Chapter VII: The Message of Simon the Huntsman

I RECEIVED the telegram sent to me by the Constable of Zenda at my own house in Strelsau about one o’clock. It is needless to say that I made immediate preparations to obey his summons. My wife indeed protested--and I must admit with some show of reason--that I was unfit to endure further fatigues, and that my bed was the only proper place for me. I could not listen; and James, Mr. Rassendyll’s servant, being informed of the summons, was at my elbow with a card of the trains from Strelsau to Zenda, without waiting for any order from me. I had talked to this man in the course of our journey, and discovered that he had been in the service of Lord Topham, formerly British Ambassador to the Court of Ruritania. How far he was acquainted with the secrets of his present master, I did not know, but his familiarity with the city and the country made him of great use to me. We discovered, to our annoyance, that no train left till four o’clock, and then only a slow one; the result was that we could not arrive at the castle till past six o’clock. This hour was not absolutely too late, but I was of course eager to be on the scene of action as early as possible.

“You’d better see if you can get a special, my lord,” James suggested;

“I’ll run on to the station and arrange about it.”

I agreed. Since I was known to be often employed in the king’s service, I could take a special train without exciting remark. James set out, and about a quarter of an hour later I got into my carriage to drive to the station. Just as the horses were about to start, however, the butler approached me.

“I beg your pardon, my lord,” said he, “but Bauer didn’t return with your lordship. Is he coming back?”

“No,” said I. “Bauer was grossly impertinent on the journey, and I dismissed him.”

“Those foreign men are never to be trusted, my lord. And your lordship’s bag?”

“What, hasn’t it come?” I cried. “I told him to send it.”

“It’s not arrived, my lord.”

“Can the rogue have stolen it?” I exclaimed indignantly.

“If your lordship wishes it, I will mention the matter to the police.”

I appeared to consider this proposal.

“Wait till I come back,” I ended by saying. “The bag may come, and I have no reason to doubt the fellow’s honesty.”

This, I thought, would be the end of my connection with Master Bauer. He had served Rupert’s turn, and would now disappear from the scene. Indeed it may be that Rupert would have liked to dispense with further aid from him; but he had few whom he could trust, and was compelled to employ those few more than once. At any rate he had not done with Bauer, and I very soon received proof of the fact. My house is a couple of miles from the station, and we have to pass through a considerable part of the old town, where the streets are narrow and tortuous and progress necessarily slow. We had just entered the Konigstrasse (and it must be remembered that I had at that time no reason for attaching any special significance to this locality), and were waiting impatiently for a heavy dray to move out of our path, when my coachman, who had overheard the butler’s conversation with me, leant down from his box with an air of lively excitement.

“My lord,” he cried, “there’s Bauer--there, passing the butcher’s shop!”

I sprang up in the carriage; the man’s back was towards me, and he was threading his way through the people with a quick, stealthy tread. I believe he must have seen me, and was slinking away as fast as he could.

I was not sure of him, but the coachman banished my doubt by saying,

“It’s Bauer--it’s certainly Bauer, my lord.”

I hardly stayed to form a resolution. If I could catch this fellow or even see where he went, a most important clue as to Rupert’s doings and whereabouts might be put into my hand. I leapt out of the carriage, bidding the man wait, and at once started in pursuit of my former servant. I heard the coachman laugh: he thought, no doubt, that anxiety for the missing bag inspired such eager haste.

The numbers of the houses in the Konigstrasse begin, as anybody familiar with Strelsau will remember, at the end adjoining the station. The street being a long one, intersecting almost the entire length of the old town, I was, when I set out after Bauer, opposite number 300 or thereabouts, and distant nearly three-quarters of a mile from that important number nineteen, towards which Bauer was hurrying like a rabbit to its burrow. I knew nothing and thought nothing of where he was going; to me nineteen was no more than eighteen or twenty; my only desire was to overtake him. I had no clear idea of what I meant to do when I caught him, but I had some hazy notion of intimidating him into giving up his secret by the threat of an accusation of theft. In fact, he had stolen my bag. After him I went; and he knew that I was after him. I saw him turn his face over his shoulder, and then bustle on faster. Neither of us, pursued or pursuer, dared quite to run; as it was, our eager strides and our carelessness of collisions created more than enough attention. But I had one advantage. Most folk in Strelsau knew me, and many got out of my way who were by no means inclined to pay a like civility to Bauer. Thus I began to gain on him, in spite of his haste; I had started fifty yards behind, but as we neared the end of the street and saw the station ahead of us, not more than twenty separated me from him. Then an annoying thing happened. I ran full into a stout old gentleman; Bauer had run into him before, and he was standing, as people will, staring in resentful astonishment at his first assailant’s retreating figure. The second collision immensely increased his vexation; for me it had yet worse consequences; for when I disentangled myself, Bauer was gone! There was not a sign of him; I looked up: the number of the house above me was twenty-three; but the door was shut.

I walked on a few paces, past twenty-two, past twenty-one--and up to nineteen. Nineteen was an old house, with a dirty, dilapidated front and an air almost dissipated. It was a shop where provisions of the cheaper sort were on view in the window, things that one has never eaten but has heard of people eating. The shop-door stood open, but there was nothing to connect Bauer with the house. Muttering an oath in my exasperation, I was about to pass on, when an old woman put her head out of the door and looked round. I was full in front of her. I am sure that the old woman started slightly, and I think that I did. For I knew her and she knew me. She was old Mother Holf, one of whose sons, Johann, had betrayed to us the secret of the dungeon at Zenda, while the other had died by Mr.

Rassendyll’s hand by the side of the great pipe that masked the king’s window. Her presence might mean nothing, yet it seemed at once to connect the house with the secret of the past and the crisis of the present.

She recovered herself in a moment, and curtseyed to me.

“Ah, Mother Holf,” said I, “how long is it since you set up shop in Strelsau?”

“About six months, my lord,” she answered, with a composed air and arms akimbo.

“I have not come across you before,” said I, looking keenly at her.

“Such a poor little shop as mine would not be likely to secure your lordship’s patronage,” she answered, in a humility that seemed only half genuine.

I looked up at the windows. They were all closed and had their wooden lattices shut. The house was devoid of any signs of life.

“You’ve a good house here, mother, though it wants a splash of paint,”

said I. “Do you live all alone in it with your daughter?” For Max was dead and Johann abroad, and the old woman had, as far as I knew, no other children.

“Sometimes; sometimes not,” said she. “I let lodgings to single men when I can.”

“Full now?”

“Not a soul, worse luck, my lord.” Then I shot an arrow at a venture.

“The man who came in just now, then, was he only a customer?”

“I wish a customer had come in, but there has been nobody,” she replied in surprised tones.

I looked full in her eyes; she met mine with a blinking imperturbability. There is no face so inscrutable as a clever old woman’s when she is on her guard. And her fat body barred the entrance; I could not so much as see inside, while the window, choked full with pigs’ trotters and such-like dainties, helped me very little. If the fox were there, he had got to earth and I could not dig him out.

At this moment I saw James approaching hurriedly. He was looking up the street, no doubt seeking my carriage and chafing at its delay. An instant later he saw me.

“My lord,” he said, “your train will be ready in five minutes; if it doesn’t start then, the line must be closed for another half-hour.”

I perceived a faint smile on the old woman’s face. I was sure then that I was on the track of Bauer, and probably of more than Bauer. But my first duty was to obey orders and get to Zenda. Besides, I could not force my way in, there in open daylight, without a scandal that would have set all the long ears in Strelsau aprick. I turned away reluctantly. I did not even know for certain that Bauer was within, and thus had no information of value to carry with me.

“If your lordship would kindly recommend me--” said the old hag.

“Yes, I’ll recommend you,” said I. “I’ll recommend you to be careful whom you take for lodgers. There are queer fish about, mother.”

“I take the money beforehand,” she retorted with a grin; and I was as sure that she was in the plot as of my own existence.

There was nothing to be done; James’s face urged me towards the station.

I turned away. But at this instant a loud, merry laugh sounded from inside the house. I started, and this time violently. The old woman’s brow contracted in a frown, and her lips twitched for a moment; then her face regained its composure; but I knew the laugh, and she must have guessed that I knew it. Instantly I tried to appear as though I had noticed nothing. I nodded to her carelessly, and bidding James follow me, set out for the station. But as we reached the platform, I laid my hand on his shoulder, saying:

“The Count of Hentzau is in that house, James.”

He looked at me without surprise; he was as hard to stir to wonder as old Sapt himself.

“Indeed, sir. Shall I stay and watch?”

“No, come with me,” I answered. To tell the truth, I thought that to leave him alone in Strelsau to watch that house was in all likelihood to sign his death warrant, and I shrank from imposing the duty on him.

Rudolf might send him if he would; I dared not. So we got into our train, and I suppose that my coachman, when he had looked long enough for me, went home. I forgot to ask him afterwards. Very likely he thought it a fine joke to see his master hunting a truant servant and a truant bag through the streets in broad daylight. Had he known the truth, he would have been as interested, though, maybe, less amused.

I arrived at the town of Zenda at half-past three, and was in the castle before four. I may pass over the most kind and gracious words with which the queen received me. Every sight of her face and every sound of her voice bound a man closer to her service, and now she made me feel that I was a poor fellow to have lost her letter and yet to be alive. But she would hear nothing of such talk, choosing rather to praise the little I had done than to blame the great thing in which I had failed. Dismissed from her presence, I flew open-mouthed to Sapt. I found him in his room with Bernenstein, and had the satisfaction of learning that my news of Rupert’s whereabouts was confirmed by his information. I was also made acquainted with all that had been done, even as I have already related it, from the first successful trick played on Rischenheim to the moment of his unfortunate escape. But my face grew long and apprehensive when I heard that Rudolf Rassendyll had gone alone to Strelsau to put his head in that lion’s mouth in the Konigstrasse.