The Secret Witness by George Gibbs (book recommendations txt) 📕

a strange name."

"What?"

"I can't think."

"Zaidee, you heard?" Renwick asked.

"I was listening, but I could not understand."

"Was it a city?"

"I do not know."

"Was it Cracow? Kaschau? Agram? Was it Brünn?"

But they made no sign.

"Think!" said Renwick. "At the top of the map—away from them—near the edge?"

Selim shrugged hopelessly. "I can't remember," he said.

Renwick despaired.

"Was the map large?"

"Yes. I remember that. It covered this table——"

"Ah—then you can tell me how they stood?"

"Yes. I can tell you that."

He got up and placed himself at the side of the table. "The Excellency was here—the map spread out——"

"Did he lean to the left or to the right?"

"He leaned well forward with both elbows upon the table—straight forward—yes—almost across—a pencil in his hand—the other was pointing. The lamp was just there——" pointing to the left center of the table.

"The lamp was on the map?"

"Yes—to keep it in position——"

"On the left-hand side?"

"Yes."

"And they didn't move the lamp?"

"No. It remained there until they raised it to take the map away."

"I understand. And they made marks up and down with a pencil?"

Selim shrugged.

"It is what I think, merely."

"And the name was——?"

"How can one be sure of a name? It is a wonder just now that I can remember my own. Had I known what was to happen——" And he shrugged and dropped wearily again into his chair.

"And the police—? What has Zaidee said to the police?"

"Merely that the Excellencies were here—in this house."

"The police are coming again?"

"I do not know. It would seem that they have forgotten."

"And if they come, you will speak?"

"The hundred kroner will make me dumb."

"And Zaidee?"

"I will not speak."

"Nothing of me, you understand. I am but Stefan Thomasevics——"

"It is understood."

"And you remember nothing more?"

"Nothing."

"You are sure. The Excellency left no message—no note——?"

"Nothing."

Renwick pushed the hundred kroner note toward Selim and straightened.

"You have done me a service, Selim. They have gone to the east of the Tatra——"

"Tatra!" suddenly shouted Selim triumphantly. "It is the name!"

"Are you sure?" asked Renwick excitedly.

"Yes. Tatra—that is it. They spoke of it for half an hour. Eh—Zaidee?"

"Yes. It is the name."

Renwick paced the floor with long steps.

"Selim," he said at last, "it is now dark. I must go at once."

"Tomorrow."

"Tonight. The stars are out."

He moved to the door and peered out.

"You will keep silent?" he asked.

"Have I not promised?" said Selim.

He caught them both by the hand.

"Allah will bless you."

"A hundred kroner—that is blessing enough for one day, Stefan Thomasevics," he laughed.

"Adieu!" said Renwick, and walked bravely off into the starlight.

CHAPTER XXI AN IMPERSONATION

At least he now had a goal—"the center of the map, near the top"—the Tatra region by which Goritz had passed (if he had not been intercepted) into Galicia and so into Germany. Aside from the value of Selim's information, one other fact stood out. The secret service men who had visited Selim a month ago had not returned. Did this mean that Herr Windt had already succeeded in closing the door of escape? The passes through the Carpathians could of course be easily guarded and closed, for there were few of them accessible to traffic by automobile. Was Renwick's goal, after all, to be there and not beyond? He had put in one summer in the Tatra region with Captain Otway of the Embassy, and he knew the district well,—a country of mountain villages, feudal castles, and rugged roads. Otway had been interested in the military problems of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and Renwick remembered the importance of the Tatra as a natural barrier to Russian ambitions. The shortest automobile road into Silesia lay to the east of the Tatra range—and the passes through the Carpathians at this point were few and well known. By process of elimination, Renwick had at last assured himself that his first theory was tenable, for Selim had confirmed it. A hundred conjectures flashed into the Englishman's mind as he trudged onward, to be one by one dismissed and relegated to the limbo of uncertainty. But assuming that Selim had told the truth, Renwick had found the trail, and would follow wherever it might lead him, to its end.

His idea of traveling afoot by night and of hiding by day, at least for the first part of his journey, was born of the desire to leave nothing to chance. His own capture meant internment until the end of the war, or possibly an exchange for some Austrian in England. But they should not catch him! Concealed in his belt he wore the American revolver, and carried some cartridges which Zubeydeh had restored to him.

The weather fortunately had been fine, and the days and nights in the open were rapidly restoring him to strength. The discomfort at the wound in his body which had bothered him for a few days had disappeared. He was well. And with health came hope, faith even, in the star of his fortunes. It took him two weeks to reach Polishka, below which he crossed the Save at night in a boat which he found moored to the bank, and daylight found him at a small village through which a railroad ran north towards the plains of the Danube. Here he paused dead-tired for food and rest.

The innkeeper, who spoke German fairly well, swallowed Renwick's story, his taste somewhat stimulated by the sight of the ten-kroner piece which the Englishman used in paying for his breakfast.

But the time had now come for the execution of a bold plan which for some days and nights Renwick had been turning over and over in his mind. It was a good plan, he thought, a brave plan which stood the test of argument pro and con. The British Embassy in many of its investigations during times of peace,—investigations of a purely personal or financial nature,—had been in the habit of calling in the services of one Carl Moyer, an Austrian who ran a private inquiry bureau in Vienna. He was an able man, not directly connected with the secret service department of the Empire, but frequently brought into consultation upon matters outside the pale of politics. Renwick's interest in Moyer had been limited to the share they had both taken in some inquiries as to the standing of a Russian nobleman who had approached the Ambassador with a scheme of a rather dubious character. But a physical resemblance to Moyer, which had been the subject of frequent jokes with Otway, had now given Renwick a new and very vital interest in the personality of the man which had nothing to do with their business relations. Moyer was thinner than Renwick, and not so tall, but their features were much alike. When at first the idea of an impersonation had come to Renwick, he had rejected it as dangerous, but the notion obsessed him. The very boldness of the project was in its favor. He could now move freely along the railroads and if one ignored the hazard of meeting the man himself or someone who knew him intimately, he could pursue his object of following the trail of Captain Goritz with a brave front which would defy suspicion. True, he would have no papers and no credentials, but this, too, was a part of the guise of a man who might be moving upon a secret mission. Carl Moyer, disguised as an Austrian of the laboring class, moving from Bosnia to the Carpathians—what could be more natural?

As Renwick ate his breakfast in the small inn at Otok, he came to a sudden decision to put this bold plan into practice. And so, exhibiting another ten-kroner piece, he made known his wishes to the innkeeper. He was a Bosnian, he said, but in Hungary he did not wish to attract attention by wearing his native costume. In parts of Hungary there was a feeling that the Bosnians who lived near the Serbian border were not loyal to the Emperor and this, it had been said, might make it difficult for him to obtain employment. His purse was not large but if his host would procure for him a suit of western clothing, a coat, a pair of trousers, a shirt, a cravat, and a soft hat, he, Thomasevics, would offer his Bosnian clothing in exchange and do what was fair in the matter of money. The train from Britzka did not go north for an hour. Would it be possible to find these things in so short a time? The innkeeper regarded the worn and mud-stained garments of his guest rather dubiously, but the terms of the offer in the matter of money having been made clear, the transformation was accomplished without difficulty and Renwick boarded the train rather jubilant at the celerity and speed of his journey. By nightfall, with luck, he would be across the Danube and well within the borders of Hungary, mingling in crowds where all trace of his identity would be lost. He spent most of his afternoon on the train trying to recall the mannerisms of the man Moyer, a trick of gesture, a drawl and a shrug which he thought he could manage. Carl Moyer he now was, on a mission from Bosnia to the North, in which the better to disguise himself he was permitting his hair and beard to grow.

Hut success had made him over-confident, for at the Bahnhof at Zombor where he had to change into a train for Budapest, something happened which drove all thought from his head save that of escape from the predicament into which his imprudence had plunged him.

He was sitting upon a bench on the platform waiting for his train when a man approached and sat beside him. Renwick needed no second glance to reassure himself as to the fellow's identity. He was Spivak, Windt's man, the fellow who had kept guard on the cabin at Konopisht. The Englishman feared to get up and walk away, for that might attract attention. So he sat, slouched carelessly, his hat pulled well down over his eyes, awaiting what seemed to be the inevitable. Spivak—one of Windt's men sent of course to Zombor, one of the important railway junctions, to watch all arrivals from the south. Renwick had been ready with his story when he debarked from the train but there had been a crowd and he had been in the last carriage. Renwick's mind worked rapidly, and to an imagination already prescient of disaster, the man seemed to be inspecting him. As Spivak's chin lifted, Renwick faced him squarely. Their glances met—and passed. Renwick calmly took out a cigarette and bending his head forward lighted it coolly, aware that the man was saying something in Hungarian.

Renwick made a gesture of incomprehension, wondering meanwhile how he could kill the man on the crowded platform without attracting observation.

"The train from the south was crowded today," said Spivak in German.

"Crowded? Yes."

"Do you come from Brod or Britzka?"

"From Britzka," said Renwick without hesitation, and then with the courage of desperation—

"I have seen you before," he went on, calmly puffing at his cigarette.

"I have, I think, the same impression."

"Your name is Spivak—of the Secret Service——"

"You——"

"My name is Carl Moyer."

It was a gambler's chance that Renwick took. If Spivak intimately knew the man—but he did not and the effrontery disarmed him.

"You are Carl Moyer? I must have seen you," he muttered. "I have been in Vienna a little—with Herr Windt, but I am of the Hungarian branch. You have been in Sarajevo?"

"Yes," said Renwick easily following out a wild plan that had come into his mind. "I have been employed by the Baroness Racowitz to find the Countess Marishka Strahni."

"Ah, I see. It has come to that!" And then, regarding his companion with a new interest, "When did you come from Sarajevo?"

"Last night. It is a strange case."

"And you have found a lead?"

"Several——"

"You can do nothing against such a man as Goritz."

"It is Goritz—yes—but I will find her if I have to go through Germany with a harrow."

"They have not gone to Germany, my friend. Every gate out of Hungary has been closed