The Moonlit Way Part 46

"Probably, then," said Barres, "they have traced your luggage and are watching it."

"Give me your checks, anyway," said Westmore. "I'll go at once and get your baggage and bring it here. If they're watching for you it will jolt them to see a man on the job."

Barres nodded approval; Thessalie opened her purse and handed Westmore the checks.

"You both are so kind," she murmured. "I have not felt so sheltered, so secure in many, many months."

Westmore, extremely red again, controlled his emotions--whatever they were--with a visible effort:

"Don't worry for one moment," he said. "Garry and I are going to settle this outrageous business for you. Now, I'm off to find your trunks. And if you could give me a description of any of these fellows who follow you about----"

"Please--you are not to beat up anybody!" she reminded him, with a troubled smile.

"I'll remember. I promise you not to."

Barres said:

"I think one of them is a tall, bony, one-eyed man, who has been hanging around here pretending to peddle artists' materials."

Thessalie made a quick gesture of a.s.sent and of caution:

"Yes! His name is Max Freund. I have found it impossible to conceal my whereabouts from him. This man, with only one eye, appears to be a friend of the superintendent, Soane. I am not certain that Soane himself is employed by this gang of blackmailers, but I believe that his one-eyed friend may pay him for any sc.r.a.ps of information concerning me."

"Then we had better keep an eye on Soane," growled Westmore. "He's no good; he'll take graft from anybody."

"Where is his daughter, Dulcie?" asked Thessalie. "Is she not your model, Garry?"

"Yes. She's in my room now, lying down. This morning it was pretty hot in here, and Dulcie fainted on the model stand."

"The poor child!" exclaimed Thessalie impulsively. "Could I go in and see her?"

"Why, yes, if you like," he replied, surprised at her warm-hearted interest. He added, as Thessalie rose: "She is really all right again.

But go in if you like. And you might tell Dulcie she can have her lunch in there if she wants it; but if she's going to dress she ought to be about it, because it's getting on toward the luncheon hour."

So Thessalie went swiftly away down the corridor to knock at the door of the bedroom, and Barres walked out with Westmore as far as the stairs.

"Jim," he said very soberly, "this whole business looks ugly to me.

Thessa seems to be seriously entangled in the meshes of some blackmailing spider who is sewing her up tight."

"It's probably a tighter web than we realise," growled Westmore. "It looks to me as though Miss Dunois has been caught in the main net of German intrigue. And that the big spider in Berlin did the spinning."

"That's certainly what it looks like," admitted the other in a grave voice. "I don't believe that this is merely a local matter--an affair of petty, personal vengeance: I believe that the Hun is actually afraid of her--afraid of the evidence she might be able to furnish against certain traitors in Paris."

Westmore nodded gloomily:

"I'm pretty sure of it, too. They've tried, apparently, to win her over. They've tried, also, to drive her out of this country. Now, they mean to force her out, or perhaps kill her! Good G.o.d! Garry, did you ever hear of such filthy impudence as this entire German propaganda in America?"

"Go and get her trunks," said Barres, deeply worried. "By the time you fetch 'em back here, lunch will be ready. Afterward, we'd all better get together and talk over this unpleasant situation."

Westmore glanced at his watch, turned and went swinging away in his quick, energetic stride. Barres walked slowly back to the studio.

There was n.o.body there. Thessalie had not yet returned from her visit to Dulcie Soane.

The Prophet, however, came in presently, his tail politely hoisted. An agreeable aroma from the kitchen had doubtless allured him; he made an amicable remark to Barres, suffered himself to be caressed, then sprang to the carved table--his favourite vantage point for observation--and gazed solemnly toward the dining-room.

For half an hour or more, Barres fussed and pottered about in the rather aimless manner of all artists, s.h.i.+fting canvases and stacking them against the wall, twirling his wax Arethusa around to inspect her from every possible and impossible angle, using clouds of fixitive on such charcoal studies as required it, sc.r.a.ping away meditatively at a too long neglected palette.

He was already frankly concerned about Thessalie, and the more he considered her situation the keener grew his apprehension.

Yet he, like all his fellow Americans, had not yet actually persuaded himself to believe in spies.

Of course he read about them and their machinations in the daily papers; the spy scare was already well developed in New York; yet, to him and to the great majority of his fellow countrymen, people who made a profession of such a dramatic business seemed unreal--abstract types, not concrete examples of the human race--and he could not believe in them--could neither visualise such people nor realise that they existed outside melodrama or the covers of a best-seller.

There is an incredulity which knows yet refuses to believe in its own knowledge. It is very American and it represented the paradoxical state of mind of this deeply worried young man, as he stood there in the studio, sc.r.a.ping away mechanically at his crusted palette.

Then, as he turned to lay it aside, through the open studio door he saw a strange, bespectacled man looking in at him intently.

An unpleasant shock pa.s.sed through him, and his instinct started him toward the open door to close it.

"Excuse," said he of the thick spectacles; and Barres stopped short:

"Well, what is it?" he asked sharply.

The man, who was well dressed and powerfully built, squinted through his spectacles out of little, inflamed and pig-like eyes.

"Miss Dunois iss here?" he enquired politely. "I haff a message----"

"What is your name?"

"Excuse, please. My name iss not personally known to Miss Dunois----"

"Then what is your business with Miss Dunois?"

"Excuse, please. It iss of a delicacy--of a nature quite private, iff you please."

Barres inspected him in hostile silence for a moment, then came to a swift conclusion.

"Very well. Step inside," he said briefly.

"I thank you, I will wait here----"

"Step inside!" snapped Barres.

Startled into silence, the man only blinked at him. Under the other's searching, suspicious gaze, the small, pig-like eyes were now s.h.i.+fting uneasily; then, as Barres took an abrupt step forward, the man shrank away and stammered out something about a letter which he was to deliver to Miss Dunois in private.

"You say you have a letter for Miss Dunois?" demanded Barres, now determined to get hold of him.

"I am instructed to giff it myself to her in private, all alone----"