much longer. War talk is becoming vieux jeu.”

“Why read them?” inquired Neeland with a smile.

“Why?” She made a slight gesture. “One reads what is printed, I suppose.”

“Written and printed by people who know no more about the matter in question than you and I, mademoiselle,” he remarked, still smiling.

“That is perfectly true. Why is it worth while for anyone to search for truth in these days when everyone is paid to conceal it?”

“Oh,” he said, “not everyone.”

“No; some lie naturally and without pay,” she admitted indifferently.

“But there are still others. For example, mademoiselle, yourself.”

“I?” She laughed, not troubling to refute the suggestion of her possible truthfulness.

He said:

“This – club – is furnished in excellent taste.”

“Yes; it is quite new.”

“Has it a name?”

“I believe it is called the Cercle Extranationale. Would monsieur also like to know the name of the club cat?”

They both laughed easily, but he could make nothing of her.

“Thank you,” he said; “and I fear I have interrupted your reading–”

“I have read enough lies; I am quite ready to tell you a few. Shall I?”

“You are most amiable. I have been wondering what the other floors in this building are used for.”

“Private apartments,” she replied smiling, looking him straight in the eyes. “Now you don’t know whether I’ve told you the truth or not; do you?”

“Of course I know.”

“Which, then?”

“The truth.”

She laughed and indicated a chair; and he seated himself.

“Who is the dark, nice-looking gentleman accompanying you?” she enquired.

“How could you see him at all through your newspaper?”

“I poked a hole, of course.”

“To look at him or at me?”

“Your mirror ought to reassure you. However, as an afterthought, who is he?”

“Prince Erlik, of Mongolia,” replied Neeland solemnly.

“I supposed so. We of the infernal aristocracy belong together. I am the Contessa Diabletta d’Enfer.”

He inclined gravely:

“I’m afraid I don’t belong here,” he said. “I’m only a Yankee.”

“Hell is full of them,” she said, smiling. “All Yankees belong where Prince Erlik and I are at home… Do you play?”

“No. Do you?”

“It depends on chance.”

“It would give me much pleasure–”

“Thank you, not tonight.” And in the same, level, pleasant voice: “Don’t look immediately, but from where you sit you can see in the mirror opposite two women seated in the next room.”

After a moment he nodded.

“Are they watching us?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Neeland?”

He reddened with surprise.

“Get Captain Sengoun and leave,” she said, still smiling. “Do it carelessly, convincingly. Neither of you needs courage; both of you lack common sense. Get up, take leave of me nicely but regretfully, as though I had denied you a rendezvous. You will be killed if you remain here.”

For a moment Neeland hesitated, but curiosity won:

“Who is likely to try anything of that sort?” he asked. And a tingling sensation, not wholly unpleasant, passed over him.

“Almost anyone here, if you are recognised,” she said, as gaily as though she were imparting delightful information.

“But you recognise us. And I’m certainly not dead yet.”

“Which ought to tell you more about me than I am likely to tell anybody. Now, when I smile at you and shake my head, make your adieux to me, find Captain Sengoun, and take your departure. Do you understand?”

“Are you really serious?”

“It is you who should be serious. Now, I give you your signal, Monsieur Neeland–”

But the smile stiffened on her pretty face, and at the same moment he was aware that somebody had entered the room and was standing directly behind him.

He turned on his chair and looked up into the face of Ilse Dumont.

There was a second’s hesitation, then he was on his feet, greeting her cordially, apparently entirely at ease and with nothing on his mind except the agreeable surprise of the encounter.

“I had your note,” he said. “It was charming of you to write, but very neglectful of you not to include your address. Tell me, how have you been since I last saw you?”

Ilse Dumont’s red lips seemed to be dry, for she moistened them without speaking. In her eyes he saw peril – knowledge of something terrible – some instant menace.

Then her eyes, charged with lightning, slowly turned from him to the girl on the sofa who had not moved. But in her eyes, too, a little flame began to flicker and play, and the fixed smile relaxed into an expression of cool self-possession.

Neeland’s pleasant, careless voice broke the occult tension:

“This is a pretty club,” he said; “everything here is in such excellent taste. You might have told me about it,” he added to Ilse with smiling reproach; “but you never even mentioned it, and I discovered it quite by accident.”

Ilse Dumont seemed to find her voice with an effort:

“May I have a word with you, Mr. Neeland?” she asked.

“Always,” he assured her promptly. “I am always more than happy to listen to you–”

“Please follow me!”

He turned to the girl on the sofa and made his adieux with conventional ceremony and a reckless smile which said:

“You were quite right, mademoiselle; I’m in trouble already.”

Then he followed Ilse Dumont into the adjoining room, which was lined with filled bookcases and where the lounges and deep chairs were covered with leather.

Halting by the library table, Ilse Dumont turned to him – turned on him a look such as he never before had encountered in any living woman’s eyes – a dead gaze, dreadful, glazed, as impersonal as the fixed regard of a corpse.

She said:

“I came… They sent for me… I did not believe they had the right man… I could not believe it, Neeland.”

A trifle shaken, he said in tones which sounded steady enough:

“What frightens you so, Scheherazade?”

“Why did you come? Are you absolutely mad?”

“Mad? No, I don’t think so,” he replied with a forced smile. “What threatens me here, Scheherazade?” – regarding her pallid face attentively.

“Death… You must have known it when you came.”

“Death? No, I didn’t know it.”

“Did you suppose that if they could get hold of you they’d let you go? – A man who might carry in his memory the plans for which they tried to kill you? I wrote to you – I wrote to you to go back to America! And —this is what you have done instead!”

“Well,” he said in a pleasant but rather serious voice, “if you really believe there is danger for me if I remain here, perhaps I’d better go.”

“You can’t go!”

“You think I’ll be stopped?”

“Yes. Who is your crazy companion? I heard that he is Alak Sengoun – the headlong fool – they call Prince Erlik. Is it true?”

“Where did you hear all these things?” he demanded. “Where were you when you heard them?”

“At the Turkish Embassy. Word came that they had caught you. I did not believe it; others present doubted it… But as the rumour concerned you, I took no chances; I came instantly. I – I had rather be dead than see you here–” Her voice became unsteady, but she controlled it at once:

“Neeland! Neeland! Why did you come? Why have you undone all I tried to do for you–?”

He looked intently at Ilse Dumont, then his gaze swept the handsome suite of rooms. No one seemed to notice him; in perspective, men moved leisurely about the further salon, where play was going on; and there seemed to be no one else in sight. And, as he stood there, free, in full pride and vigour of youth and strength, he became incredulous that anything could threaten him which he could not take care of.

A smile grew in his eyes, confident, humorous, a little hint of tenderness in it:

“Scheherazade,” he said, “you are a dear. You pulled me out of a dreadful mess on the Volhynia. I offer you gratitude, respect, and the very warm regard for you which I really cherish in my heart.”

He took her hands, kissed them, looked up half laughing, half in earnest.

“If you’re worried,” he said, “I’ll find Captain Sengoun and we’ll depart–”

She retained his hands in a convulsive clasp:

“Oh, Neeland! Neeland! There are men below who will never let you pass! And Breslau and Kestner are coming here later. And that devil, Damat Mahmud Bey!”

“Golden Beard and Ali Baba and the whole Arabian Nights!” exclaimed Neeland. “Who is Damat Mahmud Bey, Scheherazade dear?”

“The shadow of Abdul Hamid.”

“Yes, dear child, but Abdul the Damned is shut up tight in a fortress!”

“His shadow dogs the spurred heels of Enver Pasha,” she said, striving to maintain her composure. “Oh, Neeland! – A hundred thousand Armenians are yet to die in that accursed shadow! And do you think Mahmud Damat will hesitate in regard to you!”

“Nonsense! Does a murderous Moslem go about Paris killing people he doesn’t happen to fancy? Those things aren’t done–”

“Have you and Sengoun any weapons at all?” she interrupted desperately, “Anything! – A sword cane–?”

“No. What the devil does all this business mean?” he broke out impatiently. “What’s all this menace of lawlessness – this impudent threat of interference–”

“It is war!”

“War?” he repeated, not quite understanding her.

She caught him by the arm:

“War!” she whispered; “War! Do you understand? They don’t care what they do now! They mean to kill you here in this place. They’ll be out of France before anybody finds you.”

“Has war actually been declared?” he asked, astounded.

“Tomorrow! It is known in certain circles!” She dropped his arm and clasped her hands and stood there twisting them, white, desperate, looking about her like a hunted thing.

“Why did you do this?” she repeated in an agonised voice. “What can I do? I’m no traitor!.. But I’d give you a pistol if I had one–” She checked herself as the girl who had been reading an evening newspaper on a sofa, and to whom Neeland had been talking when Ilse Dumont entered, came sauntering into the room.

The eyes of both women met; both turned a trifle paler. Then Ilse Dumont walked slowly up to the other:

“I overheard your warning,” she said with a deadly stare.

“Really?”

Ilse stretched out her bare arm, palm upward, and closed the fingers tightly:

“I hold your life in my hand. I have only to speak. Do you understand?”

“No.”

“You are lying. You do understand. You take double wages; but it is not France you betray! Nor Russia!”

“Are you insane?”

“Almost. Where do you carry them?”

“What?”

“Answer quickly. Where? I tell you, I’ll expose you in another moment if you don’t answer me! Speak quickly!”

The other woman had turned a ghastly white; for a second or two she remained dumb, then, dry-lipped:

“Above – the knee,” she stammered; but there was scarcely a sound from the blanched lips that formed the words.

“Pistols?”

“Yes.”

“Loaded? Both of them?”

“Yes.”

“Clips?”

“No.”

“Unstrap them!”

The woman turned, bent almost double, twisting her supple body entirely around; but Ilse Dumont was at her side like a flash and caught her wrist as she withdrew her hand from the hem of her fluffy skirt.

“Now —take your life!” said Ilse Dumont between her teeth. “There’s the door! Go out!” – following her with blazing eyes – “Stop! Stand where you are until I come!”

Then she came quickly to where Neeland stood, astonished; and thrust two automatic pistols into his hands.

“Get Sengoun,” she whispered. “Don’t go down-stairs, for God’s sake. Get to the roof, if you can. Try – oh, try, try, Neeland, my friend!” Her voice trembled; she looked into his eyes – gave him, in that swift regard, all that a woman withholds until the right man asks.

Her lips quivered; she turned sharply on her heel, went to the outer hallway, where the other woman stood motionless.

“What am I to do with you?” demanded Ilse Dumont. “Do you think you are going out of here to summon the police? Mount those stairs!”

The woman dropped her hand on the banisters, heavily, set foot on the first stair, then slowly mounted as though her little feet in their dainty evening slippers were weighted with ball and chain.

Ilse Dumont followed her, opened a door in the passage, motioned her to enter. It was a bedroom that the electric light revealed. The woman entered and stood by the bed as though stupefied.

“I’ll keep my word to you,” said Ilse Dumont. “When it becomes too late for you to do us any mischief, I’ll return and let you go.”

And she stepped back across the threshold and locked the door on the outside.

As she did so, Neeland and Sengoun came swiftly up the stairs, and she beckoned them to follow, gathered the skirts of her evening gown into one hand, and ran up the stairs ahead of them to the fifth floor.

In the dim light Neeland saw that the top floor was merely a vast attic full of débris from the café on the ground floor – iron tables which required mending or repainting, iron chairs, great jars of artificial stone with dead baytrees standing in them, parts of rusty stoves and kitchen ranges, broken cutlery in boxes, cracked table china and heavier kitchen crockery in tubs which once had held flowers.

The only windows gave on a court. Through their dirty panes already the grey light of that early Sunday morning glimmered, revealing the contents of the shadowy place, and the position of an iron ladder hooked to two rings under the scuttle overhead.

Ilse Dumont laid her finger on her lips, conjuring silence, then, clutching her silken skirts, she started up the iron ladder, reached the top, and, exerting all her strength, lifted the hinged scuttle leading to the leads outside.

Instantly somebody challenged her in a guttural voice. She stood there a few moments in whispered conversation, then, from outside, somebody lowered the scuttle cover; the girl locked it, descended the iron ladder backwards, and came swiftly across to where Neeland and Sengoun were standing, pistols lifted.

“They’re guarding the roof,” she whispered, “ – two men. It is hopeless, that way.”

“The proper way,” said Sengoun calmly, “is for us to shoot our way out of this!”

The girl turned on him in a passion:

“Do you suppose I care what happens to you?” she said. “If there were no one else to consider you might do as you pleased, for all it concerns me!”

Sengoun reddened:

“Be silent, you treacherous little cat!” he retorted. “Do you imagine your riffraff are going to hold me here when I’m ready to depart! Me! A free Cossack! Bah!”

“Don’t talk that way, Sengoun,” said Neeland sharply. “We owe these pistols to her.”

“Oh,” muttered Sengoun, shooting a menacing glance at her. “I didn’t understand that.” Then his scowl softened and a sudden laugh cleared his face.

“I’m sorry, mademoiselle,” he said. “You’re quite welcome to your low opinion of me. But if anyone should ask me, I’d say that I don’t understand what is happening to us. And after a while I’ll become angry and go downstairs for information.”

“They know nothing about you in the salle de jeu,” she said, “but on the floor below they’re waiting to kill you.”

Neeland, astonished, asked her whether the American gamblers in the salon where Sengoun had been playing were ignorant of what was going on in the house.

“What Americans?” she demanded, incredulously. “Do you mean Weishelm?”

“Didn’t you know there were Americans employed in the salle de jeu?” asked Neeland, surprised.

“No. I have not been in this house for a year until I came tonight. This place is maintained by the Turkish Government – ” She flashed a glance at Sengoun – “you’re welcome to the information now,” she added contemptuously. And then, to Neeland: “There was, I believe, some talk in New York about adding one or two Americans to the personnel, but I opposed it.”

“They’re here,” said Neeland drily.

“Do you know who they are?”

“Yes. There’s a man called Doc Curfoot–”

“Who!!”

And suddenly, for the first time, Neeland remembered that she had been the wife of one of the men below.

“Brandes and Stull are the others,” he said mechanically.

The girl stared at him as though she did not comprehend, and she passed one hand slowly across her forehead and eyes.

“Eddie Brandes? Here? And Stull? Curfoot? Here in this house!”

“In the salon below.”

“They can’t be!” she protested in an odd, colourless voice. “They were bought soul and body by the British Secret Service!”

All three stood staring at one another; the girl flushed, clenched her hand, then let it fall by her side as though utterly overcome.

“All this espionage!” cried Sengoun, furiously. “ – It makes me sick, I tell you! Where everybody betrays everybody is no place for a free Cossack!–”

The terrible expression on the girl’s face checked him; she said, slowly:

“It is we others who have been betrayed, it seems. It is we who are trapped here. They’ve got us all – every one of us. Oh, my God! – every one of us – at last!”

She lifted her haggard face and stared at the increasing light which was turning the window panes a sickly yellow.

“With sunrise comes war,” she said in a stunned voice, as though to convince herself. “We are caught here in this house. And Kestner and Weishelm and Breslau and I–” she trembled, framing her burning face in slim hands that were like ice. “Do you understand that Brandes and Curfoot, bought by England, have contracted to deliver us to a French court martial?”

The men looked at her in silence.

“Kestner and Breslau knew they had been bought. One of our own people witnessed that treachery. But we never dreamed that these traitors would venture into this house tonight. We should have come here ourselves instead of going to the Turkish Embassy. That was Mahmud Damat’s meddling! His messenger insisted. God! What a mistake! What a deathly mistake for all of us!”

She leaned for a moment against one of the iron pillars which supported the attic roof, and covered her face with her hands.

After a moment, Neeland said:

“I don’t understand why you can’t leave this house if you are in danger. You say that there are men downstairs who are waiting to kill us – waiting only for Kestner and Breslau and Mahmud Damat to arrive.”

She said faintly:

“I did not before understand Mahmud’s delay. Now, I understand. He has been warned. Breslau and Kestner will not come. Otherwise, you now would be barricaded behind that breastwork of rubbish, fighting for your lives.”

“But you say there are men on the stairs below who are ready to kill us if we try to leave the house.”