The Son of Clemenceau

Chapter 6

TWO AUGURS.

Fortunately for the student, the night birds whom he met and to whom in asking information to arrive at the Persepolitan Hotel, he gave preference over the policemen, felt a fellow feeling for a man pallid, tottering, and in clothes which had suffered during his scramble through the exhausted mines underlaying Munich.

He reached the hotel before dawn and was not sorry to find it one of those old-fashioned hostelries continuing traditions of the posting-houses, where he might not expect to be challenged because of his appearance. In the stable yard, between a half-awakened horse and a sleepy watchdog, who received the new guest with a blinking eye and affectionate tongue, an ostler was washing down a ramshackle chaise. Claudius guessed that it was prepared for his flight and his heart warmed at this proof of the Jew having counted on his coming, though belated. The shock-headed man, clattering over the rounded stones in wooden shoes, made to fit by the insertion of straw around his naked feet, no sooner heard him name Herr Daniels as the one expecting him, than he bade him welcome in a cordial tone which his surly face had not presaged.

"I suppose he is asleep," he said, "but he left word that he was to be aroused at any hour on your coming. I am not allowed within doors in my stable dress," he added, "but you will have no trouble in finding the rooms. It is that one where the candle burns, one floor above, numbers 11, 12 and 13--the number is unlucky for a Christian, but that does not matter for the likes of them!--and a lamp burns at the turn of the stairs. The back door is on the latch."

Claudius, with the satisfaction of having anchored in the harbor, crossed the yard and entered the house. He was closing the door behind him when he heard a heavy tread at the street gate where he had come in. and the dog began to growl. The ostler caught it by the collar as it made a bound, and cried out:

"Who is there?"

The schutzman, who had dismounted, prudently held the door close, with one hand, to prevent the dog gliding through, while he showed his sword drawn in the other, and answered with affected joviality:

"What, Karlchen, am I not known by you better than by your pagan of a hound? But catch me putting silly questions to my boon-companion, my oldest friend! It is not in here that I saw a suspicious shadow creep, eh?"

"By my faith!" replied the groom, laughing heartily, "it may have been a shadow--but flesh-and-blood is what my true Ogre is waiting for! We are up betimes, worthy Hornitz, and we have neither had our breakfast. What has put you on the alert?"

"A general order! There was a riot at the great music hall of the Freyers Brothers--plague on it! What art they have in brewing beer that leaves a pleasant memory! and we have orders to overhaul every suspicious character in the streets, while none can get out of the town. It appears that some monstrous criminal is at large! Oh, for the reward, that would buy me a little cottage on the Friedplatz road with beer unstinted!"

"Pooh! as usual, you gentlemen of the nightwatch are badly informed," grumbled the ostler, pushing the dog into a corner. "I know what it was, for one of the theatrical players is a lady lodger of ours. She was unfairly supplanted by some insignificant young upstart and, of course, the public, always knowing true talent from shallow pretension, broke up the seats and pelted the manager with it along with his imposter!"

"Well, good-morning, Karlchen," said the gendarme, taking the correction in good part, and withdrawing his booted leg from the door. "I may see you when I am off duty and we will make sure that Freyers have better taste in brewing beer than in choosing actresses."

Having heard enough to convince him that Daniels was in a house guarded by the faithful, Claudius proceeded up the stairs dimly visible before him at the end of a clean, bricked passage. His progress was more easy when he reached the landing, as the lamp mentioned, in a recess and projecting its rays in two directions, shone on the door of the suite of three rooms where the Jew and his daughter were lodged.

Pausing before he knocked, Claudius heard the soft step of slippered feet. On tapping discreetly, a reserved voice ordered him to come in. It was Daniels who spoke; he was in a dressing-gown, with bare head, and, having cleared the chairs back to enable him to make the circuit of the table in the center of the spacious room, had apparently been walking round it like a caged lion. On the table were various articles heaped up without order and an open trunk, partly packed. He looked up in emotion while Claudius paused on the sill, more affected than he understood the reason for.

"Ah, heaven be praised! it is you," said the old man with grave joy, and holding out his hands, paternally. "I feared for the worst--that you would never come. It is so serious a matter: a nobleman and an officer who belongs to the Secret Intelligence Department--his death is not to go unpunished."

"At least, he is not dead," said the student; and he hastened to tell his story.

"Speak at any tone you please," interrupted Daniels, at the stage of his having escaped from the music-hall by the artistes' door and of the help of the woman whom he did not profess to distinguish. "My daughter is sleeping, and a sitting-room is here between her apartment and this one."

But, though without any fear that the noble girl would stoop to listen, the student related the rest with a cautious voice. Others might not be so delicate.

"You have a great heart," said Daniels, when he heard of the rescue of the major from the frigid slab of the morgue. "To do this for an enemy is lofty conduct. God grant that you have not met one of those monsters of ingratitude whom a kind act embitters. But it would hardly appear that he could survive the beating by Baboushka's gang, the ill usage from the street sweepers and that of the ghouls of the dead-house. All this makes me tremble for the plan I formed to have you conveyed hence in a chaise. I have the papers to cover your departure as a clerk whom a business firm of good standing are sending out to Buenos Ayres. Once at Hamburg, you may turn your face in any direction you desire. But the slayer of Major Von Sendlingen would not be able to cross the French or Italian frontier."

"For a man intending to see Italy, that would be taking me greatly out of the road," muttered Claudius, sinking into a chair.

"Then go as far as Ulm only, where you will let the train proceed without you. Send for a doctor whose address I will give you and I answer for his helping you to get into Switzerland. After all, that will be better. But I see that you are weak with your exertions and want of proper nourishment."

"It is rest I most need."

"Then stretch yourself on this sofa, and let me cover you with a traveling-rug. When you awake, refreshments will be at hand."

"But you, whom I deprive of rest?"

"It is true that anxiety about you, my young friend, has prevented me lying down, but I am not desirous of sleep now. Do as I tell you. I will countermand the chaise, and return with the food. This house is not a famous inn, but my coreligionists, who are traveling merchants, frequent it, and the edibles are good. As for the honesty of the servants and of the host, I guarantee it. Unless you have been dogged to the door, I believe you are safe."

Claudius said that he seemed not to have been followed. At the house, a patrolman had caught a glimpse of him but the ostler had jestingly turned him off and quieted his suspicions. Before his host had reached the door, where he paused to look back, the young man was nodding with eyes closing in spite of his will, and he was soon steeped in slumber.

"The sleep on the night before execution," muttered the Jew. "This is a sad matter! That Baboushka is a witch of malevolence, or I am woefully misinformed, and the major an awkward antagonist. I would a thousand miles separated my daughter, and this young man, from both of them."

In the lobby he saw a young girl, with her hair in curl-papers and a candle in her hand, descending the stairs from above.

"Ah, Hedwig," he said gently, "I am not sorry you have risen so early." The girl blushed.

"You are as rosy as a carnation. Will you please bring me up some coffee and light food as soon as you get the hot water? My daughter and I will probably start before your regular breakfast-hour."

The girl seemed vexed by this news, for she bit her lip, but forcing a smile, she continued her journey to the kitchen. No one else seemed afoot in the large and rambling house, through which the Jew sent searching looks as he took the turn to the yard. The ostler received him with a grin, and the dog with friendly wags of the stub tail.

"We shall not use the chaise as we purposed, Karl," said the Jew. "At your breakfast-time, my daughter will go out alone for an airing, with you or your fellow to drive. The young gentleman whom you welcomed is quite unfit for a journey before at least three days are over. Meanwhile, not an incautious word that will betray where he took shelter. In these three days," he added to himself, "we shall know how the major fares. Unfortunately, his race have iron constitutions."

This was said with a sorrow rare in one of a people who seldom deplore the survival of a brother man.

Daniels was right in his fear: the student needed repose, and only the most vigorous counter measures drove off an attack of fever. Rebecca was his nurse in the same devoted and intelligent manner as her father was his physician, but as he was on the margin of delirium half the time, he saw her like one in a vision.

His antagonist, Von Sendlingen, was not so blessed. After a cursory treatment in the cemetery gate-keeper's lodge, he was removed, wrapped in blankets, to his quarters in the great barracks; the iron constitution, of which Daniels spoke, bore him up, and before Claudius was on foot again, the officer was outdoors--a little pale, but seemingly none the worse for his horrible adventure.

He took up his own case. Fraulein von Vieradlers had already tired of her assay in elevating the stage in a social point of view. She had excited the adoration of the eccentric Marchioness de Latour-lagneau, a very old lady of fortune, who had the habit of conceiving singular fancies. This lady engaged the cantatrice as a "noble companion," and she hurried off with her into Italy. So the story ran, and added that her manager found that the Vieradlers promptly repudiated any kinship with her when he talked of their paying the forfeit money. He had thereupon endeavored to win back La Belle Stamboulane to his deserted stage, but she was obdurate, and the beer flowed flat in the double absence of stars inimitable.

The major, whose body, reeking with arnica and iodine, reminded him at every step of the drubbing he owed to the civilian, concentrated his searches therefore to discover him. He was sure that he had not left the town by the ordinary channels, but, as time passed, and the week ended fruitlessly, he was inclined to believe that the fiend which befriended Baboushka had also shielded Claudius with his wing.

He did not doubt that the old hag, believing he was lifeless, had hounded on her followers to steal his uniform and hurl him into the kennel for the most hideous of fates, which even the homeless and hopeless dread. But for the enemy whom he hated, he might now be a boxful of dissected bones in the poor man's lot instead of still enjoying the prospect, dear to the scion of an ancient race, of occupying his shelf in the family vault.

Although a soldier, he had such intimate relations with the civil powers, that the police aided him in searches which he took care astutely to represent as quite non-personal. They led him to the street of the Persepolitan Hotel, where, before he entered, he was scrutinizing the vicinity when he spied the well-known form of the old beggar-chief. Their surprise was alike.

"Traitress!" he said, with a red spot blazing on his pale cheeks, as he played with the swordknot on his new sword as if he wanted to loose it and flog her. "After receiving my gold, to bring me to death's door! What have you to say to stay me from handing you to the town's officers to be whipped out of it at the cart's-tail?"

To his surprise again, she met his glance firmly, and her eyes seemed as irate as his own.

"You are mistaken," she replied, carelessly, as if the matter were of no consequence. "How can you expect those stalwart bullies to obey an old woman like me? They would have beaten me to a jelly if I had tried to shield you. Besides, my officer, I thought you had not a spark of life left in you after that beating."

"He shall pay for it--with the sword if worthy--with the stick if a plebeian."

"You need not believe he will ever meet you with the sword," said the hag, glad to have the dialogue turn on another head than her own in spite of her unconcern. "I am going to tell you all about one whom I hated by instinct and whom I find to be a hereditary enemy."

"What do you mean? He is but a boy and cannot have wronged you or yours."

"His father, major, murdered my loveliest daughter and interrupted her career of splendor! Alas! one that had a palace where kings were received and to whom princes often sued in vain!"

"Halloa! you, to have a daughter of that calibre!" and he laughed coarsely.

"You, who know everything, my officer, must at least have heard of the peerless Iza, the original of the most beautiful statue which--reproduced in the precious and the mean metals, in clay, in parian, in plaster--made the round of the civilized world? 'The Bather!' That was my daughter! She had her faults--even the truly lovely have mental flaws, though bodily they are perfect--but whilst she lived, her poor old mother dressed in silks and velvets--not in rags; she ate and drank delicately, not sour crusts and sourer wine; she slept on down and not in a cellar!"

Von Sendlingen shook his head; he was of the new generation and he preserved but a dim remembrance of the noted beauties--the stars of the living galaxy decorating the first cycle of the Bonapartist Restoration.

"I foresaw it all and I warned her; but she was so perverse! It is my duty to avenge her, and to see that the same blunder is not made by--no matter! Enough that my science--at which you smile, I see--points out to me that your greatest enemies and mine are in that house." She gestured toward the hotel, which the major had been studying.

"Do you say enemies in the plural?" he said, ceasing to curl his lip in mocking of the witch.

"In that house are the Jewish couple, father and daughter, who played at the Harmonista, La Belle Stamboulane and the Turkophonist Daniel, and the young man who belabored your excellency so that he almost died of the drubbing."

"Hang you for being so profuse in your explanations! How do you know all this?"

"The servant-maid is a customer of mine. I tell her fortune and she tells me all that goes on in her master's house. The young man has been cared for there these five or six days, and they only await the chance to smuggle him out of the city. Have him seized and secure him in prison, where he shall rot--for I declare to you, as surely as there are stars above, these letters of the divine volume in which soothsayers read, he will be your death in the end unless you are his."

"I would not be contented with that. I want to return him blow for blow--and yet you say I cannot fight him in duello."

"Listen, my officer. He has been brought up in ignorance of his name and origin, in my country Poland. He is French by birth, and his name is Felix Clemenceau. It was his father, a celebrated sculptor, who married my daughter Iza, after decoying her to Paris from her mother's side, and he murdered her on some frivolous pretext when they were living separated and he, heaven knows, had no farther claim upon her--his existence was pure indifference to her. I answer for it! They tried his father for the atrocity. Even a French jury could not find extenuating circumstances for that kind of cold-blooded assassin who slays in the small hours the wife of his bosom--after having cast her off and driven her to evil ways, poor, spotless angel! They brought him in guilty of a foul murder and he was guillotined--gentleman and artist of merit though he was. They were kind to his young son; his friends made up a purse and sent him afar to be educated and reared in ignorance. But the shadow of the guillotine is projected afar, and I saw its red finger point to the assassin's offspring. I have found him. If my hand is not too feeble to strike, it may anticipate yours."

"I cannot measure swords with a felon's son!" muttered Von Sendlingen. "But I shall not cease aching in the heart until he is in the shameful grave he imprudently snatched me from."

"You are a man after my own liking," said the hag, chuckling. "I can foresee that you will go far and perish in a blaze of glory! Listen! There are troublous times when an unscrupulous and ambitious soldier may make his mark and carve a good slice out of the great, rich cake called Europe. Aid me, and I will aid you. Yes, Herr Major, it is one potentate speaking with another," the singular woman went on with sinister pride, and trying to draw her shrunken form into straightness; "I rule an army of my own, camped by cohorts in the capitals of Europe--dating farther back than your own, and, perhaps, as formidable. It is we who spy out the weak spots in great cities. The next time, we shall swarm into the doomed city in a mass and we shall devour its wealth and luxuries until we are gorged. But for the day, it will be glut enough for me to have the life's blood of this man. You cannot honor him with single combat, it appears. Then, let me propose another mode to finish him."

The major was silent. Standing high in the ranks of the police, he was not sure how closely he might ally himself with this avowed leader of the evil-doers, who announced the pillage of a metropolis. She took his silence for consent or approval, for she jauntily continued:

"The house-maid has told me all they are hatching. They have a chaise always ready and passports to mask the departure of the young man as a clerk going abroad. But for precaution, they will not have him go to the train at the depot; he might be questioned and the discrepancies in the passport be perceived. The chaise is to convey him down the line, and he will get on the cars at a rural depot where the gendarme and ticket-seller will be dull and easily hoodwinked."

"Very neat," said Von Sendlingen, appreciating the plan at its due value. "I always said old Daniels was no fool."

"What more easy than to post a couple of the horse patrol on the road--young, hot-headed fellows with restless fingers on the triggers? The youth will certainly refuse to surrender, whereupon, bang, bang! he falls into the ditch with a brace of bullets in his body. You and I will have an enemy the less. This is not the way I planned it in my dreams, but we must take our revenge with the sauce fate serves it up to us 'on the table of Fact.'"

"The scheme is plausible."

"Feasible! especially will it work like well-oiled machinery if you play your part of lure creditably."

"My part?" questioned the major.

"Yes, yours. With a sorrowful eye and a smooth face, I confess I could not confront the man I hate as strongly as his father. You are different--you are an arch-villain--a born diplomatist who wears the very mask for this task and has no face, no compunction, no pity of his own. Go into that house, ask for Herr Daniels--that is the Jew player's non-professional name--and see him and his daughter, perhaps, the young student, too. Boldly proclaim your position as the Secret Intelligence Agent, by which you learned their whereabouts, and that they harbor the charitable young man who saved your life. Touch lightly on his thumping you within an inch of it, and enlarge on your undying gratitude. Apologize to the young lady--lay all blame on her irresistible charms and abuse a little the fair and fickle Fraulein von Vieradlers who has eloped without so much as an adieu to you! Depend upon it, Jews though they are, they will applaud your Christian forgiveness, and, I do not doubt, Frenchman though he is, young Clemenceau will give you his hand. Dilate not at all, but urge him to leave the town without delay. From the maid I will get to know the hour of the chaise's starting and the route so that you can plant your men. I grant that this has the air of a highwayman's attack, but, after all, the uniform covers a host of civil sins, and, really, I do not see a better way to have done with the youth. It will never do to have him strut about Paris boasting that he snatched the sword away from an officer and drubbed him with a cane into the bargain."

Sullen fire burned in the hearer's eyes. He stamped his foot, suppressed an oath, and when he looked up, had a serene countenance.

"You have said enough. A willing steed does not need the spur. I will lay the train and prepare the match. Let each look to himself lest he suffer by the explosion."

Successful though the old woman had been in her arrangement to convert an offended employer into a vigorous ally, she shuddered as if he were, in these ominous words, as good a soothsayer as he pretended to be.