The Red Symbol. Ironside John

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СКАЧАТЬ and perplexities that I had kept at bay, even since I received Anne’s post-card, re-invaded my mind; but I beat them back resolutely. I would not allow myself to think, to conjecture.

      I moped around aimlessly for an hour or two, telling myself that Berlin was the beastliest hole on the face of the earth. Never had time dragged as it did that morning! I seemed to have been at a loose end for a century or more by noon, when I found myself opposite the entrance of the Astoria Restaurant.

      “When in difficulties – feed,” Jim Cayley had counselled, and a long lunch would kill an hour or so, anyhow.

      I had scarcely settled myself at a table when a man came along and clapped me on the shoulder.

      “Wynn, by all that’s wonderful. What are you doing here, old fellow?”

      It was Percy Medhurst, a somewhat irresponsible, but very decent youngster, whom I had seen a good deal of in London, one way and another. He was a clerk in the British Foreign Office, but I hadn’t the least idea that he had been sent to Berlin. He had dined at the Cayleys only a week or two back.

      “I’m feeding – or going to feed. What are you doing here?” I responded, as we shook hands. I was glad to see him. Even his usually frivolous conversation was preferable to my own meditations at the moment.

      “Just transferred, regular stroke of luck. Only got here last night; haven’t reported myself for duty yet. I say, old chap, you look rather hipped. What’s up?”

      “Hunger,” I answered laconically. “And I guess that’s easily remedied. Come and join me.”

      We talked of indifferent matters for a time, or rather he did most of the talking.

      “Staying long?” he asked at last, as we reached the coffee and liqueur stage. We had done ourselves very well, and I, at least, felt in a much more philosophic frame of mind than I had done for some hours past.

      “No, only a few hours. I’m en route for Petersburg.”

      “What luck; wish I was. Berlin’s all right, of course, but a bit stodgy; and they’re having a jolly lot of rows at Petersburg, – with more to come. I say, though, what an awful shame about that poor chap Carson. Have you heard of it?”

      “Yes; I’m going to take his place. What do you know about him, anyhow?”

      “You are? I didn’t know him at all; but I know a fellow who was awfully thick with him. Met him just now. He’s frightfully cut up about it all. Swears he’ll hunt down the murderer sooner or later – ”

      “Von Eckhardt? Is he here?” I ejaculated.

      “Yes. D’you know him? An awfully decent chap, – for a German; though he’s always spouting Shakespeare, and thinks me an ass, I know, because I tell him I’ve never read a line of him, not since I left Bradfield, anyhow. Queer how these German johnnies seem to imagine Shakespeare belongs to them! You should have heard him just now!

      ‘He was my friend, faithful and just to me,’

      – and raving about his heart being in the coffin with Caesar; suppose he meant Carson. ’Pon my soul I could hardly keep a straight face; but I daren’t laugh. He was in such deadly earnest.”

      I cut short these irrelevant comments on Von Eckhardt’s verbal peculiarities, with which I was perfectly familiar.

      “How long’s he here for?”

      “Don’t know. Rather think, from what he said, that he’s chucked up his post on the Zeitung– ”

      “What on earth for?”

      “How should I know? I tell you he’s as mad as a hatter.”

      “Wonder where I’d be likely to find him; not at the Zeitung office, if he’s left. I must see him this afternoon. Do you know where he hangs out, Medhurst?”

      “With his people, I believe; somewhere in Charlotten Strasse or thereabouts. I met him mooning about in the Tiergarten this morning.”

      I called a waiter and sent him for a directory. There were scores of Von Eckhardts in it, and I decided to go to the Zeitung office, and ascertain his address there.

      Medhurst volunteered to walk with me.

      “How are the Cayleys?” he asked, as we went along. “Thought that handsome Miss Pendennis was going to stay with them all the summer. By Jove, she is a ripper. You were rather gone in that quarter, weren’t you, Wynn?”

      I ignored this last remark.

      “How did you know Miss Pendennis had left?” I asked, with assumed carelessness.

      “Why? Because I met her at Ostend on Sunday night, to be sure. I week-ended there, you know. Thought I’d have a private bit of a spree, before I had to be officially on the Spree.”

      He chuckled at the futile pun.

      “You saw Anne Pendennis at Ostend. Are you certain it was she?” I demanded.

      “Of course I am. She looked awfully fetching, and gave me one of her most gracious bows – ”

      “You didn’t speak to her?” I pursued, throwing away the cigarette I had been smoking. My teeth had met in the end of it as I listened to this news.

      My ingenuous companion seemed embarrassed by the question.

      “Well, no; though I’d have liked to. But – fact is, I – well, of course, I wasn’t alone, don’t you know; and though she was a jolly little girl – she – I couldn’t very well have introduced her to Miss Pendennis. Anyhow, I shouldn’t have had the cheek to speak to her; she was with an awfully swagger set. Count Loris Solovieff was one of ’em. He’s really the Grand Duke Loris, you know, though he prefers to go about incog. more often than not. He was talking to Miss Pendennis. Here’s the office. I won’t come in. Perhaps I’ll turn up and see you off to-night. If I don’t, good-bye and good luck; and thanks awfully for the lunch.”

      I was thankful to be rid of him. I dare not question him further. I could not trust myself to do so; for his words had summoned that black horde of doubts to the attack once more, and this time they would not be vanquished.

      Small wonder that I had not found Anne Pendennis at Berlin! What was she doing at Ostend, in company with “a swagger set” that included a Russian Grand Duke? I had heard many rumors concerning this Loris, whom I had never seen; rumors that were the reverse of discreditable to him. He was said to be different from most of his illustrious kinsfolk, inasmuch that he was an enthusiastic disciple of Tolstoy, and had been dismissed from the Court in disgrace, on account of his avowed sympathy with the revolutionists.

      But what connection could he have with Anne Pendennis?

      And she, – she! Were there any limits to her deceit, her dissimulation? She was a traitress certainly; perhaps a murderess.

      And yet I loved her, even now. I think even more bitter than my disillusion was the conviction that I must still love her, though I had lost her – forever!

      CHAPTER XI

      “LA MORT OU LA VIE!”

      I СКАЧАТЬ