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Roy Glashan's Library
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The Popular Magazine, 7 January 1924, with
"The Mystery Man From Prague"
James Francis Dwyer
JAMES FRANCIS DWYER (1874-1952) was an Australian writer. Born in Camden Park, New South Wales, Dwyer worked as a postal assistant until he was convicted in a scheme to make fraudulent postal orders and sentenced to seven years imprisonment in 1899. In prison, Dwyer began writing, and with the help of another inmate and a prison guard, had his work published in The Bulletin. After completing his sentence, he relocated to London and then New York, where he established a successful career as a writer of short stories and novels. Dwyer later moved to France, where he wrote his autobiography, Leg-Irons on Wings, in 1949. Dwyer wrote over 1,000 short stories during his career, and was the first Australian-born person to become a millionaire from writing. —Wikipedia
Robert Henry Blane of Houston, Texas, receives a mysterious message that summons him to Lake Como. He meets the nameless disciple of discord and destruction; averts disaster for his friendly enemy, No. 37; saves the "Billion Dollar Battalion," and entertains the heroine of Calico, Arkansas.
TO Robert Henry Blane had come a strange message. It came like a piece of thistledown out of the air.
He had turned his head for an instant while watching a weird show at the Grand Guignol and the scrap of paper carrying the words was deftly slipped onto his knees.
Before touching the paper The Texan Wasp examined his neighbors. The horror of the piece had gripped them. They were leaning forward, necks strained to the uttermost, watching the sketch that was written to tickle the jaded nerves of blasé Parisians. The handsome American adventurer was unable to locate a person whose interest was in anything outside the very grotesque and nearly disgusting scene that was unfolding in a glaucous light that added to the weirdness of the happenings.
Robert Henry Blane unfolded the slip of paper and read the words penciled on it. They were few but their import was tremendous. The big Texan read them again and again, holding the sheet forward so that it struck a roving ray of green that fell from a badly fixed shutter. The message ran:
If Robert Henry Blane could be at the Lake of Como on June 27th The Man from Prague would like to speak to him.
The Texan Wasp forgot the grisly horror that was dragging itself toward a shrieking climax. He had no interest in the limb-dragging leper who had come back from the hell of Molokai to choke the wife who had become the dancing queen of Paris. His eyes drifted away from the stage set that showed the gorgeous apartment of the wife, set high above that Rue de Rivoli, the woman crouched upon the window sill, the dreadful, leering deformity that was her husband blocking the path to the door. The Wasp was thinking of The Man from Prague.
An eccentric writer, hidden away somewhere in the slums of Vienna, has asserted that big wars and big revolutions are made not by the mass nor by the then leaders of the mass. He asserts that they are made unconsciously by the unknown individuals who will get the spotlight after the war of the great upheaval. The dreams of these persons, who may be living in abject poverty, have a strange and extraordinary effect upon the world. The dreams act as a great leaven that breeds discontent. The world labors in an effort to get these dreamers out of the ruck. Thousands and millions of men die in the upheaval, then out into the quiet that ranges after the battle fires of dreams!
The Viennese writer names a score of these people. They took no part in the Great War but they are now prominent in Europe. He, curiously, accuses them of being the cause of the war. He thinks if they had never been born there would have been no war. The soldiers and the generals, the statesmen and the politicians of 1914 were but the dead lava crust that was pushed forward by the throbbing, liquid fires that none could see. The throbbing fire of dreams!
Robert Henry Blane had read the article and although The Man from Prague was not mentioned by the writer Blane added him to the list. Somewhere in the tortuous streets of the old, old city of Prague there had lived one of the dreamers whose dreams upset the crust of nations. War came! Austria turned out her millions, her cannons trundled off across the landscape, her airmen flailed the winds of heaven. The dreamer didn't take part in the upheaval. He was saving himself.
Austria was shattered, then people began to hear of The Man from Prague. That is, the people who had their ears to the ground. He stepped lightly, did this man. It is the new method of doing things in Europe. The great man is never seen, his name is sometimes not known. He puts forward a number of little manikins and a number of these manikins get shot and knifed nowadays.
The Texan Wasp, walking back to his hotel, thought of all the slinking, furtive, headless-and-tailless rumors that were connected with The Man from Prague. Possibly fifty per cent of them lacked a base. Rumor is busy nowadays. Other men who had become powerful had been clutched by the camera—great industrialists and profiteering scoundrels who had made millions by pulling strings in the background, had been badgered and tormented by leggy reporters and photographers who had run them into their palatial lairs, but The Man from Prague remained as remote as the Dog Star.
Into the new welter of European trickery and duplicity he thrust an invisible finger. He was credited with a thousand affairs that defied solution. A statesman shot at on the Unter den Linden, a banker assassinated in the Prater at Vienna, a coup d'état in a one-horse state, a slump of the mark, an attack on the franc, everything and anything was credited to him. People whispered his name in corners, whispered it in a dozen tongues. He was The Mystery Man from Prague!
Many persons, and Robert Henry Blane was one of the number, doubted his existence. These doubters believed that the people on the street, unable to explain things, had fashioned, Indian-like, a god upon whose head they could throw the blame of assassinations, new wars, money depreciation, food riots, train smashes, robberies, and the million and one ills that harry poor old Europe. The unbelievers grinned as they listened to the breathless gossipers who tagged the monster with every knot in the twisted and tangled skein of world trouble.
The Texan Wasp occupied a front room in a small hotel on the Rue Chauveau-Lagarde that is close to the Madeleine. After the performance at the Grand Guignol he returned to the hotel and sat for a time at the window overlooking the narrow street. An electric lamp, heavily shaded, was the only light. In the soft gloom Robert Henry Blane considered the message. Was there really a person known as The Man from Prague? If so was he the controlling force in a slight percentage of the affairs that had been credited to him? Granting there was such a person why did he wish speech with Robert Henry Blane, one time of Houston, Texas?
The Wasp sitting at the window spoke aloud as this question came up for an answer. "I'd like to know how he heard of me and what he wants with me?" growled the big Texan. "His note seems to suggest that I had applied for a job, and I just didn't. I never hunt jobs. 'They come to me."
Mr. Blane switched on the overhead lights and picked up a "Continental Bradshaw." The mysterious person had left the American little time for a decision. He wished to see Robert Henry Blane at Como on June 27th and he had signified his wish on the evening of the twenty-fifth! An express train left Paris at eleven forty-five in the morning, tore down through Lucerne and Bellinzona, dropped through the St. Gothard and reached Como at four thirty-two in the afternoon of the following day. If the Texan Wasp took this train he would be in Como in time to keep the appointment.
"But why?" questioned the American, rising to his feet. "Why should I go scurrying down through France and Switzerland to see—?"
Robert Henry Blane paused abruptly in his little soliloquy. Something had fallen upon the floor and had slithered under a couch, making a soft rustling noise as it moved over the polished boards.
The Wasp stooped cautiously and picked up a.small spill of paper. He unfolded it and read the dozen words scrawled upon it. They were:
It is very important that you should meet The Man from Prague.
Robert Henry Blane walked swiftly to the window and looked out. The old houses immediately fronting the hotel were in darkness. The Rue Chauveau-Lagarde is not more than twenty feet across, and the American could see plainly the windows of the corresponding floor opposite. They were the windows of a dressmaker's showroom. The blinds were drawn and the words "Robes," "Manteaux," and "Lingerie" painted on the blinds did not wiggle in the "slightest degree under the scrutiny of the American. Yet The Wasp was certain that the spill of paper that had whizzed into the room had been catapulted from one of the windows opposite!
He put out the lights and watched the street door leading to the dressmaker's rooms. He watched it for a long time, his thoughts upon the wild and wonderful stories that were connected with The Man from Prague. The will-o-the-wisp was growing real as the minutes passed.
Paris dropped into that whimpering stage that it assumes in the ghostly hours that run between the activity of the day and the first bustle of the dawn. Those hectic, spindle-legged hours that seem filled with weird and shameful happenings. Revelers from Montmartre halted their taxicabs at the corner of the Rue Chauveau-Lagarde and the Rue Pasquier and rent the night with guffaws that shot up like cannon sounds after intervals of sinister whispering. Slinking figures were spewed up by street angles and were again consumed by them. Now and then a scream rushed up like a red thread from the Boulevard Malesherbes.
No one came out of the door opposite. The Wasp rose and drew the curtains of the windows. The June night was a trifle warm. Thoughts of the Lake of Como came to his mind. Pictures flung themselves up before his eyes. He saw Cernobbia and Bellagio, the mountains springing up from the glorious lake that some one has described as a jewel dropped from a ring that the Almighty wore upon His finger!
"I'll take a run down without thinking of our friend," muttered The Wasp. "He can dance his own little minuet unless it suits me to partner with him."
THE little town of Como squatting at the head of the
glorious lake seemed quiet and sweet to The Texan Wasp after
hectic Paris. He settled himself in a small hotel on the
Piazza Cavour and from his window he could watch the cars of
the funicular railway that drags visitors up the steep slope
of Brunate from whose summit they can see the Alps and the
Plain of Lombardy as far as Milan.
He had barely bathed and changed his clothes when there came a message from the man who had made the appointment. Not a pleasing message to Robert Henry Blane. An unknown had left a note at the hotel and the wording of this note roused the anger of the big American. It read:
The Man from Prague is delayed. Wait where you are and hold no converse with any one. You are selected for a big undertaking.
"It looks as if I had put in an application for employment," growled The Wasp. "It surely does. Well, I'll wait and see what Bill-of-the-Wisp wants to propose."
To cool the irritation roused by the note The Wasp left the hotel and walked along the little quay. Five-score boats were drawn up on the sloping water front, boats that looked delightfully luxurious with their cushioned seats for two. The Como folk admit that some honeymooners do go to Venice, but that nine tenths of aristocratic Europe spends that period of enchanting sweetness, which the French so nicely describe as the lune de miel, on the Lake of Como.
And The Wasp, wandering along the quay, received proof that the honeymooners come from far-away places. He heard the speech of his "ain countree." A piratical-looking boatman had landed a very young and very small clergyman who was accompanied by a bride who was younger and smaller, and the boatman's conception of the work that he had done in pulling the couple out beyond the Point di Geno was in direct opposition to that held by the parson. The passengers were obviously honeymooners. They had that delightful "Let's-stay-together-so-we-won't-lose-each-other" look that only a sweet honeymooning couple can spread upon their features.
The parson was no quitter. He was small and he lacked a knowledge of the Italian tongue but he was perfectly certain that no truculent boatman could kill him. His little bride had doubts about this and Robert Henry Blane was amused at the manner in which she tugged fearfully at her husband's sleeve and whispered advice about the desirability of acceding to the pirate's demands.
A loud-mouthed fellow was the boatman. He lifted up his garlic-scented voice and the members of his craft lurched up to help in the looting. The boatman demanded twenty lire more than the passenger was prepared to pay, and to the protesting clergyman's "Troppo! Troppo!"—the little man had evidently thought the Italian equivalent of "Too much" was a good word for a Continental tour—he screamed loudly, shaking a black and unreasonably large fist in the fare's face. Robert Henry Blane decided to take a hand in the argument.
There are two ways of acquiring a foreign tongue. One is the formal method of universities and colleges. The other is the "acquired-on-the-spot" method and it tells to the native something that correct speech does not. It proves a residency of many days.
The Texan Wasp used the informal speech. In the argot of Lombardy he told the boatman to lower his fist and his voice. In a swift throaty jargon he begged the pirate to give him details of the trip.
"The boatman took one glance at Robert Henry Blane and saw careless force. He hurriedly deflated his chest and brought his fist to his side. It would be a delight for him to explain to the distinguished signore. The affair was as follows. He had taken the parson and his signora out beyond the point and had pulled them well.
"How far?" questioned The Wasp. "Don't lie!"
"Nearly to the Villa Taglioni, signore. A long and tiring pull."
"And you want forty lire?"
"Si, signore."
Robert Henry Blane turned to the small parson and his timid bride. "If you give him more than fifteen lire you are being robbed," he said. "Hand him that much and see if he howls."
The boatman did howl. He called on his patron saint, San Michele of Cremia, to see how he was being robbed. The Americans who were all as rich as the Dukes of Lombardy were sweating the poor!
His temper made him forget the presence of Robert Henry Blane. He made a rush at the parson but The Wasp seized his shoulder and flung him backward.
The boatman stumbled, pulled himself together, then, fully aware of the fact that the attempt at graft had been frustrated by the interference of the distinguished stranger, he charged the tall Texan.
The Wasp received the attack coolly. He had his back turned to the sloping, slippery quay, and using the same tactics pursued by a matador when a crazed bull charges he side-stepped the rush and then adroitly used his right shoe to increase the speed of the rusher. The shoe was used with such good effect that the boatman could not halt himself. With arms flung wide he stumbled down the slimy incline and plunged headlong into the cool water of the lake.
The bunch of pirates who had supported the fellow in his demand for money turned against him now. They jeered coarsely as he clawed himself back onto the landing stage and when he showed a desire to renew the attack they shouldered him off to a shelter and drowned his wild remarks with loud laughter. They had been given a free show and they were satisfied.
Robert Henry Blane found himself walking along the waterside with the little clergyman and his bride. The parson introduced himself. He told The Wasp that he was the Reverend Thomas Browne, the pastor of a small church-at Calico Springs, Arkansas, and that the good folk of Calico Springs had collected the money that brought him and his bride to Europe on a short honeymoon.
"They must like you a lot," said The Wasp, amused at the manner in which the little clergyman had opened up on the manner in which the honeymoon funds had been obtained.
The Reverend Thomas Browne glanced at his blushing bride. "They like her," he said softly. "You see it wasn't actually my flock that forked out for the trip. It was the whole town of Calico Springs. Episcopalians, Catholics, Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists and Unitarians. They thought that my wife—"
"Please, Thomas, don't," protested the bride. "You must not tell!"
"But I must inform this gentleman of the reason for their devotion," cried the clergyman. "I cannot let any one believe that my silly little sermons got us a trip to Europe! Dearie, I must tell! This gentleman helped us out of a little tangle and I would like him to know about you."
"Then tell about it at some other time!" persisted the embarrassed blushing bride. "Not now!"
"Please let me!" pleaded the Reverend Thomas. "It pleases me so much."
"Then I'll run away while you are talking," cried the wife, "and when you have finished your story I will come back." With a little bow to The Wasp she skipped across the Piazza Cavour and found herself a seat under a leafy plane tree.
The Reverend Thomas Browne turned to The Texan Wasp and looked up into the handsome face that was some eighteen inches above the parson's head. "Possibly you have heard of Calico Springs?" he said. "It has been in the papers recently."
Robert Henry Blane, desirous of pleasing the little man, ran his mental eyes back over the news from home that he had absorbed from the Paris editions of the Tribune and Herald, and, by a tremendous mental effort, he dragged out the item. "Why, you had a great flood in your town!" he cried.
The parson was delighted at finding that the distinguished-looking stranger knew of the troubles of Calico Springs. "You said it!" he cried. "A great flood we had! A tremendous flood!"
"I read an account of it," said The Wasp. "If I remember rightly a dam burst at the back of your town and the water swept away a whole section. I recall the story distinctly. The paper had a long account of the happening and it made much of the bravery of a telephone girl who stuck to her job with the water up to her waist, calling up subscribers to tell them of the danger."
The Reverend Thomas Browne became an inarticulate and emotion-struck idiot. He gripped the hand of Robert Henry Blane and gurgled like a baby. For an instant The Wasp thought the little man was stricken with apoplexy, then the clergyman regained control of his voice. "Did they—did they write about her over here in—in Europe?" he gasped. "Did they? Did they?"
"Certainly," answered The Wasp. "There was a cabled account from New York. I read the story in Paris."
The Reverend Thomas Browne, still holding the hand of the big Texan, started across the Piazza Cavour to the seat on which the bride was resting. Mrs. Browne looked up as the two men approached, her face showing surprise at the manner in which her small husband was towing the tall Texan.
The Reverend Thomas brought Robert Henry Blane up with a round turn in front of the seat. He pointed to his bride, his blue eyes swimming with moisture. "There she is!" he cried. '"There's the telephone operator that you read about! That flood brought us to Lake Como! The good people of Calico Springs paid the honeymoon expenses of their local heroine, and, of course, I had to come along!"
The bride tried to halt the Reverend Thomas but his words were as uncontrollable as the flood waters that had brought out the courage and endurance of the girl he had married. He told the story in detail. Never was there such bravery. The bride fled before the praise which he unloosed. She became annoyed, and to sidetrack the matter in dispute Robert Henry Blane made a suggestion. He told the couple that it was seldom that he had an opportunity of doing honor to an American heroine, therefore the Reverend Thomas Browne and Mrs. Browne were to be his guests for dinner that evening. The happy prattle of the honeymooners made The Wasp forget The Man from Prague and the message that had brought him storming down through the St. Gothard to the Lake of Como.
It was a great meal. Robert Henry Blane had fallen upon a maître d'hôtel and terrorized him into tense activity. He had a chef brought before him and the fellow perspired under the demands which were made upon him. He told the chef that the dinner was in honor of a woman who had saved a town. Had the chef ever cooked for a person who had saved a town? The perspiring stove lizard admitted that.he had not. He had cooked for an emperor, three kings, a czar, five princes—
"Pooh!" snorted Robert Henry Blane. "That's nothing! Nowadays Europe is filled with royal floor-walkers who eat at three-cent pensions. They couldn't save their own nightcaps when the flood struck them! This lady saved a town! Go down into your glory hole and toss some anthracite into the stove. This has got to be some meal."
The chef made a dinner that delighted the little bride from Calico Springs. There was a rice consommé that the cook refused to omit; there was salmon trout from the lake with garnishings that made the fish something that a gourmet might dream of; there were lamb cutlets in bread crumbs with little potato croquettes; white asparagus, the blanched asparagus of Italy; cheese from a goat farm way up on the slopes of Monte Legnone; and there was ice-cream— the delightful Italian cassata—that was brought to the bride with a little American flag flying gayly from its frozen pinnacle.
The heroine of Calico Springs was very happy. So was the Reverend Thomas. In tasteless Vichy, which The Wasp drank much to his dislike, the little parson pledged friendship with the handsome adventurer.
"If you ever come to Calico Springs you must come and stay with us!" he cried. "We were a little lonely this afternoon. You see in our town we speak to every person we meet on the street, so it comes hard on us to wander round for weeks and not have a single person bob his head and say 'How d'ye do?' We think Europe is wonderful and all that, but now and then we get an awful longing for the Springs. It's homey there and folk are honest and straight."
There came a little interruption as they sipped their coffee on the terrace. A messenger boy delivered to Robert Henry Blane a note which the Texan begged permission to read. It was a scribbled message on a small square card, and it ran:
The Man from Prague is here. Hold yourself in readiness.
It was only the presence of the Reverend Thomas and his bride that prevented The Wasp from openly consigning the mysterious unknown to a warmer climate than Como. He smiled grimly as he tore the card into fragments. The delight expressed by his guests had more than repaid him for the run down from Paris, yet there rose within him a tremendous desire to let The Man from Prague understand that there were a few carefree souls in Europe that his money could not buy.
The polite parson of Calico Springs wondered if their host wished to leave them. He mentioned his doubts. "You may have business matters to attend to?" he murmured.
"Not yet," laughed The Wasp. "I may be busy later in the evening, or I may not. It is a—hello, look at the cavalcade!"
The cavalcade consisted of five handsome automobiles that rolled across the Piazza Cavour and pulled up before the hotel. From them descended fifteen well-groomed and important-looking men, conspicuously American in dress and manner. Their remarks came up to the three on the terrace, the hard, resonant Americanese biting through the soft chatter of the crowd of Italians who gathered to see the newcomers.
The Wasp questioned a waiter. "Who are they?" he asked.
"It is a delegation of American bankers, signore," answered the man. "They have come down from Cadenabbia. They go on to Milan to-morrow morning and from there they go to Paris."
The Wasp translated to the Reverend Thomas and his bride. The fifteen constituted the famous "Billion Dollar Battalion" that was visiting Europe to see what steps could be taken to prevent the saber-jangling countries of the Old World from hopping into the abyss of bankruptcy. The European press had featured the visit. A few papers had applauded the fifteen, others had jeered. A number of radical sheets were openly insulting. They suggested that Uncle Sam was giving his creditors the onceover. They advised the near-bankrupt States to hide the ledgers that told of the cash spent on buying guns, ammunition, decorations and other matters that old Uncle looked on with a hard eye.
The heroine of Calico Springs was delighted when she heard of the itinerary of The Fifteen. "We might travel on the same train!" she cried. "It would be splendid. People might think we belonged to the party. Thomas, dear, you look like a wealthy banker."
"I am," said the gallant parson; "I have you; and now as we have a long journey before us we had better retire."
Again they thanked Robert Henry Blane, repeated their invitation regarding a visit to Calico Springs, then left him alone upon the terrace.
The Wasp, leaning over the railing, watched the street. Four of the five automobiles that had brought the bankers had disappeared, the fifth was parked some twenty feet from the door of the hotel. It was a closed car, and having nothing to occupy his attention the Texan glanced at it from time to time. He wondered idly why it had not followed its companions to the garage.
Pedestrian traffic lessened as the hours passed. The Wasp remained upon the terrace; the lone automobile still stood in the street. To the eyes of Robert Henry Blane it seemed to be without chauffeur or passengers.
The car attracted the attention of a policeman. He walked around it. He opened the door, and, to the surprise of The Wasp the door immediately was wrenched from the officer's hand and closed with a bang! An occupant, evidently annoyed with the inquisitive cop, bade the policeman to go on about his business.
The Wasp was alert now. He leaned out over the railing and listened. The officer wanted reasons. A bullet head was thrust through the window, and a voice, deep and threatening, gave reasons with such promptness that the cop walked swiftly away. The head disappeared within the car, leaving Robert Henry Blane a little startled and much surprised. The Wasp had recognized the bullet head! He knew the deep, gruff voice that had flung out a few swift reasons to the surprised cop. The man in the darkened car was No. 37! He was the tireless and intelligent man hunter who ranged from one end of Europe to another and gathered in criminals like an expert fisherman gathering shrimps!
The Wasp dropped back onto his seat, his eyes upon the closed car. The great sleuth had evidently journeyed in the company of the bankers, but instead of dismounting with the "Billion Dollar Battalion" he had remained inside the automobile! Robert Henry Blane asked himself the reason. He had not seen. No. 37 since the night at Carcassonne when the sleuth had told him of the League of the Creeping Death and the designs of the extraordinary secret society that had as its aim the destruction of the great and good. Months had slipped by since that night but he, Blane, had not crossed the track of the sleuth. Still he had heard of the doings of the man hunter. Here and there through Europe the trail of the great lariat thrower of the law was now and then made evident. A queer, vile Russian had been cornered at Vevey and the capturer had given no name. A very "hush, hush" affair had been scantily reported from Strasbourg. The criminal's name and position were not mentioned by the press and his ultimate goal was not recorded. It was guessed at, though. Some said that a destroyer took the criminal swiftly toward a certain spot in South America where wrongdoers dropped into the pit of forgetfulness dug by their own deeds.
There had been another sensation. At Ostend, in the height of the season, a dazzling adventuress, who claimed close relationship with a European ex-monarch, had been removed hurriedly from the casino tables screaming like a she-devil as she was carried away. A gentleman friend had interfered with the bullet-headed abductor and had received for his trouble a blow in the face that laid him flat on the carpeted floor. The disposition of the lady was a matter upon which the stern heads of the Belgian police would not talk.
Robert Henry Blane continued to watch the car. What was the sleuth's motive? It was natural to suppose that some protection would be afforded to the distinguished company of bankers—a casual escort that would brush away half-crazed folk who might be attracted to The Fifteen, but the alert presence of the greatest man hunter in Europe was another matter.
A small, thin man who had slipped out onto the terrace without attracting the attention of the American now rose from his seat and shambled over to the Texan. In a manner that was slightly apologetic he leaned over and addressed Robert Henry Blane.
"Pardon," he murmured. "You seek an appointment?"
The Wasp looked him over coldly. "Who said so?" he asked.
The thin man was evidently upset by the counter-question. He swallowed hastily, glanced nervously about him, then lowered his head and spoke in a hissing whisper. "I thought your name was Robert Henry Blane. Is it so? Then it is you that I was to speak to. I was to tell you where you would find the person you wish to speak to."
There was a little interval of silence. A rebellious feeling within The Wasp prompted him to tell the messenger where he could go and cook waffles without a gas stove, but "he restrained himself. The quick glimpse that he had of No. 37 in the darkened car had excited his curiosity and wonder.. Was there a connection between the presence in Como of the great detective and The Man from Prague? Monsieur Blane found that he was gripped by a mad desire to find out.
"And where can he be found?" he asked coldly.
The thin man moistened his lips. "You must walk up the Via Plinio, cross the Piazza del Duomo and continue along the Via Vittorio Emmanuele. Some one will speak to you and you will answer with one word. You wish to go?"
"Sure. And the word?"
"The word is 'Discord.' You speak Italian, monsieur? Well, say it in that tongue. It will be 'Discordanza.'"
The fellow stood looking down at the Texan and his silent watchfulness annoyed Robert Henry Blane. "Go away!" snapped The Wasp. "You have delivered the message, have you not?"
"Yes, yes, monsieur," stammered the startled messenger, "but I was to find out when you would come?"
"I will come in good time," replied Blane. "Just for the moment I would like to be alone."
The thin man nearly fell over himself in getting away from the irritable American. He slipped like a scared bug into the passage leading from the terrace. The insolence of the tall adventurer to whom he had delivered the message astounded him. On previous occasions he had delivered similar instructions as to the manner in which his chief might be interviewed, and the persons to whom he had delivered the orders had received them with awe. He damned the impudence of all Americans as he crept away.
The Wasp, certain that the fellow had disappeared, stooped and picked up a handful of small pebbles from the floor of the terrace. Carefully, and yet acting with a certain careless manner that would not stir the suspicion of a watcher, he tossed a pebble on the top of the closed and darkened car that stood in the street. He followed the one pebble with two more.
For a few seconds he waited, then, one after the other, he carelessly dropped seven pebbles onto the top. He wondered if the astute sleuth within the machine would count the tiny missiles and find in their number the figures that made his distinguished alias.
Mr. Blane guessed that the man hunter would count the taps made by the falling pebbles, and he guessed aright. To the keen eyes of the Texan there appeared a faint lightening of the black patch that marked the window on the side toward the pavement. He realized that the detective was looking up at the terrace. The Wasp struck a match, pulled out his watch, and for quite half a minute examined the face of the timekeeper. The match burned out. He dropped it and looked down at the car. The face had disappeared from the window.
The Wasp rose, sauntered through the passage, down the stairs and through the corridor of the hotel. A soft breeze came from the water. The descending and ascending cars of the funicular that carried the cliff dwellers of Brunate looked like two gigantic and phosphorescent caterpillars who were intent on keeping an appointment at a spot halfway down the mountain. The soft whisper of a guitar came from the lake in which the stars shone like daisies in a submerged field.
ROBERT HENRY BLANE followed the instructions of the thin
man. He followed the short Via Plinio, named in honor of
the elder and younger Pliny who were both born at Como. He
crossed the Piazza del Duomo upon which the splendid cathedral
benevolently looks and he continued along the Via Vittorio
Emmanuele till he was near the Via Tridi. At the corner of the
two streets a slouching, ruffianly person addressed him in
Italian.
Was the signore looking for some one?
The signore admitted he was.
The fellow asked if there was an address. Possibly there was not, but there might be a word.
"Discordanza," said The Wasp.
The ruffianly one turned into the Via Tridi, stopped at the third door, kicked softly with this shoe, then, as the door opened waved The Wasp forward into the dark passage.
Monsieur Blane was alert now. His muscles were tense and his fists ready as he stepped into the passage. His thoughts were centered on a dwarfed revolver of American make that rested in a specially made pocket. The revolver seemed to sense the blackness of the passage into which the Texan had carelessly stepped. It chattered of danger.
A flash-light bit yard lengths out of the condensed gloom. It struck the visitor and climbed up his tall length till the circle of light enveloped his face. It sprang away again, brushed the darkness from the flooring boards and retreated before the American as the bearer of the light whispered a soft, "Follow me."
The Wasp counted his footsteps. Eleven straight ahead, five to the right, three steps onto a raised passage, five along the passage to a door. He checked the numbers in his head. Many times he had been called upon to make a departure from dangerous places where illuminants were not in favor for the moment, and he had found that a record of the ingoing passage was exceedingly useful.
The bearer of the flash-light knocked, there came a gruff answer, the door opened, unloosing a volume-of light, and Robert Henry Blane moved into a spacious room. A really vast room, lighted by an enormous chandelier,
The Wasp took in the furnishings of the room with a single glance. The chamber was a blaze of gilt, a rather brazen and vulgar display of gold veneer. Huge mirrors in yellow, frames rushed up toward the high ceiling; chairs that sat up like beaten nuggets lined the walls. A rather barbaric display of uncomfortable and useless articles.
The big Texan looked for a human occupant. There was none as far as he could see. Then, as he wondered as to who had given the order to enter the room, the same voice came from the rear of an enormous leather screen that occupied one corner of the room.
"You will pardon me, Signore Blane, if I do not appear," said the unseen speaker. "I never speak face to face with any of my callers."
"The retort of The Wasp came without a moment's hesitation. "And I," he replied, "never speak with any one who hides behind a screen."
There was a long interval of silence. A clock upon the mantel spoke of the insolence of the visitor to the other pieces of furniture. "Woof, woof!" it ticked. "Nerve, nerve! Thick, thick! Woof, woof!"
The voice from behind the screen broke in on the muttering of the clock. "Perhaps you are right," said the unseen person. "It is a habit of mine but every law has its little exceptions. Why should you demand a face to face audience with me?"
"I didn't ask for any kind of an audience," retorted The Wasp. "You did the asking, but I assumed that any person I spoke to would be visible. But that's not here nor there. I'm off."
He turned to the door that had closed softly after he had entered but the man behind the screen spoke again before the American's fingers could grip the handle. "I come out," he said sharply. "Wait one moment."
A minute passed, then there stepped from behind the screen a tall, thin man who wore a dressing-gown of gray silk, corded tightly around his waist. Only the upper part of the face was visible. Large, dark eyes, set close together and lit up with a light that suggested fanaticism, regarded The Wasp over the tip of a black fan which the tall one held so that it completely covered the nose, mouth, and the lower section of the face. The hand that held the fan was long and lean, the bones emphasizing their presence and conjuring up a picture of thin poles beneath sagging, gray-tinted canvas. A rather ludicrous figure in a way, and yet, as the Texan glanced at the man, he felt that there was in him that queer, unexplainable, lambency that characterizes great dreamers and great fanatics. Mohammed might have had such eyes; they might have been the eyes of Savonarola, of Torquemada. They were illuminated with the fires of belief; hot, mad fires that bring trouble to the world unless they are held back by the cooling influence of common sense.
The voice in which he addressed The Wasp was raised slightly to show his displeasure at the tactics of the American. Words here and there broke away from the control and were kept down with difficulty. They had an inclination 'to shriek.
"You are right in saying that you did not ask for an audience with me," he said. "I wanted you to meet me because I thought your services would be valuable to me. You have come and now I can tell you what I want." He paused for a moment and regarded the handsome adventurer. The cool, gray eyes of Robert Henry Blane met the bright, dark eyes of The Man from Prague, and they were not a whit disconcerted by the scrutiny of the mysterious person who was troubling Europe. The Texan Wasp, in his time, had looked at many men without flinching.
The other went on, speaking swiftly: "I can offer you any reward that you ask. Any sum that you name will be met. Money is a small thing when compared with service. I can offer you a bigger salary than the president of your country."
"For what?" asked The Wasp.
The other paused for a moment before answering. "For making an attempt to upset the rule that exists in your country!" he said sharply. "Listen, don't speak for a moment! I am an iconoclast and the iconoclast always goes before the builder. Ground must be cleared before we erect new buildings. It is the law! We must have the destroyer who pulls down old walls, roots up old foundations, levels the ground and puts things in order for the architect of to-morrow!"
The voice had got from beyond control now. It carried with it a thin, high note that was painful to the listening Texan. It was the note that told of a mental engine in distress, of a brain "knocking" for want of proper attention. To Robert Henry Blane there came a feeling that the mental bearings of the other had been burned out by high-powered egoism upon which no one had poured the cooling oil of common sense.
The Man from Prague had climbed suddenly into a seat that offered difficulties.
"I'm listening," said The Wasp as the other paused.
"I want to send you to America!" cried the tall man. "I want to send you there with funds that will buy a path through steel walls. Do you understand? Not paltry remittances sent to you in a niggardly manner, but credits that will astonish bankers! Yes, credits that will astonish the fifteen fools that are at your hotel this evening! I can do it! I have the money! I have thousands and thousands! Millions and millions! I have all I want for the work!"
"And what is the work?" asked the Texan coldly.
"Destruction!" answered the man in the silk dressing gown. His lean hands pressed the fan against his face, suggesting the existence of a contrary desire to lower the shield and bark the word into the ears of the unmoved person who confronted him. After a little pause he repeated the word again, repeated it lovingly as if it were the essence of a prayer, a concentrated slogan of hope. "Destruction!" he cried.
Curiously, Robert Henry Blane remembered in the silence that followed, a paragraph of the article which the strange Viennese writer had published. It remarked that to many of the young men, who were filled with pride and ambition, the frightful war had seemed an opening course of life, and, with that bloody beginning to 'the feast, they naturally had expected more thrilling dishes to follow. Reasoning thus, the writer had attempted to explain the mad desire to destroy that was evident throughout the world. The Wasp thought. The Man from Prague was one of the persons to whom the writer alluded. Blood was necessary to the fellow's life.
Robert Henry Blane put a question. "Tell me in what way you wish this destruction to be carried out?" he asked quietly.
"In every way!" cried the other. "In all ways and in every way! With words, with money, with sneers, with smiles, with fire even! Destroy their faith, their stupid beliefs, their confidence, their pride, their patriotism! Destroy everything that they rest on! Destroy the little, fat pillows upon which their fat, bourgeois souls are squatting, then we will offer them a real base, a strong, modern base upon which they can rest."
A smile rested for a moment on the handsome face of The Texan Wasp. The other noted it. "What makes you smile?" he asked angrily.
"I was thinking of a couple I met today," said the American quietly. "I was just wondering what could replace what they and their townspeople possess."
"How? Why? What do you mean?" snapped. the man in the dressing gown. "What have the fools got?"
"I don't know quite what they've got," answered Robert Henry Blane. "It struck me that it was something rather nice and homey though. It seems a sort of mixture that you'll have to go some to beat. The bride of the man I was speaking to saved a few hundred people from death by plugging in telephone calls with the flood water up to her waist, and the folk of her town were so impressed with her courage that the good old sports got together and scooped up enough money to pay her honeymoon expenses to Europe. It's possibly a small matter to you, but—well, it sort of hit me square in the middle of my emotional solar plexus."
There came an interval of silence. The dark eyes of The Man from Prague regarded the adventurer. In their blazing depths showed surprise, annoyance, anger. The long, bony fingers clutched the handle of the fan as if they had a belief that the article was a knife.
The silence was interrupted by a soft knock on the door. The apostle of destruction barked an order, the door opened and the ruffianly looking person who had addressed The Wasp at the corner of the Via Tridi entered the room.
The newcomer looked from his master to Robert Henry Blane, then again glanced inquiringly at The Man from Prague. It was plain that he had a message and waited the word to speak.
The lover of destruction turned to The Wasp. With a look of simulated astonishment he leaned forward, his eyes upon the face of the American. In the queer, slithering Magyar dialect he cried out: "There is blood on your face!"
Robert Henry Blane did not move a muscle. He understood what had been said to him but in his checkered career that test had been applied to him before. He said softly: "I do not understand. What did you say?"
The Man from Prague turned to the messenger and in the same tongue that he had used in testing the lingual capacity of the American he asked sharply: "Have they found out?"
"Yes," answered the man.
"Where?" questioned The Man from Prague.
"In the car," replied the other. "Hiding and watching the hotel."
The Man from Prague glanced swiftly at the Texan. Robert Henry Blane was examining a flight of gilded cupids on the ceiling. His complete lack of interest would have fooled an angel.
The Man from Prague gave hurried instructions. Some one was to see some one else, means were to be taken immediately. The Magyar dialect was hard to follow when it took on high speed. The ears of The Wasp were strained to clutch the words. He seized upon one here and there and strung them together by guessing their connecting links. Something was to be done to a certain person hiding in an automobile in a street. And there was no indication that the "something" was to be of a kind and charitable order. Quite the opposite. It seemed to the Texan as his ears grabbed at the quick-flowing words, clutching an expression here and there, that the creed of destruction advanced by the madman from Prague was to be put in operation. The thoughts of The Wasp were on the darkened car on the Piazza Cavour, the car in which sat the greatest sleuth in Europe. He wondered what was being prepared for No. 37!
The messenger slipped through the door and The Man from Prague turned to the American. He began to talk in a quiet tone that carried a sneering note. "It has dawned on me that I made a mistake in sending for you," he said. "I thought from what I heard that you. were a person that would be useful. I thought that you— well, I thought that you were an adventurous person who was free from all mawkishness."
The slight scar on the right jaw of The Wasp that was not noticeable when the face expressed good humor showed white and sinister under the words of the other. The spirit of good temper left the gray eyes and was succeeded by a fighting look that might have stopped the prattle of a more observant person than the man in the gray-silk dressing gown.
The apostle of disorder went on: "I could offer you any reward that you named. I could offer you a sum that would be beyond your wildest hopes. But I won't! You started to talk about a silly girl who saved some one from drowning and stuff of that sort. What is that to me? Tell me? What is all that to me?"
He lifted his voice and screamed the questions at Robert Henry Blame. Again there came the shrieking undernote into his words. He was angry, violently angry, and he took no pains to hide his temper. The simple story of the heroine of Calico Springs had stirred a consuming hate against the man that he had thought of employing.
"I might have known!" he screamed. "I should have been wiser! I have wasted time in speaking to you. If I had considered a moment I should have cut you out as a possible employee! I know the American people! They are all fools! They are—"
"Easy!" interrupted The Wasp. "Hold your horses! You're going down an incline!"
"Going down what?" shrieked the other.
"Going down an incline," said the Texan, his gray eyes fixed on the frothing egoist. "I said to clap on your brakes before—"
"I am speaking!" cried The Man from Prague. "I am telling you that I know the sickly sentimentality of the American people! I know their mawkish desire to help! I know their idiotic—"
The little résumé of the faults of the American people was suddenly interrupted. A very hard fist leaped up from the hip of Robert Henry Blane, whizzed swiftly through the air, smashed the black fan covering the lower part of the egoist's face and landed on what is known to ring followers as "the button." A fine, well-placed blow. For the faintest fraction of a second The Man from Prague seemed to oscillate softly with his feet. an inch from the floor, then he crumpled hurriedly and flopped heavily upon the Bokharan rug that covered the parquetry. For the time being the work of the destroyer was halted by a small dose of his own medicine deftly administered by a person who refused to join the colors.
The Texan Wasp didn't glance at the man on the floor. He stepped to the door, opened it and passed into the darkened passage. He was very annoyed. The criticism which the vicious fanatic had aimed at Americans angered him curiously. It cast a reflection on his own intelligence. He, Blane, had been stirred by the story which the Reverend Thomas Browne had told of his little bride, and he resented the impertinence of a long, ghostlike foreigner who found it mawkish and sentimental.
"The conceited ass!" growled the Texan. "If I had him near the lake I would drop him in!"
The passage was quiet. The Wasp remembered the little records he had taken while coming to the room. Cautiously he started to retrace his steps. There was the man with the flash light between him and the street door.
The American hurried. He realized that the man he had sent into dreamland might recover at any moment. And he guessed that the apostle of destruction would come to his senses in a mood that would be in no way friendly to the man who had walloped him on the jaw. Robert Henry Blane pictured the ridiculous face of the egoist as the blow landed. The fellow was bragging so loudly of destruction that it seemed strange when a: snappy little jolt to the jaw could silence his jargon and send him whizzing into slumberland.
Blane had nearly reached the street door when he stumbled over an obstacle on the floor. The obstacle immediately resented interference. Two muscular hands gripped the right ankle of the Texan and brought him swiftly to the boards. He had tripped over the guard who had stretched himself across the passage to enjoy a nap!
It was a very short and sharp engagement. As The Wasp fell he heard the far-off buzzing of a bell which convinced him that The Man from Prague was recovering somewhat. The guardian of the door had also heard the bell. He unloosed a cry for help that woke the echoes of the passage. Robert Henry Blane felt for the fellow's throat, luckily found it, and effectually stopped a second yell. He did more. His iron fingers shut off the breath of the guard so cleverly that the man gurgled and lay still.
The Wasp sprang to his feet. Some one had answered the bell. There came excited cries and orders from the end of the sage. A blaze of light routed the furthermost masses of gloom and advanced up the passage. The high-pitched voice of the great egoist rose above the clamor.
Robert Henry Blane dashed to the door. He found two locks and thrust them back. He gripped the handle and pulled. The door would not budge.
The seeking fingers of the American raced up and down the jamb. They found a button. The crack of a revolver was followed by deafening echoes. The Wasp pressed the button and again pulled. at the handle. The door opened. A hand gripped at the Texan's collar. He tore himself free, sprang into the Via Tridi and dashed away into the night.
The Texan Wasp made for the Piazza Cavour but he chose a different route to that by which he had come. He raced through dark and narrow streets till he reached the Via Unione, followed this to the Place Volta, then by a narrow street to the Lungo. His thoughts were centered on one matter of supreme importance. The conversation between The Man from Prague and his ruffianly follower buzzed within his brain. The scraps of the Magyar dialect that he had clung to became rimmed with colored fire as he ran. Something was to be done to some one who was within a darkened automobile, and the something was not of a friendly character.
The Wasp ran faster. For a second the remembered the roof in the narrow street at Carcassonne where he had sprung upon the man who carried with him the peculiar odor of crushed marigolds. Some one had rescued him, Blane, when death was placing soft and silent hands upon him. And that rescuer and the man in the darkened car were identical. The great man hunter, No. 37, was the active force in old Carcassone and the marked victim in Como!
Running at full speed Robert Henry Blane reached the Piazza Cavour. Half blinded by perspiration he glanced at the street before the hotel. The darkened car was still standing some twenty feet from the entrance!
The Wasp halted. He glanced around the square. There were no signs of immediate danger. 'The piazza was nearly deserted. The notes of a song floated in from the lake. The illuminated caterpillars that went up and down continuously on the slope of Brunate moved noiselessly away from each other after meeting halfway up the mountain. The clock in the curiously constructed Broletto chimed eleven.
The American took:a scrap of paper from his pocket and, pausing for a moment, scribbled a few words upon it. It was a short message reading:
Hop for your life. Something is going to break loose. They know where you are. Blane.
At a swift walk he approached the darkened automobile. He rolled the scrap of paper into a pellet, then, without halting in his stride, he whisked it deftly through the open window of the car as he passed. He reasoned that the detective would be alert and that he would read the message immediately by aid of a flash light.
Robert Henry Blane, walking swiftly, crossed the street in front of the car and dived into a dark passage. He was certain that the man hunter, if still in the auto, would slip out the far door of the machine and make for the same spot. No. 37 was too clever to make his retreat from his hiding place more noticeable than was absolutely necessary.
The guess made by the Texan was correct. He had hardly reached the dark passage when he saw the door of the car open. 'The short, muscular form of the detective crept quietly onto the street. The American watched him. Like a very alert cat the sleuth swiftly crossed the street and plunged into the gloom.
"Blane?" he whispered.
"Yes, I'm here!" murmured the Texan.
"What is happening?"
"I don't know."
"But why the note?"
"I heard something. Scraps of a confab between two persons who are not friendly disposed toward you."
The detective grunted. "There's a few around here who are not friendly with decent folk," he growled. "I'm thankful to you for tipping me off. I saw you when you tossed the pebbles on the car. Here long?"
"Came this afternoon," said The Wasp. "Had an appointment to keep."
The conversation ended for the moment. The two stood together and watched the darkened car. Robert Henry Blane wondered if he had made a mistake regarding the few scraps that he had rescued from the slithering speech of The Man from Prague. He had no wish to discuss with the detective the manner in which he had acquired the information. That was his own affair. Tipping him off to an immediate danger was simply paying off an old score. Besides, to the Texan there was a great desire to foil the plans of the egoist who had talked of the mawkishness and sentimentality of Americans.
From far off came the heavy rumbling of a motor truck. The noise rushed down a narrow street onto the piazza and spread, brazen and nerve-destroying, over the silent square. It drummed against the closed shutters of the houses, bringing grunts of anger from hot and sleepy persons within.
The roar increased. It became a very devil of a noise. It shook the ground. It was a canopy of disorder thrust out over the town, the throbbing of the engine being interlaced with the harder and more forceful streaks of sound made by the wheels grinding the cobbles.
A policeman near the water front was stirred into attention. " He came hurrying across the square with a "what-the-dickens" run that was ludicrous. Como was a resort and ruffians who ran army camions wild after midnight were undesirable citizens.
The narrow street choked with the barbaric uproar. It carried a sinister suggestion of unbridled power. It was threatening, alarming, menacing.
The cobbles shrieked under the iron-shod wheels as the camion rolled into the square. The Wasp and the detective leaned forward and watched the thing. They sensed a tragedy.
The great truck swept in a drunken manner across the street, struck the pavement and bore down in a slouching, reckless way on the door of the hotel. Its speed increased. The policeman broke into a run, blowing his whistle furiously as he raced toward the camion that was running amuck. A woman peering from a half-opened window shrieked loudly. A waiter before the door of the hotel turned and dived like a startled rabbit into the house.
The wheel of the truck tossed aside a small pine tree in a tub that was taking an airing, then it charged straight at the darkened car in which No. 37 had been hiding!
It roared down on it like a tank on a concrete shelter. It struck the rear end of the automobile with irresistible force. It lifted it, held it wedged for an instant against the pavement, then ground it remorselessly.
The noise of splintering wood was added to the mad racket. The body of the car was crumpled up as if a monster mouth had pounced upon it. The sidewalk was strewn with varnished fragments; pieces of glass descended in a shower.
The driver of the truck had sprung from his seat the moment before the drunken machine had struck the car. He leaped to the street, turned, and ran swiftly in the direction from which the truck had come. Robert Henry Blane, standing in the dark passage, saw the policeman make an ineffectual attempt to stop the fellow, then, as The Wasp swung round to speak to his companion he found that the sleuth was not there. He looked again at the flying figure of the driver. Speeding after him at a gait that seemed altogether out of keeping with his rather burly form, was No. 37!
The Wasp, a little astounded at the happening, kept on the outskirts of the crowd that gathered around the stalled truck and the wrecked automobile. The American was cautious. Some one had made a very definite attempt to send the man hunter to the other world, skewered with the splinters of the battered car. To the police and half-dressed onlookers it was simply an affair in which a drunken driver had collided with a parked car and had bolted at finding what a mess he had made of the machine. Blane looked for the officer who had spoken to No. 37 earlier in the evening, but the fellow was not there. He had evidently gone off duty, so there was no suspicion that the collision had been engineered with the view of killing or disabling any person.
The Wasp considered the happening. He was certain that the whole affair was the result of the instructions which The Man from Prague had given to his ruffianly follower. The impudence of the apostle of destruction amazed: the Texan. Europe was certainly going to the devil. Quiet, sober old Europe with the dust of the centuries on it was running the wildest sections of the New World off the map.
The Wasp considered his own safety. He was evidently under the eye of persons in the pay of The Man from Prague. Curiously his mind recalled an interview he had in the long ago with Ferdinand Darren, "Count of Pierrefond." The great gambler had told the Texan that he, Darren, seeking peaceful sleep, tried to imitate the natives of New Guinea who slept in trees after hauling up the ladders by which they had climbed to their lofty perches. Robert Henry Blane wished that he had a tree.
Some one in the crowd mentioned Brunate. The Wasp overheard the answer. There was a special late car up to the high peak!
The information solved the problem in the mind of Robert Henry Blane. Brunate, twenty-five hundred feet above the town, was a refuge that could not be reached after the cars stopped running.
Swiftly The Wasp slipped away from the crowd.-Running at top speed along the Borgo Sant' Agostino he reached the station in time to spring into the last car. It slipped. up the high hill and Como dropped away as it climbed. Mr. Blane, watching the lights, thought it rather a mad town at the moment. A little too wild for the sound sleep which he longed for greatly. He felt a great admiration for the New Guinea natives who haul up their ladders after sleepily climbing into the treetops.
AT the Central Station in Milan the Paris-Lausanne express
was on the point of sweeping northward through the Simplon
tunnel on its picturesque run. Bells rang and station
officials bellowed warnings.
The gold-laced conductor blew his whistle. The engine snorted. A proud engine. It was dragging northward the "Billion Dollar Battalion" that was giving Europe the once-over. They were occupying a special carriage at the rear of the trait. Next to the special carrying the fifteen American bankers was a second-class car, and in one compartment of the second sat the Reverend Thomas Browne and the little bride who was the heroine of Calico Springs.
The train was moving when commotion itself blew onto the platform. A long. legged person dashed through the turnstiles, cleverly evaded the tackle of two officials, streaked by the bankers' special car, rushed past the second-class compartments, clutched the brass rail of a corridor first-class and hauled himself aboard. A perspiring conductor who started to read the riot act caught the cool gray eyes of his tardy passenger and mumbled some unintelligible remarks about danger.
"Are you speaking to me?" asked Robert Henry Blane.
"No, signore," stammered the conductor.
The Wasp entered a compartment and sat down. He had not slept as well as he expected. Half a dozen questions had danced through his slumbers, prodding him at times into wakefulness. They had clustered around him, demanding answers. "What prompted the murderous attempt on the life of No. 37?" "Was The Man from Prague anxious to harm the fifteen bankers?" "Was the apostle of destruction connected with the League of the Creeping Death?" "Would the little parson and his bride be in danger through traveling on the same train as the distinguished financiers?" "Was No. 37 aware of the presence of the Prague person in Como?" And, lastly: "If a girl had the courage to stand at her switchboard and send out calls with flood water up to her waist would it not be possible for a two-fisted Texan to ride along with her on her wedding trip and keep his eyes open for danger?"
The train roared northward, through interesting country. By armies of olive trees, by Stresa and Baveno with glimpses of the Borromean Islands where "little chunks of Paradise squat soft in sapphire blue."
Robert Henry Blane was not interested in scenery. With apparent carelessness but with eyes and brain alert he wandered through the train, sifting the passengers. French, Italians, Americans, Swiss and English; a sprinkling of Germans, Swedes, and Norwegians. A cosmopolitan train. A dozen tongues in use in a single carriage. The Wasp listened and moved on; stopped, listened, and moved again. He was searching for something, something that he had a dim idea he might find.
He invaded the second-class carriage in which rode the Reverend Thomas Browne and his bride. The little couple were in ecstasies. They sat side by side, holding hands, their eyes feasting on the flying landscape. 'Had Mr. Blane seen Lake Maggiore? Had he seen the islands? Wasn't it all beautiful? What a lot they would have to tell to the good folk of Calico Springs!" The Reverend Thomas showed his diaries; fat, bulging diaries. He had planned—and he told this with visible self-consciousness—to give a series of lectures in aid of the poor who had suffered most by the flood. Robert Henry Blane had difficulty in getting away from 'the two delighted honeymooners. A sight of their glowing faces would cure any one suffering from gangrene of the soul.
For the third time The Wasp loafed through the corridors. He walked the train from end to end, excepting the special wagon in which rode the "Billion Dollar Battalion." He had a vague feeling that his eyes or ears would locate something of interest. It was a queer feeling that he could not get rid of. It was the result of the six questions that had troubled his sleep.
Through Domodossola and on toward the tremendous tunnel that drives through the very stomach of the Lepontine Alps. A burrow over twelve miles in length with a mile high of mountain above it! The appalling Simplon, unequaled in the world!
And as the train raced toward the black opening like a rabbit making for its hole that which The Wasp had sought came to his ears! It startled him. It dragged him suddenly from a daydream that pictured the face of a girl of the long ago sitting with a tall wanderer from Texas in a fairy train that swung them by wonder scenery the like of which they had never seen. The girl was Betty Allerton of Boston, and the man Robert Henry Blane, one time of Houston, Texas.
The something held The Wasp at rigid attention. It came from behind him as he stood in the corridor of his own carriage. It made him tense and watchful. He experienced a little thrill of horror, a queer feeling of morbid expectancy. An inner self suggested that he should brace himself to resist an approaching danger. What Robert Henry Blane had heard was the slithering Magyar dialect in which The Man from Prague had conversed with the henchman detailed to maim or kill No. 37!
The Wasp did not turn. He listened, listened with ears strained to catch the purport of the whispered words. The slippery tongue evaded him. The words flowed into each other, making a gurgling stream that slipped by in a maddening fashion.
One word came clearly to The Wasp. It was the Magyar word for "burrow." It was followed closely by another that suggested hurry. The whispering stopped. Cautiously Robert Henry Blane turned. Slipping awkwardly through the passengers who cluttered the corridor and stared through the windows were two tall men wearing caps of the old type that possessed ear-flaps which were turned up and tied together by strings. One of the two carried a small bundle wrapped tightly in black oilskin.
Robert Henry Blane followed the two. They were making for the rear of the car in which he had taken his place. Behind his car was the second-class carriage in which rode the Reverend Thomas Browne of Calico Springs and his little bride; after the second-class car trailed the special car that carried the "Billion Dollar Battalion."
With a swish of hot air along the corridor and a little chorus of "Oh's" and "Ah's" the express dived into the terrible burrow, A strange, bold deed for the electric motor. Twelve miles away on the other side of the majestic peaks was Switzerland; behind were the sunlit slopes of Italy. Above the arched roof of the tunnel was a mile high of red clay, granite and crystalline-schist heaved heavenward in the days when the world. was young. Man, boring like a maggot in a gigantic cheese, had driven a little hole through this terrifying mass, and through this hole ran the electric-driven trains packed with travelers.
The Wasp hung to the two tall men who whispered to each other. The roar of the train was deafening. Passengers in the corridor slipped back into their different compartments, a little awed by the knowledge that a mile of earth and rock rested on the ceiling beneath which the train scuttled like a frightened lizard. Robert Henry Blane was glad that the press in the corridor lessened. It gave him a better chance to observe the two. He got closer to them. The belief that they meditated something evil, something unclean, grew as he watched.
'The two reached the rear of the car. Behind them roared and rattled the second-class carriage containing the heroine of Calico Springs, and behind that again came the special with the fifteen bankers.
The Wasp was an example of careless watchfulness. The train roared up the gradient that leads to the highest point of the wonderful burrow. The man carrying the package wrapped 'tightly in black oilskin cut the string and uncovered it furtively. Gusts of wind swept through the car. The little air demons that live in the dark Simplon snatched at the cap of the man with the bundle. It was whipped from his head and with a growl of rage he flung up his right hand to recover it.
The train lurched. The fellow cannoned against a brass guard leading to the side door. His companion cried a warning. The oilskin wrapper of the small bundle fell to the floor, carrying with it a sprinkling of gray powder that evidently had found its way out of the inner covering of brown paper. The Wasp moved closer. The eyes of the second man swung upon him, queer eyes that showed red in the dim light at the end of the car. He cried out a warning as Robert Henry Blane moved closer.
Robert Henry Blane became a panther ready to spring. The second man, who had ordered Blane away, now stooped to blow the gray powder from the platform. He dropped upon his knees and fanned it with his hat, and, as he did so Fate brought the matter to a head. A brakeman, lurching through the train from the rear, stumbled out of the connecting passage to the second-class carriage. The dim light made the man on the floor for the moment invisible. The brakeman tossed away the butt of the cigarette he was smoking. It fell upon one end of the little trail of gray powder that the fellow was brushing away. There was the spiteful hiss of an awakened snake, a flare that lit up the rear platform, a quick flash of flame as the spoonful of explosive that had oozed out of a badly packed bomb exploded. A stream of curses came from the man on his knees. The brakeman roared a question. Robert Henry Blane sprang.
It was a crazed man that The Wasp clutched. A madman whose god was Destruction. The American was interfering with what the fellow thought to be the most wonderful work that was ever intrusted to any one. He had been ordered to throw the bomb from the rear end of the car so that it would encompass the destruction of the *Billion Dollar Battalion" traveling in the special. And the actions of a fool brakeman and an interfering tourist blocked the great work!
The American received a blow on the back of the head that partly stunned him. The bundle carrier managed to gain possession of the door handle as the grip of the Texan weakened for an instant. The second thug had leaped upon the back of Robert Henry Blane and was endeavoring to strangle him with a well-placed garrote.
The wriggling snake with the bundle was possessed of the strength of a maniac. While his companion's grip tightened he fought to open the door. The wind torrent increased. The fellow shrieked with delight. He was winning. out.
Robert Henry Blane made a final effort. With the blood pounding madly in his head he swung himself around, packed the man clinging to his back in the aperture of the door, then, as the clawing devil made a further attack, the Texan put all his remaining strength into a punch.
The blow landed. It struck the wet forehead of the bomb carrier. He crumpled like a string of macaroni that has slipped from a fork. Some one in the corridor pulled the alarm. Blane, as he slipped to the floor of the platform, heard the squealing of hurriedly applied brake shoes. The express was pulling up.
TEN minutes later Robert Henry Blane, quite recovered from
the struggle, listened to the remarks of a bullet-headed man
who had come from the special car that carried the fifteen
bankers. A strange, bulldog type of man with eyes that were
like frozen hailstones, a mouth that was but a lipless line,
and a chin that had thrown peace to the wind. He was a man
feared by criminals. He was known from the white city of
Cadiz to odorous Archangel, and from romantic Stamboul to the
far-off Hebrides. He was No. 37.
"They wish to make you a substantial present," said the sleuth. "Not a little thing. Something big that—"
The Texan laughed. "Tell them to keep it," he said quietly. "I had never a thought of them. I was thinking of a little American girl who is on her honeymoon. She's riding with her husband in the second-class. Saved a town, man! What do you think of that? Plugged in calls on the phone with the flood up to her waist. And, listen! The folk of her town sent her and her husband on a honeymoon trip to Europe. The folk of Calico Springs, Arkansas! Did you think I wanted that honeymoon trip mucked up by a madman? Come along and I'll introduce you to her and her husband. You consort so much with criminals and near criminals that it will do your soul good to chat for a few minutes with a clean American girl that carries more grit in her system than you and I together! Come along!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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