Inside the Lines (Biggers and Ritchie)/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII
ENTER, A CIGARETTE
MR. JOSEPH ALMER, proprietor of the Hotel Splendide, on Waterport Street, was absorbed, heart and soul, in a curious task. He was emptying the powder from two-grain quinine capsules on to a sheet of white letter paper on his desk.
It was noon of Wednesday, the day following the arrival of Captain Woodhouse. Almer was alone in the hotel's reception room and office behind the dingy glass partially enclosing his desk. His alpaca-covered shoulders were close to his ears; and his bald head, with its stripes of plastered hair running like thick lines of latitude on a polished globe, was held far forward so as to bring his eyes on the work in hand. Like some plump magpie he appeared, turning over bits of china in a treasure hole.
A round box of the gelatine cocoons lay at his left hand; it had just been delivered by an Arab boy, quick to pick up the street commission for a tuppence. Very methodically Almer picked the capsules from the box one by one, opened them, and spilled the quinine in a little heap under his nose. He grunted peevishly when the sixth shell had been emptied. The seventh capsule brought an eager whistle to his lips. When he had jerked the concentric halves apart, very little powder fell out. Instead, the thin, folded edges of a pellet of rice paper protruded from one of the containers. This Almer had extracted in an instant. He spread it against the black back of a ledger and read the very fine script written thereon. This was the message:
"Danger. An informer from Alexandria has denounced our two friends to Crandall. You must warn; I can not."
The spy's heart was suddenly drained, and the wisp of paper in his hand trembled so that it scattered the quinine about in a thin cloud. Once more he read the note, then held a match to it and scuffed its feathery ash with his feet into the rug beneath his stool. The fortitude which had held Joseph Almer to the Rock in the never-failing hope that some day would bring him the opportunity to do a great service for the fatherland came near crumbling that minute. He groaned.
"Our friends," he whispered, "Woodhouse and Louisa—trapped!"
The warning in the note left nothing open to ambiguity for Almer; there were but four of them—"friends" under the Wilhelmstrasse fellowship of danger—there in Gibraltar: Louisa, the man who passed as Woodhouse, and whose hand was to execute the great coup when the right moment came, himself, and that other one whose place was in Government House itself. From this latter the note of warning had come. How desperate the necessity for it Almer could guess when he took into reckoning the dangers that beset any attempt at communication on the writer's part. So narrow the margin of safety for this "friend" that he must look at each setting sun as being reasonably the last for him.
Almer did not attempt to go behind the note and guess who was the informer that had lodged information with the governor-general. He had forgotten, in fact, the incident of the night before, when the blustering Capper called the newly arrived Woodhouse by name. The flash of suspicion that attached responsibility to the American girl named Gerson was dissipated as quickly as it came; she had arrived by motor from Paris, not on the boat from Alexandria. His was now the imperative duty to carry warning to the two suspected, not to waste time in idle speculation as to the identity of the betrayer. There was but one ray of hope in this sudden pall of gloom, and that Almer grasped eagerly. He knew the character of General Crandall—the phlegmatic conservatism of the man, which would not easily be jarred out of an accustomed line of thought and action. The general would be slow to leap at an accusation brought against one wearing the stripes of service; and, though he might reasonably attempt to test Captain Woodhouse, one such as Woodhouse, chosen by the Wilhelmstrasse to accomplish so great a mission, would surely have the wit to parry suspicion.
Yes, he must be put on his guard. As for Louisa—well, it would be too bad if the girl should have to put her back against a wall; but she could be spared; she was not essential. After he had succeeded in getting word of his danger to Woodhouse, Almer would consider saving Louisa from a firing squad. The nimble mind of Herr Almer shook itself free from the incubus of dread and leaped to the exigency of the moment. Calling his head waiter to keep warm the chair behind the desk, Almer retired to his room, and there was exceedingly busy for half an hour.
The hour of parade during war time on Gibraltar was one o'clock. At that time, six days a week, the half of the garrison not actually in fighting position behind the great guns of the defense marched to the parade grounds down by the race track and there went through the grilling regimen that meant perfection and the maintenance of a hair-trigger state of efficiency. Down from the rocky eminences where the barracks stood, marched this day block after block of olive-drab fighting units—artillerymen for the most part, equipped with the rifle and pack of infantrymen. No blare of brass music gave the measure to their step; bandsmen in this time of reality paced two by two, stretchers carried between them. All the curl and snap of silken banners that made the parade a moving spectacle in ordinary times was absent; flags do not figure in the grim modern business of warfare. Just those solid blocks of men trained to kill, sweeping down on to the level grounds and massing, rank on rank, for inspection and the trip-hammer pound-pound-pound of evolutions to follow. Silent integers of power, flexing their muscles for the supreme test that any morning's sun might bring.
Mr. Henry J. Sherman stood with his wife, Kitty and Willy Kimball—Kimball had developed a surprising interest in one of these home folks, at least—under the shade of the row of plane trees fringing the parade grounds. They tried to persuade themselves that they were seeing something worth while. This pleasing fiction wore thin with Mr. Sherman before fifteen minutes had passed.
"Shucks, mother! The boys at the national-guard encampment down to Galesburg fair last year made a better showing than this." He pursed out his lips and regarded a passing battalion with a critical eye.
"Looked more like soldiers, anyway," mother admitted. "Those floppy, broad-brimmed hats our boys wear make them look more—more romantic, I'd say."
"But, my dear Mrs. Sherman"—Willy Kimball flicked his handkerchief from his cuff and fluttered it across his coat sleeve, where dust had fallen—"the guards back in the States are play soldiers, you know; these chaps, here—well, they are the real thing. They don't dress up like picture-book soldiers and show off"
"Play soldiers—huh!" Henry J. had fire in his eye, and the pearl buttons on his white linen waistcoat creaked with the swelling of a patriot's pride. "You've been a long time from home, Willy. Perhaps you've forgotten that your own father was at Corinth. Guess you've overlooked that soldiers' monument in Courthouse Square back in little old Kewanee. They were 'play soldiers,' eh?—those boys who marched away with your dad in sixty-one. Gimme a regiment of those old boys in blue, and they could lick this whole bunch of"
"Father!" Kitty had flipped her hand over her parent's mouth, her eyes round with real fear. "You'll get arrested again, talking that way here where everybody can hear you. Remember what that hotel man said last night about careless remarks about military things on the Rock? Be good, father."
"There, there !" Sherman removed the monitory hand and patted it reassuringly. "I forgot. But when I get aboard the Saxonia and well out to sea, I'm going to just bust information about what I think of things in general over here in this Europe place—their Bottycelly pictures and their broken-down churches and—and Why, bless my soul! The little store buyer and that Iowa girl who's married to the governor here!"
The patriot stopped short in his review of the Continent's delinquencies to wave his hat at Lady Crandall and Jane Gerson, who were trundling down under the avenue of planes in a smart dog-cart. Lady Crandall answered his hail with a flourish of her whip, turned her horse off the road, and brought her conveyance to a stop by the group of exiles. Hearty greetings passed around. The governor's wife showed her unaffected pleasure at the meeting.
"I thought you wouldn't miss the parade," she called down from her high seat. "Only thing that moves on the Rock—these daily reviews. Brought Miss Gerson down here so when she gets back to New York she can say she's seen the defenders of Gibraltar, if not in action, at least doing their hard training for it."
"Well, I don't mind tellin' you," Sherman began defiantly, "I think the national guard of Illynoy can run circles around these Englishmen when it comes to puttin' up a show. Now, Kitty, don't you try to drive a plug in your dad's sentiments again; Mrs. Crandall's all right—one of us." A shocked look from his daughter. "Oh, there I go again, forgettin'. Lady Crandall, I mean. Excuse me, ma'am."
"Don't you dare apologize," the governor's wife playfully threatened Mr. Sherman with her whip. "I love the sound of good, old-fashioned 'Missis.' Just imagine—married five years, and nobody has called me 'Mrs. Crandall' until you did just now. 'Wedded, But Not a Missis'; wouldn't that be a perfectly gorgeous title for a Laura Jean novel? Miss Gerson, let's hop out and join these home folks; they're my kind."
The burst of laughter that greeted Lady Crandall's sally was not over before she had leaped nimbly from her high perch, Henry J. gallantly assisting. Jane followed, and the coachman from his little bob seat in the back drove the dog-cart over the road to wait his mistress' pleasure. The scattered blocks of olive-gray on the field had coalesced into a solid regiment now, and the long double rank of men was sweeping forward like the cutting arm of a giant mower. The party of Americans joined the sparse crowd of spectators at the edge of the field, the better to see. Jane Gerson found herself chatting with Willy Kimball and Kitty Sherman a little apart from the others. A light touch fell on her elbow. She turned to find Almer, the hotel keeper, smiling deferentially.
"Pardon—a thousand pardons for the intrusion, lady. I am Almer, of the Hotel Splendide."
"You haven't remembered something more I owe you," Jane challenged bruskly.
"Oh, no, lady!" Alimer spread out his hands. "I happened to see you here watching the parade, and I remembered a trivial duty I have which, if I may be so bold as to ask, you may discharge much more quickly than I—if you will."
"I discharge a duty—for you?" The girl did not conceal her puzzlement. Almer's hand fumbled in a pocket of his flapping alpaca coat and produced a plain silver cigarette case, unmonogrammed. She looked at it wonderingly.
"Captain Woodhouse—you met him at my hotel last night, lady. He left this lying on his dresser when he quit his room to go to barracks to-day. For me it is difficult to send a messenger with it to the barracks—war time, lady—many restrictions inside the lines. I came here hoping perhaps to see the captain after the parade. But you"
"You wish me to give this to Captain Woodhouse?" Jane finished, a flicker of annoyance crossing her face. "Why me?"
"You are at Government House, lady. Captain Woodhouse comes to tea—all newcomers to the garrison do that. If you would be so good"
Jane took the cigarette case from Almer's outstretched hand. Lady Crandall had told her the captain would be in for tea that afternoon. It was a small matter, this accommodation, as long as Almer did not insinuate—as he had not done—any impertinence; imply any over eagerness on her part to perform so minor a service for the officer. Almner bowed his thanks and lost himself in the crowd. Jane turned again to where Kitty and Kimball were chatting.
"A dun for extra service the landlord forgot last night, I'll wager," the youth greeted her.
"Oh, no, just a little present," Jane laughed back at him, holding up the silver case. "With Almer's compliments to Captain Woodhouse, who forgot it when he gave up his room to-day. I've promised to turn it over to the captain and save the hotel man a lot of trouble and red tape getting a messenger through to the captain's quarters."
"By Jove!" Kimball's tired eyes lighted up with a quick flash of smoker's yearning. "A life-saver! Came away from my room without my pet Egyptians—Mr. Sherman yelling at me to hurry or we'd miss this slow show and all that. I'm going to play the panhandler and beg one of your captain friend's smokes. He must be a good sort or you wouldn't be doing little favors for him, Miss Gerson. Come, now; in your capacity as temporary executrix will you invest one of the captain's cigarettes in a demand of real charity?"
Keen desire was scarcely veiled under Kimball's fiction of light patter. Smilingly the girl extended the case to him.
"Just to make it businesslike, the executrix demands your note for—um—sixty days, say. For one cigarette received, I promise to pay"
"Given!" He pulled a gold pencil from his pocket and made a pretense of writing the form on his cuff. Then he lit his borrowed cigarette and inhaled it gratefully.
"Your captain friend's straight from Egypt; I don't have to be told that," Willy Kimball murmured, in polite ecstasy. "At Shepard's, in Cairo, you'll get such a cigarette as this, and nowhere else in a barren world. The breath of the acanthus blossom—if it really has a breath—never heard."
"Back in Kewanee the Ladies' Aid Society will have you arrested," Kitty put in mischievously. "They're terribly wrought up over cigarettes—for minors."
Kimball cast her a glance of deep reproach. As he lifted the cigarette to his lips for a second puff, Jane's eyes mechanically followed the movement. Something caught and held them, wonder-filled.
On the side of the white paper cylinder nearest her a curious brown streak appeared—by the merest freak of chance her glance fell on it. As she looked, the thin stain grew darker nearest the fresh ash. The farther end of the faint tracing moved—yes, moved, like a threadworm groping its way along a stick.
"Now what are they all doing out there?" Kitty Sherman was asking. "All those men running top speed with their guns carried up so high."
"Bayonet charge," Kimball answered. "Nothing like the real thing, of course."
Jane Gerson was watching the twisting and writhing of that filament of brown against the white. An invisible hand was writing in brown ink on the side of the cigarette—writing backward and away from the burning tip. It lengthened by seconds—"and Louisa to Crandall."
So the letters of silver nitrate formed themselves under her eyes. Kimball took the cigarette from his lips and held it by his side for a minute. He and Kitty were busy with each other's company for the time, ignoring Jane. She burned with curiosity and with excitement mounting like the fire of wine to her brain. Would he never put that cigarette to his lips again, so she could follow the invisible pen! So fleeting, so evanescent that worm track on the paper, wrought by fire and by fire to be consumed. A mystery vanishing even as it was aborning! After ages, the unconscious Kimball set the cigarette again in his lips.
—play your game and he will be slow to"
Again the cigarette came away in Kimball's hand. Acting on impulse she did not stop to question, Jane struck it from the young man's outstretched hand and set her foot on it as it fell in the dust.
"Oh, I'm clumsy!" She fell lightly against Kimball's shoulder and caught herself in well-simulated confusion. "Standing tiptoe to see what that man on a horse is going to do—lost my balance. And—and your precious cigarette—gone!"
The anguish in Jane Gerson's voice was not play. It was real—terribly real.