Villa Elsa Part 15

The notice at least gave evidence that Jim had been in Italy.

Several weeks after the pleasant event, when he had forgotten all about it, he was loafing in his room one morning after breakfast, smoking an eccentric pipe from his collection, and comforting himself over his decision once more that German teachers and grammars are a failure.

A thump was heard at his door. He called out _Herein!_ whereat a person in uniform strode in and stuck into Deming's hands a majestic communication from which he made out with some difficulty that he was peremptorily ordered to appear at Police Headquarters at eleven that forenoon. Fully conscious of the political innocence of his conduct, he welcomed this new diversion and, humming the latest opera bouffe air, he dressed in his best with a posy in his lapel.

His gay feelings were a little dampened at the Platz where he encountered a ma.s.sive solemnity and sullen looks as if he were an arch criminal of State. A ponderous minor individual, not unarmed, commanded him to be seated in front of his desk and, eying him sternly, handed over one of Jim's invitations to the George Was.h.i.+ngton party.

"Do you know of this?"

"Yes, sir," replied Jim, surprised that this harmless missive had turned up among the Police, and wondering what it could all be about.

"Have you authorization?"

"Authorization, sir?"

"What _is_ this?" roared the petty functionary.

"Why, nothing at all. It means dance--ball--a little dance we had."

"Dance--ball." The other repeated the words with a severity that champed upon its bits. "Are you this party?" He tried to p.r.o.nounce Jim's formidable name on the card.

"Yes, sir."

"What does this mean--Sec., CCC?" he roared again.

Deming was getting upset, confused besides by his inadequate vocabulary.

"I don't know in German, but in English we say Secretary of the Cinderella Cotillion Coterie."

"Ah, you say _Secretary_. It is English." And an enlightened satisfaction furrowed the hardened face of the interlocutor. Then, abruptly to Deming's relief:

"You may go."

As Jim rose to leave he found a court flunkey at either elbow. They escorted him out with a military precision and flourish. He congratulated himself on the easy way he had got through with it. He must have somehow managed it pretty well.

Two days later, in the evening, an attendant from the Intelligence Office ushered himself into Deming's room without announcement. He bore a summons for the next day.

"Well, of all the d.a.m.ned fools!" Jim exclaimed to himself. "They don't seem to know I'm a free American citizen. I'll tell them this time. They are getting too familiar--walking into a chap's room without waiting to be invited."

This time he was brought before a higher official with a more exalted mien, and manners of inextinguishable anger. He held the tell-tale notice of February twenty-second in his h.o.r.n.y paw. Deming was this time not asked to sit down.

"Who's this George?" was demanded.

"Why, that's our great George," confirmed Jim, sharing with jaunty confidence this bit of universal knowledge.

"George--George--the king of England," was the gratifying conclusion.

"And what does this mean?"

"That's Senate and the Roman People. That's just a joke."

"Senate--Senate! Official."

Several of the glowering army folk stood about. They took on menacing airs of importance, following the lead of their chief. An international intrigue, involving a foreign king and senate, was being rapidly unraveled. Deming was so suddenly and summarily dismissed again that he forgot to tell them proudly he was a free American citizen--with a hundred million people behind them.

He was becoming worried and consulted the experience of Miles Anderson whom he had, of course, met through Kirtley.

"In the toils of the German high police!" chuckled Anderson. "That is certainly funny."

"But what am I to do to get rid of them?" inquired Jim anxiously.

"It seems I have no privacy. And I don't want to be going to the Platz all the time. Hadn't I better turn it over to our Consulate?"

"Heavens, no. American consuls won't do anything for you. They are considerably Germanic anyhow--work in with the local authorities.

It's our easy-going American way. If you want anything done, go to the British or j.a.panese. Then you will get action. Our official att.i.tude seems to be that an American ought not to be away from America. If he is away, he must look out for himself--has few rights abroad. The Germans respect the English and j.a.ps for they mean business and their consular service is not to be trifled with."

"I don't want to go to foreigners--get this thing all advertised about--go to all that trouble."

"Then tell the Germans to go to h.e.l.l. That's the only way to get on with Germans. They are used to being sworn at. They will quit you then. If you don't, they will keep you trotting to Headquarters for six months. If you try to be nice, try to placate them, you'll simply get into hotter water. They don't understand such things.

They think they are uncovering a vast conspiracy. Cinderella Cotillion Coterie! Gad, of all the farcical happenings I have come across even in Germany!"

Deming was braced up by this advice, and if anything more came of the incident he determined to see it through with some of Anderson's good American bluff and independence.

The following morning he was plas.h.i.+ng about in his bath tub when the door was bluntly opened and then partly closed. He faced around in amazement at the audacity of anyone boldly intruding into a bath room--the only place left in Germany for the self-respecting Naked Cult. His eyes fell upon another uniformed emissary from the Police.

This one was very obsequious and bowed and sc.r.a.ped his excuses for the unseemly interruption.

"Excuse me, mein Herr, but I heard water splas.h.i.+ng and I thought you were at breakfast."

Jim had adopted the fas.h.i.+on of talking derogatorily in English to Germans who, not understanding, usually agreed with his sentiments.

This always amused him and satisfied his injured feelings.

"That's the way with you Germans. When you hear a noise, you think someone is eating."

"Ja wohl, ja wohl, mein Herr," a.s.sented the incomer with crude agreeableness, all the while grinning in shamefacedness. And floating in the water Jim received another order, from the retreating and apologizing minion of the law, to stand at attention at Headquarters. He was unfamiliar with courts of any sort and did not know he should ask for an interpreter. That the officials had not as yet used one showed apparently an attempt to let the accused, thus handicapped, stumble into an incriminating confession.

CHAPTER XXVIII

JIM DEMING'S FATE

The scene was now transferred to a third chamber which looked somewhat like an august tribunal of state. It was an imposing room divided by a long high rostrum upon which sat a terrible looking individual of the utmost lordliness. The attendants were numerous, and if Deming had ever heard of the trial of Warren Hastings he would have thought this appeared an occasion of almost equal importance and gravity. When he arrived for his ordeal before the bench, he seemed a rather small and defenseless figure.

For he was now to be subjected to a sort of "third degree," with a court interpreter at hand. Every word that might be significant in his bedeviling invitation of February twenty-second was gone over with the minatory harshness of medieval inquisitors.

"February twenty-second. Why is that day?"

Deming explained through his intermediary. His interrogators persisted in the idea that it was a pregnant date in English history and had some sinister meaning like Guy Fawkes day. The pages of British annals had evidently been scanned to find the hidden clew.