The Man on Horseback/Chapter 18

later—and it was a week crowded with dinners and suppers and theater parties and dances, with the tawdry, hectic frivolities of Berlin At Night where Tom was usually the guest of Baron von Götz-Wrede, who was trying, he said, to repay a fraction of the splendid hospitality with which he had been treated in Spokane—old Mrs. Wedekind's warning was repeated.

Tom Graves had not seen very much of Lord Vyvyan during the last days. Nor was it his fault. He would have liked to introduce him into the gay set in which he was moving, had even suggested it to the Baron, who shrugged his expressive shoulders and said with a drawl, not a very cordial one, that of course any friend of Tom's was welcome. Tom noticed the lack of cordiality, but decided to overlook it, for, as he put it in a letter to Martin Wedekind: "Most of these young Prussian fellows seem to have been born with a sneer on their faces. I guess they can't help it. Must be merry hell to live in a country where every man you meet is either your superior or your inferior—never your equal!"

It was Lord Vyvyan's own fault that he had not seen more of Tom since coming to Berlin, and he explained that he was being kept frightfully busy at the Embassy; said he fancied "Old Titmouse"—that's how he had nicknamed Sir Francis Bartlett, the ambassador—was deviling his soul to make him pay for the mess he had got into in Washington.

But, late one Saturday evening, having first made sure that the Westerner was at home, he called on him.

"Hullo, hullo, hullo!" he greeted him with his usual cheerful, slightly inane manner, sat down, and asked for a cigar.

Krauss, who hovered in the background, brought a box of panatellas, which the Englishman examined critically.

"Not your brand?" asked Tom.

"I know I am a tactless beast, Graves," replied Vyvyan. "But, you know, I must have one of those fat, pudgy little Bock havanas. Dined with the Titmouse, and the old boy fed me on greasy mutton and caper sauce. I need a havana, a Bock, to drive away the mutton grease, what?"

"I'm sorry," laughed Tom. "Panatellas is all I have in the house."

"Oh … Send out that man of yours. Here. I'll tell him where to buy them." And he told Krauss exactly where to go. "There's a little store just the other side of the Friedrich Strasse two doors from the corner of the Behren Strasse—on the south side. Ask for Boch claros, number four. Tell 'em they're for Lord Vyvyan of the British Embassy."

"But, Milord," suggested Krauss, bowing, "it will take me half an hour to get there and half an hour to return …"

"That's all right, Krauss. I'm always willing to wait for a pretty woman or a good smoke."

"But, Milord," the valet was evidently flustered. "I am sure I can get you the right sort of cigars at the corner store below!"

"No, no, no! I'm rather a bit fussy about my baccy."

"Sure," agreed Tom heartily. "I feel lost myself when I can't get Duke's Mixture and brown paper. Don't argue, Krauss. Get the cigars. A little fresh air will do you good."

Krauss left, and as soon as the outer door had closed, Vyvyan turned to Tom.

"Graves," he said, without the slightest preamble, "leave Berlin!"

"Gosh—there's that same old croaking again!"

"Again?" Vyvyan pounced on the word. "Did somebody else warn you?"

"You bet. Seems to me I'm considerable pumpkins here the way folks look after me."

"Who warned you?" insisted the other.

"Old Mrs. Wedekind, the Colonel's mother—and, believe me, she's a dear!" The words were out of his mouth before he thought. Too late he remembered that the old lady had asked him not to quote her.

Vyvyan looked very serious.

"Graves," he said, "that woman is a good friend of yours."

"Sure. I know."

"And, Graves," continued the Englishman, rather haltingly, being an Anglo-Saxon, thus wooden, flustered, easily embarrassed when giving voice to an emotion, "so am I—a good friend of yours!"

"You bet!" replied the Westerner, impulsively shaking the other's hand.

They were silent. They knew that they were good friends and that, though they had known each other only a fortnight or so, though no chance had risen through which to probe each other's heart and soul, they utterly trusted one another. Yet, immediately, Tom felt that, in spite of it, there was to-night a slight barrier of reserve between him and the Englishman, and that it was of the latter's making. He felt it, and said nothing. For he knew how honorable a mutual reserve can be between friends, how it is the great, deep, sudden silences that are the real proof of friendship.

So he tried to change the conversation.

"I had a cable this morning from Spokane. A little annoying …"

"Never mind that," said the Englishman, returning to the first subject with the pertinacity of his race; and, suddenly assuming his habitual drawl and slang: "Graves, at times I am most frightfully bored with my jolly, pig-headed old ancestors."

"Are you?"

"Rather! They made such a damnable blunder when they gave you Colonial Yanks a chance to kick—and incidentally lick us. Hang it, old chap—you and I are of the same breed, the same blood, the same decencies, the same jolly old saving prejudices. There are some things you and I wouldn't do—simply because they aren't done. Well, I am not trying to gush. I'm not that sort. But—I wish you were an Englishman!"

"I don't!" screamed the eagle.

"Don't be a silly, bloody jackass! I didn't mean to offend you. But I wish—yes—I wish your nation and mine would stop talking of what happened over a hundred years ago. I wish Great Britain and America would talk together frankly, act together—and prevent together. I wish …" He caught himself. "Never mind. I'm not the Prime Minister and you're not the President. All I ask you is to get out of Germany."

"I won't."

"Why did you come here?"

"To—to … I told you on board ship."

"Right-oh!" said Vyvyan. "To keep your promise to that German Baron and to get away from a girl."

"What of it?" asked Tom, a little belligerently.

"Oh—nothing much. Only, remember tellin' me about the cable Miss Wedekind received, begging her to hurry to Berlin, since her grandmother was about to kick the jolly old bucket?"

"Well?"

"Grandmother hasn't kicked the bucket yet! Grandmother is as hale as a four-year filly!"

"There was a mistake in the cable."

"Of course there was, Graves. That's what cables are for—German cables—to make mistakes, to forge words. That's how they bullied France into the War of Seventy by making a little mistake in a telegram. I know." Again he caught himself and returned to the subject. "Graves," he continued, "mistake or no mistake—she received that message after you left Spokane—and she is here!"

"Yes, yes." The Westerner was getting irritated.

"Don't you think," went on Vyvyan very gravely, "that she was sent for—that she is being used, I mean, like—oh—a bait? Like a web, to keep you here?"

"Me!" Tom laughed. "Gosh! I'm not of enough importance."

"Not personally, perhaps. But there may be something you possess that is of importance."

"Hell! I've got nothing in the world except a sense of humor, good health—and the Yankee Doodle Glory mine!"

"Right." The Englishman jumped up. "Look here. I'll tell you …"

The next moment he was silent. He shook his head.

"Sorry, old chap," he continued. "Can't tell you. There was that silly old ass of a King George the Third who split your nation and mine. I made one mistake—in Washington—and I've learned my lesson. Only remember!" He stepped up close to his friend. "If ever you should get into trouble here in Berlin, if by any chance your American Ambassador should refuse to help you, or should be unable to help you …"

"Lord! I shan't get into any trouble. And why, if I did, should our Embassy refuse to help?"

"Purely hypothetical, old dear! But, given the double hypothesis—your trouble and your Ambassador's refusal or inability—remember that I work at the British Embassy, in the Wilhelm Strasse, three doors from Unter den Linden!"

"Unless," laughed Tom, "you yourself get into another row with your people and get chucked, as you did in Washington!"

"Right. Bright lad!" said the Englishman, but he was very serious. "There is always a possibility that I …"

He drew a ring from his pocket and asked Tom to examine it very thoroughly. Tom did. It was a simple affair of silver with the figure of a grayhound engraved on the round shield and above it the letters B. E. D.

"Know that ring now?" asked Vyvyan.

"Yes."

"Remember if you'd see it again?"

"Yes."

"Positive?"

"Yes, yes! Sure! Why?"

Vyvyan slipped the ring back in his pocket.

"Just this," he said. "If, I repeat, you should ever get into trouble and your Ambassador can't help you, if by that time I should have left Berlin, you must go to the British Embassy. Any time of the day or the night. Once inside the building you must use your own wits. You must find, somehow, without asking too many questions, the man who has the duplicate to this ring. Him you can trust. And nobody else. Also, forget what I told you to-night!"

Tom laughed. "Quite like an old-fashioned melodrama, with me as the villain, isn't it?"

"I hope you won't be the persecuted hero," smiled Vyvyan, and then, to turn the conversation: "You said something about a cable you got from Spokane?"

"Yes. Some mistake, I guess. Seems mv old partner, Truex, died up North, in the British Columbia wilderness, about a week back, and a nephew of his turned up, son of that sister who ran away with the foreign fiddler. Seems he's trying to make a row. Says I swindled old Truex. That really Truex owned a controlling interest in the mine."

"What's the nephew's name?"

"Lehneke. Eberhardt Lehneke. Young German. Hasn't been over there very long, the cable says."

"Who sent you the cable?"

"Martin Wedekind."

"And what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to fight the young cub and lick him. I cabled straight back to Martin and to Alec Wynn, my lawyer. Just some darned hold-up game. But, believe me, I'll beat that young Mister Lehneke!"

"Gad!" said Vyvyan, with utter sincerity, "I hope to God you will, Graves!" And he added, after a moment's thought: "Don't you think you'd better go back to Spokane and supervise the fight yourself?"

Tom shook his head.

"Vyvyan," he replied, "I'm not going to leave Berlin, happen what may, without …"

"Without?"

"Without Bertha! Bertha Wedekind!"

The Englishman was studying the pattern of the rug.

"Perhaps you are right," he murmured, half to himself.