4 
Trieste
Amanda jerked upright in her seat.
The train was slowing. How long had she dozed off?
She glanced outside. Night had fallen. They were coming into a city. She looked at her watch. Nine-fifty-two.
It must be Trieste. She had slept for half the trip.
Amanda shook herself awake, trying in vain to work the kink out of what she suddenly realized was a very stiff neck.
They continued to slow, and finally pulled into the station. As Amanda gazed absently and still a little sleepily out the window, she noticed a partially balding and stocky man waiting at the platform. Unconsciously she pulled back from the window with an involuntary shudder.
Why did he seem familiar? The way he eyed the train made her instantly uncomfortable.
Was it the expression on his face? Yes, something about the look in his eyes as they roved about . . . it made her shiver. He was obviously looking for something . . . or someone. His expression reminded her—
That was it!
That penetrating, probing expression of evil intent reminded her of Mr. Barclay!
Amanda’s heart began to pound. Almost the same moment it struck her that the man was looking for her!
But she was not acquainted with a soul here. No one knew she was coming.
Cautiously Amanda turned and peeked outside again, inching one eye out from the edge of the window, taking care not to be seen. He was still there, walking slowly back and forth across the platform, scanning the rows of train windows—
Suddenly she remembered!
She did recognize more than just the expression in his eyes! She had seen this same man once in Vienna—and not long ago—at the house on Ebendorfer Strasse. He had been talking with Mr. Barclay.
He was one of them!
She jerked back from the window. She would have to get off the train without him spotting her. How, she wasn’t sure—mingle closely with other passengers, she supposed, or work her way forward to get out from one of the cars not so close.
If she could just get past him and into the station! Then she would check for the first train into Italy.
She had heard another passenger say that the border was only twenty-three miles away.
If there were no trains into Italy later tonight, she would have to find someplace nearby to stay.
Ramsay Halifax sat silent and fuming as the southbound train bore him along the same route through the Austrian countryside that Amanda had taken earlier.
He hated to leave Adriane so abruptly just when she had arrived in Vienna. And he had had about all of Barclay’s abuse he could tolerate. Unfortunately Amanda had put them all in a pickle. The little minx!
He leaned back and closed his eyes. The overnight train was not an express. He would not arrive until morning. He might as well make the best of it and try to get some sleep.
It was a minute or two after seven o’clock when Ramsay stepped off the train onto the station platform of the Austrian-held seaport of Trieste. His disposition had nowise improved from the sleepless, jerky, interminable ride to the northern Adriatic coast.
He was surprised to see Carneades waiting for him . . . alone.
Their Greek colleague spoke first in answer to the look of question on Ramsay’s face.
“Your mother’s second telegram reached me in the middle of the night,” he explained. “She said you would be on the morning train.”
“Where’s the girl?”
“I don’t know. I never saw her.”
“What—didn’t you get our message to intercept her?”
“Yes, of course. I was right here, on this very platform, when last night’s train arrived.”
“And nothing. She wasn’t there.”
“You imbecile! How could you let her slip through your fingers?”
“Watch what you call me, Halifax. She wasn’t on the train, I tell you. She must have gotten off between Vienna and here.”
Ramsay paused and tried to think, not an easy task given the shape his brain was in at the moment. He had seen Amanda with his own two eyes as her train pulled out of Vienna. The only stops scheduled between there and here were at Graz, Klagenfurt, and Ljubljana. She would not have gotten off in any of those cities. It didn’t make sense.
“She must have slipped past you,” he said at length.
“I tell you, Halifax—”
“Look,” interrupted Ramsay, “she has to be bound for Italy. There’s no other explanation. So she had to have come through here.”
“And I tell you, I saw nothing.”
“She’s making for the border as sure as anything,” Ramsay went on, ignoring him. “We’ll check when the next train departs for Italy.—Which way’s the ticket office?”