The Secret of the Silver Car by Wyndham Martyn (best classic romance novels txt) 📕

Trent rose when she came in and offered his visitor the single rush bottomed chair the cell contained.

He looked at her warily as one antagonist gazes at another before a struggle. Always she had called up in him this need for caution. Her violent and passionate nature were graven on the face which had brought so many men to folly and disgrace. Hentzi had told him many stories of the life she had lived in great cities and the tragedies which had come to those who had loved her.

She was dressed tonight very splendidly. Jewels that should have belonged to the poor countess who was passing her days in retreat were about her neck. An emerald necklace which in other days would have set Anthony Trent’s eyes glittering matched her strange almond eyes. There was a certain tiger grace about the woman which would have attracted men’s notice and women’s from wherever she might have gone. Did she, he wondered, come in peace or in war? He was on his guard.

“You are surprised to see me?” she began.

“I cannot choose my visitors,” he reminded her.

“You have never liked me,” she returned, “Why?”

“You were a danger to my enterprise,” he answered.

“A danger now removed,” she said quickly. “What are those marks on your face?” she cried as he turned his head from the shadow to where the dim lamp light showed him more clearly. “Who has dared to strike you?”

“That is nothing,” he cried impatiently. “Certainly the least of my troubles. I am very weary; there may be very unpleasant hours before me and I need sleep. It cannot be such a great triumph to see me in this cell?”

“Why do you stay here?” she demanded. “I know what Count Michael has told you. I know you have only to give him that piece of paper and your word of honor as a gentleman and you are free to go. It is very fortunate for you. Those two friends who also came are dead.”

“Did he send you here?” Trent asked.

“He would be furious if he knew,” she said quickly. “Certainly it would do you no good if he learned of it. You know,” and Pauline looked at him through lowered lashes, “he has always been jealous of you.”

“He has had no reason to be,” Trent reminded her coldly.

“I know,” she said, bitterness in her tone, “but he will not believe that. And now he knows you are noble and were masquerading as a chauffeur he will be all the more jealous.”

“I’m not a nobleman,” he said almost angrily. He resented her presence.

“You cannot deceive me,” she said tenderly.

“If you did not come here to speak for Count Michael, may I ask then for what purpose?”

“I want to warn you not to keep that paper from him.”

“It was burned long ago,” he answered. “If he can collect the ashes he is welcome to them.”

“At present he is trying to collect your coat,” she told him and noted with a smile his start of alarm. “When they took you you were coatless. He thinks somewhere in the forest they will find it and when they find it the paper will be there and perhaps other things of your own which will be interesting.”

“I fear he will be disappointed,” Trent said calmly, “but if he will return a favorite pipe in one of the pockets I shall be obliged.”

She looked at him steadily. Hers was not always an easy face to read.

“I pray that they will find the coat,” she said.

“Thank you,” he exclaimed. “At least you make no pretence of wanting me to win.”

“You don’t understand,” she cried, “it is because they will force you to tell if they cannot find it. I am speaking no more than the truth. Cannot you see that you have mixed yourself in high matters and are a menace to Count Micha?!? He must know and he will know.”

She saw his mouth tighten.

“Men just as strong and brave as you have broken down and told all.”

“That may be,” he answered, “but I am not going to alter my story about burning the paper and I am not going to weaken under any punishment they think of trying on me.”

He was not going to tell her that in a few days he would be able to make his way out of this very cell if they kept handcuffs from him a little longer. Kicked out of sight among the dust on the floor was one of his most useful tools. It was a strip of highly tempered steel spring with a saw edge—forty teeth to the inch—and could bite its way through the barred window. When first he entered his prison he thought the opening too small for exit but he had revised his calculations and was now certain he could wriggle through it.

“It is for a woman you do this,” Pauline said. “It is because of a woman you are cold and ask no help of me.”

“I can’t prevent your wild guesses,” he answered. There was no mistaking his distaste of her meddling.

“I do not give up easily,” he told her. “I used to think that in a duel between love and duty love should always win. It doesn’t seem to work out that way always. And I used to think that a man who had not been worthy of a woman should be given a chance to rebuild his life if he really loved her.” He shook his head, “It isn’t the right idea. Sentimental nonsense the world calls it. The wedding gift a man offers his bride is his past.” He shrugged his shoulders, “I didn’t qualify.”

Anthony Trent looked at the rough wall and saw only those dancing days of happiness and love in another castle. And instead of Pauline with her world weary face, her knowledge of every art to hold men, he saw his slim and lovely Daphne. He knew that both of them loved him. Vaguely he understood that Pauline had come to offer to save him but he had kept her from telling him so yet. There might conceivably be a future with her in which he would find eventually his old ambitions stirring and his pride in his hazardous work revive. There might even be years that were almost happy; reckless, passionate, quarrelling years. But the thought of it was nauseating. He swept it aside. He remembered the phrase of Private Smith in the dug-out that he was dying in better company than he knew. Well, Anthony Trent if the worst came would die better than he had lived.

To Pauline, who loved him, the idea of a violent ending to one of his ability and address was tragic.

An Austrian by birth, Pauline had been taken to Berlin then blossoming into extravagant and vulgar night life by a mother who was a dancer. Vain, ambitious and jealous of the success of others, Pauline offered no objection to anything whereby she might become widely known. Later, when she had attained international fame as a skater she grew more selective in her affairs. She was the rage for several years and but for the suicide of a Serene Highness would never have been banished from Berlin.

Count Michael Temesvar was an old admirer. The war swept away Pauline’s possessions and there was no manager to engage her at a living wage.

At twenty-eight she had known many capitals, enjoyed great success and never been really in love. Then she saw Anthony Trent on the golf links and never passed a moment but was filled with thoughts of him. His consistent repulsing of her threw her into moods of anger which she visited mainly on her protector. And when she summoned scorn and anger to her aid in dealing with this Alfred Anthony, she found them only ministers to her infatuation.

She looked around as Hentzi came into the cell.

“It is ten minutes,” he whispered.

“Another five,” she said. “I shall come with you then.”

Hentzi withdrew nervous and expostulating. Trent noticed that her manner was different when she spoke. There was a certain timidity about her, an air of unhappiness almost of hopelessness.

“Have you thought what difference it will make to me?” she asked.

Gone from her face were those meretricious smiles, those little ways cultivated through intimate association with her world of warring sex. The Pauline who looked at him now was a woman stripped of artifice, a woman who suffered and loved.

There was an uncomfortable silence, the awkwardness of the man in the avowed affection of the undesired woman.

“Let there be no deception between us,” she said quietly. “I see that it is someone else who claims your heart. I did not think there were men like you who would be steadfast and loyal in a moment such as this. I know only that we—you and I—are alike in one thing. We both love where there is no hope. I came here to offer you freedom at a price most men would be glad to pay. I will not insult you by saying what it was. I have known few good men and I know you are good.”

“No, no,” he cried, embarrassed by her manner, “Indeed if you only knew.”

She would not listen.

“Love can redeem all,” she said. “I pray the good God whom I have neglected,” she smiled a little ruefully, “to redeem me. I feel that my life is over. I have had everything I wanted and am wearied of the taste. Everything I wanted until now. There comes a time when one is no longer so eager to live. It is so with me.” She looked at him wistfully. “Can you believe me when I tell you I want to help you?”

“I do believe it,” he said gratefully. “I am glad enough to have a friend in this dismal place.”

“Then let me help you,” she said eagerly. “Something tells me you have hidden that paper. I warn you if it is still in existence, it will be found. Can I get it for you?”

Anthony Trent did not answer for a moment. The thought that there yet might be a way of getting the treaty draft to Lord Rosecarrel almost made speech an effort. If that were done with what energy and hope might he not bend his skill to means of escape!

“I should be putting my honor in your keeping,” he said slowly.

Her face fell.

“And you dare not trust me?”

It was caution which had saved Anthony Trent a hundred times before and he hesitated just a moment now. Then he looked at Pauline again and was convinced of her sincerity. And, after all, no better way presented itself.

“I will trust you,” he said, “but can you find out the place where they captured me?”

“I know it already,” she said, “it is the farm of Zencsi and lies no more than thirty miles away.”

“Thirty!” he cried, “I thought it was twice that distance.”

“You went miles out of your reckoning.”

“Have you a pencil?” he cried. “I want to draw a plan of it.”

“Alas, no,” she exclaimed, “but Hentzi will be here and he shall get one.”

The five minutes were up and the count’s secretary entered entreating Pauline by fear of discovery to come with him.

“A pencil,” she snapped, “and paper. A leaf from that little red memorandum book where you keep account of what money you have saved by cheating your master.”

She waved him away.

“Three more minutes,” she commanded.

“I hid in a mound of hay quite close to the farm house. It was the one nearest a tree recently struck by lightning. It