CHAPTER FOUR

OUTSIDE the station at Colmar the afternoon sun beat down upon the white shuttered buildings that bordered the dusty road. The scalloped fringe of the green and white striped awning of the Café de la Gare hung motionless in the dry still air, and the aloes in their little green painted tubs threw hard brittle shadows upon the hot pavements. In the shade of the awning the white napkin of a waiter moved unhurriedly among the little tables.

Pagan yawned and glanced at his watch. In the station facing him across the sun-parched road an invisible engine was moving with slow, stertorous puffs, as though overcome by the heat. His train was not due to leave for a quarter of an hour, but on such an afternoon he would not take the risk of having to hurry. He picked up his hat and parcel of washing and stepped out into the sunlight. From a distance came indistinctly the strains of a quick-march played by a French bugle band. He crossed the road slowly and mounted the steps of the station. It was hot beneath the misty glass roof, but the subway was cool, and the far platform from which his train left was shaded and open to the air of either side. A number of passengers were already darting to and fro as though they had not a moment to lose, although the engine was not yet coupled to the train.

Pagan sauntered slowly up the long platform. Ahead of him a girl was talking to a porter. It was her voice that first attracted his attention, a low, clear, melodious voice speaking excellent French with a slow drawl and a slight English accent. From the voice he was led to take stock of the girl herself. She had her back to him. She was dressed in a simple coat and skirt, but it was beautifully tailored and fitted her like a glove; and he noted that the whole effect was right, absolutely right, from the close fitting little hat to the sheeny silk stockings and the trim shoes that were neither too-high-heeled and impractical nor too serviceable and dull. He was unable to see her face, but without staring too rudely he was able to catch a glimpse of it as he passed. That, too, was quite right, more right if possible than the clothes and the voice.

Half-unconsciously he slowed his steps and allowed the girl and her porter to pass him. Up the platform they went in single file, like figures on a nursery frieze: first the blue-bloused porter, short, fat and rubicund, carrying a morocco-leather dressing case; next came the girl, dainty and slim, moving with easy grace, her scarf ends fluttering behind her elbows; and then Pagan, a clean, well-knit figure in blue collar and grey lounge suit, walking with a slow, easy stride.

The short, plump porter passed along two-thirds of the length of the train, and then suddenly swung himself by the handrail up the two steep steps to the coach. He turned in the doorway to put a plump hand under the girl’s elbow as she followed him nimbly, though of necessity displaying for a second, from ankle to knee, a very shapely leg. Pagan swung himself up slowly after her and followed at a discreet distance along the corridor where the motes hung like gauze in the sunshine.

Apparently she had reserved a seat, for her plump little porter, with much puffing and blowing, put his head into each compartment; and each time that he did so, the little procession came to a halt from front to rear in succession like a string of freight trucks, so that Pagan, taken at first by surprise, found his nose all but pressed against a close fitting little hat, and his mouth tantalisingly close to the nape of the neck that showed below it.

Presently, however, the porter announced the end of his quest by a Gallic click of the tongue and swung the dressing case on to the rack above a corner seat on the corridor side. The procession had, perforce, to halt once more, and Pagan, peering through the window as the girl stood in the doorway with her back to him, noted with amused disgust that all the seats in that compartment were taken. Before he could pass on to another compartment, however, the plump form of the porter backed out and blocked the corridor so that he had to wait whilst the girl took money from her bag for a tip; but she did not even glance at him, and only when the grateful porter, bowing and backing, bumped into him and filled the corridor with hearty deep-voiced apologies did her grave grey eyes rest for a moment on his.

In the next compartment he found a vacant corner seat, also on the corridor side, and he put his parcel on the rack and sat down.

He was amused at his own behaviour. “Charles Pagan,” he said to himself severely, “here you are, a hardy old bachelor of some thirty odd summers, behaving like a callow schoolboy. Admittedly the girl is very pretty and chic and interesting looking, but you are no longer a susceptible youth and you are decidedly old enough to know better. I hope you are properly ashamed of yourself.” And having decided half-heartedly that he was, he pulled an English newspaper from his pocket and settled down to read.

But not for long. He noticed that the windows of the corridor with the dark station behind them acted as mirrors, and that reflected in one of them was the provoking little hat and profile of the girl in the next compartment. And even as he made this discovery she left the compartment and climbed down to the platform. He put down his paper and went out into the corridor. With his elbows on the open window he watched her disappear among the crowd which had just descended from an incoming train.

He turned back to the corridor again. From where he stood he could see into her compartment. The morocco-leather dressing case reposed upon the rack above her vacant seat. The other seats were taken by some French children and a governess who were at the moment in the corridor staring out of the windows.

It was then that an idea came to him, an idea that caused his tanned face to crease into a grin as he eyed the dressing case upon the rack and the empty rack above the corresponding seat in his own compartment. Yes, it really was a masterpiece of strategy, he decided. And ridiculously easy. People returning to their seats past empty compartments usually identified their own particular compartments by their luggage. All he had to do was to move the dressing case from its present position and place it upon the rack above the vacant seat opposite his own in the next compartment.

The children and their governess were still gazing out of the corridor windows. It should be quite simple. “There comes a tide in the affairs of men,” he murmured, and stepped into the compartment. The leather dressing case lay on the rack on a level with his face. A small label was tied loosely to one of the rings of the handle, the writing uppermost. “Clare Lindsey. Colmar via Paris and Strasbourg,” he read. He liked the name Clare. It suited her, he thought. He swung the dressing case from the rack and turned quickly to the corridor, so quickly that he pulled up only just in time to avoid running full tilt into the plump, rubicund porter who stood there.

Now no hearty apologies came from the man. He made no attempt to move out of the way. For a moment neither moved nor spoke. They regarded one another in silence. In Pagan’s eyes was startled surprise; in the porter’s the unwinking stare of flouted authority. Then the man’s eyes went down to the dressing case which he himself had placed upon the rack. He looked again directly at Pagan. “Is that your bag?” It was a challenge rather than a question.

Pagan smiled. “Is it mine?” he echoed amiably. He glanced down at it whilst visions of a French prison floated before his eyes. “Well, yes—in a way.”

The porter folded his arms across his huge chest and nodded his head slowly. His voice was ominously quiet. “You assert that the bag belongs to you?”

Pagan maintained his air of innocence. “Yes—er—in a way.”

The porter’s eyebrows went up, and he pursed his thick lips. “So! A bag like that! Chic—petite—the bag of a demoiselle!”

Pagan smiled amiably. “It is true it belongs to a lady,” he said. “To Mademoiselle Lindsey, but er …” The porter broke in with, “Bon! To the English Mademoiselle. Bon!” And then he added in tones threateningly polite. “And yet it belongs to M’sieu—in a way!”

Pagan nodded. “Yes. Mademoiselle—er—Clare, you understand, is my fiancée, and so well—what belongs to her, belongs to me,” he ended triumphantly.

The man’s conviction was shaken. It showed in his eyes, though the severity of his manner did not relax. Pagan was quick to follow up his advantage.

“We quarrelled, you understand, Mademoiselle Clare and I,” he went on glibly. “A lover’s quarrel. She would not allow me to explain. You, M’sieu, no doubt know how unreasonable are women. But in a train tête-à-tête!” He waved his disengaged hand towards the compartment behind him. “In a train one could talk, explain, is it not so? But her compartment is full. It is necessary for me to go to the next one in which there are empty seats.” He waved his hand towards it, and went on in his literally translated French. “But will she come? No. But then I have an idea, a truly wave of the brain.” He lifted the leather dressing case and patted it with his hand. “I put her bag on the rack opposite my seat. Violà! When she come back, she sit there, is it not so?”

The man was smiling now. Pagan had won. And he followed up his advantage by digging the porter familiarly in the ribs. “A good idea, my old one, is it not so!”

The man chuckled. “A good stratagem, M’sieu!” he boomed as his hand closed over the note that was pressed into it. He touched his cap. “Merci bien!” And he turned away chuckling, “Un bon stratagème!”

Pagan heaved a sigh of relief and picked up the dressing case which he had put down during the latter part of his romantic explanation; but as he turned again into the corridor, the outer door facing him opened and the girl herself climbed up. And her face as she rose above the level of the corridor almost touched the distinctive morocco leather dressing case which Pagan held in his right hand. Her eyes went down to it and travelled back to Pagan’s face. “That is my bag you have,” she said.

Pagan took off his hat with his left hand and nodded. “Yes, I know,” he said cheerfully “And your porter very nearly arrested me for stealing it.”

Her face gave no clue to her thoughts; only her eyes were calmly judicial. “You were not going to steal it then?”

Pagan shook his head vigorously. “Oh no,” he laughed. “I was only going to put it on the rack in the next compartment.”

Her brows met in a little frown of perplexity which Pagan found very charming. “I am afraid I don’t understand the object of this—er—porterage,” she said coldly.

Pagan smiled whimsically. “Well, you see, it was a brain wave of mine which your confounded porter upset. I thought you would come along, see your bag on the rack in the next compartment, and sit down there without realising that it was the next compartment.”

Her eyes were still hostile, but a shade less so than at first he thought. “And why was I to sit in the next compartment when I had chosen this one?” she asked.

Pagan smiled engagingly. “Well, all the other seats here are taken by children, and I mean to say, children can be an awful curse on a journey—especially French kids. Whereas next door it’s much nicer—no crowd—only one other person besides myself. I thought it was a jolly good idea,” he confessed.

“Rather an impudent one, don’t you think?” she asked coldly. But Pagan thought he detected a covert gleam of amusement in her steady grey eyes. “And I have only your word for it that you are not a thief. Do you expect me to believe you?”

“Well, the porter did,” he answered blandly.

“So you told the porter this ridiculous story too!”

“Well, it wasn’t quite the same story,” confessed Pagan cautiously.

“Oh!” Suspicion awoke again in her eyes. “The whole story is all lies then!”

“Oh no, no,” answered Pagan in tones of injured innocence. “What I told you is the truth—honour bright.” He nodded his head earnestly.

“Then if the story you told the porter was different it must have been untrue,” she persisted.

Pagan produced an expressive French gesture. “Well, I mean to say, he turned up in the doorway so sudden like that I was all taken aback. Is this a porter I see before me the handle towards my hand, sort of thing. I ask you—one minute there was nothing, and the next—well, there he was—all pink and peevish. I hadn’t time to hoik old mother Truth out of her well. Lies come so much more readily in a crisis, don’t you think?” he asked agreeably.

She did not venture an opinion upon that point. “What did you tell the porter?” she demanded.

For a moment Pagan hesitated. “Well, as a matter of fact, he asked me if it was my bag.”

“Rather an awkward question,” she commented.

“Yes; that was what I thought,” agreed Pagan. “So I said, yes, it was—in a way.”

Her eyebrows went up. “In a way! In what way, pray?”

“That was just what he wanted to know,” answered Pagan dryly.

“Well?” she asked when he did not continue. “What did you tell him?”

“I … er … I persuaded him that it was mine—in a way.”

Her brows contracted in that look of perplexity that he had previously admired. “You persuaded him that the bag was yours?” she echoed. “Why, he put it on the rack for me himself!”

Pagan nodded. “I know. It was rather a good effort on my part,” he chuckled.

“What did you tell him?” she asked firmly.

Pagan looked embarrassed. “I … er … I … well I proved it to him by logic, you know.”

“What did you say?” she demanded.

Pagan regarded his finger nails solemnly and shot a covert half-comic look at her from under his lowered eyebrows. “I … er … well, as a matter of fact, I told him that you were my fiancée.”

“What!”

“And therefore what was yours, was mine—in a way. Quite a brain wave—what! And,” he went on quickly as she started to speak, “I said we had quarrelled, and I was going to put the bag in my compartment, so that I could explain and make it up. He was awfully taken with the idea. He called it a bon stratagem. I think it really was rather a good one, don’t you?” he suggested modestly.

She was choking either with indignation or amusement; Pagan was not sure which. “Rather cheek on my part, I know,” he murmured, “but you see I had to tell him something.”

“Rather cheek!” she gasped. “Well! And what on earth made you think of saying such—such an impertinent thing?”

“Oh … er … I don’t know. I expect the wish was father to the jolly old thought, you know.”

She turned abruptly. “I think you had better put my bag on the rack,” she said quietly.

Pagan put on his hat and moved towards the next compartment.

“This one,” she cried firmly.

Pagan stopped. “Really? I mean to say—all those kids …”

“This one,” she repeated firmly. “I like children.”

“So do I,” he agreed cheerfully. “Jolly little beggars—when they are not all smothered in jam and affection.”

He put the bag on the rack, and paused with his hand on it. “You know,” he said, “if that porter comes along and finds us in different compartments he will think we have quarrelled again!”

Her calm grey eyes met his. “Mr… . er …” she began.

“Pagan—Charles Pagan,” he supplemented.

“Mr. Pagan,” she said quietly, “in the circumstances I have treated you quite handsomely, don’t you think? And now please we will consider this the end.”

He raised his eyebrows and looked at her appealingly, but she met his beseeching gaze unflinchingly and nodded her head firmly. He smiled wryly. “I go and it is done,” he quoted sadly. “M’selle, your bag is on the rack.” He bowed and left her.

The train moved out of the station through the sunny vineyards towards the barrier of wooded hills that rose all green and golden in the afternoon sunlight. Through an ancient village at their foot it went by way of the narrow, winding main street, its bell clanging raucously and its slowly moving coaches so close to the yellow-washed walls of the gabled houses that Pagan could have rapped upon the old carved sun-bleached doors by merely putting his arm out of the window. He did not do so, however; he was too occupied in noting that the shadow of the houses enabled him again to catch provocative glimpses of the girl in the next compartment.

The reflection disappeared when the train left the narrow confines of the street and skirted the foot of a vine-terraced hill that formed one of the outlying bastions of the valley; and strong-mindedly he moved to the other side of the compartment and gazed out of the window. The train came to rest in a little tree-shaded station hard by the mellow weed grown walls of an ancient watch tower. He recognized it as belonging to the lower end of the village in which he was to spend the night, but since Baron had got out at the other little station at the upper end, he decided to do the same.

The train moved on again, puffing noisily uphill as it skirted the mouldering defensive walls of the village, and came to rest in the tiny station at the upper end. Pagan got out. He noted in passing that the girl was no longer in her compartment, and he smiled whimsically to himself as he turned on to the cobbled road into the village. It seemed likely that they would meet again, for evidently she had got out at the other station.

The combined porter, stationmaster and ticket collector informed him that the Hotel de la Cigogne was at the lower end of the village, and that he too should have got out at the previous station. He was doubly sorry that he had not done so. The village was a long one. The road twisted and turned unceasingly between the enclosing hills whose vine-terraced slopes rose close behind the ancient gables: and the round grey tower of a castle ruin perched upon a green hill shoulder appeared at times to the left above the jumbled roofs, at times to the right and at times directly ahead.

And the village itself was picturesque. Many of the houses had half-timbered upper stories with recessed balustraded balconies beneath the carved gables. Great stone arched doorways with massive timber doors gave entrance to the wine growers’ cobbled courtyards, each with its ancient stone well and the pillars and carved balustrades of its wooden balconies draped in leafy vines. And all the odd shaped old chimneys were capped with a flat raised platform designed for the accommodation of storks’ nests.

He crossed the boulder-littered bed of a stream by a fortified bridge with high loop-holed parapets and a fire step for archers, and found himself suddenly in a narrow cobbled square facing the church, whose tall, dome-capped tower rose tawny gold against the vivid green background of the vine-clad hills.

The hotel was at the lower end of the street beyond the church, and he found Baron lounging by an old stone well in the tiny tree-shaded courtyard. With him was a tall, slim, handsome youth dressed in plus fours and a pullover. Pagan planked the parcel down on the worn stone lip of the well.

“There is your clean bib and tucker,” he said as he flopped into a chair. “And now for the love ye bear me, bring hither a drink cool as a cucumber and long as a loofah.”

“This is Cecil Lindsey,” said Baron, indicating the tall youth. “Charles Pagan—a thirsty soul as you have probably gathered from his shrieks for nourishment.”

The tall youth nodded languidly without removing his hands from his pockets.

“As cold waters in a thirsty land, so is good beer in a far country,” murmured Pagan. “You are not tramping up these awful hills, I hope.”

“He is roaming round in a car,” said Baron.

Pagan nodded approvingly. “Oh wise young man; how I do envy thee! Baron thinks it’s virtuous to walk, even when there is a perfectly good train going the same way. But I am like you: I consider that a seven horsepower Austin is better than a two footpower Pagan any day—especially on an alleged holiday.”

“You are dropping bricks, Charles,” warned Baron. “Cecil runs a Bentley—about two squadron power.”

“And this is not really a holiday,” added the youth. “I have to see people in this part of the country on behalf of my firm; but I am taking a few days off to show my sister round.”

Pagan merely nodded his head and said nothing, but he regarded the youth with sudden interest over the top of his glass.

“Anything interesting in Colmar, Charles?” asked Baron.

Pagan regarded his glass with a whimsical smile. “No—not now,” he answered enigmatically.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw that a girl with a book under her arm had come out of the low arched doorway of the hotel. She wore no hat and was dressed in a light-coloured frock, but that peculiar air of grooming and daintiness was unmistakable.

Baron turned his head and saw her. “Hullo, Clare!” he cried. “My fellow hobo has returned. This is Charles Pagan—who helped me to win the Great War.”

Pagan rose with a twinkle in his eye and bowed.

“But we have already met,” she exclaimed in her low clear voice, as she held her hand. “Mr. Pagan was good enough to help me with my luggage at Colmar.”

“I am glad you were useful if not ornamental, Charles,” commented Baron.

Pagan smiled with becoming modesty. “It was really nothing,” he murmured magnanimously.

“The stupidity of a porter,” explained Clare with a twinkle.

“A little explanation put it right,” added Pagan with a grin.

Baron guffawed. “What, in your ‘no bon compree’ French! Clare was pulling your leg, Charles. She speaks the lingo like a native.”

Clare sat down in one of the deck chairs. “Dicky, you exaggerate,” she admonished. And then with a glance at Pagan. “I assure you Mr. Pagan’s French is equal to any emergency.”

“Charles is equal to anything so long as it is talking and not working,” agreed Baron.

Pagan changed the subject. “That libellous remark,” he complained, “is because I insisted on taking a train this afternoon instead of walking. But I put it to you, Miss Lindsey, as one doomed for a certain term to walk this earth, that when a man has borne the heat and burden of the day down an exceeding high mountain and he arrives at a perfectly good station, who, I ask you would fardels bear to grunt and sweat another weary mile?”

“We are supposed to be on a walking tour,” growled Baron.

“But Mr. Pagan prefers to sleep in hotels and take trains?” smiled Clare.

“Certainly,” agreed Pagan stoutly. “Certainly—if there happens to be a train going the same way or an hotel in the dusky offing. Otherwise we go carolling along the highways of France like twin Tetrazzinis and lay our little heads in sleep beneath a simple bush.”

Baron snorted.

“It sounds very romantic but terribly rheumatic,” exclaimed Clare. “Where did you sleep last night—under a hedge or at the village inn?”

“At an inn—a strange and lonely inn!” cried Pagan in a stage whisper.

“Part of the night within the inn; most of the night without the inn,” put in Baron.

“A most mysterious inn,” continued Pagan.

“That’s why we spent most of the night outside it—trying to solve the mystery,” explained Baron.

“Look here,” said Pagan sternly. “Am you telling this ’ere story or are I?”

“But you, my dear Charles, quoth he politely.”

“Then there is no need for you to broadcast a running commentary,” growled Pagan.

“Don’t quarrel,” admonished Clare severely.

“That will be the end of our running commentary,” announced Pagan. “And Baron’s Court is now closing down.”

“And now we are taking you over to Pagan’s restaurant to listen to dance music …” began Baron.

“Somebody kick that fellow in the stomach,” commanded Pagan.

“Meanwhile I am dying to hear about this mysterious inn,” sighed Clare.

“You shall,” asserted Pagan with a fierce look at Baron. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. It was a dark and stormy night upon the Caucasus.”

“Vosges,” corrected Baron.

“Vosges. Darkness was falling, rain was falling …”

“The barometer was falling,” suggested Baron.

Pagan continued in tones of burlesque tragedy. “Upon a lonely mountain top thousands of feet above the sea, foot-sore, fed-up and far from home we were tramping through the night.”

“Left, right; right, left; left, right,” chanted Baron.

“We weren’t fox-trotting you idiot,” growled Pagan. “Mountains to right of us, mountains to left of us—invisible in the darkness. Minutes passed. Hours passed. A light appeared ahead. Was it a mirage of the desert or a miasma of the mountains? No. A shadowy building took shape in the gloom—an inn, dark and shuttered.”

“Then the light was a miasma after all!” commented Baron.

Pagan ignored the interruption. “We rapped upon the door. It was opened a fraction of an inch and a voice, a woman’s voice, demanded our business. I answered boldly that we were travellers in a strange land and craved a morsel of food, a mouthful of water and somewhere to lay our heads. She who had opened the door, one Bertha by name, provided all three.”

“My dear Charles, we didn’t lay our heads on Bertha,” protested Baron.

“Provided all three,” repeated Pagan firmly. “Though somewhat reluctantly I thought. We ate our morsel of food, drank our mouthful of water.”

“Tasting slightly of bock,” put in Baron.

“And went to our simple rooms—I to sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care; he of the guilty conscience to brood upon a mis-spent youth. Wearying anon of this melancholy watch, he bethinks him of the map and the morrow’s journey. But the map is downstairs in the pocket of my coat, which, because of its exceeding dampness, Bertha dries for us before the fire. He turns the handle of his door. It will not open. He tries mine; that, too, will not open. They are locked.” He flung out his hands in an exaggerated gesture.

“Locked!” exclaimed Clare.

“Ay, lady, ’twas my word. Both locked—on the outside.”

“That was strange,” she said.

“Passing strange,” agreed Pagan.

“And what did you do?”

“Do? Well, believing that there is some soul of goodness in things evil would men observingly distil it out, I restrained his vulgar impetuosity which would have broken open the door, and have alarmed the gentle Bertha and her sire. I decided to match cunning with cunning; to get a secret glimpse of the mysterious something that was evidently going on downstairs. In brief, we knotted the bell-pulls and curtain ropes together and climbed out of the window.”

“Well?” asked Clare when Pagan paused. “What did you see?”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing,” complained Baron. “The window blinds were all drawn so closely that we could not see in.”

“But how terribly tiresome,” exclaimed Clare.

“Terribly—we spent the night wandering about in the dark when we might have been in our little warm beds,” growled Baron disgustedly.

“You forget the figure on the hillside,” said Pagan soberly.

Baron shrugged his shoulders. Clare looked from one to the other. “Tell me about it,” she said.

“Oh, Charles swears he saw a figure on the hillside. It had a queer face or no face at all according to him; but then Charles has a wonderful imagination.”

She looked at Pagan. “I know that,” she said with a ghost of a smile.

“Anyway,” broke in Pagan, our doors were locked there was no imagination about that. And this morning when we started off again, the first thing we discovered was a haunted battlefield.”

“Haunted! How did you know it was haunted?” she exclaimed.

“We had it on the word of two independent witnesses, both of whom warned us not to go there at night.”

“And did you see the haunting, whatever it is?”

“No. Apparently it walks only at night. We were there this morning. But if you are interested in battlefields, it’s quite a good specimen. And, mark you, within a stone’s throw of our mysterious inn.”

Clare nodded her small head seriously. “That certainly is an interesting coincidence,” she said. “Of course you think that there is some connection between the two.”

“Maybe,” answered Pagan. “Anyway Baron has a theory—a poor thing, but his own.”

She turned to Baron. “What is your bright idea, Dicky?”

“Not very bright, I’m afraid,” said Baron. “But it explains the facts. It occurred to me that the existence of a secret political club, meeting at the inn, would account for our locked doors. You see, the landlord was obviously a Bosche—decent enough fellow to be sure, but almost certainly he was fighting on the other side in the war.”

“But surely that does not prove anything,” she objected. “All the Alsatians had to, whether they liked it or not. Though quite a number used to migrate to France, I believe, in order to avoid military service in the German army. I thought they were delighted to be under French rule again.”

“They were pro-French before the war, I agree,” said Baron. “But, like the Irish, they are always agin the government, I fancy. And many of them are pro-German now. You see, the Alsatian is an independent sort of cove. He has been so chivied about between the two of them that at rock bottom he is neither really French nor really German: he is just Alsatian. And he is up against French or German, whichever happens to be top dog at the moment. And in these peaceful little villages there is a good deal of political intrigue going on sub rosa, I suspect. Don’t you agree, Charles?”

“Well, methought yon landlord had a lean and hungry look, certainly,” agreed Pagan.

“It sounds terribly plausible,” said Clare. “You are depressingly matter of fact, Dicky, aren’t you? Destroying all the spookiness and mystery!”

“He has the soul of a film magnate,” said Pagan. “Fit only for treasons, stratagems and spoils.”

At this moment a short, wiry little man wearing a chauffeur’s cap came round the well and spoke to young Cecil Lindsey.

Baron stared at him for a moment, and then hastened towards him. “Gosh, it’s Griffin!” he exclaimed.

The little man turned his head, and a broad grin overspread his face as his eyes met Baron’s. He clicked his heels and saluted in military fashion.

“Well, well, Griffin,” said Baron as they shook hands, “what on earth are you doing here? How often did I hear you say in the old days that if ever you got out of the army and out of France it would take a mighty big war to bring you back again! And here you are!”

The little man grinned. “What I always says, sir, is it’s a pore heart what never rejoices. So when Miss Clare, that’s the pore Captain’s lady, comes along and says, ‘Griffin,’ she says, ‘’ow’d you like to drive a car for my brother?’ I says, ‘You jes try me, Miss, ’me being on the dole at the time. And then Mr. Cecil, he says, ‘Griffin,’ he says, ‘we’re going to France.’ And I ses, very good, so long as it’s understood that I’m nootral in case we run across a war.”

Clare made room for Pagan on the seat beside her. “Those two will talk war now for the next three hours. Griffin is always cursing the war and everything French, but Cecil said that when they came through Picardy he could hardly tear him away from the battlefields. I suppose you and Dicky are the same. Is that why you came here for a holiday?”

Pagan shook his head. “We discovered that battlefield up there by accident,” he said. “And in any case Baron and I didn’t function as far south as this. No, I have always wanted to see Alsace. One of the spots that have always appealed to me, you know—historic meeting place of square-headed Bosche and cheery old Gaul and all that. I saw the old Belgiques enter Brussels and I would have given a good bit to have been with the poilus when they ambled into Strasbourg.”

“Yes. That must have been a great moment,” she agreed.

“Like the finale of a cinema epic,” he suggested.

She nodded her small, sleek head at him. “I’m glad that you are not too terribly modern to admit that you like that sort of thing,” she said.

Pagan assumed an expression of alarm. “Am I being horribly old-fashioned then?”

“Not only old-fashioned but positively degenerate,” she smiled. “Don’t they tell us that patriotism and nationality are the root of all our evils!”

Pagan grinned. “Oh, you mean those coves who wax sentimental over an unwashed Hottentot but are not above hanging their relations on the nearest lamp-post! Oh yes, I admit I’m old-fashioned. If it comes to a scrap I’d sooner bash a Bashi Bazook than the local butcher any day.”

“And you have a sneaking liking for dramatic pageantry?”

“Well, I mean to say, this country is simply made for it. Strasbourg itself and these old villages with their walls and towers and storks’ nests. Anything might happen in them.”

She gazed thoughtfully up the little street. “I wonder,” she murmured.

“You wait till you have seen them,” said Pagan. “This is only one. But there are dozens.”

“I must certainly see some of them. Cecil is taking me up to Munster the day after to-morrow, and to-morrow if he can spare the time, we thought of going to Riquewihr—it’s quite close, I believe.”

“Quite,” agreed Pagan fishing the map from his pocket. “And as a matter of fact,” he fibbed, “Baron and I thought of going there to-morrow.” He glanced at the map. “It is only in the next valley, and there is a track through the woods over the hill between. It ought to take”—he made a rapid calculation—“take—no more than a couple of hours or so. Lunch there; then saunter back. So if your brother cannot manage it, old Baron and I would be delighted …”

“What will I be delighted about?” demanded Baron breaking suddenly into the conversation.

Pagan kicked him surreptitiously on the leg. “Why, if Miss Lindsey will come with us to-morrow. I was just telling her that we had arranged to walk to Riquewihr to-morrow, and apparently she was thinking of doing the same. But her brother is a doubtful starter.”

Baron looked at Pagan with a face like wood. “Did we say we were going to Riquewihr to-morrow?” he asked innocently.

Pagan delivered another surreptitious kick. “Of course we did,” he cried heartily. “Don’t you remember I said it would only take about a couple of hours and we could lunch there and stroll back afterwards.”

“It seems highly probable that you mentioned lunch somewhere,” conceded Baron. And then he added with a grin, “but highly improbable that you suggested walking anywhere.”

“But what else would one do?” demanded Pagan. “These lovely woods and hills!”

Baron turned to Clare. “Charles is a great lover of nature. You would hardly believe it, but I have known him lie for hours out-of-doors on sunny afternoons, so rapt with nature that even his pipe has gone out. But come with us by all means; and there is one thing I can promise you: that so long as Charles is with us we shall get a good lunch. He loves nature in all her moods.”