Page:Weird Tales Volume 09 Issue 02 (1927-02).djvu/9

Rh bird of prey, and the tilt of his long, pointed jaw bore out the uncompromising ferocity of the rest of his visage. Across his left cheek, extending upward over the temple and into his hair, was a knife- or saber-scar, a streak of white showing the trail of the steel in his scalp, and shining like silver inlaid in onyx against the blue-black of his smoothly pomaded locks.

What they said was, of course, beyond reach of my ears, but I saw de Grandin’s quick, impish smile flicker across his keen face more than once, to be answered by a slow, languorous smile on the other’s dark countenance.

At length the count bowed formally to my friend and whirled away with a wisp of a girl, while de Grandin returned to me. At the door he paused a moment, inclining his shoulders in a salute as a couple of debutantes brushed past him. Something—I know not what—drew my attention to the tall foreigner a moment, and a sudden chill rippled up my spine at what I saw. Above the georgette-clad shoulder of his dancing partner the count’s slate-gray eyes were fixed on de Grandin’s trim back, and in them I read all the cold, malevolent fury with which a caged tiger regards its keeper as he passes the bars.

“What on earth did you say to that fellow?” I asked as the little Frenchman rejoined me. "He looked as if he would like to murder you."

“Ha?” he gave a questioning, single-syllabled laugh. “Did he so? Obey the noble Washington’s injunction, and avoid foreign entanglements, Friend Trowbridge; it is better so, I think.”

“But look here,” I began, nettled by his manner, “what——”

“Non, non,” he interrupted, “you must be advised by me, my friend. I think it would be better if we dismissed the incident from our minds. But stay—perhaps you had better meet that gentleman, after all. I will have the good Madame Norman introduce you."

More puzzled than ever, I followed him to our hostess and waited while he requested her to present me to the count.

In a lull in the dancing she complied with his request, and the foreigner acknowledged the introduction with a brief handclasp and an almost churlish nod, then turned his back on me, continuing an animated conversation with the large-eyed young woman in an abbreviated party frock.

“And did you shake his hand?” de Grandin asked as we descended the Normans’ steps to my waiting car.

“Yes, of course,” I replied.

“Ah? Tell me, my friend, did you notice anything—ah—peculiar, in his grip?"

“H’m.” I wrinkled my brow a moment in concentrated thought. “Yes, I believe I did.”

“So? What was it?”

“Hanged if I can say, exactly,” I admitted, “but—well, it seemed—this sounds absurd, I know—but it seemed as though his hand had two backs—no palm at all—if that means anything to you."

“It means much, my friend; it means a very great deal,” he answered with such a solemn nod that I burst into a fit of laughter. “Believe me, it means much more than you suspect.”

have been some two weeks later that I chanced to remark to de Grandin, "I saw your friend, Count Czerny, in New York yesterday.”

"Indeed?” he answered with what seemed like more than necessary interest. "And how did he impress you at the time?”

“Oh, I just happened to pass him in Fifth Avenue,” I replied. “I’d been up to see an acquaintance in Fifty-ninth Street and was turning