The Secret of the Silver Car by Wyndham Martyn (snow like ashes series .TXT) 📖

He bent over one slumberer whose breath was strong with plum brandy and found he had discovered Hentzi’s bedroom. He did not need to be very quiet here. Underneath him was the floor where the main bedrooms would be and he had an idea the count might keep his valuables there. It was necessary that he should be able to enter from the outside since the stairway leading down was brilliantly lighted from the main hall and stone stairway where the men servants seemed permanently stationed.

Trent had the ability to snatch sleep when he desired it. It was now only eleven o’clock. He crawled under Hentzi’s bed and slumbered until one. There was no danger of discovery. He did not snore and the man in the upper berth would not wake till morning. Anthony Trent had made a profound study of the value of snores in the determination of the tenacity with which the snorer clung to sleep.

When he shut Hentzi’s door and stepped out into the corridor he saw that the lights had been extinguished below and he was free now to make his way to the floor beneath. He tried no doors but went at once to the aperture covered by the article of furniture. It was a huge ebony armoire inlaid with panels of tortoise-shell and ornamented by intricate designs of brass and ormolu. It was probably put in this spot for the purposes of decoration and he picked the lock to prove himself right. It was empty and there was space enough to stand upright in.

He felt it vandalism to break the back panel and feared once the loud cracking of wood might arouse the house. But there were few in Castle Radna who went without a nightcap. It took him almost two hours to hack an aperture that would admit him easily.

Then he slid down the pipe and went to bed. It was not easy to sleep. He had done very well so far. He was free of the house. With luck he could come and go at will during the still night hours. But the first step was easy. Next to find where the count kept Lord Rosecarrel’s treaty and then to take it. And finally to get away with his treasure. He was not so much inclined to belittle the abilities of those other two who had planned and failed as he had been when he talked to the earl. He had taken due notice of Hentzi’s reference to the death of an Englishman a few years ago who had met his fate at the base of the steep cliff-side. He felt almost certain that this was one of the men the earl had spoken of.

Lord Rosecarrel had said they set a trap for him into which none but a clever man would fall. He wished now he had asked particulars of it. So far Anthony Trent had escaped snares and the nets of hunters because he had outguessed his opponents. Sometimes he told himself that in the end the deadly law of averages would make him its victim. The pitcher would go once too often to the well. These reflections while they made him more than ever cautious did not lessen his zeal. Plainly it would be easier to work a remote castle in Croatia than a New York mansion protected by burglar alarms, night watchmen and detectives. Yet he had always succeeded so far in the face of these obstacles. But the address and nerve which had carried him through many a tight pinch in New York would not avail him here.

More than once, clad in evening dress, he had joined excited groups of guests and tried to capture himself. He had calmly taken his hat and cane from a footman and been bowed out of a house he had pillaged and once Inspector McWalsh had carried to the door some priceless antiques he had taken from the very collection the Inspector and his men were guarding.

Reflection showed him that Count Michael Temesvar was far too shrewd to trust the document that meant so much to him to insecure shelter. Despite the fact that the castle seemed filled with idle, drinking, overfed lackeys and he himself was unwatched, there must be some precaution taken which would defeat him unless he trod warily.

It was his experience that rich men knew little of the vulnerability of the safes to which they entrusted their valuables. Again and again he had been able to open such with ludicrous ease. Count Michael probably had an antique which would send a “peteman” into ecstacies of mirth. Trent’s job was to locate it.

Next day he was commanded to accompany Pauline and the count to the golf links. Pauline hardly looked at him but Count Michael watched him continually. He was relieved at the girl’s attitude. She was beaten by her opponent and angry at it. The count was not a sportsman. He putted over the easy bunkers and more than once he lifted his ball to a better lie. The victory made him good humoured. His heavy bearded face was wreathed with smiles. Trent had the opportunity to observe him more closely than ever before. It was a bad, crafty face but it was not merely the face of a pleasure loving fool. If rumor spoke rightly he was, more than any other man, the prime mover in activities aimed against the English speaking peoples. From this same Castle of Radna had issued many plots and subtle schemes all directed by this man who moved a golf ball with his foot when he thought none was looking.

Hentzi had told him that every European and American newspaper of note was to be found in the count’s library. It was odd that such a man would not make some great city his home. He mentioned this once to Hentzi who made the astonishing answer that the count dreaded assassination by political enemies. Fearing perhaps he had said too much the secretary added that Count Michael had long ago abandoned politics for the life of a great landowner and that such a fear was without foundation.

“It wouldn’t be easy for a stranger to get in here, would it?” Trent demanded carelessly.

The question seemed a most provoking one.

“Let such a one try,” he returned smiling, “and he will see how we welcome him here in Radna. You who are of another world would not understand.”

“I suppose not,” Trent said and talked of other things. But he was not reassured. He set himself to master the roads that led to safety. There might be the need to know them. He had not yet been down to Fiume alone. He wanted to find several places in the big port. There might be a time when’ he would have to send an order to the Lion works for spare parts. His code was elaborate and framed to meet all contingencies.

When he asked Hentzi why so few people stayed at the castle the secretary’s reply amazed him. Hentzi rather liked to impress this amiable cockney. He was not without a sense of the melodramatic.

“My friend,” he said with condescension, “there are more who take their dinner in the big dining hall than you know. If it were your lot to be an indoor servant you would know what I mean. Castle Radna is at one time a prison, a sanctuary and the abode of hospitality.”

“I never understand what you’re driving at Mr. Hentzi,” Trent told him. “I don’t get your meaning half the time.”

“I do not intend that you shall,” Hentzi remarked. “And I do not advise you to seem curious. As it is you have displeased your master.”

“Sissek started it,” Trent reminded him.

“Sissek is a clod, a peasant, a man of no importance. I am not thinking of Peter Sissek. I am thinking of Madame Pauline.”

“That blond woman,” Trent said with assumed carelessness. “What about her?”

“She has praised your face and figure before one who, when he is jealous, kills.”

“Me?” cried Trent with an air of astonishment, “why I only told her she was a rotten golfer.”

He groaned in spirit. His stay at Castle Radna was going to be very difficult. Hentzi watching him closely only saw a face which expressed little interest. He was used now to sudden questioning by this volatile cockney.

“What do you mean by the castle being a prison?”

“I should have said that it has held many prisoners in bygone years, and sheltered many of the great. This is not like your English castles where the lord has no power. Look you, not a year ago we stayed, the count and I, at such a place. The owner struck a careless servant and was obliged to pay a fine before a judge. Think of it! An English lord haled into court by his own footman and fined. There is nothing like that here so when you are struck again do not think of an English policeman and a fine. I wish you to stay. When Sissek drives down the mountain I am always alarmed. You go twice as fast and I have no fear. Count Michel desires you to stay.”

“I haven’t said anything about going have I?“Trent retorted. He supposed Hentzi was trying to warn him not to look covetously at the handsome Pauline. The warning troubled him. He was of a physical type to which Blonds of the Pauline type were invariably attracted.

“Many have died for her,” Hentzi went on, “the young officers who flocked to see her skate. There were scandals. She was sent away from Berlin. She was in America, in England and Petrograd. She is cruel. I am afraid of her.”

“I’m only a blooming chauffeur,” Trent said carelessly, “and I wish I had never carried clubs at the Royal Surrey.”

“You are also good looking,” Hentzi said, “and of a superior type. Furthermore you are young and she has seen you play better than any man she has met and she has seen you fight. I warn you.”

“I’ve got a girl of my own in London,” Trent said confidentially, “who is a fair knock out. My girl has the real gold on her sweet little head and the roses on her cheeks owe nothing to a bottle and her eyes are sometimes violet and sometimes dark blue and she is slim and has those long white hands one wants to kiss.”

“Love has made you a poet,” Hentzi said affably. It was well that he did not notice that the cockney accent was for the moment abandoned. Hentzi was not a very close observer. He had only two profound emotions. The one a fear of his employer, the other admiration for himself. He considered Trent to be much impressed by his superior knowledge and,here a little and there a little, imparted much valuable information as to the castle, its inhabitants and their method of life. He considerately pointed out the count’s library, the room into which no strangers had ever been bidden.

Anthony Trent, therefore, at one-thirty A. M. the next morning was better equipped for exploration than on his previous venture. Hentzi had told him that so long as the count remained up a servant waited to attend on him, old Ferencz by name. Trent remembered him at the servants’ table as a surly old man who was silent and reserved and unpopular even among his fellows. He was liable to meet this man at any time. Trent was glad the Temesvar men servants had not the same silent ways of the Rosecarrel men. The men at Castle Radna walked heavily, lacking the thin shoes of the earl’s servants, and talked loudly. There was little of the perfect discipline and service of the great English houses. It was due no doubt to the fact