CHAPTER SEVEN

THE door was opened by a tall clumsy youth whose big bony wrists and ankles protruded prominently beyond the limits of his rough, soiled farm clothes. He stared at them stupidly for a moment, and Pagan’s exuberant French produced only a bewildered movement of his coarse, black-nailed fingers through his shock of dark hair; but as he stood just inside the doorway mumbling to himself in German, Bertha herself called from the kitchen to ask who was there.

Pagan stepped forward into the room. “Belle Bertha, Bold Baron, Charles Pagan, Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all!” he answered cheerfully.

Bertha appeared suddenly in the kitchen doorway, ladle in hand like an avenging goddess, but her fierce expression gave place to a slow smile when her eyes rested on Pagan standing there beneath the lamp. He dumped the pack upon the brick floor and made her a bow.

“Bonjour, Bertha, and likewise guten abend,” he cried.

She dropped the ladle on a table and came forward, inclining her head to each in turn. “Bon jour, Messieurs,” she said.

Pagan regarded her with arms akimbo. “I declare she doesn’t look a day older than when last we met; does she, Baron?” he exclaimed.

“Well, you didn’t expect her to have produced grey hairs and a family since Tuesday, did you!” growled Baron.

“M’sieu dit?” asked Bertha.

“M’sieu dites through his hat—par son chapeau,” retorted Pagan. “And he’s not nice to know—nicht goot wissen.”

Baron groaned at this wholesale mutilation of three languages, but Pagan continued imperturbably, “Mein lieber Bertha, the question is—le question vraiment brulante—can you give us a meal? Je, I mean moi, and my boy friend here?”

“But yes, M’sieu, in one half hour.”

“Goot! And rooms for the night?”

She nodded her head and answered in English. “Ye-es, se same two chambers.”

“Encore goot!” exclaimed Pagan. “Bertha, your English gets better every day. Well, we will go and powder our noses—mettre la poudre sur nos nez, vous comprenez, while you get the meal, but mind it’s a big one—comme ca!” He held his hands wide apart horizontally. “And big bock aussi—comme ca.” He held them still wider apart but vertically.

The long room was empty of customers, but one of the tables was laid for one. “This pub is looking up,” commented Pagan, nodding towards the table, as they mounted the stairs. “We have a guest—unless it’s our friend with the mourning fingernails and the schoolboy complexion.”

“What beats me,” said Baron in an undertone, “is how they came up the other night and locked us in without our hearing them. Those stairs creak like the deuce.”

“They may have come through one of those other doors there,” said Pagan in the same low tones. “Evidently they lead to more rooms, and there may be a back staircase leading up to them.”

These two other doors opened on to the indoor balcony, on that portion of it which turned at right-angles and crossed the room below like a bridge. Pagan tiptoed to the balustrade and bent over it so that he could see nearly the whole length of the long brick-floored room. “Coast is clear,” he whispered. “Shall we have a look inside?”

But before Baron could reply, Pagan straightened quickly and turned the handle of his own door. “Well, here we are again,” he said aloud, and then added in a whisper, “Bertha!”

Bertha came up the stairs with two steaming cans of hot water. Before leaving, she smoothed out a wrinkle in the gay patchwork counterpane on Pagan’s bed and expressed the hope that he had slept well there.

“Like a log all night,” he fibbed. “Comme un grand morceau de bois!”

She nodded her head appreciatively and eyed the huge old bed admiringly with her hands clasped before her. “Mais oui, c’est vraiment magnifique,” she said in an awed voice, and then hurried back to the kitchen.

Baron came in from his room next door and lounged on the bed which had so excited Bertha’s admiration.

“How about having a peep at the other side of those two doors?” suggested Pagan.

Baron rested his head against the huge post at the foot of the bed and yawned. “The only thing is, Charles, that those rooms are probably occupied—or one of them at any rate. That table downstairs evidently means that there is someone else staying in the pub.”

“Well, we can pretend we have made a mistake in the room,” answered Pagan. “And it’s a fifty-fifty chance which room he is in, anyway. You keep cave while I have a look-see.”

“Right ’o,” agreed Baron.

But when Pagan opened the door and stepped out on to the indoor balcony, it was to find Bertha laying a table in the room below, and they had no choice other than to walk straight downstairs. They seated themselves on the padded seat against the wall facing the staircase and ordered Martinis. The landlord himself brought the drinks and at Pagan’s invitation joined them.

He seemed a simple, decent fellow, and during the conversation that was carried on in a mixture of French, English and German, both Pagan and Baron carefully avoided any reference to the real object of their return visit to the inn. The subject of the war cropped up inevitably and, as Baron had surmised, the landlord, whose name it appeared was Kleber, had served in the German Army but as a field hospital orderly. According to his own account he was pro-French, and quite satisfied with the present state of affairs, though he admitted that he had no grudge against the Germans.

“All this does not agree too well with your theory of a secret political club meeting here,” Pagan remarked when Kleber had gone.

“No, it doesn’t,” admitted Baron. “Still, as far as these very moderate opinions of his are concerned, we have only his word for it, and if he really is a secret agitator, it is not to be expected that he would avow his real opinions to two chance strangers like ourselves.”

“That’s so,” agreed Pagan. “Still, the fellow’s appearance and manner rather support his account of himself.”

“Well, what is the programme for to-night, anyway?” asked Baron.

Pagan tossed off the last of his drink. “Oh, have our meal. Keep a weather eye open meanwhile, and if nothing interesting happens we will take a stroll over the battlefield afterwards.”

Presently Bertha bustled in with two large steaming bowls of soup, one of which she placed upon the table laid for one, and the other upon the table laid for Pagan and Baron. Then she retired and rang a cracked gong.

“That ghastly row is for the benefit of the other guest, I suppose,” said Pagan. “I’m rather curious to see what he will be like.”

“So am I,” agreed Baron. “Though it is probably only another tourist on a holiday tramp.”

Baron had half risen from his seat, but Pagan pulled him back again, for a door had banged on the bridge part of the balcony above their heads. They were too directly beneath it to allow them a glimpse of anyone standing there, but the remainder of the balcony, that part of it which turned at right-angles along the side wall past their own two bedroom doors to the stairs, was immediately facing them. Footsteps sounded above their heads, and they watched that turn in the balcony beyond Baron’s door with some curiosity.

Their first glimpse of the stranger was of a hand and a red and gold sleeve sliding along the top of the carved balustrade.

“It’s a woman,” whispered Pagan.

Then a figure came into view passing Baron’s door, a graceful figure in a flimsy black frock and scarlet and gold bridge coat below a dark-dainty shingled head.

“Good lord, it’s Clare!” exclaimed Baron.

At the sound of her name she turned and looked down at them. “Why it’s Dicky and Mr. Pagan,” she exclaimed in surprise. She paused and leant upon the balustrade. “And what, pray, are you doing here?”

“Come down, Juliet, and we will tell you,” laughed Baron. “Though it seems to me a much more pertinent question is, ‘What are you doing here?”

She came down the stairs and they met her at the foot.

“Did you ever see such a person, Charles?” smiled Baron. “She comes down to dine in a lonely inn …”

“Upon a misty mountain top,” put in Pagan.

“All togged up in fine clothes and soft raiment!” ended Baron.

“Like the lilies of the field,” contributed Pagan.

“Which toil not neither do they spin,” grinned Baron. “It can’t be that she has designs on you or me, Charles, because she didn’t know we would be here.”

“Perhaps she has a secret passion for mine host, Kleber—or our awkward friend of the black fingernails,” suggested Pagan.

“Perhaps it’s just vanity,” said Clare with a smile.

“Anyway, I think we ought to amalgamate these two tables,” said Baron. “What do you say, Clare?”

“Of course,” she agreed.

They transferred to their own table the knives, forks and spoons from the table laid for one. Then they sat down. Clare sat at the head with Pagan and Baron, one on each side.

“Are you here alone?” asked Baron.

Clare nodded her head. “Um-m!”

Baron assumed a severe expression. “You know, Clare, you really are the limit. You have no business to be here alone.”

“Why not?” she asked innocently.

“Why not?” he echoed. “Because this lonely inn is not the sort of place any woman ought to come to alone.”

“You play the heavy uncle awfully well, Dicky, but it’s all right since you and Mr. Pagan are here.”

“Yes, but you didn’t know that when you came. Why did you come, anyway?”

“Well, you see, Mr. Pagan’s account of this inn was so terribly enthralling that I simply had to come.”

“Yes, but why alone?” persisted Baron.

“Because I came on the spur of the moment, and in any case Cecil would not have been interested. He was called away to Gerardmer, and I went with him, intending to return to Munster to-morrow. But Gerardmer was too terribly dull, all Rolls Royce and pretty ladies—the sort of place I loathe. And so I started back this morning, and then on the way it occurred to me to spend the night here. Griffin and I consulted the map and found that we could get the car within half a mile or so, and—well here I am.”

“And where is Griffin?” asked Baron.

“Why, gone back to Munster. He is coming out for me in the morning.”

“Well, at least you might have kept Griffin with you.”

“Oh no, Dicky!” she exclaimed with mock horror. “People would think that I had eloped with my chauffeur!”

“Not if they saw old Griffin,” said Baron. And they all laughed.

“But what are you two doing here?” she asked. “I thought you were going to Colmar.”

“We did,” answered Baron. “But we soon tired of the flesh pots of Egypt and yearned for the simple life.”

“Baron wanted to sit on a mountain top,” explained Pagan. “And so we decided to go to the Honneck.”

“And we should have done so,” put in Baron with a malicious twinkle. “Only Charles did the map work, and according to him we had to stay at least one night in Munster. It was rather curious because we were there last night, and if you had not gone to Gerardmer we should have all met,” he added innocently.

“That would have been a pleasant coincidence,” remarked Pagan unabashed. “We were going off to the Honneck this morning, but as a matter of fact, it was only when we got to Munster that we realised how close this place was, and we decided then and there to come up and have another look at it.”

She nodded her small head and glanced round the long bare, brick-floored room. “I am awfully glad I came. It’s so terribly primitive and brutal, like … like …”

“Hollywood’s idea of Russia,” suggested Pagan with a smile.

She made a little grimace. “How cynical you are! But, yes, I suppose that is what I mean. I have the quaintest old bedroom you ever saw—a wooden ceiling and a huge old bed.”

Pagan nodded. “Is yours the third door along that balcony arrangement or the fourth?”

“The third.”

Pagan nodded again. “We were rather interested in those two doors. In fact we would have had a peep behind them if Bertha had not appeared at the crucial moment. We wanted to know whether there were just bedrooms behind them or whether there was a back staircase leading up to this balcony.”

“There may be,” she said; “because I do not think that the door beyond mine leads to a room—at least not directly. I heard someone walking past my room on that side and it sounded rather like a corridor.”

Baron nodded. “We must have a peep in there, Charles.”

“And there is another door in my room,” continued Clare.

“Leading into the corridor?” asked Pagan.

“No. It is on the other side of the room. It has a key in it but it will not open, because it opens outwards and there is something against the other side.”

“The opposite side to the presumed corridor?” asked Pagan. “Is that on the left as you go in?”

Clare nodded.

Pagan turned to Baron. “Your room must be next to hers on that side. But there is no door there. By jove yes, the press! It must be behind that big press.”

“That’s it,” agreed Baron. “You see, Clare, Charles thinks that when they locked …”

“Take care,” whispered Pagan. “I believe that girl understands more English than we think.”

Bertha had come into the room with a fresh course.

“What are you two going to do?” asked Clare when Bertha had retired again.

“We are going to take a stroll across the old battlefield,” answered Baron.

“To look for the ghost?” she exclaimed.

“Well, yes, I suppose so. You see, we heard the most amazing yarn down in Munster—all rot of course. We will tell you about that later. Anyway, that’s the programme.”

“It is a glorious night and it will be terribly thrilling. I shall love it,” she asserted.

“But you are not coming too!” protested Pagan.

“Of course I am.”

“But really I don’t … I mean to say, you never know.” He turned to Baron for support.

“Why not?” asked Baron. “This Ghost business is all rot.”

“But still …” persisted Pagan.

“You don’t think I am going to stay quietly here—alone in a lonely inn,” she said with a mischievous smile. “Dicky wouldn’t let me, would you, Dicky?”

Baron grinned and Pagan shrugged his shoulders with a helpless gesture.

“You don’t know Clare yet, Charles,” said Baron. “If she has made up her mind to come, she will come, and short of physical force nothing you or I can do will stop her.”

“All right then,” agreed Pagan, smiling at her. “But if I were her brother I’d spank her.”

“Charles means well,” commented Baron with a grin.

She smiled back at Pagan. “I’m sure he does. And so as soon as we have finished this meal we put on our bonnets and shawls and walk across the battlefield.”

Baron nodded. “That’s the idea.”

The landlord came from the other end of the room and made them a bow. He hoped the meal was to their satisfaction. They assured him it was. “A poem in proteids,” Pagan told him.

The landlord smiled gravely and bowed his thanks. “There is but one thing, Messieures, Madame, that I regret,” he said. “This inn, being situated as it is.” He made a movement with his hands. “It is not practicable for my guests to take a walk after dinner—a thing so good for the digestion and conducive of good sleep.”

Pagan glanced at Clare and kicked out at Baron’s foot under the table. But he missed it, and Baron blurted cheerfully, “But that is just what we are going to do, Herr Kleber. Up over the battlefield on a fine night—what could be nicer!”

The landlord looked grave and shook his head. “It would be very dangerous, M’sieu,” he said. “In the dark, one might slip into an old trench and break one’s leg … or the roof of an old dug-out might collapse beneath one. Besides, there is much barbed wire and even unexploded bombs and shells. It is too, too dangerous, M’sieu.”

Baron laughed. “It is very good of you, Herr Kleber, to be so solicitous about us, but it will not be by any means the first time that Charles Pagan and I have wandered about on a battlefield at night. And besides, we want to see the Ghost,” he added recklessly.

Pagan, watching the landlord narrowly, could detect no change of expression on his face, except perhaps a slight flicker of the eyelids. The man smiled at the word ghost.

“M’sieu, who has been a soldier, does not believe the idle tales of the village folk,” he said half-chaffingly. And he went on in the same joking tones. “How comes it that I, who live so close, have not seen this apparition!” And then he became serious again, and there was an underlying firmness in his tones that was half a threat despite his respectful words. “But no, M’sieu would be most unwise to go up there. And I as your host could not allow guests who have been so courteous and appreciative of the hospitality of my poor house”—here he bowed gravely to each in turn—“to go where they might come to harm. That indeed would be poor Alsatian hospitality.”

Baron was about to continue the discussion, but again Pagan kicked out under the table, and this time his foot found its target.

“I agree with you, Baron, that we ought to be able to look after ourselves,” he said. “But personally, I think it would be a very shabby return for all Herr Kleber’s thoughtfulness if just for the sake of—well, a lark, we were to go up there and meet with an accident for which Herr Kleber would feel himself responsible. It was quite an amusing idea of yours to go up there to-night, but it really would be much more sensible to leave it till to-morrow. I vote we turn in early and make a day of it to-morrow.”

“Right ’o,” agreed Baron, taking the cue. “It certainly is very comfortable here. Well, Herr Kleber, we will take your advice.” He turned to the others. “How about a Benedictine? Clare? Charles? Three Benedictines, Herr Kleber, please—and perhaps you will have one too.”

The landlord bowed his thanks and withdrew.

“What is the great idea, Charles?” asked Baron in a low voice.

“Didn’t you twig?” whispered Pagan. “These people understand English a darned sight better than we give them credit for. He must have overheard us talking about going out. That was why he brought up the subject—to put us off it. And he meant to stop us if necessary; that was why I butted in and agreed.”

“But hang it, Charles, we are not going to do just what that cove tells us.”

“Of course not,” agreed Pagan. “But we don’t want any trouble if it can be avoided, and it will be much easier to slip out if he thinks we have given up the idea.”

Clare nodded agreement. “I think, Dicky, we ought to elect Mr. Pagan our leader in this adventure. Evidently he has the Sherlock Holmes complex.”

“Right ’o,” agreed Baron. “You propose him then.”

“Proposed,” from Clare.

“Seconded,” from Baron.

“Carried nem. con.,” smiled Clare.

“Well, Charles, you are C.O. now,” said Baron with a mock salute.

“We will obey you absolutely and follow you to the death,” smiled Clare.

Pagan grinned, but there was an undertone of seriousness in his voice as he looked at her and said, “Will you?”

She did not answer.