Pimpernel and Rosemary by Baroness Orczy (ebook reader 7 inch TXT) 📕

eyes. He had what looked like a two weeks’ growth of beard on his chin and upper lip, and his clothes⁠—if indeed what he wore could be called clothes⁠—were a mere bundle of rags.

“Number Ten,” de Kervoisin said with conviction, “you are an artist. I have seen our friend here,” he went on, turning to Naniescu, “in any number of disguises, but never two alike, and every new one a surprise!”

“You flatter me, sir,” Number Ten said with an almost imperceptible sneer.

“But I am afraid you must be very tired,” de Kervoisin resumed affably. “I told the general last night that he might just as well have sent one of his subordinates on this errand.”

“I like to finish my work myself,” Number Ten rejoined curtly.

Whereupon Naniescu threw up his hairy, fat hands and exclaimed in wonderment:

“Ils sont impayables, ces Anglais!”

“Then we may take it,” de Kervoisin went on, “that the work is finished?”

“Yes, finished,” Number Ten replied. “We spotted the car on the road about five kilometres from Cluj. The patrol summoned the driver to stop, but the man had obviously had his orders; he swerved sharply to the right and put on speed to try and rush through, so I shot him.”

“Ah! these English,” Naniescu exclaimed complacently; “they are wonderful!”

But de Kervoisin only expressed the mildest possible surprise by a very slight lifting of his eyebrows.

“Yourself?” was all he said.

“Yes,” the other replied. “The patrol was on the other side of the road, but I guessed what would happen, so I had brought my horse to a halt about two hundred metres higher up.”

“And,” Naniescu asked blandly, “you killed the chauffeur?”

“Of course,” the other sneered. “I was not likely to miss him, was I?”

But Naniescu could only smile, and sigh, and murmur: “Oh, those English! Voyez⁠—moi çà!”

“There were two men in the body of the car,” Number Ten continued coolly, “they were dead drunk. Philip Imrey and the girl were on the front seats. I gave my horse in charge of the patrol and took the wheel. We were in Cluj outside the gaol soon after two o’clock. I saw the chief superintendent and gave the three men and the girl in his charge.”

“Yes! Yes!” Naniescu broke in glibly, and turned to de Kervoisin, “he had all instructions. Everything was ready. I have seen him since. Philip Imrey and Anna Heves are in separate cells, and the two drunken oafs he dispatched by train to Hódmezö. They did not seem to know what had happened, and it was no use detaining them.”

“None whatever,” Number Ten said dryly. “They were just drunken oafs, as you say. With the miller and his two sons you will have to deal presently⁠—that is, if your second patrol succeeded in capturing the sons. I couldn’t be in two places at once, and they may have crossed the frontier. Anyway, that’s your affair, not mine.”

“Of course, of course,” Naniescu said airily. And de Kervoisin put in rather impatiently:

“What about the car and the dead chauffeur?”

“I drove both out to Kis-Imre,” Number Ten replied deliberately. “The best way to let people there know what had happened. The General agreed to it.”

“Was that your brilliant idea?”

“Mine!” Number Ten replied curtly.

And suddenly through the paint and the grime a look of almost inhuman cruelty distorted his face: the thin lips drew back tight above the red gums, and the sharp teeth gleamed white like those of a wolf. It was the recollection of a note which Naniescu had scribbled at his dictation, and which he, Number Ten, had thrust into the hand of the dead chauffeur for the perusal of an obstinate woman, that brought that wolf-like look into his face. His eyes almost disappeared beneath the strand of false eyebrows and the thick layers of paint upon the lids, and his hands opened out and were clutched again like the talons of a bird of prey.

For the space of a second or two Number Ten looked hideous. De Kervoisin, who was watching him, was conscious of an uncomfortable shudder: Naniescu fortunately was looking another way, and the whole episode was over in a moment; the next, Number Ten was once more leaning back in his chair, looking weary, grimy and ill-tempered, but there was nothing supernatural about him, except perhaps his amazing change from one personality to another.

“How did you get back here?” Kervoisin asked after a moment’s pause.

“I have a car which our friend the general has placed at my disposal, with a soldier-driver. I ordered him to follow me to within half a kilometre of Kis-Imre.”

“No one stopped you?”

“No one.”

“I suppose you got to Kis-Imre before anyone was astir?”

“I won’t say that. The ladies at the château were astir.”

“And they saw you?”

“No. I had reached my own car, and was on the point of driving off when I saw them coming through the gates of the château.”

“You would not have liked them to see you, I imagine,” Naniescu put in with a chuckle.

“They wouldn’t have known me,” Number Ten retorted quietly.

“Heu! heu!” the general rejoined with a shrug. “There are certain eyes that are reported to be very sharp.”

“Anyway,” Number Ten broke in coolly, “no one saw me except an oaf from the village, so why discuss the point?”

And strangely enough General Naniescu, usually so dictatorial and so arrogant, did not seem to resent the gruffness of this man who was in his pay. On the contrary, he laughed good-humouredly and rested his fat hand with a gesture of almost affection on the shoulder of the spy.

“Ah, ces chers Anglais!” he sighed fatuously whilst de Kervoisin turned quite politely to Number Ten with the bland question: “And what is your next move, my dear friend?”

“To get those articles out of the fair Uno,” Naniescu interposed hurriedly before the other had time to reply. “That point must not be lost sight of.”

“I am not likely to lose sight of it,” the other riposted dryly, “seeing that I am