I don’t remember asking the question, but it must have been the first thing I uttered as I came to, for Hutton echoed it, and when I’d blinked my eyes clear I saw that he was sitting by me, trying to look soothing, which ain’t easy with a figurehead like his.
“‘Where did she come from?’” says he. “Still in that salt mine, are we? Let it wait, colonel. Best lie quiet a spell.”
“Quiet be damned.” I took in the pleasant little room with the carved wooden eaves beyond the window, the pale sunlight flickering through the curtains, and the cuckoo clock ticking on the whitewashed wall. “Where the devil am I?”
“In bed, for the last four days. In Ischl. Easy, now. You’ve stitches front and rear, and you left more blood in that cave than you’ve got in your veins this minute. The less you talk, the better.”
“I can listen, curse you.” But I sounded feeble, at that, and when I stirred my side pained sharply. “Caprice … how did she come there? Come on, man, tell me.”
“Well, if you must,” says he doubtfully. “Remember, in the casino garden? I said we’d put a cover on you? Well, that was Mamselle. She was behind you every foot o’ the way. Didn’t care for it, myself. I’d ha’ used a man, but our French friend Delzons swore she was the best. Said you and she had worked together before.” He paused. “In Berlin, was it?”
“Unofficial. She was … French secret department.” It was weary work, talking. “I … didn’t know her … capabilities, then.”
“Capable’s the word. Starnberg ain’t the first she’s taken off, Delzons says. Good biznai, that. Saved the hangman a job – and Bismarck a red face. What, his star man a Holnup agent! He’ll be happy to keep that under the rose. And small comfort to him that that same star man had his gas turned off by a dainty little piece from the beauty chorus. Sabres, bigad!” He began to chuckle, but checked himself. “Here, are you up to this, colonel? I can leave it, you know.”
“I ain’t complaining,” says I, but I closed my eyes and lay quiet. My question had been answered, and I was content to be left alone with my thoughts as Hutton closed the door softly after him.
So la petite Caprice, formerly of the Folies, had been my cover. Damned odd – until you reflected, and saw that it wasn’t odd at all. Why, even five years ago, according to Blowitz, she’d been Al in the French secret service, a trained and expert Amazon. I’d known that, in Berlin … but of course I’d never given it a thought during those golden hours in that snug boudoir on the Jager Strasse, when I’d been in thrall to the lovely little laughing face beneath the schoolgirl fringe, the eyes sparkling with mischief … “I must understand your humour, n’est-ce pas? So, le poissonier is a thief – that amuses, does it?” The perfect body in the lace negligée silhouetted in the afternoon sun … languidly astride my hips, trickling smoke down her nostrils … the saucy shrug: “To captivate, to seduce, is nothing – he is only a man” … moist red lips and skilfully caressing fingers in a perfumed bed …
… and the clash of steel echoing in a great stone cavern, the stamp and shuffle of the deadly dance, the reckless gamble of her disarming thrust … and the pretty face set and unsmiling as she killed with cold deliberation.
Aye, a far cry between the two, and middling tough to reconcile them. I’ve known hard women show soft, and soft women turn harpy, but blowed if I remember another who was at such extremes, a giggling feather-brained romp and a practised professional slayer. Thank God for both of ’em, but as I drifted into sleep it was a comforting thought that she wouldn’t be the one fetching my slippers in the long winter evenings.
Remember I said there were two kinds of awakening? My drowsy revival with Hutton had been one of the good ones, but next morning’s was even better, for while I was still weak as a Hebrew’s toddy I was chipper in mind with all perils past, and eager for news. Hutton brought a brisk sawbones who peered and prodded at my stitches, dosed me with jalup, refused my demand for brandy to take away the taste, but agreed that I might have a rump steak instead of the beef tea which they’d been spooning into me in my unconscious state. I told Hutton to make it two, with a pint of beer, and when I’d attended to them and was propped up among my pillows, pale and interesting, he elaborated on what he’d already told me.
“She was on your tail, at a safe distance, from the moment you and Starnberg set off for the lodge, and talked yourselves in – neat scheme of Bismarck’s, that. Then when night came, Delzons and I and our four lads joined her in the woods – a skeleton crew, you may say, but ain’t we always, damn the Treasury? We picketed the place as best we could, and near midnight Delzons and his Frogs, who were on the side away from the town, heard fellows skulking down from the hill, and guessed they were Holnups come to call. He and his two men sat tight, while Mamselle trailed ’em close to the house –”
“Good God, he let her go alone?”
“She’s a stalker – Delzons’ fellows call her Le Chaton, French for kitten, I’m told. Some kitten. Anyway, there were three Holnups, gone to ground under a bush, whispering away, and she slid close enough to gather that they were an advance guard, so to speak, and there were others up the hill. Then comes a whistle from near the house, and who should it be but friend Starnberg, summoning the three Holnups, if you please. Here’s a go, thinks Mamselle, and follows ’em in, to eavesdrop. She must,” says Hutton in wonder, “be a bloody Mohawk, that girl. From what she heard, Starnberg was plainly a wrong ’un, but before she could slip back to Delzons to report, you came in view and went for him. The row brought the Emperor’s sentries, and all at once there was a battle royal, with more Holnups arriving – we heard it all, but in the dark there was nothing to be done. Mamselle kept her head, though, and when Starnberg’s gang brushed off, carrying you along, she stuck to her task, which was to cover you, whatever happened.” He paused to ask: “How had you discovered that Starnberg was a bent penny?”
“Tampered cartridges. Ne’er mind that now. What then?”
“She dogged ’em into the hills a few miles, first to a steiger’sa hut at the foot o’ the mountain, where they rested a spell. Then they put you on a stretcher and went up the mountain to the mouth of the salt-mine. She judged it best not to follow ’em in, but lay up in the rocks nearby, and about dawn the whole crew, as near as she could judge, came out with their dunnage and scattered – but no sign of you and Starnberg, which she couldn’t figure … neither can I. What was he about?”
“Settling a score. With me. In his own peculiar way.”
He frowned. “I don’t follow.”
“You don’t have to. It don’t matter.” It was none of his business to know about Rudi long ago, or Willem’s rum behaviour, killing me one moment, saving me the next. “Nothing to do with this affair, Hutton. A personal grudge, you could call it. Go on.”
He gave me a hard look, but continued. “Well, she waited a while. Then she went in. Nick o’ time, by the sound of it … but you know more than I do about that. She settled Starnberg, plugged the leak in you as best she could, and then ran hell-for-leather down the hill, seven or eight miles, to the rendezvous we’d fixed on beforehand. Delzons and I and a couple of our lads went back with her to the mine. I thought you were a goner, but Mamselle put a few stitches in you from the first-aid kit, and after dark we brought you down here to our bolt-hole. She’s nursed you these past few days, too. Regular little Nightingale.” He shook his head in admiration. “She’s a trump and a half, colonel. Blessed if I ever saw a female like her. Smiling sweet and pretty as a peach … and she bowled out Starnberg! How the dooce did she do it?”
“Nerve,” says I. “And by being a better fencer than he was. Where is she?”
“At the moment, Ischl police station. With Delzons, helping the Austrians trace the Holnup fugitives. Doubt if they’ll catch any. No general alarm, you see. Oh, there was a fine hue and cry after you and Starnberg at first. But Delzons and I had our cyphers away to London and Paris soon after, the whole tale, Starnberg and all. That set the wires sparking to Berlin and Vienna.” His lean face twisted in a sour grin. “Never knew our Foreign Office could shift so spry, but once they’d telegraphed our Vienna embassy, and the Frogs’, and our ambassadors had requested an urgent audience with the Emperor in person … well, silence fell. No more hue and cry for you. London directed me to call on the governor of Upper Austria, no less, and assure him of our entire discretion. God knows what Franz-Josef thought of our presumption – and Bismarck’s – in saving his life behind his back. But not a word’s being said publicly. The Austrian peelers have been advised to treat us and Delzons’ people as tourists. So presently we can all go home. Job well done.”
He clapped his hands on his knees with finality and stood up, taking a turn to the window. “No question of you making a report. Not officially on service. But I’d be glad of your views on a couple o’ things …” He cleared his throat. “This Princess Kralta – what about her?”
What with this and that, she’d gone clean out of my mind. “She’s Bismarck’s mistress, or was. Why, what’s happened to her?”
“Nothing. What you’ve just said explains why. The Ischl police questioned her after the lodge fracas, of course. Known companion of the missing Starnberg. No arrest, though.” He gave an amused snort. “From what I’ve seen of the lady, I’d as soon try to collar the Queen. Very hoch und wohl-geboren. Anyway, whatever she told ’em, it brought a couple o’ bigwigs post-haste from Berlin yesterday, and I was summoned by the governor and presented to the lady as though she were the Tsar of Russia’s aunt. Care to guess what she wanted? News of you.” Even poker-faced Hutton couldn’t keep the curiosity out of his eyes. “I told her you were indisposed – and she started up, white as paper. ‘Not injured?’ cries she. I told her you were on the mend. ‘Thank God!’ says she, and sat down again. Desired me to convey her wishes for your recovery, and trusts you’ll call upon her in Vienna, when convenient.” He gave the ceiling a jaundiced glance. “Grand Hotel, 9 Karnthner King.”
Drawing his own conclusions, no doubt. Well, honi soit to you, Hutton. I felt better already, for there’s no finer tonic than the news that a splendid piece of rattle is turning white as paper and thanking God that you’re on the mend. “We have Vienna”, by gum – she’d truly meant it, the little darling.
“Hutton,” says I, “how long before I’m on my feet?”
“Few days, the doctor says. Once the stitches are out. We can take it, then,” says he, “that the lady was not a Holnup accomplice of Starnberg’s?”
“Well, Berlin don’t seem to think so! Nor the Austrians.” I considered. “No … I’d say she’s a genuine Bismarck agent, and Starnberg hoodwinked her as he did the rest of us, the clever little bastard. If she’d been a Holnup she’d have been out of Ischl long before the traps caught up with her, wouldn’t she?”
The truth was I didn’t care a rap, and didn’t want to know – not when I thought of that voluptuous torso and long white limbs and the golden mane spilling over her shoulders, all waiting in Vienna. What the devil, you don’t bed ’em for their politics, do you?
He didn’t argue, but asked a few more questions about her which I answered with a discretion that didn’t fool him for a moment. I suspect the great long rat was jealous – and not only where Kralta was concerned, for he reverted to Caprice again, with a warmth which I thought quite unbecoming in a Treasury hatchet-man, the lecherous old goat.
“Never seen her like,” he repeated, and sighed. “Dear delight to look upon, cold steel within. Mind you, she has her soft side. You should ha’ seen her chivvying us up to the mine to bring you down. Fairly shrilling at us to make haste, swore you were dying by inches and we’d be too late. And when she stitched you up she was blubbing. Muttering in French. Quite a taking she was in.” He sounded almost piqued.
“Well, you know what women are, ministering angels and all that,” says I, pretty smug.
“Aye,” says he, pretty dry, and added apropos of nothing that I could see: “She told Delzons she killed Starnberg in self-defence.”
I remarked that when a chap was trying to cut your head off, it was a legitimate excuse.
“To be sure. We fished him out o’ that pool, you know. Three wounds. One clean through the pump, a cut on his left wrist, and the third through his right arm. Odd, that.”
“What’s odd about it?”
“You don’t truss a man’s sword-arm after you’ve killed him. I’d say he was already disarmed when she did him in.”
I gave him my best country-bumpkin gape. “Now I don’t follow. He’s dead and good riddance, ain’t he? Well, then, self-defence’ll do, I’d say. Does it matter?”
“Not a jot,” says he, and rose to depart. “But seeing how she mooned over you later, it struck me she might have been paying him out. On your account.” He turned towards the door. “You must ha’ known her pretty well in Berlin. About as well as you know that Princess Kralta.”
“Hutton,” says I, “you’re a nosey old gossip.”
“Gossip – never. Nosey? That’s my trade, colonel.”
Well, I’m used to the mixture of huff and perplexity and envious admiration that my success with the fair sex arouses in my fellow man. Seen it in all sorts, from the saintly Albert looking peeved when her fluttering majesty pinned the Afghan medal on my coat, to Bully Dawson, my Rugby fag-master, in a furious bait after I’d thoughtlessly boasted of my juvenile triumph with Lady Geraldine aforesaid. (“What, a high-steppin’ filly like her, dotin’ on you, damned little squirt that you are!”) Most gratifying – and doubly so in Hutton’s case. So dear little Caprice had wept over me, had she? Capital news, for if the old fondness still lingered, why shouldn’t we resume our idyll of the Jager Strasse, once I was up and doing? Stay, though … what about Kralta, panting in Vienna? A ticklish choice, and I was torn. On one hand, there was an exciting variety about Caprice’s boudoir behaviour, the merry concubine performing for the fun of it; on t’other, my horsey charmer was wildly passionate and spoony about me – and there was more of her. Much to be said on both sides …
In the meantime, Caprice was on hand, and when Hutton gave me the office next day that she purposed to visit me in the evening, I struggled into my shirt and trowsers, cursing my stitches, shaved with care, gave my face furniture a touch of pomade, practised expressions of suffering nobly borne before the mirror while lustfully recalling the soap bubbles of Berlin … and paused to wonder, I confess, how it would be, meeting her again.
You see, I don’t care to be under obligation to a woman for anything – except money, of course – and this one had saved my life at mighty risk to herself. Furthermore, the harmless jolly little banger of five years ago had emerged as a skilled and ruthless killing lady. On both counts she had the whip hand, so to speak, if she chose to use it – and show me the woman that won’t. Well, Caprice didn’t; being a clever actress and manager of men, she took what might have been an awkward reunion in her sprightly stride, bowling in without so much as a knock, full of sass and nonsense … and ’twas as though five years ago was only yesterday.
“I have not forgiven you!” cries she, dropping her cape and reticule on the table. “Not a word of farewell, not so much as a billet d’adieu when you abandon me in Berlin! Oh, c’est parfait, ça! Well, M. Jansen-Flashman, what have you to say?” She tossed her head, twinkling severely, and I could have eaten her alive on the spot. “I am waiting, m’sieur!”
“My dear, I’ve been waiting five years,” says I, playing up, “just for the adorable sight of you – and here you are, lovelier than ever!” She made that honking noise of derision that is so vulgarly French, but I wasn’t flattering. The pretty girl had become a beauty, the pert gamin face had refined and strengthened, the classroom fringe had given way to the latest upswept style crowned with curls, darker than I remembered – but the cupid’s bow lips were as impudent and the blue eyes as mischievous as ever. She was still la petite Caprice, if not so little: an inch or two taller and fuller in her tight-bodiced crimson satin that clung like a skin from bare shoulders to wasp waist and then descended to her feet in the fashionable rippling pleats of the time – it hadn’t occurred to me that female politicals might dress like evening fashion-plates even when they were in the field, so to speak, and I sat lewdly agog.
“I know that look!” says she. “And I am still waiting.”
“But, darling, I couldn’t say goodbye – it was Blowitz’s fault, you see; he had me on the train to Cologne before I knew it, and –”
“Ah, so Blowitz is to blame! Fat little Stefan overpowered you and carried you off, eh? Some excuse, that!” She advanced with that mincing sway that had never failed to have me clutching for the goods. “Well, it does not serve, milord! I am displeased, and come only to punish you for your neglect, your discourtoisie.” She struck a pose. “Behold, I wear my most becoming gown – Worth, s’il vous plait! – I dress my hair à la mode, I devote care to my complexion, a little powder here, a little rouge there, I choose my most costly perfume (mmm-h!), I put round my neck the velvet ribbon tralala which so aroused the disgusting Shuvalov – you remember? – I make my person attrayante altogether … how do you say …? ravissante, très séduisante –”
“Alluring, bigod, scrumptious –”
“And then …” she bent forward to flaunt ’em and stepped away “…Šthen, I place myself at a distance, out of reach.” She perched on the table edge, crossing her legs with a flurry of lace petticoat and silk ankles. “And because you are invalide you must sit helpless like le pauvre M. Tana … non, M. Tanton … ah, peste! Comment s’appelle-t-il?”
“Tantalus, you mad little goose!”
“Précisément … Tantaloose. Oui, you are condemned to sit like him, unable to reach out and devour that which you most desire … très succulent, non?” And the minx stretched voluptuously, pursed her lips, and blew me a kiss. “Oh, hélas, méchant … if only you were not wounded, eh?”
“Now, that ain’t fair! Teasing an old man – and a sick one, too! Here, tell you what – let’s kiss and make up, and if you’ll forgive me for leaving you flat in Berlin … why, I’ll forgive you for saving my life, what?”
It had to be said, sooner or later, and when better than straight away, in the midst of chaff? The laughter died in her eyes, but only for an instant, and she was smiling again, shaking her immaculately curled head.
“We will not talk of that,” says she, and before I could open my mouth to protest: “We will not talk of it at all. Between good friends, there is no need.”
“No need? My dear girl, there’s every need –”
“No, chéri.” She raised a hand, and while she smiled still, her voice was firm and calm. “If you please … non-non, un moment, let me … oh, how to say it? Those two in the caverne, they were not you and I. They were two others … two agents secrets, who did what they must do … their devoir, their duty. You see?”
What I saw was that this was a Caprice I hadn’t known before. Charming and merry as ever, even more beautiful – it made me slaver just to look at her – but with a quiet strength you’d never suspect until she softened her voice and spoke plain and direct, gentle as Gibraltar.
“Let us not speak of it then. It is past, you see, and so are they … but we are here!” In an instant she was sparkling again, slipping down from the table, fluttering her hands and laughing. “And it has been so long a time since Berlin, and I was so désolée to be left without a word – oh, and enraged, you would not believe! You remember the things I said of Shuvalov, that night of the bath?” She began to giggle. “Well, I said not quite as bad of you – but almost. Is there a word in English for angry and sad together? But that is past also!” She knelt quickly by my chair (in a Worth dress, too). “And here we are, I say! Have you missed me, chéri?”
As I’ve said before, damned if I understand women. But if she wanted to forget the horror of that ghastly mine, thank God and hurrah! No doubt she had her reasons, and since gratitude ain’t my long suit anyway, and her bright eyes and laughing lips and pouting tits were pleading in unison, I didn’t protest.
“Missed you, darling? Damnably – and a sight more than you missed a creaky old codger like me, I’ll lay –”
“It is not true! Why, when you abandoned me in Berlin, I was inconsolable, désolée – all day! And what is this codgeur, and creaky? Oh, but your English, it is ridiculous!”
“As to the other matter that we ain’t to talk about … well, I’ll just say a ridiculous English thank’ee –”
“And no more!” she commanded. “Or I shall not … what did you call it? Kiss and make up?” She gave a languorous wink and put on her husky voice. “Are you … strong enough?”
“Try me,” says I, reaching for her, but she rose quickly and made a great business of having me put my hands palm down on my chair arms, whereupon she laid her own hands over mine, leaning down firmly to keep ’em pinned, while I feasted my eyes on those superb poonts quivering fragrantly under my very nose, and wondered if my stitches would stand the strain of the capital act performed in situ. Then the wanton baggage brought that soft smiling mouth slowly against mine, teasing gently with her tongue, but swiftly withdrawing when I broke free, panting, and tried to seize her bodily, reckless of the darting pain in my flank.
“Non-non!” cries she. “Be still, foolish! You will injure your wound! No, desist, idiot!” She slapped my hand away from her satin bottom. “It is not possible –”
“Don’t tell me what’s not possible! Heavens, d’you think I’ve never been pinked before? T’ain’t but a hole in the gut, I can hardly see the dam’ thing –”
“Do not tell me what cannot be seen! I have seen it!” For a moment she sounded truly angry, eyes flashing as though on the edge of tears – and then as quickly it had gone, and she was playing the reproachful nursemaid with affected groans and rolling eyes and scathing Gallic rebukes which I accepted like a randy but frustrated lamb, promising to keep my hands to myself, honest injun.
“You behave? Word of honour?” says she, not trusting me an inch.
“I’ll prove it,” says I. “Give us another kiss, and you’ll see.”
“Va-t-en, menteur!” scoffs she, so I sat on my hands and she consented warily. I knew it was all I was fit for, and made the most of those sweet lips for the few seconds she permitted before she broke away, gratifyingly pink and breathless.
“Bon” says she, and drew some papers from her reticule. “Then I may safely sit by you while you read to me from the present I have brought for you. I coaxed them from an English tourist in the town, pretending an interest in your culture Anglaise. His wife, I think, was not amused.” She sat on my chair arm, allowing me to put a hand round her waist, and laid the papers in my lap. “What do you say … ‘for old times’ sake’, non?”
“Oh, my God!” says I. They were copies of Punch. “You cruel little monster! Reminding me of the last time, when you know I’m in no state to explain ‘hankey-pankey’ to you!”
“Attention!” She rapped my wrist. “I know all about that, but I do not know what is amusing about M. Gladstone dancing in the dress of a sailor, or your policemen being given whistles to blow – ah, yes, or why your sacré M. Paunch has such malice against us in France, with his bad jokes about Madagascar and La Chine and M. de Lesseps, and oh! such fun about Frenchmen playing your blooded cricket –”
“Bloody, dearest, not blooded. And t’ain’t ladylike to –”
“Ah, yes, and here – further insult!” She stabbed an indignant fingernail at the page. “France is drawn as an ugly old paysanne with fat ankles and abominable clothes – but who is this divine being, so beautiful and elegant of shape in her fine drapery? What does she represent, ha? The Manchester Ship Canal! Quelle absurdité!”
“Oh, come, France is mostly a peach in our cartoons. And we’ve always made fun of you, ever since Crécy and Joan of Arc and whatnot – but you do the same to us, don’t you?”
“Sans blague! An example, then?”
“Well, look at Phileas Fogg, a prize muff if ever there was one! That man Verne is never done sniping at us … aye, those two British officers in that twaddling book about a comet hitting the earth, what a pair of muttonheaded by-joves they are! Pompous, ill-tempered caricatures, all whiskers and haw-haw and crying ‘Balderdash!’”
“And that is not true?” says she, all innocence.
“Course it’s not! Stuff and nonsense! Nothing like us!” At which she began to giggle and flicked my whiskers in a marked manner. I could only growl and point out that at least I wasn’t in the habit of crying “Balderdash!” or “Haw-haw!”21
So we passed a pleasant hour, soon discarding Punch and talking about anything and everything except the past few days. I told her about Egypt and Zululand, and she talked of the places she had visited in the course of her work – Rome and Athens and Constantinople and Cairo – but never a word of the work itself. Fashions, food, customs, society doings, men (whom she seemed to find comic, mostly), shops, hotels, and journeys: we compared notes about them all, and even found acquaintances in common, like Liprandi, to whom I’d surrendered, rather informally, at Balaclava, and whom she’d waltzed with at St Petersburg, and the big Sudanese with tribal cuts on his face who kept the Cigale café in Alex – and Blowitz, naturally, was an amusing topic.
I wasn’t sorry, though, when supper-time came. Tête-à-tête is all very jolly, but when you know dam’ well your voluptuous vis-à-vis is a cul-de-sac, and she sits on your chair-arm with her udders in your ear and a bare shoulder begging to be nibbled and her perfume conjuring erotic notions, and you daren’t stir a lecherous finger for fear of bursting the needlework in your navel and suffering the indignity of having her remove your blood-sodden britches and upbraid you for a foresworn satyr, none of which will do a thing for your future amorous relations … well, it’s trying, I can tell you. Le pauvre M. Tantaloose didn’t know what frustration was. Ne’er mind, thinks I, we’ll make up for this in Paris presently. Kralta’ll keep.
It was quite like old times to sit across the table from her in candlelight, tucking into the cold ham and fruit and Bernkastler, she chattering gaily and I sitting easy and admiring the highlights on the dark curls, and the perfect ivory curves of chin and neck and shoulder. I could have imagined we were back in the Jager Strasse, except for a brief moment when she peeled a plum and presented it to me, laughing, on a fork … and I thought of those dainty fingers with their polished nails coiled round a sabre hilt, and of the hidden strength of the slender white arm – but when I looked, the smiling lips and merry eyes were those of the Caprice I knew so well, exclaiming “Oh-la, gauche!” when I dropped the fork, and a moment later rising and gleaming at me over the rim of her glass as she proposed a toast to our reunion.
“I’ve a better toast than that,” says I, halting round the table and nuzzling her neck. “To our next meeting, when this dam’ scratch of mine has healed.” She clinked glasses, but said nothing. I asked when she was going back to Paris.
“Tomorrow, hélas! We go one at a time, ever so discret, Delzons last of all. Either he or M. Hutton will remain until you are well enough to travel, and then this house will be closed, and the operation will be over.” She turned away and put her glass on the mantel, her back to me. “You will return to London?”
“Oh, no hurry. Time for a week or two in Paris, then we’ll see.” I stepped close to kiss her on the nape of the neck, and she glanced round.
“Why Paris?” says she lightly.
“Why d’you think?” says I, and slipped my hands round to clasp her breasts. She shivered, and then very gently she removed my hands and turned to face me, smiling still, but a touch wary.
“That might … be difficult,” says she. “I do not think that Charles-Alain would approve. And I am sure his family would not.”
“Charles who?”
“Charles-Alain de la Tour d’Auvergne,” says she, and the smile had an impish twinkle to it. “My husband. I have been Madame de la Tour d’Auvergne for six months now.”
I must have looked like a fish on a slab. “Husband! You – married? My stars above! Well, blow my boots, and you never let on –”
“Blow your boots, you never noticed!” laughs she, holding up her left hand, and there was the gold band, sure enough.
“Eh? What? Well, I never do … I mean, I didn’t see … well, I’ll be damned! Of all things! Here, though, I must kiss the bride!” Which I did, and would have made a meal of it, but she slipped away, squeaking at me to mind my wound, and taking refuge behind the table. I bore up, grinning at her across the board.
“Why, you sly little puss! Le chaton, right enough! Well, well … still, it makes no odds.” She looked startled. “Oh, I’ll still come to Paris, never you fret – he don’t have to know, this de la Thingamabob!”
It was her turn to stare, and then, would you believe it, she went into whoops, and had to sit down in the armchair, helpless with laughter. I asked what was the joke, and when she’d drawn breath and dabbed her eyes, she shook her head at me in despair.
“Oh, but you are the most dreadful, adorable man! No, he would not have to know … but I would know.” She sighed, smiling but solemn. “And I have made my vows.”
“Strewth! You mean … it’s no go – just ’cos you’re married?”
“No go,” says she gently. “Ah, chéri, I am sorry, but … you do understand?”
“Shot if I do!” And I didn’t, for ’twasn’t as though she was some little bourgeois hausfrau – dammit, she was French, and had sported her bum and boobies in the Folies for the entertainment of lewd fellows and rogered with the likes of Shuvalov pour la patrie, and myself and God knew how many others for the fun of it … and her behaviour this evening hadn’t been married-respectable, exactly, dressed to the seductive nines and kissing indecorously.
I remarked on this, and she sighed. “Oh, if you had been well, I would not have come, knowing you would wish to make love … but knowing you were blessé, and unable to …’ She gestured helplessly. “Oh, you know … I thought we might talk and be jolly, as we used to be, but without … oh, ‘hankey-pankey’.” She shrugged in pretty apology, and suddenly her face lit up. “Because those were such happy days in Berlin! Oh, not only making love, but being comfortable and laughing and talking – and I wished to see you once again, and remember those times, and see if you had changed – and, oh, I am so glad to find that you have not!” She rose and put a hand to my face and pecked me on the cheek. “But I have, you see. I am Madame de la Tour d’Auvergne now, ever so respectable.” She pulled a face. “No more la gaie Caprice. I change myself, I change my life … and, hélas, I must change my old friends. So it is better you do not come to Paris … Do you mind very much? You are not angry?”
A number of women have had the poor taste and bad judgment to give me the right about. In my callow youth I resented it damnably, and either thrashed ’em (as with Judy, my guv’nor’s piece), or went for ’em with a sabre (Narreeman, my flower of the Khyber), or ran like hell (Lola of the blazing temper and flying crockery). In later years you learn to assume indifference while studying how to pay them out, supposing you care enough. With Caprice, I’d have been piqued, no more … if I’d believed her laughable excuse, which I did not for a moment. She, a faithful wife? Come up, love! No, the fact was that Flashy five years on (seen at his worst, mind, flat on his back and beat, and now a hapless invalid) no longer aroused her amorous interest. Well, I could take the jolt to my amour-propre the more easily because while she’d been a prime ride and good company, she’d never had the magic that gets beneath your hide, like Yehonala or Lakshmi or Sonsee-array … or Elspeth. She was too young for that … but old enough to know better than to play the saucy minx, teasing me into a frustrated heat and then showing me the door.
Oh, some of the old affection lingered, no doubt, hence the fatuous tale of marital fidelity, to let me down lightly. I could have swallowed it if she’d come right out with it first thing, but she hadn’t been able to resist her wanton instinct to set me panting – even now there was a glint of mockery in the ever-so-contrite smile that told me she was enjoying feeling sorry for the randy old fool, well pleased with her beauty’s power … and doubtless convincing herself that she felt a touch of sentimental remorse, the little hypocrite. Even the best of them like to make you squirm. I had a sudden memory of the salt-mine and that cold steel being driven ruthlessly home … and call it sour grapes if you like, but I found myself warming to the thought of Princess Kralta.
“Angry, little one? Not a bit of it!” cries I, beaming like anything, and pecked her back. “I’m sorry, o’ course – but jolly glad for you! He’s a lucky chap, your Charlie – what is he, a dashing hussar, eh?”
“Oh, no … but he is a soldier … that is, he is a professor of l’histoire militaire, at St Cyr.”
“I say! He must be a bright spark! Blackboard-wallahs are pretty senior as a rule.”
She confessed that he was older than she (nearly twice her age, in fact) and from an old service family – the usual decayed Frog nobility by the sound of the name,22 but she wasn’t forthcoming at all, and I guessed that the mere thought of the raffish Flashy being presented to dear Charles’ parents, as an old acquaintance even, filled her with dismay. I found myself wondering how much they knew about her … and whether the arrival on Papa d’Auvergne’s breakfast table of that splendid photograph of his daughter-in-law, bare-titted among the potted palms and nigger stallions, mightn’t enliven his petit déjeuner. A passing thought, and cheered me up no end.
“But what do Charles’ people think about your working for the secret department? Hardly the thing for a staid married lady, what?”
“They did not approve, of course. But that is past now. We agreed, Charles and I, that I must resign before our marriage –”
“But here you are!”
“Only because this was une crise, an emergency, and Delzons was in despair to recruit agents for the occasion. The département, like your own in England, must make do with little … and I could not refuse Delzons. I owe him too much.”
“And Charles didn’t mind? Well, he’s a sportsman! Of course, it was an important affair, international crisis, and all that.”
She hesitated. “He did not know. I am at this moment visiting a school friend in Switzerland.”
Better and better. Not the kind of thing to confide to a lover who’s just been handed his travel warrant, mind.
“Well, God bless Charles, anyway! I’d like to meet him one o’ these days.” She didn’t clap her hands, so I took them gently in mine and gave her my best wistful sigh, like a ruptured uncle. “And bless you, too, my dear. And since you don’t want to talk about t’other thing, in that beastly cave –”
“Non, non –”
“Well, then, I shan’t, so there. I’ll only say that I’m monstrous glad that you visited your school chum in Switzerland, what? And that you came to see me this evening. Quite like old times, eh … well, almost.” I winked and slid my hands round her rump, kneading away to show there were no hard feelings – and blowed if the sentimental little tart didn’t start piping her eye.
“Oh, you are the best man alive! So kind, so généreux!” She clung to me, bedewing my shirt, and raised her face to mine. “And … and never shall I forget Berlin!” She threw her arms round my neck and kissed me – none of your pecks this time, but the full lascivious munch, wet and wonderful, and if you don’t breathe through your nose you die of suffocation. I had to press my stitches hard until she came loose at last, lips quivering, dabbing at her eyes.
“My goodness, what would Charles say?” I wondered, playful-like. “I can’t believe professors of l’histoire militaire approve o’ that sort of thing.”
She looked uncertain, and decided to be airy. “Oh, chacun a son goût, you know.”
“Well, you mustn’t shock him. Can’t think when I was last kissed thataway. Not since the Orient Express, anyway.”
“Que’est-ce que c’est?” A moment’s perplexity, and then the penny dropped, and she went pink and took a step back. “Oh! La princesse … I … I did not …”
“Ah, you’ve met her, then?”
“I have seen her, with Delzons. When we were at the police commissariat.” She was confused, but recovered, smiling brightly. “But of course, she and that other brought you from Germany. She is … very beautiful.”
“Fine figure of a woman,” says I, looking her up and down. “More to the point, she has no conscience where her husband’s concerned.” I grinned and repeated her own words. “D’you mind very much? You’re not angry?”
Just for a moment her eyes flashed, and then she laughed – and riposted neatly by repeating mine.
“Angry? Not a bit of it; I am jolly glad for you. She is perhaps …” she made a little fluttering gesture “…Šhow do you say … more your style?”
“More my age, you mean.”
“No such thing!” cries she merrily. “Now, you will take care of your wound, and not make too much exertion –”
“Oh, beef tea and bedsocks, that’s my ticket! Don’t you over-exert yourself either, or you’ll scandalise Charles.”
We smiled amiably on each other, and when I’d helped her put on her cape she held out her hand, not her lips.
“Adieu, then,” says she.
I bowed to kiss her hand. “Au’voir, Caprice … oh, pardon –Madame. Bonne chance.”
She went, and as I listened to her heels clicking on the stairs I was wondering where the devil I’d put that photograph. Saving Flashy’s life is all very well, but don’t ever play fast and loose with his affections. He’s a sensitive soul.
a Steiger, the foreman in a salt-mine