Flashman And The Tiger

And it was all wasted fear, for the die was cast already by hands other than Bismarck’s, and rolling in my direction.

We dined early that evening, and for all his artless banter I sensed that Willem was wound tight, as was Kralta. She it was who proposed that we should visit the casino, less from an urge for play, I guessed, than for some distraction from the strain of waiting. Willem said it was a capital notion, and I forced a cheery agreement, so then we waited while Kralta donned her evening finery, and presently we strolled through the lantern-lit gardens to the New Casino, with Beefy acting as rearguard and taking post at the entrance as we passed into the salon.

That feeling of unreality that had gripped me in the streets came back with a vengeance under the glittering chandeliers. It was a scene from operetta, like the Prince’s reception we’d seen at the theatre the previous night, a swirl of elegant figures clustered round the tables or waltzing in the ballroom beyond, all laughter and gaiety and heady music, gallants in immaculate evening rig or dress uniform, the ladies splendid in coloured silks, bright eyes and white shoulders and jewels a-gleam in the candleshine, glasses raised to red lips and white-gloved fingertips resting on stalwart arms, the rattle of the wheel and the voices of the croupiers mingling with the cries of delight or disappointment, the soft strains of "La Belle Hélene" and "Blue Danube" from the orchestra, Ruritania come to life on a warm Austrian evening that would go on flirting and laughing and dancing forever … and a bare mile away, the lonely lodge among the dark silent trees with its precious royal tenant all unguarded against the creeping menace that would come by night, and only one desperate adventurer and one shivering poltroon to save the peace of Europe, unless at the eleventh hour that poltroon could streak to safety in the tall timber.

D’you wonder that while I retain a vivid image of the scene in that casino, I haven’t the faintest recollection of the play? Not that I’m much in the punting line; running a hell in Santa Fe convinced me that it’s money burned unless you hold the bank, but if I’d been as big a gambling fool as George Bentinck I’d not have noticed whether it was faro or roulette or vingt-et-un we wagered on; I was too much occupied keeping down my fears, mechanically holding Kralta’s stakes and muttering inane advice, working up my courage with brandy while Willem smoked and watched me across the table.

I know Kralta won, smiling coolly as her chips were pushed across, and suggesting we escape from the noise and crowd into the garden. Willem nodded, and she went off to find her stole and to tittivate while I collected her winnings from the caissier and sauntered out of the salon to the entrance, my heart going like a trip-hammer, for I knew it was now or never.

Beefy was on the q.v. at the head of the steps, so I told him offhand that her highness would come presently, and I would wait for her at the little fountain yonder. He scowled doubtfully, and as I went leisurely down the steps to the gravel walk I saw him from the tail of my eye, hesitating whether to wait or come after me. Sure enough, he stuck to his orders, and followed me; I heard his beetle-crunchers on the gravel as I paused to light a cheroot and loafed on idly towards the fountain, glittering prettily under the lanterns a few yards ahead. There were clusters of light every-where in the gardens, but deep stretches of dark among the trees—let me side-step swiftly into one of these and be off to a flying start, and if I couldn’t give that lumbering oaf ten yards in the hundred, even at my time of life, I’d deserve to be caught. And then I’d be in full flight with the length and breadth of Europe before me, Kralta’s winnings and my own cash to speed my pass-age, by train or coach or on foot or on hands and knees if need be—if I’ve learned one thing in life it’s to bolt at the first chance and let the future take care of itself … so now I strolled unhurriedly high', savvy?" That meant the Prime Minister, in politicals' lingo … Gladstone. "And higher still," adds Hutton sharply. My God, that could only mean the Queen …

"Now, understand this, sir. We know Bismarck’s plan, down to the last detail, for safeguarding the Emperor. Starnberg must have put it to you? Very good, tell me what he said, precisely, and quick as you like."

When you’ve been trained as a political by Sekundar Burnes you talk to the point and ask no questions. In one short minute I’d been given staggering information demanding a thousand "whys", but that didn’t matter. What did, was the joyous discovery that I was among friends and safe from Bismarck’s ghastly intrigues. So I gave ’em what they wanted, as terse as I knew how, from my boarding the Orient Express, omitting only those tender passages with Kralta which might have offended their sensibilities, and any mention of the Pechmann blackmail: my story was that Willem had backed up his proposal with a pistol. They listened in silence broken only once by a groan from the bushes, at which Hutton snarled over his shoulder: "Hit him again, can’t you? And go through the bugger’s pockets every last penny, mind!"

When I’d finished he asked: "Did you believe it?"

"How the blazes could I tell? It sounded wild, but—"

"Oh, it’s wild!" he agreed. "It’s also gospel true, though I don’t blame you for doubting it … why the dooce couldn’t Bismarck approach you open and aboveboard instead of humbugging you aboard that train? Best way to make you disbelieve ’em, I’d say." He shot me a leery look. "Told Starnberg to go to the devil, did you?"

"By God I did, and let me tell you—"

"But you’re still with ’em, so either you’ve changed your mind or are pretending you’ve changed it." He was no fool, this one. "Well, sir, it makes no odds, for from this moment you’re with ’em in earnest. And that’s an order from Downing Street."

Only paralysed disbelief at these frightful words prevented me from depositing my dinner at his feet. He couldn’t mean them, surely? But he did; as I gaped in stricken horror he went on urgently:

"It’s this way. Bismarck’s right. If these Hungarian villains succeed, God help the peace. And he’s right, too, that the Emperor can’t be warned—"

"It would be fatal!" The Frog spoke for the first time. "There can be no confidence in his judgment. He might well provoke a storm. Bismarck’s plan is the only hope."

"It not only preserves the Emperor but deals those Magyar fanatics a fatal blow," says Hutton. "Suppose something arose to make this attempt impossible, they’d just wait for another day—but wipe out their best assassins now, swift and sudden, and they’ll not come again!" I could see his eyes fairly gleaming in the shadows. "So it rests with you and von Starnberg—but now you know you have the blessing of our own chief … and the French authorities, too, of course," he added quickly, no doubt to keep Jean Crapaud happy.

"M. Grevy approves the plan, and your participation," says Froggy, and smiled grimly. "And your old copain of the Legion bids you `Bonne chance, camarade!' "

He could only mean Macmahon (who’d never been near me in the bloody Legion, but that’s gossip for you), and as I sat rooted and mute at all this appalling news, which had whisked me in a twinkling from the heights of hope to the depths of despair, it struck me that there had been some marvellous secret confabulating in high places lately, hadn’t there just? But then, ’tisn’t every day that British and French intelligence learn of an idiotic plan by Bismarck to save the Austrian Emperor and prevent bloody war, is it? Gad’s me life and blue sacred, they must have thought, Gladstone and Grevy (the Frog-in-chief) must hear about this, and elder wiseacres like Macmahon, and probably D’Israeli … and the Queen, God help us, since it’s a royal crisis … and because they’ve no notion what to do they convince themselves that Otto’s plan is the only course—all the more so because the renowned Flashy, secret diplomatic ruffian extraordinary, former agent of Palmerston and Elgin, veteran of desperate exploits in Central Asia and China and the back o' beyond generally, who’s killed more men than the pox and is just the lad for the present crisis, has been recruited to the good cause—never mind how, he’s on hand, loaded and ready to fire, your majesty, so don’t trouble your royal head about it, all will be well … "Indeed, it is most alarming, and too shocking that subjects should Raise their Hands against their Emperor, whose Royal Person should be sacred to them, and the Empress is the prettiest and most charming creature, and while I could wish that your hand, dear Lord Beaconsfield, was at the Helm of the Ship of State in this crisis, I dare say that Mr Gladstone is right, and the matter may be safely entrusted to Colonel Flash-man, such an agreeable man, although my dear Albert thought him a trifle brusque …" "Indeed, mann, a somewhat rough diamond, but capable, they say …" That would be the gist of it. I could have wept.

For as I sat on the cold bench in the shadows, with waltz music drifting from the casino and my mind numb from the pounding Hutton and this Frod had given it, one thing at least was plain: I was dished. The irony was that in the very moment when I’d eluded Willem and his bullies, running had become impossible. How could I tell Hutton to go to hell with his foul instructions—and have him bearing back to Whitehall (and Windsor and Horse Guards and Pall Mall) the shameful news that the Hector of Afghanistan, hero of Balaclava and Cawnpore, had said thank’ee but he’d rather not save Franz-Josef and the peace of Europe, if you don’t mind. My credit, my fame would be blown away; I’d be disgraced, ruined, outcast; the Queen would be quite shocked. No, the doom had come upon me, yet again, and I could only cudgel my brains for some respectable alternative to the horror ahead, trying to look stern as I met their eyes, and talking brisk and manly like the gallant old professional they thought I was.

"See here, Hutton," says I, "you know me. I don’t croak. But this thing ain’t only wild, it’s plain foolish. You’ve got men—well, then, bushwhack these rascals in the grounds, before they get near the lodge—"

"We’re seven all told! We couldn’t hope to cover the grounds—and if we had more it’s odds the Holnup would spot us and cry off to another time."

"But, dammit, man, two men in the house is too few! Suppose they come in force—God knows I’m game, but I ain’t young, and Starnberg’s only a boy—"

"Never fret about Starnberg! From what I hear he’s Al," says Hutton, and laid a hand on my shoulder, damn his impudence.

"And I’d back you against odds, however old you are! Now, time’s short—"

"But you must picket the grounds somehow! If something goes wrong, seven of you could at least—"

"We’ll be on hand, colonel, but only at a distance or they’ll spot us sure as sin! From this moment we’ll have one cover dogging you, every foot o' the way, but more than that we can’t do! Now, you’d best rejoin Starnberg and Kralta before they miss you."

"And how the hell do I do that, when you’ve sandbagged my bloody watchdog? What do I tell ’em, hey? You’ve blown on me, you gormless ass!"

"Don’t you believe it, sir!" He was grinning as he spoke over his shoulder. "How is he?"

"Sleeping sound," chuckles a voice from the dark, and Hutton turned back to me. "Four more unlucky citizens will be assaulted and robbed this fine night, so your cove won’t seem out o' place. Damnable, these garotters! Bad as London … So your best plan, colonel, is to discover our unconscious friend and raise the alarm, see? How’s that for establishing your bona fides?" He called it "bonnyfydes"—and why the devil I should remember that, of all things, you may well wonder.

"Time to go!" snaps Hutton, straightening up. "Find another victim, eh, Delzons? Off with you, then!" His hand clapped my shoulder again. "All clear, colonel? Not a word about this to Starnberg, mind! You’ll see me again … afterwards. Good hunting, sir!"

And so help me, he and his lousy Frog accomplice were gone like phantoms into the dark, without another word, leaving me in a rather disturbed state. I’d have cried out after them if I’d been capable of speech; as it was, I had wit enough to see the wisdom of his advice anent Beefy, and after a few seconds' frantic search in the bushes I found the brute, dead to the world, and was waking the echoes with shouts of: "Helfen! Polizei! Ein Mann ist tot! Helfen, schnell, helfen!" Thereafter it seemed politic to run towards the casino, repeating my alarm and guiding interested parties to the scene of the crime.

It worked perfectly, of course. Willem was among the first on hand, fairly blazing with unspoken suspicion, which I allayed by explaining that I’d been waiting by the fountain for Kralta when sounds of battery in the bushes had attracted my attention, and on investigating I’d found Beefy supine with two sturdy footpads taking inventory of his pockets. They had fled, I had pursued but lost them in the dark, and returned to minister to Beefy and raise the alarm. And where the blazes were the police, then?

It didn’t convince him above half, I’m sure, not at first; I could guess he was wondering why I hadn’t taken the chance to vanish … and coming slowly to the conclusion that I hadn’t wanted to. What sealed the thing was the discovery, a few minutes later, of another unfortunate wandering dazed on the gravel walks and gasping out a tale of armed footpads who’d knocked him down and pinched his watch and purse; half an hour afterwards a third was found unconscious by one of the casino gates, similarly beaten and robbed.

By that time the peelers had arrived in force, shepherding the frightened mob back into the casino, where Beefy and the other victims were being attended to. Plainly a gang of footpads had marked down the casino patrons as well-lined targets, and were making a lightning sweep of the grounds. I made a statement to a most efficient young police inspector, watched closely by a still puzzled Willem with Kralta at his elbow; they were talking sotto voce, and if I’d felt like laughing I dare say I’d have been amused at the slow change of expression on Willem’s face, for it was clear that she was insisting that here was proof of my sincerity, since not only had I not made for the high hills, I’d absolutely come to Beefy’s aid and been first to holler for the law. At last he nodded, but I guessed he was still leery of me—Rudi would have been.

Nothing was said, though, about my "bonnyfydes" as we returned to the Golden Ship, Kralta on my arm murmuring thanks that I hadn’t been molested, and Willem snapping impatiently at Beefy who brought up the rear with his head in a sling. I gathered from their half-heard conversation that Beefy was lamenting the loss of a lock of hair belonging to some bint called Leni which he’d carried in the back of his watch, and getting scant sympathy; Prussians, you know, care not two dams about their inferiors. Neither do I, but I know it’s good business to pretend that I do, and looked in on Beefy before retiring to lay a consoling hand on his thick skull; he just gaped like a ruptured bullock.

One of the lessons that I’d impress on young chaps is this: if you want to pull a bluff, do it with your might, no half-measures. However unlikely the ploy, if your neck is brazen enough, it’s odds on you’ll get away with it. Take the time I was caught in flagrante in a Calcutta hotel by an outraged husband, and sold him on the idea that I was a doctor sounding her chest, or the occasion when they found me climbing through Jefferson Davis’s skylight and I pretended I was a workman come to fix his lightning-rod. A moment’s guilty hesitation, and I’d have been done for; indignant astonishment at being interfered with saw me through. But I’ve never done better than Willem von Starnberg in Franz-Josef’s woods above Ischl; that was a bravura performance, and would have been a pleasure to witness if I hadn’t been writhing in pain after he’d dam' near broken my leg. His father would have been proud of him.

We’d risen well before dawn and made a hurried breakfast—schnapps, mostly, for me, in a futile attempt to steady my nerves—and Kralta was on hand to bid the warriors farewell. Her cheek was like ice when she kissed me, but her lips were hungry enough, and there was moisture in the cold blue eyes and strain showing on the long proud face. She was anxious for me, you see, the besotted little aristo—it’s remarkable how even the most worldly of women can be rendered maudlin by Adam’s arsenal. Willem was impatient to be off, and it was more to annoy him than to comfort her that I folded her in a lingering embrace, squeezing her bottom as I assured her that we’d be back in fine trim in a day or two, and then Vienna, ha-ha!

The sun was not yet up, and autumn mist was wreathing over the waters of the Ischl as we crossed the bridges, deserted at that hour, and mounted the slope towards the woods, skirting well to the right of the royal lodge, which lay silent among its surrounding trees; a cock was crowing somewhere, the dew was thick on the short grass, and there was that tang in the nostrils that comes only at daybreak. We were attired as tourist walkers, in tweeds, boots and gaiters, Willem carrying a rucksack and I a flask and sandwich-case, and it was only when we had reached the higher woods and paused to look back at the lodge, and beyond and beneath it the distant roofs of Ischl town, gilded now by the first rays of the rising sun, that it struck me I was without one necessary item of equipment. When, I asked, was I to be armed for the fray?

"Not yet awhile," smiles Willem. "Remember that presently you’re going to be a limping invalid, who’s sure to be examined by a doctor, and we don’t want him blundering through your clobber and finding the likes of these, do we?" He opened the rucksack to display two revolvers, a Webley and a LeVaux. "I like an English piece myself, but the LeVaux' s neat enough for your pocket and fires a .45 slug, guaranteed to give any marauder the deuce of a bellyache. Take your choice."

Without thinking, I indicated the LeVaux … and so saved my life, and Franz-Josef’s, and heaven knows how many million other lives as well. If I’d chosen the Webley, Europe would probably have gone to war in ’83. Think I’m stretching? Wait and see.

"We’ll have twenty rounds apiece," says Willem, stowing away the guns. "If we need more … then we shall also need the Austrian army." His impatience had gone now that we were under way, and he was in that insufferably jocular mood that his father had affected whenever dirty work was imminent. "Now, ’twill be curtain up in a little while, so let’s rehearse our cues, shall we?"

We found a dry fallen tree trunk in the margin of the woods, and he repeated in detail the mad procedure which he’d described on the train, and again at the Golden Ship. It still sounded devilish chancy—suppose Franz-Josef hadn’t got up this morning, or didn’t invite us to stay, what then? I asked. He shook his head as at a mistrustful child, and was just assuring me patiently that it would all fall out precisely as the genius Otto had forecast, when from somewhere in the woods above us there came the distant sound of a gunshot.

"There, you see!" cries he, springing afoot. "Our royal host is doin' the local chamois a piece of no good!"

"How d’ye know it’s him? It might be anyone!"

"It might be the Aston Villa brake-club picnic, but I doubt it! In the Emperor’s personal woods?" He swung up his rucksack and plunged into the trees. "Come on!"

We pushed rapidly uphill into the woods, down into a little hollow, and up again over a steep stony place, and now there came two shots in quick succession, much closer and off to our left.

"Wait here!" says Willem, and was off into the undergrowth at a run. I breathed myself against a tree, debating whether to rush blindly downhill away from this fatal nonsense, remembered Hutton and the Queen, and stood there sweating and gnashing my teeth—and here he was again, face alight with unholy joy, slithering towards me over the fallen leaves and needles.

"Eureka! He’s there, large as life, havin' a smoke while his loader measures the horns of some dead beast which I suppose he’s shot! Couldn’t be better!" He caught me by the shoulder. "Now’s the hour, Harry my boy! This is where you rick your ankle, and I holler for help! Ready?"

"You’re raving mad!" says I, through chattering teeth. "You and Bismarck both—oh, Christ!"

For the swine had fetched me a sudden shattering kick above the ankle, and I went down in agony, fairly writhing on the leaves as I clutched my injured limb and damned him to Hell and beyond. It was as though I’d been shot—and he stepped over me, measured his distance, and kicked me savagely again, in almost the same place.

"If you’ve hurt yourself, the medico’s got to have somethin' to look at, you know!" grins he. "Not so loud, you ass, or they’ll think you’re dyin' ! Groan, and try to look gallantly long-sufferin'!"

I was too dizzy with pain to do anything but curse and weep, and now he was away again, yelling "Helfen, mein Herr!" while I tried to pull myself up by a tree, wrenching at my gaiter-buttons and sock to reveal an ankle that was grazed bloody and already turning blue. God, had he broken it? I nursed the injury with both hands, feeling it beginning to puff and swell, and now footsteps were approaching, Willem’s voiced raised in concern.

"… caught his leg between two stones, I think. I don’t believe it’s broken, but too badly wrenched to walk, I fear. On the first day of our expedition, too!"

"You say your friend is an Englishman?" It was a deep voice, curiously flat and deliberate.

"Why, yes, an Army acquaintance. Neither of us has been to the Saltzkammergut before, you see, and we planned … ah, here he is! How is it, Harry? I say, it looks bad!" He turned to his companion. "By the way, I am Count Willem von Starnberg … Herr … ?" He finished on a question, the cunning young bastard, letting on that he didn’t know whom he was addressing, and I gritted my teeth and tried to act up, noting as I did so that it was a good job there were no Highland regiments in the Austrian service, for the Emperor Franz-Josef would have looked abominable in a kilt, with those knobbly knock-knees looking like knuckle-ends between his woollen stockings and his little black lederhosen. He wore a shooting jacket and a ridiculous hat with a feather, but there was nothing clownish about the austere frowning face with its heavy whiskers as he stooped to survey my damage. Nothing sympathetic, either, just bovine serious.

"It needs attention," was the royal diagnosis. "Can you walk, sir?"

There must be an actor buried in me, for as Willem bent to help me, and I met Franz-Josef’s heavy stare, I fairly gaped wide-eyed and made as though to scramble up.

"My God!" I croaked. "Your majesty! I … I…" Babble, babble, babble, while Willem looked suitably startled and clicked his heels, and Franz-Josef made another of his lightning deductions.

"You know me?"

Didn’t I just, though, begging his pardon, introducing myself with profuse apologies for coming adrift in his coverts, doffing my tile while Willem did likewise, bowing like a clockwork doll while Franz-Josef registered amazement by blinking thoughtfully.

"The officer of Mexico!" says he. "You are he who attempted to save my unhappy brother. I invested you with the Order of Maria Theresa, at Corfu, was it not?"

After that, it was old home week with a vengeance, with Franz-Josef nodding gravely, Willem protesting that we were a hellish nuisance, All-Highest, and wouldn’t have dreamed of intruding if we’d only known, Flashy clinging gamely to his tree, and presently even more gamely to the stalwart back of the loader, who was summoned to tote me downhill. I lay there, breathing in his aroma of rifle-oil and cow-dung, wondering what the harvest might be, and Willem walked ahead with Franz-Josef, making deferential noises of gratitude and apology, and to my astonishment making his majesty laugh—say that for the Starnbergs, they could charm birds from the trees when they wanted to, and by the time we reached the lodge the Emperor of Austria was positively jocose, issuing orders to flying minions, and not going off to change his ghastly breeks until he had seen me installed on a couch in a gun-room, with servitors rallying round with hot water and cold compresses, and Willem chivvying them aside while he attended to my bandages himself.

"We’re there," he murmured softly. "He knows my family, by name, anyway." I could have said that if he’d known any more of the Starnbergs than that, we’d have been on our way to gaol this minute, but held my peace. "Play up when the doctor comes, mind."

Which I did, with Willem and Franz-Josef, now respectable in a suit, standing by. The sawbones was a plump little cove with gooseberry eyes and trailing whiskers who prodded my injury and pronounced it ugly, but seemed to think I ought to be able to hobble. Capital, thinks I, there’ll be no reason to offer us houseroom, and we can scuttle back to Ischl and let the Holnup have a free run, but Willem had the answer to that, rot him.

"Your thigh wound, remember," says he, very sober. "A serious injury from my friend’s Afghan days," he assured the doctor, "which reacts to any distemper in the limb. Why, Harry, you were laid up for a week in Scotland, I recall, when you’d done no more than stub your toe!"

Observe the guile of it: he knew that if anything appealed to Franz-Josef it was an honourable scar; he was soldier-daft and had himself risked life and limb with extraordinary stupidity during his various campaigns—all of which he’d lost, by the way. So now you find Flashy lying trowserless while the doctor goggled at the impressive scar on my thigh, and the knee wound I’d taken at Harper’s Ferry, and even the hole in my buttock where the slave catchers shot me while crossing the frozen Ohio, with Willem murmuring to an impressed Franz-Josef that this wasn’t the half of it, you ought to see the rest of the bugger’s carcase, not an inch of it whole, I assure your majesty, hell of a life the boy’s led, honestly. Or words to that effect.

The Emperor shook his head in respectful wonder, and the linseed lancer, taking his cue, muttered about secondary reaction and delayed muscular lesions; it might well be, he opined, that even a minor contusion might render a limb temporarily incapable. At which Willem played his master-stroke.

"Well, old feller, I can see we’ll just have to carry you down to Ischl! Is the thigh very painful? Ne’er mind, I’ll whistle up a chair or something, and a few handy chaps … if your majesty," says he, with another bow and heel-click, "will be gracious enough to allow my friend to rest here while I make arrangements … no more than an hour … profound apologies … great imposition … there, there, old chap, just bite on something …"

It would have had Scrooge piping his eye. Franz-Josef glowered at the doctor and said it would be unwise to move me, surely, and the poultice-walloper agreed that it would be nothing short of bloody reckless. Richtig, announced Franz-Josef, then the gentle-man stays here, at least until he can walk without difficulty, so fall in the loyal attendants.

Willem’s protests were pretty to hear, but Franz-Josef wouldn’t even listen. Unthinkable that I should be moved in my present state. It would be a privilege to entertain so gallant an officer, to whom his majesty was already indebted for services to the royal family. Count Starnberg must remain also. If my injury permitted, we would give the Emperor the pleasure of our company at dinner. In the meantime, affairs required his attendance elsewhere.

By this time I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever walk again, and it was with some relief that I discovered, after I’d been borne upstairs between two servants and left in a comfortable chamber overlooking the garden, that I could move without the least difficulty, and was none the worse except for an uncomfortable bruise. Willem suggested that I should recover sufficiently to hobble by dinner-time. "We’re goin' to be afoot tonight," says he, "and it wouldn’t do for you to be encountered walkin' if you were meant to be bed-bound, you poor old cripple, you." He was in bouncy fettle, inviting me to admire the way everything had gone exactly according to plan, pacing up and down with his cigarette-holder at a jaunty angle. "A heavy limp, I think, with the aid of a stick. Too late for F-J to turn us out of doors now, what?"

I asked how on earth he’d known so much about my wounds, and received his superior grin. "You can’t get it into your head, can you? Bismarck has a genius for detail—why, I know as much about your battle scars as you do!" He reached suddenly to tousle my hair, curse him. "Got yourself scalped by Indians in the wild and woolly west, even! Oh, yes," says the insolent pup, "I’ve seen a dossier on you that I’ll bet contains things you’ve forgotten—perhaps never knew. You’ve been about, though—my stars, I hope I’ll see half as much by the end of the day." He shook his handsome head, and the admiring look of our first meeting was back again.

"The guv’nor was right—you’re the complete hand and no mistake. On that train, there you were, wonderin' what the dooce you’d fallen into, ensnared by a sinister adventuress, menaced by a bravo with a pistol—but did you cry havoc, or bluster, or vow to have the law on us? Well, once—and then mum as an oyster, figurin' chances, listenin' and bidin' your time. I didn’t trust you an inch, then; Kralta did, though, and she’s no fool, even if she is spoony about you. But it took that business of Gunther gettin' scragged at the casino to convince me—then I knew you must be with us!" He grinned, tongue in cheek. "And it ain’t for Franz-Josef or the good o' the peace, is it? It’s just for devilment!" He slapped his knee, merry as a maggot. "I like you, Harry, shot if I don’t! And we’ll have some fun together, just you wait and see!"

He sprang up and tossed his cigarette into the fireplace. "Now then, I’m goin' to take a scout about, get the lie of the land and find out who does what and goes where and when and why. Rub an acquaintance with the aides, if I can, and take a professional interest in this sergeant and his file of sentinels." This with a knowing wink. "You lie and rest your mangled pin, and when I come back we can discuss ways and means, eh?" He chewed his lip and tapped another gasper on his thumbnail, looking keen.

"D’ye know, I’ve a notion tonight is goin' to be the night! Can’t tell why—just an instinct. You ever feel that sort of thing?"

"When I was young and green—yes," growls I, to take the bounce out of him. "Sign of nerves, Starnberg. You just wish it was over and done with."

It didn’t deflate him a bit. "Nerves yourself !" scoffs he. "If you mean I’m lookin' forward to it, you’re right." I believed him, for I’d seen the same bright-eyed excitement at the prospect of slaughter in idiots like Brooke and Custer, and it’s the last thing you need when your own fears are gullet-high. "That reminds me," he went on, "time you were properly dressed." He drew the LeVaux from his pocket, spun it deftly, and presented the butt. "Five chambers loaded. I’ll give you the other rounds later. Shove it out o' sight for the moment."

Being armed was some comfort, but not much. Like his blasted instinct, it was just a reminder of how close the doom was coming, perhaps only a few short hours away. In the meantime, left to myself, I could only wait, fretting and resting my bogus injury on the sofa, while soft-footed orderlies came and clicked their heels and asked leave to arrange the room and see to the linen and mend the fire and stow away my effects, which must have been sent for to the Golden Ship (trust Willem), and bring me coffee, which I shared with two sprightly youths who were Franz-Josef’s aides, come to pay their respects to the wounded guest. I forget their names, but thought of them as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, one fair, one dark, but identical in gaiety, indiscretion, and breezy but deferential attention to me—Tweedledee knew of me by name and fame, and was athirst for reminiscences, but since Tweedledum’s interest was merely polite, and I’m an old hand at not being pumped, it was child’s play to steer the conversation elsewhere.

Thus I learned in short order that Ischl was a confounded bore, and that it was common gossip that the Emperor was only here because he’d hoped to achieve a reconciliation with Sissi, who was in one of her fits of avoiding Vienna, but had half-agreed to come to Ischl, only she hadn’t, more’s the pity, for squiring her on horseback would have been a welcome diversion. Never mind, they’d be back in Vienna on Sunday, thank God, and free of the tyranny of the Chief Equerry, who was a muff and a sneak, and of the ordeal of dining with the Emperor, and being used as errand-boys by his secretary, and why the old boy had to spend all day poring over papers when he was meant to be on holiday, beat them altogether. Kept him out of the way, of course, even at luncheon, which was a mercy, since his usual fare was boiled beef and beer at his desk; at least they were spared that. Here, though, my chum Starnberg was a splendid fellow, wasn’t he; just the chap to liven up a slow week. And so on, and so on; it would be a dull world if there were no subalterns in it. Quieter, mind you.

They went at last, with noisy jests and good wishes, and I was left to brood until an orderly brought luncheon on a tray—not boiled beef, as I recall, but I was too blue and shaky to make much of whatever it was. I’d barely finished when Willem returned, making a great show of closing the door silently, tiptoeing to sit on my sofa, and speaking in a whisper.

"It’s too good to be true! Harry, my boy, I can’t believe our luck! Why, it’ll be child’s play!" He rubbed his hands, chuckling. "I’ve found the outer door to the Emperor’s secret stairway, I’m almost certain! How’s that for intelligence work?" He lighted one of his eternal black cigarettes and puffed in triumph.

"I bumped into the sergeant of the guard, accidental-a-purpose. A waxed-moustached old turnip-head who’s so damned military he probably rides his wife by numbers—almost ruptured himself comin' to attention when I happened by. I played the condescendin' Junker, commended his turn-out, complimented him on being chosen for such important duty …" he waved his holder airily.

… you know the style. The old fool was so flattered he confessed the job was mostly ceremonial, mindin' the front door, salutin' the Emperor and so on. "`But you mount night sentries, surely?' says I. `One only, Herr Oberst,' says he. `Ah, patrolling, to be sure,' says I. `By no means, Herr Oberst, a fixed post at the sundial corner only.' `Why there? Can’t tell the time at night!' says I. Gad, I was genial! Harry—he didn’t know why! Said it was regulations, since God was a boy."

He was so full of himself he couldn’t be still, jumping up and pacing to and fro. "That was enough for me. I chatted a moment more, as is my wont, and strolled round by the sundial corner, as he called it. Sentry-box, sure enough—and a few yards farther on an embrasure in the ivy with an old locked door! The window of the Emperor’s bedchamber is about twenty feet beyond on the storey above. Well," cries he, "what d’ye think of that for scoutin'?"

Too good to be true, indeed—yet, why not? It fitted … if the secret stairway really existed, and I had respect enough for Bismarck’s spy bandobast[organisation (Hind.)] to be confident that it did.

"So now," cries Willem, "we know just where to watch!"

"If it is the secret door, and they come that way—"

"It is, and they will!" says he impatiently. "I’m sure of it. But we’ll run no risks." He pulled a chair beside the sofa, and sat close. "I’ve thought it all out, and I’m afraid," says he with a mock-rueful grin, "that you mayn’t like it, ’cos you’ll miss most o' the sport. Sorry, old chap."

From that moment, you may be sure, I was all ears.

"It’s this way. My room’s next door here, but we’re some way from the Emperor’s quarters. Our corridor leads to the main part of the house, which is like so many of these royal places, one room opening on to another and then another, and so on. But then there’s another passage to the Emperor’s rooms—an ante-room where his orderly sleeps, and then the royal bedchamber over-lookin' the sundial garden. There’s a room off the passage for the aides—ah, you’ve met ’em, couple of society buffoons. So that’s the lie o' the land."

He paused to light another whiff. "You see the point—there are only two ways to come at Franz-Josef; either by the secret stair or along the passage leadin' past the aides' room to his quarters. Plug those, and he’s secure. Now," says he, leaning close, "I’ll lay odds the Holnup will come through the garden in the dead watch, around four, lay out the sentry quietly, jemmy the door, then upstairs and good-night Franz-Josef, all hail Crown Prince Rudolf ! But, just in case they enter the house some other way, one of us will lurk by the passage, while t’other is in the garden, coverin' the secret doorway. You follow?"

I followed, and relief was surging through me like the wave of the sea as he went on.

"You at the passage … et moi in the garden. No, shut up, Harry—it must be so because once the smoke has cleared and the Holnup are laid stiff and stark, I can say I couldn’t sleep and was just takin' a stroll and ran into ’em, see? That wouldn’t answer for you, with your game leg. Whereas if you’re watchin' the passage inside, and someone happens along, you can always say you were lookin' for the thunder-closet."

"That means," says I frowning, "that you’ll tackle ’em alone—one against perhaps three, perhaps more."

"No more than three, if so many," says he, baring his teeth. "Never fear, Harry, they’re dead men." His hands moved like lightning, and there was the Webley in one fist and the Derringer in t’other. "With all respect, old fellow, I doubt if you’re as quick with a piece as I, or as good a shot."

"Don’t know about that," says I, looking glum while repressing an urge to sing Hallelujah. "How many night ambushes have you laid?"

"Enough," says he jauntily. "Cheer up—perhaps they’ll come through the house after all!"

"And afterwards—how d’you explain that you went for a night stroll with a gun in your pocket?"

"I didn’t. Discoverin' miscreants tryin' to break in with evil intent, I gamely tackled ’em, disarmed one, and … Bob’s your uncle, as they say."

"I still don’t like it," I lied. "We’d be better with two in the garden—"

"No," says he flatly. "One must be in the house … you. When you hear a shot, make for your room, and then emerge hobblin' and roarin' for enlightenment—"

"When I hear a shot, I’ll be out o' doors before you know it. You may be good, Starnberg, but I’ve forgotten more about night fighting than you’ll ever know. And that, my son, is that." It’s always been second nature with me to act sullen-reluctant when I’ve been denied the prospect of battle and murder; suits my character, you see. In the event that he had to tackle the Holnup alone, the last thing I’d dream of doing would be to hasten to his aid; back to bed and snug down deaf as a post, that would be the ticket for Flashy, and he could have the glory to himself—which, I realised, was what he’d intended all along; I’d been necessary for gaining admittance, and all the rest had been so much gas. Well, good luck, Willem, and I hope you kill a lot of Hungarians.

In the meantime I looked sour, vowing to be in at the death, and he laughed and said, well, so be it, my presence in the garden with my game leg might seem odd, but with the Emperor preserved no one would think twice about it, likely. Then he took a big breath and sat back, delighted with himself and his planning, and fell to admiring Bismarck’s uncanny genius, and how it was all falling out precisely as he had forecast. But mostly he was nursing his blood lust, I knew, anticipating the pleasure of shooting assassins—in the back, no doubt. He was what Hickok called "a killing gentleman", was our Willem. Just like dear old dad.

Dinner at five with Franz-Josef would have been a dam' dreary business, no doubt, if I hadn’t been so full of inward rejoicing at my reprieve, and consequently at peace with all mankind. I made my appearance limping on a stick, and his majesty combined his congratulations with a dour warning against over-exertion. He was one of these unfortunates who have been created stuffy by God, and whose efforts to unbend create discomfort and unease in all concerned, chiefly himself. It reminded me of a pompous master condescending to the fags; even when he had the words he couldn’t get the tune at all.

For example, when he informed me over the soup that he had only poor command of English, he managed to convey that the fault lay not only with his boyhood tutors, but with me for speaking the dam' language in the first place; even his compliment to my German sounded like a reproach. I responded with a wheeze I’d once heard (from Bismarck, as it happens) that a gift for languages was useful only to head-waiters, and Willem played up by saying he’d been told that it was a sign of low intelligence. Franz-Josef rolled a bread-pill gloomily and said that wasn’t what his tutors had told him, and he had no experience of head-waiters. After this flying start we ate in silence until Franz-Josef began to question me solemnly about Indian Army camp discipline and sanitary arrangements, with particular reference to care of the feet in hot climates. I did my best, and like a fool ventured Wellington’s joke when the Queen asked him what was the aroma from the ranks of the Guards, and Nosey replied: "Esprit de corps, ma’am." That was met with a vacant stare, so I guessed he didn’t speak French too well either.

The only topics that seemed to bring him to life were horses and game-shooting. He knew his business about the former, and was, I’m told, an expert rider; as for the latter, about which he prosed interminably, I can say only that my abiding memory of Ischl lodge is of rank upon rank of chamois horns covering the walls from floor to ceiling, wherever you went, all shot by the royal sportsman. There must have been thousands of them.[18]

After dinner the real merriment began when we played a game of tarok, a sort of whist, and I can testify that to his linguistic shortcomings the Austrian Emperor added an inability to count, and pondered each card at length before playing it. I guess the fun was too much for him, for after a couple of rubbers he went back to work at his desk, and we were free to return to our rooms … and wait.

I can’t recall many nights longer than that one. Even though I’d been excused active service, so to speak (assuming the enemy didn’t come through the house) I was like a cat on hot bricks, and Willem was no better. We played every two-handed game we knew in my room, and he was too edgy to cheat, even. About eight o’clock an orderly brought us tea, when what I needed was brandy, about a pint and a half, and we learned that the Emperor was used to retire to bed about nine, and the establishment closed down accordingly. Sure enough, we heard the tramp of the sergeant and sentry beneath the window, marching round the house, and distant words of command as the sentry was posted.

"Damned old martinet!" mutters Willem, as we heard the heavy tread of the sergeant’s return, fading as he went round to the guard-house at the front. "Imagine barkin' orders as if it were a parade. I suppose it’s for Franz-Josef’s benefit as he says his prayers. The sentry’s relieved every three hours, by the way, and you may be sure the Holnup know that, so between three and six will be their best time. We’ll be on the watch from ten, though; they’d hardly come before that."

The place is like a tomb. What price Ischl for high jinks, eh? I’d rather have Stockholm on a Sunday! Now, I’ll take you along to your post, which is in the last of the day-rooms from which the passage runs to the Emperor’s billet and the aides' quarters. There’s a nice shadowy corner where you can watch the passage entry, and on t’other side of the room there’s a flight of stairs leading down to a little hall, where I’ll get out by a window." He paused, thinking. "If they come tonight, as I feel they will, you’d best use your judgment when the shootin' starts. A few quick shots will mean it’s all over; if there’s still firin' after twenty seconds … well, ’twill mean there are more of ’em than I bargain for. If they don’t come, back to bed with you when the house begins to stir. I’ll be out takin' the morning air," he added, with a wink. "All clear, then'? All serene-o?"

It wasn’t, of course, but I gave him my resolute chin-up look, and got his approving nod. "Best take your stick, in case anyone comes on you unexpected in the small hours, tho' I doubt if there’ll be a soul about before dawn. Unless," says he, looking comical, "the Holnup diddle us by coming through the house, in which case … well, good huntin', you lucky bastard!"

He moved quickly to the door, peeped out, and slipped into the corridor, motioning me to follow. There was a light burning at the far end, but not a sound in the building save the occasional creak of its timbers. Willem flitted ahead like a ghost, and what we’d have said if someone had popped a head out and found us roaming the darkened house, God knows. We crossed what he’d called the day-rooms one after another; they had lamps burning low, and here and there the waning moon struck a shaft of light through a window, and the embers of a fire glowed in the shadows.

At last he paused, flicking a finger to his left, and I saw a flight of stairs leading down into the blackness. He pointed to his right, and there was the dark opening of the passage leading to Franz-Josef’s room. A lamp gleamed dimly on a table at the passage entry, and now Willem pointed to a shadowy corner to the left of the passage and a few feet from it, where I could see a big leather chair. At his nod I moved quietly towards it; then he blew out the passage light, leaving the room in darkness.

I didn’t hear him move, but suddenly I sensed him beside me, his hand gripping mine, and his voice close to my ear; "Good luck, old ’un!", and then a whispered chuckle. "Ain’t this the life, though?" Infernal idiot. A second later his shadow was at the head of the stairs, and soon after I heard below the faint noise of a sash being raised and closed again, and good riddance.

And then … well, d’you know, there was nothing to do but sit about, a prey to what they call conflicting emotions. I’d run a fair range of them in the past few days, some damned disturbing, a few delightful with Kralta, but mostly bewildering, and now, seated in that great leather contraption, I tried to take stock of what was, you’ll allow, an unusual situation. Here was I, in the summer residence of the Emperor of Austria, loaded for bear, waiting for bloody murder to break out in his policies, but the odd thing was that now that the grip had come, I wasn’t more than half nervous, let alone scared. I was as well out of harm’s way as any man in the place, Willem could bear the brunt—and the aftermath, with everyone behaving like headless chickens, should provide some entertainment. He’d be the hero of the hour (if he lived), but I’d garner some credit if only by limping about looking stern and impressing the excitable kraut-eaters with my British phlegm. A little discreet lying when I saw Hutton again would ensure that favourable reports reached London and Paris (and Windsor, eh?), and after an amiable parting from Franz-Josef it would be hey for Vienna! with a grateful and adoring Kralta.

She was a happy thought as I sat cosily ensconced in the dark, still warm from the dead fireplace. Odd female, handsome enough in her horsy way, with the body of a Dahomey Amazon and appetite to match, but would she have boiled my kettle in the ordinary way of things? Perhaps ’twas the strange circumstances in which we’d met, or the contrast between her icy, damn-you style and the passion with which she performed, that had me drying my chin at my randy recollections: that fur robe slipping to the floor, like the unveiling of a lovely marble statue, the long limbs entwining with mine, the silky hair across my face … aye, Vienna beckoned, right enough, and on those blissful imaginings I settled comfortably to my vigil in the hours ahead …

… to awake with a start, shivering against the cold that had stolen over the darkened room while I slept—for how long? The soft single chime of a clock might mean one o’clock or a quarter, but I had no feeling of cramp, so I couldn’t have been far under … but what had wakened me? The clock, or the cold, or some other disturbance—and suddenly my hair bristled on my neck as I became aware of a faint scraping sound from the hall below, followed by a rustle and a soft thump … Jesus! there was someone moving there, and the scrape had been the raising of the window by which Willem had departed—could he be returning? No, why the hell should he? But who, then … and I froze in terror, the sweat breaking out on me like ice, for it could mean only one thing, that the stupid swine’s calculations had been all wrong, and the Holnup had never heard of his confounded secret stair, but were slipping into the house burglar-style, intent on their murderous errand, and even now cloaked and sinister figures were at the foot of the stairs, listening, then gliding stealthily forward … a stair creaked sharply, and I started half out of my chair, fumbling for the LeVaux, straining eyes and ears against the dark … another creak, and a hissing whisper, someone stumbled and cursed, and then to my amazement a voice began croaking softly in drunken song about lieber klein Matilde, only to be hushed by a snarled oath and "Wo ist die Kerze? Streichholz, Dummkopf." followed by a giggling hiccup; a match rasped in the gloom, a faint glow appeared below, and I almost collapsed with relief as slowly up the stairs lurched Tweedledum, holding a candle unsteadily aloft, with Tweedledee clinging to him for support.

They were in dress uniform, and by the look of them had crawled through every pub in Ischl; I’ve seldom seen tighter subalterns, but Tweedledum at least was plainly alive to the danger of waking the Emperor, for he staggered with elaborate caution, whispering to his mate to be quiet, and must have seen me in my corner if Tweedledee hadn’t blown the candle out with an enormous belch, This set him giggling again, Tweedledum dropped the matches, they blundered whimpering in the dark, and would most certainly have come to grief if Tweedledum hadn’t insisted that they proceed on hands and knees. They crawled through the furniture more or less quietly, and presently I heard their door close softly, and peace returned to the royal lodge.

But not to me, Perhaps it was the cold, or the unholy scare they’d given me, but as I sat shivering in the dark, envying those drunken pups their beds, I was conscious of a growing unease which was quite at odds with the lustful moonings about Kralta on which I’d dropped off. I couldn’t figure it; nothing about my situation had changed, and yet where I’d been fairly tranquil before I was now thoroughly rattled. Very well, I’m a windy beggar whose hopes and fears go up and down like a jack-in-the-box, but this wasn’t so much fear as a presentiment that something was wrong, damned wrong, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. ’Twasn’t a logical foreboding, but pure animal instinct—and thank God for it, ’cos it made me stir restlessly, and my fidgeting changed the course of history.

At the recent alarm I had clutched at the LeVaux in my pocket, and at some point must have drawn it, for now I found I was nervously fiddling its patent safety catch, on and off, and turning the cylinder. That reminded me, with a nasty start, that Willem hadn’t given me the promised extra rounds. He’d said it was loaded in five chambers, and in sudden anxiety I probed with my pinky in the dark, trying to feel the tips of the slugs in the cylinders, but couldn’t, so I broke the piece open, not knowing that it was one of the new-fangled models with an extractor plate that whips all the shells out together, and squealed with dismay as bullets flew broadcast, clattering on the floor and rolling God alone knew where—and there I was, with an unloaded firearm, my ammunition hopelessly lost in the dark, and nothing for it but to grovel blindly in search of the bloody things, cursing fate and the imbecility of French gunsmiths and their ridiculous patent gadgets, as if anyone needed them.

Frantic scrabbling round the chair brought one bullet to hand, leaving four to find, and since I’d no intention of having only a single shot between me and damnation, I must have light, whatever the consequences. I had no matches—but, stay! Tweedledum had dropped his somewhere, I’d heard them spilling all over the shop, so now I went panting on all fours in quest of them, lost my bearings altogether, fell into the fireplace, struggled out coated in dead ash, fetched my head a shattering crash on a chair-leg, and only found the scattered matches when I knelt on them. In a trice I had one lighted and was kindling the lamp, and a moment later I had scooped up three of the fallen rounds near the chair and was casting about for the fourth.

It was lying close to the fender—at least the case was, but I drew in an astonished breath when I saw that the bullet itself had become detached and lay a few inches away. In fifty years of handling firearms I’d never known the like: what, a slug clamped tight in the brass case (which contained the explosive charge) coming asunder? With a trembling hand I turned the little case to the light: it was empty, and there wasn’t a trace of powder where it had fallen.

An icy hand gripped my stomach as I held each of the other whole rounds in turn close to the lamp. Every one bore marks on the edge of the case, as though it had been pried back to remove the slug; indeed, I was able to pull one bullet free and saw to my horror that the case itself was empty.

Willem had removed the charges from all five cartridges, replacing the slugs in them so that they looked like live rounds, and if one hadn’t come loose in falling to the floor, I’d never have known that I had, in effect, an empty revolver.

The discovery that you’ve been sold a pup is always disconcerting, but your reaction depends on age and experience. In infancy you burst into tears and smash something; in adolescence you may be bewildered (as I was when Lady Geraldine lured me into the long grass on false pretence and then set about me with carnal intent, hurrah!); in riper manhood common sense usually tells you to bolt, which was my instinct on the Pearl River when I learned that my lorcha was carrying not opium, as I’d supposed, but guns for the Taiping rebels. But at sixty-one your brain works faster than your legs, so you reflect, and as often as not reach the right answer by intuition as well as reason.

Kneeling in that cold shadowy chamber, goggling at those five useless rounds gleaming in the dim lamplight, I knew in a split second that Willem himself was the assassin, not the guardian, and now that I’d served my turn by helping him to within striking distance of the Emperor, he’d rendered me powerless to intervene in his murderous scheme. But it was a staggering thought—dammit, why should he, a German Junker, a trusted agent of Bismarck, want to kill Franz-Josef, doing the dirty work of Hungarian fanatics like Kossuth and the Holnup? … Kossuth, by God! That was the bell that rang to confirm my conclusion, as I remembered him telling me on the train that his own mother’s name was Kossuth, and that he was part-Hungarian by blood. Aye, and pure Hungarian, devil a doubt, in heart and soul and allegiance, flown with the wild dream of independence for his mother country, and itching to fire the shot or wield the steel that would set her free—and plunge Europe into civil war.

All this surmised in an instant, and whether ’twas all another great devilment of Bismarck’s, or whether Bismarck was guiltless and Willem had duped him as he’d duped me, didn’t matter. One thing was sure: I was implicated up to the neck, and as I knelt there sweating my imagination was picturing Willem out yonder, full of spite and sin, disposing of the hapless sentry, humouring the lock of the secret door, stealing up the secret stair knife in hand to the room where his royal victim was asleep … or dead already? I glanced in terror towards the passage entry—quick or dead, Franz-Josef was within forty feet of me … oh, Christ, how long had Willem been gone? I didn’t know. Was it too late to stop him? Perhaps not … but that was no work for me, bigod, not if I’d had ten loaded pistols and the Royal Marines at my back; not for Franz-Josef and a dozen like him would I have gone up against Willem von Starnberg, and as for Europe … but even as I took the first instinctive stride of panic-stricken flight, I came to a shuddering halt as the awful truth struck me.

I couldn’t run! It would be certain death, for if Willem had killed, or was about to kill, the Emperor, I’d be seen as his partner in crime, and while he would have his own escape nicely planned, I’d not have the ghost of a chance of avoiding capture, with the whole country on the look-out. And I’d never persuade them I was an innocent tool, or acting under orders from Downing Street—why, it was odds on I’d be shot on sight or cut down on the spot before I could utter a word in my defence.

I didn’t faint at the thought, but only the knowledge that I must act at once enabled me to fight down my mounting panic. Should I raise the alarm? God, no, I daren’t, for if Franz-Josef was already a goner, I’d be cooked. The only hope was that Willem hadn’t done for him yet, and that I could still … and that was when my legs almost gave way, and I found myself fairly sobbing with fear, for I knew I must go out into the ghastly dark, and find the murderous bastard and kill or disable him … why, even if Franz-Josef was already tuning up with the choir invisible I might wriggle clear if I could show that I’d flown to the rescue … too late, alas … oh Jesus, they’d never believe me!

"I’m innocent, gentlemen, I swear it!" I was bleating it softly in the darkness, and time was racing by, and I’d nothing but an empty pistol … but suppose Willem was still picking the lock, or waiting for moon-set, or for his Holnup confederates to arrive, or pausing to relieve himself or have a smoke, or for any other reason you like, and I could just steel myself to sally forth and find him, whispering raucously to identify myself … well, he might wonder what the blazes I was about, but he’d not shoot before asking questions … and I still had the seaman’s knife I’d slipped into my boot on the Orient Express, and he’d be off guard (just as his father had been when I’d parted his hair with the cherry brandy bottle)—he might even turn his back on me … well, it was that or the hangman’s rope, unless they still went in for beheading in Austria.

On that happy thought I put up my empty piece, transferred the knife from my boot to my pocket, and crept as fast as might he down the stairs with my heart against my back teeth. There was the window, pale in the gloom; I slipped over the sill to the ground … and realised I’d no notion where the sundial corner was. I forced myself to envisage the house from above … there was the Emperor’s room, here was I, on t' other side, and there the guard-room by the front porch, so I must make my way cautiously by the back.

There was still faint moonlight, casting shadows from the trees and bushes, and the loom of the house just visible to guide me as I crept along, my fingers brushing the ivy. In my imagination the undergrowth was full of mad Hungarians waiting to leap out and knife me, and once I rose like a startled grouse as an owl hooted only a few yards away. Round one corner, peering cautiously, along the wall towards another—and there was something glittering in the dark off to one side, and I saw that it was the moonlight on a little puddle of rainwater that had collected on what might well be the surface of a sundial. And in that moment, from just beyond the corner I was approaching, came a sound that sent shivers down my spine—a faint clicking noise of metal, and the rustle of someone moving. I tried to whisper, and failed, gulped, and tried again.

"Willem! Are you there? It’s me, Harry!"

Dead silence save for the pounding of my heart, and then the faintest of sounds, a foot scraping the ground, and after what seemed an age, Willem’s whisper:

"Was ist das? Harry, is that you?"

He was still outside! Relief flooded through me—to be followed by a drench of fear at the thought of what I must do. I drew the knife from my pocket, holding it against my thigh, and edged my way round the corner. The ivy was thick on the wall just there, but there was light enough to see a dark opening a couple of yards ahead—the recess of the secret doorway, and just within it the pale outline of a face. I took another step, and the face hissed at me.

"What the hell are you doing here?" In his agitation he lapsed into German. "Stimmt etwas nicht? What’s up, man?"

Where the inspiration came from, God knows. "The Emperor ain’t in bed!" I whispered hoarsely. "He … he got up! His aides made a din, and woke him!"

"Arschloch!" Whether he meant me or Franz-Josef I can’t say, but it was enough to assure me I was right: he was bent on murder, for if he’d been the innocent guardian, why the deuce should he care whether the Emperor was abed or not? The clicking I’d heard must have been his working on the lock … Gad, if he decided to give up for the night, I might not have to risk attacking him … I could pour out my tale to the Emperor in the morning, denouncing Willem, clearing myself … a whirlwind of wild hopes, you see, as I crouched peering at the dim face a yard away, near soiling myself in agitation, and then those hopes were dashed as he spoke again, soft and steady.

"Back inside with you! He’s bound to go back to bed presently—and they may still come! Go on, man, be off, quickly!"

And leave you to unpick the lock and do your business, thinks I. There was only one thing for it. I gripped the hilt hard, stepping closer, and as he opened his mouth to speak again I struck upwards, going for his throat, he ducked like lightning, the blade drove past, missing by an inch, his hand clamped on my wrist, and as he twisted and I strove to wrench free, clawing fingers came out of the darkness on my right, fumbling for my throat, a fist smashed against my left temple, and I was hurled backwards and flung to the turf, pinned helpless by a massive body while another seized my legs, and a great stinking paw closed on my mouth—they must have been there, unseen in the gloom, his Holnup accomplices springing into action with the speed and silence of expert bravos. I struggled like bedamned, expecting to feel the agonising bite of steel, but it didn’t come; the hands on my mouth and throat tightened, and I felt rather than saw a bearded face snarling into mine in what may have been Hungarian; above us in the dark voices were whispering urgently—Willem seemed to be giving orders, and for an instant the hand lifted from my mouth, but before I could find the breath to bellow a cloth was thrust between my teeth and I was heaved over on to my face and my wrists pinioned behind me.

Meanwhile the debate overhead was deteriorating into agitated bickering, and since some of it was in German and my mind was most wonderfully concentrated, I gathered that Willem didn’t know why I’d attacked him, and didn’t care, but if the Emperor was up and about they’d best ignore the secret stair and invade the house in force; no, no, says another, the Englander’s lying, they always do, and storming the house was too haphazard and the aroused guardroom would be too many for them, to which a third voice said the hell with such timidity, their lives would be well lost if they could only settle Franz-Josef—there’s always one like that, you know, full of patriotic lunacy, and good luck to him.

The heavyweight atop of me weighed in with the sensible suggestion that since subduing me had caused enough row to wake the dead, they should give over and come back tomorrow, but before this could be put to the vote he was proved right by a challenge from the darkness, a bawled order, the pounding of boots, and a stentorian command to stand in the name of the Emperor. Willem exclaimed: "Mist!", his Webley cracked, there was a yell of pain, and then bedlam ensued, with shots and oaths and screams, the dark was split by flashes of fire, I heard a clash of steel, my incubus arose bawling in several languages and blazing away, and I hastened to improve my position by scrambling up, inadvertently butting him in the crotch. He fell away, howling, and I managed to gain my feet and would have been going like a stag for the safety of the shrubbery if he hadn’t staggered into me, bewailing his damaged courting tackle, and I fell full length, only to rise again on stepping-stones of my terrified self, but not alas to higher things, for something caught me an excruciating clout on the back of the skull, and the din of shots and shouting faded as I fell again, this time into merciful unconsciousness.

• • •

I suppose I’ve been laid out, and come to with a head throbbing like an engine-room, more often than most fellows, and can testify that while one descent into oblivion is much like another, there are two kinds of awakening. After a dizzy moment in which you recall your last conscious memory and wonder where the devil you are, realisation dawns—and it may be blissful, as at Jallalabad or in the cave in the Bighorn Mountains, when I knew that the hell and honor were behind me, and it was bed-time and all well—or you may come round hanging by the heels from a cottonwood with the Apache Ladies Sewing Circle preparing to tickle your fancy, or strapped over a cannon muzzle with the gunners blowing on their fuses.

Having known the last two I can tell you that waking to find yourself bound hand and foot on a camp-bed underground, while alarming, ain’t too bad by comparison, and when your smiling captor inquires after your health and offers refreshment … well, hope springs eternal, you know. For Willem von Starnberg was bending over me, all solicitude and sounding absolutely light-hearted.

"The guv’nor was right, `Never forget that fellows like Flash-man always come at you when least expected, usually from behind.' Should ha' paid more attention to the old chap, shouldn’t I?" He put a hand behind my head, and I yelped hoarsely. "Splittin' to beat the band, eh? No wonder, Zoltan fetched you a dooce of a clip; you’ve been limp as a dead fish for hours. Care for some schnapps?"

"Where the hell am I? What … what’s happened?" My voice came out in a quavering croak as he removed the flask from my lips, and as I struggled into a sitting position with his help, my questions trailed off in amazement as I took in my surroundings.

We were alone, in an enormous cavern of what looked like limestone, grey stone at any rate, but with an odd sheen to its towering walls. We were at one end, close by the black mouth of a tunnel from which ran wooden rails bearing a couple of ancient wheeled bogie trucks; the rails ran for about thirty yards into the cave to what looked like a cleft in the floor, and there must have been a bridge once, for I could see that the rails continued on the other side of the cleft before being lost in the gloom. The place was like some cathedral made by nature, huge and empty and utterly silent, and staring up I saw that high overhead there was a fissure in the roof fringed by a tangle of growth from the world outside, and this was the only source of light, glistening dimly on those gigantic smooth curving walls. The floor of the cavern was smooth too, and innocent of loose rocks or rubble, as though some giant housekeeper had swept the great chamber clean.

But the wonder of the place, that made me catch my breath even in my groggy condition, was the little lake that covered almost half the cavern floor on the far side away from the rails. Very well, ’twas only water, a natural bath in the stone, but never was water so still or clear or silent. The surface was like glass, extending perhaps thirty yards in length by twenty across to the far wall, and in its crystal depths, undisturbed by current or eddy, you could make out every detail of the stone bottom ten feet down, as though no water had been there at all. No fish could have swum in it, or weeds grown; it was immaculate, like some enchanted mere of fairy tale, an ice-witch’s mirror in the heart of a magic mountain.

Only by the tunnel mouth where I lay were there signs of human occupation: a rough stone fireplace and utensils, palliasses and camp-beds, plain chairs and table, a couple of packing-cases, and a litter of stores and gear. But like ourselves, these worldly things seemed out of place and dwarfed in the awful majesty of the cavern. The cold was fit to freeze you to the bone.

"You’re in an old salt-mine in the Saltzkammergut, in the mountains above Ischl,"[19] says Willem. "Jolly little tomb, ain’t it? Hark-away!" He had raised his voice, and the echo came back in an eerie whisper, "harkaway … away …. away …", fading ever so softly in the unseen reaches of the cavern. He stood cocking an appreciative ear, very trim in riding boots, breeches, and shooting jacket, and none the worse, it seemed, for the free-for-all shooting match which was the last thing I remembered.

"We’re near the surface here," says he, "but God knows how far the tunnels go below. The place hasn’t been worked for years. D’ye know, when I was a nipper I pictured salt-mines as hellish places where slaves with red-rimmed eyes waded knee-deep in the stuff. But it’s rather grand and spooky, don’t you think? Splendid bolt-hole, too, for clandestine plotters like the Holnup. My lads were camped here for a week, but I’ve had to send ’em off now, thanks to you." He perched on a packing-case, cradling his knee, and gave me his quizzy look. "When did you twig I was the fox at the hen-roost, then?"

"Cut me loose first!" croaks I, but he only grinned and repeated the question, so I told him about finding the tampered cartridges, and he swore and slapped his thigh, laughing.

"I’ll be damned! That’s what comes o' bein' too clever by half—oh, and bein' in awe of your fearsome reputation! Ironic, ain’t it? I gave you a harmless pistol by way of insurance, but if I’d given you a loaded one, Franz-Josef would have been with his fathers by now. Or if you’d come on the scene a minute later, even … oh, aye, we had the lock picked and I was about to go aloft when you arrived with your little snickersnee, curse you, and then that damned sergeant and his sentries, and we had to shoot our way clear, and lost two good men—one of ’em your pal Gunther, you’ll be desolated to learn. Ah, well, c’est la guerre!"

You’d have thought he was describing a rag in the dormitory, chuckling with hardly a sign of irritation. Oh, he was Rudi’s boy all right, cool as a trout and regarding me with amusement.

"So there it is!" cries he. "Franz-Josef lives on, two of my boys don’t, there ain’t a hope of a return match with half a regiment round the place by now, I imagine—supposin' F-J hasn’t decamped for Vienna already. The conspiracy is kaput, I’ve had to disperse the best band of night-runners I ever hope to see, and four weeks of dam' good plannin' have gone down the bogs." He jumped down from his seat, and stood before me, hands on hips. "Yes, sir, the guv’nor was right. You truly are an inconvenient son-of-a-bitch. Still … no hard feelin’s, what? Not on my side, leastways."

Call me a sceptic if you will, but I doubted it. I’d come within a whisker of cutting his throat, ruined his plot all unwitting, and cost him two men dead—and he didn’t mind a bit? No, this could only be cat-and-mouse in the best Starnberg tradition, and his claws would show presently; in the meantime, with my innards turning cartwheels, I pretended to take him at face value.

"Glad to hear it," says I. "Then you won’t mind cutting these infernal ropes."

"Certainly … by and by," says he. "When my arrangements for departure are complete. Austria’s a trifle warm just now, you see, what with two dead desperadoes under the Emperor’s window, a sentry with a slit weasand, and those two mysterious visitors, Flashman and Starnberg, vanished none knows whither. It wouldn’t surprise me," says the sardonic pup, "if they started lookin' for us, which is why I intend to be over the Italian border by daybreak tomorrow. I’ve no inclination to grace an Austrian gallows—or rot in a Brandenburg fortress, which is what’ll happen if Bismarck ever learns the truth of our little soiree yestre’en. He’d have my ballocks for breakfast."

That settled one thing. "So last night was off your own bat! Bismarck had nothing to do with it?"

He stared. "With our gallant attempt to snuff Franz-Josef’s wick, you mean? Good lord, no! My word, you do have a low opinion of our worthy Chancellor!" He grinned at my bewilderment. "I see I’ll have to explain. Two months ago the Holnup learned that F-J was comin' to Ischl without his usual retinue, and would be a sittin' bird for assassination. Plans were laid for a night attack on the lodge, but Bismarck got wind of it from a spy in the Holnup council, and devised his great plan for guardin' the Emperor, just as Kralta and I told you. What he didn’t know, when he entrusted it to me, his loyal agent," he went on, looking waggish, "was that I happen to be a great-nephew of Lajos Kossuth himself, and have been a member of the Holnup since boyhood. And that in choosin' me to guard the great booby he was playin' into our hands, makin' our task even easier by handin' me on a plate the golden opportunity that every Hungarian patriot has been prayin' for this ten years past. You may be sure," he added, "that we’ve identified the spy in our council, and have left him strictly alone … for the time being."

He paused, and just for a moment the bantering manner dropped from him like a cloak. The boyish face was set and his eyes were far away as he said softly: "And we were so close. Another moment—another few seconds—and the blow would have been struck that would have freed Hungary from the Hapsburgs forever. Holnup … holnuputan!"["Tomorrow … the day after tomorrow!"] He gave a deep sigh, and slowly unclenched his hands—and then he was himself again, shaking his head at me in mock reproach. "You really have been an uncommon nuisance, you know."

For some reason, despite my fears, this infuriated me. "Because I stopped you from committing murder? Why, you dam' fool, I saved your lousy life, more like! Bismarck would have had more than your ballocks—he’d have had your neck!"

He regarded me pityingly. "Oh, ye of little faith! D’you think I’m a half-wit? It was all arranged—once F-J had kicked the bucket we’d have fetched you out o' the house, quiet-like, tapped you gently on your great fat head, laid you out beside the royal corpse with a bloody knife in your hand, and left you to explain matters when you woke up." He regarded my expression of stupefied horror with cheerful satisfaction. "Of course they’d have hanged you—if they hadn’t finished you off on the spot. But don’t you see, I could then have pleaded injured innocence to Bismarck, pointing out that it wasn’t I who brought you into the business, and that you must have gone berserk, or been a Holnup hireling all unsuspected, or killed F-J for love of the beauteous Sissi … or anythin' at all. He’d ha' swallowed it. Besides, that would have been the least of his troubles, with the dogs of war slippin' all over the parish, and everyone blamin' perfidious Albion as usual, and Gladstone havin' apoplexy." He shrugged. "Aye, me, the best-laid schemes …"

What was the phrase young Hawkins used in his book? "Surely, while you’re above ground, Hell wants its master!" Spoken of the fictitious image of Rudi von Starnberg, but by God it fitted his abominable son even better, sitting there while he lighted another of his blasted cigarettes.[20] Was he mad, perhaps … and why had he brought me to this ghastly solitude? It made no sense, for if he’d wanted me dead they could have done for me in the fight at the lodge. Was it possible that his geniality was genuine, and that he didn’t mean me harm after all? No, for why was I bound hand and foot? The evil bastard had brought me here to gloat … and he must have read my thoughts, for:

"So what now, you wonder?" says he. "Well, Harry, that’s a hard one … damned hard. You see, the fact is that I like you—and none the less because you’ve baulked me altogether. Indeed, all the more. And it’s just a lost trick in the game, anyway—I’ll settle Franz-Josef, one way or t’other, and before long, too. You may count on that. And then . , .’twill all come right, and Hungary will be free soil. But that’s by the way."

He seated himself on his packing-case again, blowing smoke-rings and watching them hang motionless in that windless cavern, while my skin crawled.

"The hard thing, though, is that while you’re a man after my own heart, just as you were after the guv’nor’s, and I’d like to clap hands and part friends …" and damned if he didn’t sound as though he meant it . . you know too much, you see. At the moment, what happened last night is all a great mystery—officially. What do they know, Franz-Josef’s people? That someone was tryin' to do him in—the-unlocked door and dead sentry tell ’em that. And that it was a Holnup job—the other dead ’un we had to leave with Gunther was a Magyar, and a notorious firebrand. And that you and I were in the business, some way or other. What then? Whatever they suspect, they can’t prove a blessed thing against you and me, unless we’re fool enough to let ourselves be collared in the next day or two, while the trail’s hot and they’re still full of zeal. After that, they’ll be quite thankful to forget about us, and they can keep the whole unfortunate business quiet. See?"

I saw, all right, and was struck by the sinister significance of the words "you know too much". He continued:

"Which is why I shall lie low in Italy for a spell, before presentin' myself to Bismarck, who’ll have no earthly reason to suspect me. Au contraire, he’ll welcome me with open arms! On the face of it, his great scheme will have worked to admiration, don’t you see?" He sat forward, eyes shining. "The Holnup struck, failed, and left two of their number stark and stiff ! Bravo, Starnberg and Flashy, cries Otto, couldn’t have done better myself ! That’s what he’s bound to think … and I shan’t disillusion him. If he wonders why we didn’t stay to take the credit, I’ll say it seemed

"I’ve never known, as I told you, what you and he were up to in Strackenz all those years ago. Some stunt of Otto Bismarck’s, wasn’t it? But I do know that you had the deuce of a turn-up at the last, sabre to sabre, in some castle or other—and ’twas the guv’nor’s lastin' regret that it didn’t go a l’outrance. I don’t know what came between you, but I wouldn’t mind havin' a quid for every time I heard the old chap say: `I only wish I’d settled Flashman! He was a strong swordsman, and up to every foul trick, but I was better. Aye, if only I could ha' finished it!' That’s what he said."

He turned away to reach in among some gear piled on a case by the tunnel mouth, and when he faced me again he had a dress sabre unsheathed in either hand, the slim blades glittering wickedly in the pale light from the cavern roof.

"So I feel bound to finish it for him," says he.

"But … but …" I struggled for speech. "You must be crazy! For God’s sake, man, there’s no need! I’ve told you I shan’t breathe a bloody word! I’ll be silent as the grave—"

"That’s the ticket!" cries he. "Couldn’t ha' put it better myself ! And speakin' of graves, you couldn’t ask a grander mausoleum than this!" He flourished a point at our ghastly surroundings. "Pretty gothic, what? Oh, shut up, do! Don’t tell me you’d not squeal your head off when the traps got you, ’cos it’s a lie and we both know it, and it don’t matter anyway—I’m doin' this out o' filial piety." He inserted the blade between my ankles and cut the cord. "There now, you can frisk like a lamb and limber up for the fray. Harry be nimble, eh? You’ll need to be, I promise."

"Damn you for a fool!" I struggled off the bed. "You can’t mean it! Why, it’s madness! I’ve told you I shan’t talk, haven’t I? You can trust me, I tell you!" I took an unsteady step and tumbled, rolling on the floor. "Loose my hands, rot you—and listen, you ass! Your guv’nor would never have stood for this—we were chums, dammit, comrades, Rudi and I—you said it yourself, he told you I was a man after his own heart—"

"He did. He also advised me to shoot you on sight, so count yourself lucky. Come on, upsadaisy!" He whacked me on the rump with the flat of the blade and I scrambled up cursing. "Now then … I’m goin' to untie your wrists, give you a moment to ease the cramps away, and when you’re ready you’re goin' to pick up that sabre …" he tossed one of them on to the bed "… and we’ll take up where you and the guv’nor left off, savvy?"

"Savvy be damned, I’ll not do it! Heavens, man, where’s the sense to it? You can’t bear me any grudge," I whined, "I didn’t try to spoil your beastly plot—"

"Apart from almost severin' my jugular. But I don’t hold that against you. All in the way o' business." He tapped his point on my breast. "So is this."

"I’ll not fight, I tell you!" I shouted, almost in tears. "You can’t make me!"

"True enough," says he. "And I can’t run a helpless man through, can I?" His smile became wicked. "Might persuade you, though … if you’ll just step this way …" He prodded me back-wards, along by the rails, and perforce I retreated, pleading and blaspheming by turn, while he requested me to "Pass along the bus, please," before seizing my shoulder, spinning me round, and gripping my bound wrists. "Steady the Buffs! Don’t want you fallin' and hurtin' yourself … yet."

I dam' near swooned. We were on the very lip of the cleft where the rails ended, and I was staring down aghast into a narrow chasm whose smooth walls were visible for only a few yards before they vanished into black nothingness. I swayed giddily on the brink, my crotch shrinking as I tried to rear back from that awful void, but Willem held me in an iron grip, chuckling at my shoulder.

"A soldier’s sepulchre, what? That’s where your mortal coil is goin', when you’ve shuffled it off. Can’t tell how deep it is, but it looks as though it narrows a bit, some distance down, like those jolly French oubliettes, so you’ll probably stick fast. You won’t mind, bein' dead. On t’other hand, if you won’t fight I’ll just have to drop you in alive, and the stickin' process might last some time, wouldn’t you think?"

That was when I broke. The horror of that gaping shaft, the thought of falling into blackness, the tearing agony of rasping to a flayed, bloody stop between the confining walls, jammed and helpless, to die by inches, rotting in the bowels of the earth … I raved, begging him to let me be, promising never to tell, struggling like a maniac until he pulled me away, and I sank to my knees, weeping buckets and babbling for mercy, promising him a fortune if he’d only spare me. He listened in some wonder, and then laughed as though a light had dawned.

"I’ll be jiggered!" cries he. "It’s the Flashman gambit … grovel and whine—then strike when your man’s off guard! Didn’t I tell you the guv’nor warned me to beware when you started showin' the white feather? Well, you’re doin' it a shade too brown, Harry—and t’won’t answer, you know. I’m fly to you. ’Sides, I probably have more cash in the bank than you do."

"Help!" I hollered. "Help, murder! Let me be, you lousy bully, you cruel bastard, you! I ain’t shamming, you infernal idiot, I swear I’m not! Oh, please, Starnberg … Willem, Bill, let me go and I’ll never tell! Help!"

"Oh, cheese it, you daft dummy!" He grabbed my neck and pushed me prone, and the cords at my wrists fell away as he cut them through. He stepped swiftly back, as though expecting me to go for him, and watched me warily—he absolutely wasn’t sure whether I was bluffing or not. That’s what a reputation does for you. Then he wheeled about, strode away to the camp-bed, picked up the other sabre, and sent it slithering and clinking over the stone in my direction.

"`Play-actor', the guv’nor called you, didn’t he?" says he. "Well, I don’t know—and what’s more, I don’t much care, but I’m gettin' cold, and if you don’t take up that tool double quick I’ll pitch you down that hole without benefit of clergy, d’ye hear? So get up and come on!"

"You can’t mean to butcher me!" I wailed. "My God, man, haven’t you any bowels?"

"Ne’er mind about my bowels!" sneers he, casting aside his jacket. "You’ll be admirin' your own presently. On guard!"

There’s a moment, and I’ve faced it more often than I care to remember, when you’re rat-in-the-corner, all your wriggling and lying and imploring have failed, there’s nowhere to run, and your only hope is to do your damnedest and trust to luck and every dirty dodge you know. For a split second I wondered if his last threat had meant that he’d tackle me bare-handed, and if perhaps I was stronger than he … but no, in my lusty youth perhaps, but not now against that lithe young athlete, all steel and whipcord. I must just take my chance with the blade.

I picked it up, and somehow the feel of the wire-bound grip steadied me, not much, but enough to face him as he waited, poised on his toes, sleek as a panther, the fine tawny head thrown back and the arrogant smile on his lips—and I felt the tiniest spark of hope.

Whether my blubbering had truly made him wonder or not, I couldn’t tell, but one thing was sure—he hadn’t fooled me. Oh, he needed me dead for his skin’s sake, right enough, but he wasn’t thinking of that now, nor of sacrificing me to Rudi’s shade, which was so much eyewash. No, what was gripping Master Starnberg was the sheer wanton delight in killing, of adding my distinguished head to his trophy room, of proving his mastery and seeing the fear in the eyes of the beaten opponent at his mercy—I know all about it, you see, for I’ve enjoyed it myself, but while it’s a luxury that a wary coward can afford, it’s a weakness in a brave man who’s sure of his own superiority, for he forgets what your cold-blooded assassin (and your coward) never forget—that killing is a business, not a pleasure, and you must keep your sense of fun well in check.

Another thing: he was an academic swordsman if ever I saw one, beautifully balanced as he glided forward and saluted, smirking, falling into the sabre guard with an ease that would have done de Gautet’s heart good to see. Well, I’d taken the brilliant de Gautet unawares (once), and I doubted if Starnberg was any smarter. So I gripped my hilt tight, like the rawest dragoon recruit, took a hesitant shuffle forward, and played my first card.

"It ain’t fair!" I whined. "I’ve been trussed like a fowl—and I’m an old man, damn you! By gad, if I were your age, you’d think twice, you prancing pimp! Ain’t you your father’s son, though, taking every mean advantage … wait, rot your boots, I ain’t ready—"

God, he was quick! One whip of his wrist and his blade was slicing at my neck, and if I hadn’t practised my favourite retire, which is to fall backwards, howling, my head would have been on the carpet. I scrambled up, shaken, one hope gone, for I’d intended to move close, mumping piteously, and give him the point unexpected. Now he came in like a dancer, unsmiling and bursting with blood-lust, cutting left and right, the blades clashing and grating, and I had to break ground to avoid being driven back to that awful chasm, side-stepping and tripping over those confounded rails, tumbling down the smooth slope almost to the water’s edge.

He bore up, swearing. "D’you do all your fightin' flat on your back, then? Come on, man, get up and look alive!"

"I can’t! I’ve jarred My elbow! A-hh, I think it’s broken—"

"No, it’s not, you lyin' skunk! You ain’t hurt, so pick up your sword and stay on your feet!" And the callous swine pricked me on the leg, drawing blood. I damned his eyes and came afoot, moving cautiously back to the level, and as he cut high and low I gave back again, towards the tunnel mouth. If I could lure him in among the clutter of beds and cases he’d be hampered, and might even stumble … but he knew a trick worth two of that and drove me clear of the obstacles—and hope leaped within me, for if I retreated into the tunnel at my back we’d both be fighting in the dark, and I could drop flat and slash at his ankles …

"You damned old fox!" shouts he, and with one lightning flurry of his blade he was past me while I cowered and scurried, warding his cuts any old how, and then he was after me again, snarling with laughter as he harried me back into the cavern proper. His sabre seemed to be everywhere, at head and shoulder and flank, and once he feinted low and gave me the point, but I turned it with the forte and in desperation loosed a wild scything sweep which he parried well enough, but paused, eyeing me with some respect.

"Why, you ain’t so old, you faker!" cries he. "Though how you troubled the guv’nor, blowed if I know! He must ha' been ill!"

"He was full o' wind and piss, like you!" I panted. "Ran like a whippet—aye, he didn’t tell you it ended with him turning tail, did he? No, he wouldn’t, not Slimy Starnberg!" I reviled Rudi with every insult I could muster, wheezing hoarsely as he drove me ever back, for I knew ’twas my only hope; my lungs and legs were labouring, and his young strength must prevail unless I could rile him into recklessness. But he was as cool as his father, damn him, chuckling triumphantly as I staggered away, swiping and swearing.

"Bellows to mend, what?" says he. "Best save your breath , . . oh, stop sprintin', can’t you? Come on, you old duffer, stand for once and let’s see what you’re made of!"

So I did, not from choice but ’cos I was too used up to run, employing the rotten swordsman’s last resort, the Khyber-knife guard of the Maltese Cross, up-down-across with all your might. No opponent can touch you, but he don’t need to, since you’ll die of apoplexy from exertion, as I’d discovered back in ’60, when old Ghengiz the Mongol and I repelled Sam Collinson' s bannermen at the Summer Palace—leastways, old Ghengiz did while I lit out for pastures new.[See Flashman and the Dragon] But there was no Ghengiz now to bear the brunt, and I knew I couldn’t last but a few moments more, and then my aching arm and shoulder must fail, and this grinning, handsome sadist would beat down my feeble guard and drive his old steel through my shrinking carcase … and it would end here, in this clammy cavern, with the two tiny mannikins hacking away across its floor and the echoes of clashing swords resounding from the great stone arch overhead. I’d be cut down to death in this forgotten desolation, I who had survived Balaclava and Cawnpore and Greasy Grass, Fort Raim dungeon and Gettysburg and the guns of Gwalior, slaughtered by this mountebank who wasn’t more than half a swordsman anyway, for all his academic antics, or he’d have settled an old crock like me ages ago, and the hellish injustice and meanness of it all was like gall to my craven soul as I felt my strength ebbing and gave voice yet again to what I dare say will be my dying words one day:

"It ain’t fair! I don’t deserve this—no, no, wait, for God’s sake, not yet … a-hhh, I’m done for … the doctor was right …" And I dropped my sabre, clutching at my heart, face contorted in agony, and sank to my knees.

"What the devil!" cries Willem, as I clasped both hands to my bosom, groaning in unutterable pain, gaping wide to emit a croaking wheeze—and he stopped dead, sabre raised for the coup de grace.

"You’re shammin', you old sod!" cries he … but he came that vital step closer, and I hurled myself forward, my right fist aimed at his groin—and I missed, God damn it to Hell, for my blow caught him on the thigh and sent him staggering but not disabled, and as I grabbed my sabre and let go an almighty cut that should have taken his leg off, the brute parried it and came in hand and foot, eyes blazing.

I turned and ran, shrieking in anticipation of his point in my back, eyes closed in panic, felt myself stumbling down an incline, and plunged flat on my face in freezing water. I was floundering in the shallows of the little lake, and as he came bounding to the margin, sabre raised for a downward cut, I scrambled away until I was knee-deep and out of reach. I daren’t go farther, for the cold of that hell-created tarn was fit to freeze Grendel, numbing my feet and calves in seconds, and I knew that immersion would mean death in minutes. He stopped on the brink, measuring the distance, but too wary to come after me, for the water must hinder his feet. He swore, snaking his point at me, and made as downright foolish a statement as ever I heard.

"Come out of that, blast you! You can’t run forever!"

"You callous swine!" I yammered. "Go away, you dirty rotter, let me alone, can’t you? Oh, Lor', my legs are freezing, you hound!"

"Well, come out, then! I ain’t stoppin' you!"

"Damned if I will! You’d cut me down foul, while I was climbing out!"

"Don’t be an ass! As if I needed to. Oh, well, freeze or drown, as you please!"

He backed up to the level, and I took a step towards the brink, where my sabre lay.

"Come on, pick it up!" says he. "’Pon my soul, you’re as good as a play, you are!

"You won’t take me unawares?" cries I, crouching furtive-like, extending a wary hand towards my sabre. "You’ll give me a moment … Bill? Please? My feet are frozen solid … won’t answer …"

"God forbid that the renowned Flashman should die with cold feet!" He laughed impatiently. "Never fear, I’ll wait." And as I put a foot on the dry stone, gasping elaborately, he half-turned away in contempt—and I thought, now or never, put my hand on forte of the blade, grasped it, and launched it spear-fashion with all my remaining strength at his unguarded flank.

For an instant I thought I’d got him, for the sabre flew true as an arrow, but his speed saved him. He’d no time to dodge, but his sword-hand moved like lightning, the blades rang together, and the flying sabre was swept high into the air to fall clattering almost at the mouth of the tunnel. By which time I was on him, fists and cold feet flying, grappling him, and down we went together in a tangle of limbs, Flashy roaring and Willem spitting curses. I took a wild punch at his head and missed, yelping as my knuckles struck the stone, and as I rolled away blind with pain he was on his feet, cutting down at me. His sword struck sparks within an inch of my head, I scrambled on to all fours and came erect—and there he was, extending himself in a lunge that there was no avoiding, and I died in that split second as his point sank home in my unprotected body.

What is it like to be run through? I’ll tell you. For an instant, nothing. Then a hideous, tearing agony for another instant—and then nothing again, as you see the blade withdrawn and the blood welling on your shirt, for the pain is lost in shock and disbelief as your eyes meet your assailant’s. It’s a long moment, that, in which you realise that you ain’t dead, and that he’s about to launch another thrust to finish you—and it’s remarkable how swiftly you can move then, with a hole clean through you from front to back, about midway between your navel and your hip, and spouting gore like a pump. (It don’t hurt half as much as a shot through the hand, by the way; that’s the real gyp.)

Well, I moved, as Starnberg whirled up his sabre for a cut, and the pain returned with such a sickening spasm that I was near paralysed, and what should have been a backward spring became an agonised stagger, clutching my belly and squealing (appropriately) like a stuck pig. His cut came so close that the point ripped my sleeve, and then the back of my thighs struck something solid, and I went arse over tip into one of the bogie trucks standing on the rails—and the force of my arrival must have jolted its ancient wheels loose from the dust of ages, for the dam' thing began to move.

For a moment all the sense was jarred out of me, and then Willem shouted—with laughter!—and through waves of pain I remembered that the rails ran slightly downwards from the tunnel mouth, and that the bogie must be rolling, slowly at first but with increasing momentum, towards that ghastly oubliette where the rails ended.

If I’ve sinned in my time, wouldn’t you say I’ve paid for it? There I was, on the broad of my back, legs in the air, leaking blood by the pint with my guts on Are, confined by the sides of the truck, helpless as a beetle on a card as I trundled towards certain death. Bellowing with pain and panic, I grabbed for the top of one side, missed my hold, regained it with a frantic clutch, and heaved myself up bodily with an agonising wrench to my wound. I had a glimpse of Willem shouting in glee—I won’t swear he didn’t flourish his sabre in a farewell salute, the gloating kite—and as I tried to heave myself clear the confounded truck lurched, throwing me off balance, it was gathering speed, bumping and swaying over the last few yards of track, and as the front wheels went over the edge with a grating crash I tumbled over the side, my shoulder hit the stone with a numbing jar—and my legs were kicking in empty air! I flailed my arms for a hold on the stone, and by the grace of God my left hand fell on the nearside rail, and I was hanging on for dear life, my chest on the stone, my bleeding belly below the brink of the chasm, and the rest of me dangling into the void.

Far below the falling truck was crashing against the rock walls, but I’ll swear it made less noise than I did. Feeling my grip slide on the worn wood, I fairly made the welkin ring, striving and failing to haul myself up, getting my numbed right forearm on to the surface, but powerless to gain another inch, my whole right side throbbing with pain … and Willem was striding towards me, sabre in hand, grinning with unholy delight as he came to a halt above me. And then he hunkered down, and (it’s gospel true) spoke the words which were a catchphrase of my generation, employed facetiously when some terrible crisis was safely past:

"Will you have nuts or a cigar, sir?"

I doubt if the noise I made in reply was a coherent request for assistance, for my sweating grasp was slipping on the rail, I was near fainting with my wound, and already falling in tortured imagination into the stygian bowels of the Saltzkammergut. But he got the point, I’m sure, for he stared into my eyes, and then that devilish, mocking smile spread over his young face … and what he did then you may believe or not, as you will, but if you doubt me … well, you didn’t know Willem von Starnberg, or Rudi, for that matter.

He rested on one knee, laid down his sabre, and his right hand closed on my left wrist like a vice, even as my fingers slipped from the rail. With his left hand he brought his cigarette case from his breast pocket, selected one of his funereal smokes, pushed it between my yammering lips, struck a match, and said amiably:

"No cigar, alas … but a last cigarette for the condemned man, what?"

You may say it was the limit of diabolic cruelty, and I’ll not dispute it. Or you may say he was stark crazy, and I’ll not dispute that, either. At the moment I had no thoughts on the matter, for I was barely conscious, with no will except that which kept my right forearm on the stone, knowing that when it slipped I’d be hanging there by his grip on my other wrist alone … until he let go. I know he said something about cigars being bad for the wind anyway, and then: "Gad, but you do give a fellow a run for his money," and on those words he gripped my collar, and with one almighty heave deposited me limp, gasping, and bleeding something pitiful, on the floor of the cave.

For several minutes I couldn’t stir, except to tremble violently, and when I had breath to spare from groaning and wheezing and lamenting my punctured gut, which was now more numb than painful, I know I babbled a blessing or two on his head, which I still maintain was natural. It didn’t suit him a bit, though; he stood looking vexed and then flung away the gasper and demanded: "Why the devil can’t you die clean?" to which I confess I had no ready answer. If I had a thought it was that having saved me, he was now bound to spare me, and I guess the same thing was occurring to him and putting him out of temper. But I can’t say what was passing in his mind—indeed, to this day I can’t fathom him at all. I can only tell you what was said and done that morning in that godforsaken salt-mine above Ischl.

"It ain’t a reprieve, you know!" cries he.

"What d’ye mean?" says I.

"I mean that it’s still the Union Jack for you, Flashman!" retorts he—the only time, I think, he’d ever used my surname formal-like, and with a sneer he added words he could only have heard from Rudi. "The game ain’t finished yet, play-actor!" Then he snapped something I didn’t catch about how if he had let me fall down the cleft I’d likely have found a way out at the bottom. "So you’ll go the way I choose, d’ye see? When you’re done pukin' and snivellin' you’ll get up and take that sabre and stand your ground for a change, my Rugby hero, ’cos if you don’t, I’ll … Wer ist das?"

My wail of protest was drowned by his shouted challenge, and I saw he was staring towards the tunnel mouth, suddenly on his guard, crouched like a great cat—and my heart leaped as I saw why.

Someone was standing just within the tunnel mouth, motionless and silent, a dark figure clad in close-fitting shirt and britches and peaked cap, but too much in shadow for the features to be made out. Seconds passed without reply, and Willem started forward a couple of paces and stopped, shouting again: "Who are you? What d’ye want?"

Still there came no reply, but as the echoes resounded from the cavern walls and died away in whispers, the figure stepped swiftly forward, stooped to retrieve my fallen sabre, and straightened again in a stance that left no doubt of his intentions, for he stood like an epee fighter at rest between bouts, left hand on hip, point inclined downwards above the advanced right foot. Willem swore in astonishment and shot a glance at me, lying bemused and bleeding, but I was as baffled as he—and my hopes were shooting skywards, for this mysterious apparition was Salvation, surely, issuing an unspoken challenge to my oppressor, and I was mustering breath to bawl for help when:

"Speak up; damn you!" cries Willem. "Who are you?" The newcomer said not a word, but tilted up his point in invitation.

"Well enough, then!" cries Willem, and laughed. "Whoever you are, we’ll have two for the price o' one, what?" And he went in at a run, cutting left and right at the head, but the newcomer side-stepped nimbly, parrying and riposting like an Angelo, so help me, tossing aside the peaked cap to clear his vision—and as the light from above fell full on his features I absolutely cried out in amazement. Either this was all a dream, or the horrors I’d endured had turned my brain, for I was staring at a stark impossibility, a hallucination. The face of the swordsman, fresh and youthful under its mop of auburn curls, was one that I’d last seen smiling wantonly up at me from a lace pillow five years ago: the face of my little charmer of Berlin: Caprice.

It was mad, ridiculous, couldn’t be true, and I was seeing things—until Willem’s startled oath told me I wasn’t. The graceful lines of the figure in its male costume, the dainty shift of the small feet, as much as the pretty little face so unexpectedly revealed, fairly shouted her sex, and he checked in mid-cut and sprang back exclaiming as she came gliding in at speed, boot stamping and point darting at his throat. It was sheer disbelief, not gallantry, that took him aback, for there’s no more chivalry in a Starnberg than there is in me; he recovered in an instant and went on the defensive, for that first lightning exchange when she’d turned his cuts with ease and came after him like a fury, told him that suddenly he was fighting for his life, woman or no.

I couldn’t believe it, but I didn’t care; it was my life in the balance too, and even my wound was forgotten as I watched the shuffling figures and flickering blades, clash-clash and pause, clash-scrape-clash and pause again, but the pauses were of a split second’s duration, for she was fighting full tilt with a speed and energy I’d not have believed was in that slight body, and with a skill to take your breath away. I’m no great judge, and am only as good a cut-and-thruster as the troop-sergeant could make me, but I know an expert when I see one; there’s an assurance of bearing and movement that’s beyond technique, and Caprice had it. When Willem attacked suddenly, hewing to beat her guard down by main force, she stood her ground, feet still and warding his cuts with quick turns of her wrist; when he feinted and bore in at her flank she pivoted like a ballet-dancer, facing me with her back to the lake, and I saw that the girlish face was untroubled; I remembered fencing against Lakshmibai at Jhansi, the lovely fierce mask contorted and teeth gritted as she fought like a striking cobra, but Caprice was almost serene; even when she attacked it was without a change of expression, lips closed, chin up, eyes unwavering on Willem’s, as though all her emotions were concentrated in point and edge.

Once I thought he had her, when her foot slipped, her blade faltered, and he leaped in, smashing at her hilt to force the sabre from her hand, the bully-swordsman’s trick that I favour myself, but he hadn’t the wit or experience to combine it with a left fist to the face and a stamp on the toes, and she escaped by yielding to the blow, dropping to one knee, and rolling away like a gymnast, cutting swiftly as she regained her feet. At that moment a sudden spasm of excruciating pain in my side reminded me of more immediate troubles; my head was swimming with that dizzying weakness that is the prelude to unconsciousness, and in panic I clutched at the oozing gash in my side—dear God, I was lying in a pool of gore, if I fainted now I’d bleed to death. I pressed with all my might, trying to stem the flow, dragging myself up on an elbow with some idiot notion that if I could bend my trunk it would close the wound, and sparing a stricken glance at the combatants.

Joy was followed instantly by dismay. Willem’s left sleeve was bloody where she’d caught him in rolling away, but she was falling back now, and he was after her relentlessly, cutting high and low as she retreated; her speed was deserting her, her strength, so much less than his to begin with, was failing under those hammering strokes. He had a six-inch advantage in height, and as much in reach, and he was making it tell. He was laughing again, harsh and triumphant, and as she circled, all on the defensive now, he spoke for the first time, the words coming out in a breathless snarl: "Drop it, you bitch! Give over … you’re done … damn you!"

My heart sank, for her mouth was open now, panting with sheer weariness, and she fairly ran back several steps to avoid his pursuit, halting flat-footed to parry a cut at her head before breaking away again towards the lake. Another wave of giddiness shook me, I could feel myself going, but as he wheeled and drove in and she was forced to halt, guarding and parrying desperately, I summoned the last of my strength to yell:

"Look out, Starnberg—behind you!"

He never even flinched, let alone looked round, the iron-nerved swine, and as she took a faltering side-step that brought them side-on to me, her blade swept dangerously wide in a hurried party, exposing her head, and he gave an exultant yell as he cut backhanded at her neck, a finishing stroke that must decapitate her—and she ducked, the blade whistled an inch above her curls, and she was dropping full stretch on her left hand like an Italian, driving her point up at his unprotected front. He recovered like lightning, his sabre sweeping across to save his body, but only at the expense of his sword-arm; her point transfixed it just below the elbow, he shrieked and his sword fell, he tottered back a step … and Caprice came erect like an acrobat, poised on her toes, her point flickered up to his breast, for a moment they were still as statues, and then her knee bent and her arm straightened with academic precision as she deliberately ran him through the heart.

I saw the point come out six inches through his back, vanishing as she withdrew in graceful recovery. Willem took a step, his mouth opening soundlessly, and then he fell sideways down the incline to the lake, rolling into the shallows with barely a ripple, sliding slowly out from the shore, his body so buoyed by the salt water that his limbs floated on the surface while the crimson cloud of blood wreathed down like smoke into the transparent depths beneath him. Half-conscious as I was, I could see his face ever so clear, and I remember ’twasn’t glaring or hanging slack or grinning as corpses often do, but tranquil as a babe’s, eyes closed, like some sleeping prince in Norse legend.

The cold stone beneath me seemed to be heaving, and my vision was dimming and clearing and dimming in a most alarming way, but I recall that Caprice tossed her sabre into the lake as she turned and ran towards me, calling something in French that I couldn’t make out, and her running shape blurred to a shadow with the light failing behind it, and as the shadow stooped above me the light went out altogether and in the darkness an arm was round my shoulders and fingers were brushing my brow and my face was buried between her bosoms, and my last conscious thought was not of going to find the Great Perhaps, but rather what infernally bad luck to be pegging out at such a moment.

I don’t remember asking the question, but it must have been the first thing I uttered as I came to, for Hutton echoed it, and when I’d blinked my eyes clear I saw that he was sitting by me, trying to look soothing, which ain’t easy with a figurehead like his.

" `Where did she come, from?' " says he. "Still in that salt-mine, are we? Let it wait, colonel. Best lie quiet a spell."

"Quiet be damned." I took in the pleasant little room with the carved wooden eaves beyond the window, the pale sunlight flickering through the curtains, and the cuckoo clock ticking on the whitewashed wall. "Where the devil am I?"

"In bed, for the last four days. In Ischl. Easy, now. You’ve stitches front and rear, and you left more blood in that cave than you’ve got in your veins this minute. The less you talk, the better."

"I can listen, curse you." But I sounded feeble, at that, and when I stirred my side pained sharply. "Caprice … how did she come there? Come on, man, tell me."

"Well, if you must," says he doubtfully. "Remember, in the casino garden? I said we’d put a cover on you? Well, that was Mamselle. She was behind you every foot o' the way. Didn’t care for it, myself. I’d ha' used a man, but our French friend Delzons swore she was the best. Said you and she had worked together before." He paused. "In Berlin, was it?"

"Unofficial. She was … French secret department." It was weary work, talking. "I … didn’t know her … capabilities, then."

"Capable’s the word. Starnberg ain’t the first she’s taken off, Delzons says. Good biznai, that. Saved the hangman a job—and Bismarck a red face. What, his star man a Holnup agent! He’ll be happy to keep that under the rose. And small comfort to him that that same star man had his gas turned off by a dainty little piece from the beauty chorus. Sabres, bigad!" He began to chuckle, but checked himself. "Here, are you up to this, colonel? I can leave it, you know."

"I ain’t complaining," says I, but I closed my eyes and lay quiet. My question had been answered, and I was content to be left alone with my thoughts as Hutton closed the door softly after him.

So la petite Caprice, formerly of the Folies, had been my cover. Damned odd—until you reflected, and saw that it wasn’t odd at all. Why, even five years ago, according to Blowitz, she’d been Al in the French secret service, a trained and expert Amazon. I’d known that, in Berlin … but of course I’d never given it a thought during those golden hours in that snug boudoir on the Jager Strasse, when I’d been in thrall to the lovely little laughing face beneath the schoolgirl fringe, the eyes sparkling with mischief … "I must understand your humour, n’est-ce pas? So, le poissonier is a thief—that amuses, does it?" The perfect body in the lace negligée silhouetted in the afternoon sun … languidly astride my hips, trickling smoke down her nostrils … the saucy shrug: "To captivate, to seduce, is nothing—he is only a man" … moist red lips and skilfully caressing fingers in a perfumed bed …

… and the clash of steel echoing in a great stone cavern, the stamp and shuffle of the deadly dance, the reckless gamble of her disarming thrust … and the pretty face set and unsmiling as she killed with cold deliberation.

Aye, a far cry between the two, and middling tough to reconcile them. I’ve known hard women show soft, and soft women turn harpy, but blowed if I remember another who was at such extremes, a giggling feather-brained romp and a practised professional slayer. Thank God for both of ’em, but as I drifted into sleep it was a comforting thought that she wouldn’t be the one fetching my slippers in the long winter evenings.

Remember I said there were two kinds of awakening? My drowsy revival with Hutton had been one of the good ones, but next morning’s was even better, for while I was still weak as a Hebrew’s toddy I was chipper in mind with all perils past, and eager for news. Hutton brought a brisk sawbones who peered and prodded at my stitches, dosed me with jalup, refused my demand for brandy to take away the taste, but agreed that I might have a rump steak instead of the beef tea which they’d been spooning into me in my unconscious state. I told Hutton to make it two, with a pint of beer, and when I’d attended to them and was propped up among my pillows, pale and interesting, he elaborated on what he’d already told me.

"She was on your tail, at a safe distance, from the moment you and Starnberg set off for the lodge, and talked yourselves in—neat scheme of Bismarck’s, that. Then when night came, Delzons and I and our four lads joined her in the woods—a skeleton crew, you may say, but ain’t we always, damn the Treasury? We picketed the place as best we could, and near midnight Delzons and his Frogs, who were on the side away from the town, heard fellows skulking down from the hill, and guessed they were Holnups come to call. He and his two men sat tight, while Mamselle trailed ’em close to the house—"

"Good God, he let her go alone?"

"She’s a stalker—Delzons'. fellows call her Le Chaton, French for kitten, I’m told. Some kitten. Anyway, there were three Holnups, gone to ground under a bush, whispering away, and she slid close enough to gather that they were an advance guard, so to speak, and there were others up the hill. Then comes a whistle from near the house, and who should it be but friend Starnberg, summoning the three Holnups, if you please. Here’s a go, thinks Mamselle, and follows ’em in, to eavesdrop. She must," says Hutton in wonder, "be a bloody Mohawk, that girl. From what she heard, Starnberg was plainly a wrong ’un, but before she could slip back to Delzons to report, you came in view and went for him. The row brought the Emperor’s sentries, and all at once there was a battle royal, with more Holnups arriving—we heard it all, but in the dark there was nothing to be done. Mamselle kept her head, though, and when Starnberg’s gang brushed off, carrying you along, she stuck to her task, which was to cover you, whatever happened." He paused to ask: "How had you discovered that Starnberg was a bent penny?"

"Tampered cartridges. Ne’er mind that now. What then?"

"She dogged ’em into the hills a few miles, first to a steiger’s [Steiger, the foreman in a salt-mine] hut at the foot o' the mountain, where they rested a spell. Then they put you on a stretcher and went up the mountain to the mouth of the salt-mine. She judged it best not to follow ’em in, but lay up in the rocks nearby, and about dawn the whole crew, as near as she could judge, came out with their dunnage and scattered—but no sign of you and Starnberg, which she couldn’t figure … neither can I. What was he about?"

"Settling a score. With me. In his own peculiar way." He frowned. "I don’t follow."

"You don’t have to. It don’t matter." It was none of his business to know about Rudi long ago, or Willem’s rum behaviour, killing me one moment, saving me the next. "Nothing to do with this affair, Hutton. A personal grudge, you could call it. Go on."

He gave me a hard look, but continued. "Well, she waited a while. Then she went in. Nick o' time, by the sound of it … but you know more than I do about that. She settled Starnberg, plugged the leak in you as best she could, and then ran hell-for-leather down the hill, seven or eight miles, to the rendezvous we’d fixed on beforehand. Delzons and I and a couple of our lads went back with her to the mine. I thought you were a goner, but Mamselle put a few stitches in you from the first-aid kit, and after dark we brought you down here to our bolt-hole. She’s nursed you these past few days, too. Regular little Nightingale." He shook his head in admiration. "She’s a trump and a half, colonel. Blessed if I ever saw a female like her. Smiling sweet and pretty as a peach and she bowled out Starnberg! How the dooce did she do it?"

"Nerve," says I. "And by being a better fencer than he was. Where is she?"

"At the moment, Ischl police station. With Delzons, helping the Austrians trace the Holnup fugitives. Doubt if they’ll catch any. No general alarm, you see. Oh, there was a fine hue and cry after you and Starnberg at first. But Delzons and I had our cyphers away to London and Paris soon after, the whole tale, Starnberg and all. That set the wires sparking to Berlin and Vienna." His lean face twisted in a sour grin. "Never knew our Foreign Office could shift so spry, but once they’d telegraphed our Vienna embassy, and the Frogs', and our ambassadors had requested an urgent audience with the Emperor in person … well, silence fell. No more hue and cry for you. London directed me to call on the governor of Upper Austria, no less, and assure him of our entire discretion. God knows what Franz-Josef thought of our presumption—and Bismarck’s—in saving his life behind his back. But not a word’s being said publicly. The Austrian peelers have been advised to treat us and Delzons' people as tourists. So presently we can all go home. Job well done."

He clapped his hands on his knees with finality and stood up, taking a turn to the window. "No question of you making a report. Not officially on service. But I’d be glad of your views on a couple o' things …" He cleared his throat. "This Princess Kralta—what about her?"

What with this and that, she’d gone clean out of my mind. "She’s Bismarck’s mistress, or was. Why, what’s happened to her?"

"Nothing. What you’ve just said explains why. The Ischl police questioned her after the lodge fracas, of course. Known companion of the missing Starnberg. No arrest, though." He gave an amused snort. "From what I’ve seen of the lady, I’d as soon try to collar the Queen. Very hoch und wohl-geboren. Anyway, whatever she told ’em, it brought a couple o' bigwigs post-haste from Berlin yesterday, and I was summoned by the governor and presented to the lady as though she were the Tsar of Russia’s aunt. Care to guess what she wanted? News of you." Even poker-faced Hutton couldn’t keep the curiosity out of his eyes. "I told her you were indisposed and she started up, white as paper. `Not injured?' cries she. I told her you were on the mend. `Thank God!' says she, and sat down again. Desired me to convey her wishes for your recovery, and trusts you’ll call upon her in Vienna, when convenient." He gave the ceiling a jaundiced glance. "Grand Hotel, 9 Karnthner King."

Drawing his own conclusions, no doubt. Well, honi soit to you, Hutton. I felt better already, for there’s no finer tonic than the news that a splendid piece of rattle is turning white as paper and thanking God that you’re on the mend. "We have Vienna", by gum—she’d truly meant it, the little darling.

"Hutton," says I, "how long before I’m on my feet?"

"Few days, the doctor says. Once the stitches are out. We can take it, then," says he, "that the lady was not a Holnup accomplice of Starnberg’s?"

"Well, Berlin don’t seem to think so! Nor the Austrians." I considered. "No … I’d say she’s a genuine Bismarck agent, and Starnberg hoodwinked her as he did the rest of us, the clever little bastard. If she’d been a Holnup she’d have been out of Ischl long before the traps caught up with her, wouldn’t she?"

The truth was I didn’t care a rap, and didn’t want to know—not when I thought of that voluptuous torso and long white limbs and the golden mane spilling over her shoulders, all waiting in Vienna. What the devil, you don’t bed ’em for their politics, do you?

He didn’t argue, but asked a few more questions about her which I answered with a discretion that didn’t fool him for a moment. I suspect the great long rat was jealous—and not only where Kralta was concerned, for he reverted to Caprice again, with a warmth which I thought quite unbecoming in a Treasury hatchet-man, the lecherous old goat.

"Never seen her like," he repeated, and sighed. "Dear delight to look upon, cold steel within. Mind you, she has her soft side. You should ha' seen her chivvying us up to the mine to bring you down. Fairly shrilling at us to make haste, swore you were dying by inches and we’d be too late. And when she stitched you up she was blubbing. Muttering in French. Quite a taking she was in." He sounded almost piqued.

"Well, you know what women are, ministering angels and all that," says I, pretty smug.

"Aye," says he, pretty dry, and added apropos of nothing that I could see: "She told Delzons she killed Starnberg in self-defence."

I remarked that when a chap was trying to cut your head off, it was a legitimate excuse.

"To be sure. We fished him out o' that pool, you know. Three wounds. One clean through the pump, a cut on his left wrist, and the third through his right arm. Odd, that."

"What’s odd about it?"

"You don’t truss a man’s sword-arm after you’ve killed him. I’d say he was already disarmed when she did him in."

I gave him my best country-bumpkin gape. "Now I don’t follow. He’s dead and good riddance, ain’t he? Well, then, self-defence’ll do, I’d say. Does it matter?"

"Not a jot," says he, and rose to depart. "But seeing how she mooned over you later, it struck me she might have been paying him out. On your account." He turned towards the door. "You must ha' known her pretty well in Berlin. About as well as you know that Princess Kralta."

"Hutton," says I, "you’re a nosey old gossip."

"Gossip—never. Nosey? That’s my trade, colonel."

Well, I’m used to the mixture of huff and perplexity and envious admiration that my success with the fair sex arouses in my fellow man. Seen it in all sorts, from the saintly Albert looking peeved when her fluttering majesty pinned the Afghan medal on my coat, to Bully Dawson, my Rugby fag-master, in a furious bait after I’d thoughtlessly boasted of my juvenile triumph with Lady Geraldine aforesaid. ("What, a high-steppin' filly like her, dotin' on you, damned little squirt that you are!") Most gratifying—and doubly so in Hutton’s case. So dear little Caprice had wept over me, had she? Capital news, for if the old fondness still lingered, why shouldn’t we resume our idyll of the Jager Strasse, once I was up and doing? Stay, though … what about Kralta, panting in Vienna? A ticklish choice, and I was torn. On one hand, there was an exciting variety about Caprice’s boudoir behaviour, the merry concubine performing for the fun of it; on t’other, my horsey charmer was wildly passionate and spoony about me—and there was more of her. Much to be said on both sides …

In the meantime, Caprice was on hand, and when Hutton gave me the office next day that she purposed to visit me in the evening, I struggled into my shirt and trowsers, cursing my stitches, shaved with care, gave my face furniture a touch of pomade, practised expressions of suffering nobly borne before the mirror while lust-fully recalling the soap bubbles of Berlin … and paused to wonder, I confess, how it would be, meeting her again.

You see, I don’t care to be under obligation to a woman for anything—except money, of course—and this one had saved my life at mighty risk to herself. Furthermore, the harmless jolly little banger of five years ago had emerged as a skilled and ruthless killing lady. On both counts she had the whip hand, so to speak, if she chose to use it—and show me the woman that won’t. Well, Caprice didn’t; being a clever actress and manager of men, she took what might have been an awkward reunion in her sprightly stride, bowling in without so much as a knock, full of sass and nonsense … and ’twas as though five years ago was only yesterday.

"I have not forgiven you!" cries she, dropping her cape and reticule on the table. "Not a word of farewell, not so much as a billet d’adieu when you abandon me in Berlin! Oh, c’est parfait, ca! Well, M. Jansen-Flashman, what have you to say?" She tossed her head, twinkling severely, and I could have eaten her alive on the spot. "I am waiting, m’sieur!"

"My dear, I’ve been waiting five years," says I, playing up, "just for the adorable sight of you—and here you are, lovelier than ever!" She made that honking noise of derision that is so vulgarly French, but I wasn’t flattering. The pretty girl had become a beauty, the pert gamin face had refined and strengthened, the classroom fringe had given way to the latest upswept style crowned with curls, darker than I remembered—but the cupid’s bow lips were as impudent and the blue eyes as mischievous as ever. She was still la petite Caprice, if not so little: an inch or two taller and fuller in her tight-bodiced crimson satin that clung like a skin from bare shoulders to wasp waist and then descended to her feet in the fashionable rippling pleats of the time—it hadn’t occurred to me that female politicals might dress like evening fashion-plates even when they were in the field, so to speak, and I sat lewdly agog.

"I know that look!" says she. "And I am still waiting."

"But, darling, I couldn’t say goodbye—it was Blowitz’s fault, you see; he had me on the train to Cologne before I knew it, and --

"Ah, so Blowitz is to blame! Fat little Stefan overpowered you and carried you off, eh? Some excuse, that!" She advanced with that mincing sway that had never failed to have me clutching for the goods. "Well, it does not serve, milord! I am displeased, and come only to punish you for your neglect, your discourtoisie." She struck a pose. "Behold, I wear my most becoming gown—

Worth, s’il vous plait!—I dress my hair a la mode, I devote care to my complexion, a little powder here, a little rouge there, I choose my most costly perfume (mmm-h!), I put round my neck the velvet ribbon tralala which so aroused the disgusting Shuvalov—you remember?—I make my person attrayante altogether … how do you say … ? ravissante, tres séduisante—"

"Alluring, bigod, scrumptious—"

"And then …" she bent forward to flaunt ’em and stepped away "… then, I place myself at a distance, out of reach." She perched on the table edge, crossing her legs with a flurry of lace petticoat and silk ankles. "And because you are invalide you must sit helpless like le pauvre M. Tana … non, M. Tanton … ah, peste! Comment s’appelle-t-il?

"Tantalus, you mad little goose!"

"Précisément … Tantaloose. Oui, you are condemned to sit like him, unable to reach out and devour that which you most desire … tres succulent, non?" And the minx stretched voluptuously, pursed her lips, and blew me a kiss. "Oh, hélas, méchant … if only you were not wounded, eh?"

"Now, that ain’t fair! Teasing an old man—and a sick one, too! Here, tell you what—let’s kiss and make up, and if you’ll forgive me for leaving you flat in Berlin … why, I’ll forgive you for saving my life, what?"

It had to be said, sooner or later, and when better than straight away, in the midst of chaff? The laughter died in her eyes, but only for an instant, and she was smiling again, shaking her immaculately curled head.

"We will not talk of that," says she, and before I could open my mouth to protest: "We will not talk of it at all. Between good friends, there is no need."

"No need? My dear girl, there’s every need—"

"No, chéri." She raised a hand, and while she smiled still, her voice was firm and calm. "If you please … non-non, un moment, let me … oh, how to say it? Those two in the caverne, they were not you and I. They were two others … two agents secrets, who did what they must do … their devoir, their duty. You see?"

What I saw was that this was a Caprice I hadn’t known before. Charming and merry as ever, even more beautiful—it made me slaver just to look at her—but with a quiet strength you’d never suspect until she softened her voice and spoke plain and direct, gentle as Gibraltar.

"Let us not speak of it then. It is past, you see, and so are they … but we are here!" In an instant she was sparkling again, slipping down from the table, fluttering her hands and laughing. "And it has been so long a time since Berlin, and I was so désolée to be Heft without a word—oh, and enraged, you would not believe! You remember the things I said of Shuvalov, that night of the bath?" She began to giggle. "Well, I said not quite as bad of you—but almost. Is there a word in English for angry and sad together? But that is past also!" She knelt quickly by my chair (in a Worth dress, too). "And here we are, I say! Have you missed me, chéri?"

As I’ve said before, damned if I understand women. But if she wanted to forget the horror of that ghastly mine, thank God and hurrah! No doubt she had her reasons, and since gratitude ain’t my long suit anyway, and her bright eyes and laughing lips and pouting tits were pleading in unison, I didn’t protest.

"Missed you, darling? Damnably—and a sight more than you missed a creaky old codger like me, I’ll lay—"

"It is not true! Why, when you abandoned me in Berlin, I was inconsolable, désolée—all day! And what is this codgeur, and creaky? Oh, but your English, it is ridiculous!"

"As to the other matter that we ain’t to talk about … well, I’ll just say a ridiculous English thank’ee—"

"And no more!" she commanded. "Or I shall not … what did you call it? Kiss and make up?" She gave a languorous wink and put on her husky voice. "Are you … strong enough?"

"Try me," says I, reaching for her, but she rose quickly and made a great business of having me put my hands palm down on my chair arms, whereupon she laid her own hands over mine, leaning down firmly to keep ’em pinned, while I feasted my eyes on those superb poonts quivering fragrantly under my very nose, and wondered if my stitches would stand the strain of the capital act performed in situ. Then the wanton baggage brought that soft smiling mouth slowly against mine, teasing gently with her tongue, but swiftly withdrawing when I broke free, panting, and tried to seize her bodily, reckless of the darting pain in my flank.

"Non-non!" cries she. "Be still, foolish! You will injure your wound! No, desist, idiot!" She slapped my hand away from her satin bottom. "It is not possible—"

"Don’t tell me what’s not possible! Heavens, d’you think I’ve never been pinked before? T’ain’t but a hole in the gut, I can hardly see the dam' thing—"

"Do not tell me what cannot be seen! I have seen it!" For a moment she sounded truly angry, eyes flashing as though on the edge of tears—and then as quickly it had gone, and she was playing the reproachful nursemaid with affected groans and rolling eyes and scathing Gallic rebukes which I accepted like a randy but frustrated lamb, promising to keep my hands to myself, honest injun.

"You behave? Word of honour?" says she, not trusting me an inch.

"I’ll prove it," says I. "Give us another kiss, and you’ll see."

"Va-t-en, menteur!" scoffs she, so I sat on my hands and she consented warily. I knew it was all I was fit for, and made the most of those sweet lips for the few seconds she permitted before she broke away, gratifyingly pink and breathless.

"Bon," says she, and drew some papers from her reticule. "Then I may safely sit by you while you read to me from the present I have brought for you. I coaxed them from an English tourist in the town, pretending an interest in your culture Anglaise. His wife, I think, was not amused." She sat on my chair arm, allowing me to put a hand round her waist, and laid the papers in my lap. "What do you say … `for old times' sake', non?"

"Oh, my God!" says I. They were copies of Punch. "You cruel little monster! Reminding me of the last time, when you know I’m in no state to explain `hankey-pankey' to you!"

"Attention!" She rapped my wrist. "I know all about that, but I do not know what is amusing about M. Gladstone dancing in the dress of a sailor, or your policemen being given whistles to blow—ah, yes, or why your sacré M. Paunch has such malice against us in France, with his bad jokes about Madagascar and La Chine and M. de Lesseps, and oh! such fun about Frenchmen playing your blooded cricket—"

"Bloody, dearest, not blooded. And t’ain’t ladylike to—"

"Ah, yes, and here—further insult!" She stabbed an indignant fingernail at the page. "France is drawn as an ugly old paysanne with fat ankles and abominable clothes—but who is this divine being, so beautiful and elegant of shape in her fine drapery? What does she represent, ha? The Manchester Ship Canal! Quelle absurdité!"

"Oh, come, France is mostly a peach in our cartoons. And we’ve always made fun of you, ever since Crécy and Joan of Arc and whatnot—but you do the same to us, don’t you?"

"Sans blague! An example, then?"

"Well, look at Phileas Fogg, a prize muff if ever there was one! That man Verne is never done sniping at us … aye, those two British officers in that twaddling book about a comet hitting the earth, what a pair of muttonheaded by-joves they are! Pompous, ill-tempered caricatures, all whiskers and haw-haw and crying ’Balderdash!' "

"And that is not true?" says she, all innocence.

"Course it’s not! Stuff and nonsense! Nothing like us!" At which she began to giggle and flicked my whiskers in a marked manner. I could only growl and point out that at least I wasn’t in the habit of crying "Balderdash!" or "Haw-haw!"[21]

So we passed a pleasant hour, soon discarding Punch and talking about anything and everything except the past few days. I told her about Egypt and Zululand, and she talked of the places she had visited in the course of her work—Rome and Athens and Constantinople and Cairo—but never a word of the work itself. Fashions, food, customs, society doings, men (whom she seemed to find comic, mostly), shops, hotels, and journeys: we compared notes about them all, and even found acquaintances in common, like Liprandi, to whom I’d surrendered, rather informally, at Balaclava, and whom she’d waltzed with at St Petersburg, and the big Sudanese with tribal cuts on his face who kept the Cigale café in Alex—and Blowitz, naturally, was an amusing topic.

I wasn’t sorry, though, when supper-time came. Tête-a-tête is ail very jolly, but when you know dam' well your voluptuous vis-a-vis is a cul-de-sac, and she sits on your chair-arm with her udders in your ear and a bare shoulder begging to be nibbled and her perfume conjuring erotic notions, and you daren’t stir a lecherous finger for fear of bursting the needlework in your navel and suffering the indignity of having her remove your blood-sodden britches and upbraid you for a foresworn satyr, none of which will do a thing for your future amorous relations … well, it’s trying, I can tell you. Le pauvre M. Tantaloose didn’t know what frustration was. Ne’er mind, thinks I, we’ll make up for this in Paris presently. Kralta’ll keep.

It was quite like old times to sit across the table from her in candlelight, tucking into the cold ham and fruit and Bernkastler, she chattering gaily and I sitting easy and admiring the highlights on the dark curls, and the perfect ivory curves of chin and neck and shoulder. I could have imagined we were back in the Jager Strasse, except for a brief moment when she peeled a plum and presented it to me, laughing, on a fork … and I thought of those dainty fingers with their polished nails coiled round a sabre hilt, and of the hidden strength of the slender white arm—but when I looked, the smiling lips and merry eyes were those of the Caprice I knew so well, exclaiming "Oh-la, gauche!" when I dropped the fork, and a moment later rising and gleaming at me over the rim of her glass as she proposed a toast to our reunion.

"I’ve a better toast than that," says I, halting round the table and nuzzling her neck. "To our next meeting, when this dam' scratch of mine has healed." She clinked glasses, but said nothing. I asked when she was going back to Paris.

"Tomorrow, hélas! We go one at a time, ever so discret, Delzons last of all. Either he or M. Hutton will remain until you are well enough to travel, and then this house will be closed, and the operation will be over." She turned away and put her glass on the mantel, her back to me. "You will return to London?"

"Oh, no hurry. Time for a week or two in Paris, then we’ll see." I stepped close to kiss her on the nape of the neck, and she glanced round.

"Why Paris?" says she lightly.

"Why d’you think?" says I, and slipped my hands round to clasp her breasts. She shivered, and then very gently she removed my hands and turned to face me, smiling still, but a touch wary.

"That might … be difficult," says she. "I do not think that Charles-Alain would approve. And I am sure his family would not."

"Charles who?"

"Charles-Alain de la Tour d’Auvergne," says she, and the smile had an impish twinkle to it. "My husband. I have been Madame de la Tour d’Auvergne for six months now."

I must have looked like a fish on a slab. "Husband! You—married? My stars above! Well, blow my boots, and you never let on—"

"Blow your boots, you never noticed!" laughs she, holding up her left hand, and there was the gold band, sure enough.

"Eh? What? Well, I never do … I mean, I didn’t see … well, I’ll he damned! Of all things! Here, though, I must kiss the bride!" Which I did, and would have made a meal of it, but she slipped away, squeaking at me to mind my wound, and taking refuge behind the table. I bore up, grinning at her across the board.

"Why, you sly little puss! Le chaton, right enough! Well, well … still, it makes no odds." She looked startled. "Oh, I’ll still come to Paris, never you fret—he don’t have to know, this de la Thingamabob ! "

It was her turn to stare, and then, would you believe it, she went into whoops, and had to sit down in the armchair, helpless with laughter. I asked what was the joke, and when she’d drawn breath and dabbed her eyes, she shook her head at me in despair.

"Oh, but you are the most dreadful, adorable man! No, he would not have to know … but I would know." She sighed, smiling but solemn. "And I have made my vows."

"Strewth! You mean … it’s no go—just ’cos you’re married?" "No go," says she gently. "Ah, chéri, I am sorry, but … you do understand?"

"Shot if I do!" And I didn’t, for ’twasn’t as though she was some little bourgeois hausfrau—dammit, she was French, and had sported her bum and boobies in the Folies for the entertainment of lewd fellows and rogered with the likes of Shuvalov pour la patrie, and myself and God knew how many others for the fun of it … and her behaviour this evening hadn’t been married-respectable, exactly, dressed to the seductive nines and kissing indecorously.

I remarked on this, and she sighed. "Oh, if you had been well, I would not have come, knowing you would wish to make love … but knowing you were blessé, and unable to …' She gestured helplessly. "Oh, you know … I thought we might talk and be jolly, as we used to be, but without … oh, `hankey-pankey'." She shrugged in pretty apology, and suddenly her face lit up. "Because those were such happy days in Berlin! Oh, not only making love, but being comfortable and laughing and talking—and I wished to see you once again, and remember those times, and see if you had changed—and, oh, I am so glad to find that you have not!" She rose and put a hand to my face and pecked me on the cheek. "But I have, you see. I am Madame de la Tour d’Auvergne now, ever so respectable." She pulled a face. "No more la gaie Caprice. I change myself, I change my life … and, hélas, I must change my old friends. So it is better you do not come to Paris … Do you mind very much? You are not angry?"

A number of women have had the poor taste and bad judgment to give me the right about. In my callow youth I resented it damn-ably, and either thrashed ’em (as with Judy, my guv’nor’s piece), or went for ’em with a sabre (Narreeman, my flower of the Khyber), or ran like hell (Lola of the blazing temper and flying crockery). In later years you learn to assume indifference while studying how to pay them out, supposing you care enough. With Caprice, I’d have been piqued, no more … if I’d believed her laughable excuse, which I did not for a moment. She, a faithful wife? Come up, love! No, the fact was that Flashy five years on (seen at his worst, mind, flat on his back and beat, and now a hapless invalid) no longer aroused her amorous interest. Well, I could take the jolt to my amour-propre the more easily because while she’d been a prime ride and good company, she’d never had the magic that gets beneath your hide, like Yehonala or Lakshmi or Sonsee-array … or Elspeth. She was too young for that … but old enough to know better than to play the saucy minx, teasing me into a frustrated heat and then showing me the door.

Oh, some of the old affection lingered, no doubt, hence the fatuous tale of marital fidelity, to let me down lightly. I could have swallowed it if she’d come right out with it first thing, but she hadn’t been able to resist her wanton instinct to set me panting—even now there was a glint of mockery in the ever-so-contrite smile that told me she was enjoying feeling sorry for the randy old fool, well pleased with her beauty’s power … and doubtless convincing herself that she felt a touch of sentimental remorse, the littIe hypocrite. Even the best of them like to make you squirm. I had a sudden memory of the salt-mine and that cold steel being driven ruthlessly home … and call it sour grapes if you like, but I found myself warming to the thought of Princess Kralta.

"Angry, little one? Not a bit of it!" cries I, beaming like any-thing, and pecked her back. "I’m sorry, o' course—but jolly glad for you! He’s a lucky chap, your Charlie—what is he, a dashing hussar, eh?"

"Oh, no . but he is a soldier … that is, he is a professor of l’histoire militaire, at St Cyr."

"I say! He must be a bright spark! Blackboard-wallahs are pretty senior as a rule."

She confessed that he was older than she (nearly twice her age, in fact) and from an old service family—the usual decayed Frog nobility by the sound of the name,' but she wasn’t forthcoming at all, and I guessed that the mere thought of the raffish Flashy being presented to dear Charles' parents, as an old acquaintance even, filled her with dismay. I found myself wondering how much they knew about her … and whether the arrival on Papa d’Auvergne’s breakfast table of that splendid photograph of his daughter-in-law, bare-titted among the potted palms and nigger stallions, mightn’t enliven his petit déjeuner. A passing thought, and cheered me up no end.

"But what do Charles' people think about your working for the secret department? Hardly the thing for a staid married lady, what?" "They did not approve, of course. But that is past now. We agreed, Charles and I, that I must resign before our marriage—" "But here you are!"

"Only because this was une crise, an emergency, and Delzons was in despair to recruit agents for the occasion. The département, Hike your own in England, must make do with little … and I could not refuse Delzons. I owe him too much."

"And Charles didn’t mind? Well, he’s a sportsman! Of course, it was an important affair, international crisis, and all that."

She hesitated. "He did not know. I am at this moment visiting a school friend in Switzerland."

Better and better. Not the kind of thing to confide to a lover who’s just been handed his travel warrant, mind.

"Well, God bless Charles, anyway! I’d like to meet him one o' these days." She didn’t clap her hands, so I took them gently in mine and gave her my best wistful sigh, like a ruptured uncle. "And bless you, too, my dear. And since you don’t want to talk about t’other thing, in that beastly cave—"

"Non, non—"

"Well, then, I shan’t, so there. I’ll only say that I’m monstrous glad that you visited your school chum in Switzerland, what? And that you came to see me this evening. Quite like old times, eh , . well, almost." I winked and slid my hands round her rump, kneading away to show there were no hard feelings—and blowed if the sentimental little tart didn’t start piping her eye.

"Oh, you are the best man alive! So kind, so généreux!" She clung to me, bedewing my shirt, and raised her face to mine. "And … and never shall I forget Berlin!" She threw her arms round my neck and kissed me—none of your pecks this time, but the full lascivious munch, wet and wonderful, and if you don’t breathe through your nose you die of suffocation. I had to press my stitches hard until she came loose at last, lips quivering, dabbing at her eyes.

"My goodness, what would Charles say?" I wondered, playful-like. "I can’t believe professors of l’histoire militaire approve o' that sort of thing."

She looked uncertain, and decided to be airy. "Oh, chacun a son goat, you know."

"Well, you mustn’t shock him. Can’t think when I was last kissed thataway. Not since the Orient Express, anyway."

"Que’est-ce que c’est?" A moment’s perplexity, and then the penny dropped, and she went pink and took a step back. "Oh! La princesse … I … I did not …"

"Ah, you’ve met her, then?"

"I have seen her, with Delzons. When we were at the police commissariat." She was confused, but recovered, smiling brightly. "But of course, she and that other brought you from Germany. She is … very beautiful."

"Fine figure of a woman," says I, looking her up and down.

More to the point, she has no conscience where her husband’s concerned." I grinned and repeated her own words. "D’you mind very much? You’re not angry?"

Just for a moment her eyes flashed, and then she laughed—and riposted neatly by repeating mine.

"Angry? Not a bit of it; I am jolly glad for you. She is perhaps …" she made a little fluttering gesture "… how do you say … more your style?"

"More my age, you mean."

"No such thing!" cries she merrily. "Now, you will take care of your wound, and not make too much exertion—"

"Oh, beef tea and bedsocks, that’s my ticket! Don’t you over-exert yourself either, or you’ll scandalise Charles."

We smiled amiably on each other, and when I’d helped her put on her cape she held out her hand, not her lips.

"Adieu, then," says she.

I bowed to kiss her hand. "Au’voir, Caprice … oh, pardon—Madame. Bonne chance."

She went, and as I listened to her heels clicking on the stairs I was wondering where the devil I’d put that photograph. Saving Flashy’s life is all very well, but don’t ever play fast and loose with his affections. He’s a sensitive soul.

The older you get, the longer you take to heal. The hole in my gut was as neat and handy as a wound can hope to be, and thirty years earlier would have been right in a fortnight, but now it turned angry, no doubt from the strain imposed by my frustrating half-dalliance with Madame de la Tour d’Auvergne, damn her wanton ways. The stitches had come adrift, and had to be replaced by my little medico, I developed a fever which returned me to bed for more than a week, and after that I was no better than walking wounded, for I was weak as a rat and common sense demanded that I should go canny, as Elspeth would say.

She was much in my mind at that time, but then she always is when I’ve passed through the furnace and am looking for consolation. The thought of that loving smile, the child-like innocence of the forget-me-not eyes, the soft sweet voice, and the matronly charms bursting out of her corset, made me downright homesick, and with Caprice turning me off, the stupid little trollop, I’d have been tempted to set my sights on London if it hadn’t been for the prospect of rattling Kralta all over Vienna. I couldn’t forego that, in all conscience; our railway idyll had given me an appetite, and after it was satisfied would be time enough to cry off with the new love and on with the old.

So I bore my captivity into November, glad to be alive, and passing the time pondering on the mysteries of those few short days of strange adventure—barely a week, from the time when I’d been sitting in Berkeley Square gloating over Kralta’s picture, to the awful moment when I’d pegged out in that hellish mine, with Caprice clucking over me like an anxious hen and Starnberg’s corpse floating in the limpid brine. Reviewing it all … I knew what had happened, but not why; in all the confusion of lies and deceits and voltes-face, there were mysteries, as I say, which I didn’t understand, and still don’t.

On the face of it, Bismarck had concocted a lunatic but logical scheme to save the Austrian Emperor from assassination, and it had succeeded in a way he could never have foreseen, with his gusted henchman proving traitor but being foiled by old Flashy’s blundering. Well, lucky old Otto—and lucky Franz-Josef and lucky Europe. (And when we’d gone, no one would ever believe it.) Knowing my opinion of Bismarck, you may wonder that I don’t suspect him of some gigantic Machiavellian double-deal whereby he’d invented the tale of a Holnup plot (to hoax simpletons like me and Kralta) so that Starnberg could murder Franz-Josef with Bismarck’s blessing, and start another war—he’d done it before, God knows, twice at least, and wouldn’t have scrupled to do it again if it had suited his book. But it didn’t, you see; he’d built Germany into a European Power, by blood and skulduggery, and had nothing to gain by another explosion. He could rest on his laurels and let nature take its usual disastrous course—as it is doing, if only imbeciles like Asquith would notice. Well, I’m past caring.

At a lesser remove, I couldn’t figure Starnberg’s behaviour in the mine. Why, having done his level damnedest to kill me, had he saved me from going down that awful chasm into the bowels of the earth? ’Cos he’d wanted to put me away with his own steel? To prolong my agony? Or from some mad, quixotic impulse which he mightn’t have understood himself? Search me. Folk like the Starnbergs, father and son, don’t play by ordinary rules. I. only hope there ain’t a grandson loose about the place.

I still wondered, too, why Caprice had cut him down in cold blood, and why she wouldn’t talk of it, even. Vanity would have tempted me to take Hutton’s judgment that she was dead spoony on me and had done him in for that reason, if she had not since handed me my marching orders. (And on the pretext of fidelity to some muffin of a military historian! I still couldn’t get over that. Aye, well, the silly bint would rue her lost opportunities when next Professor Charles-Alain clambered aboard her—in the dark, probably, and wearing a nightcap with a tassel, the daring dog.) My own view, for what it was worth, was that she’d murdered Starnberg because it struck her (being female) as the fitting and tidy thing to do—and gave her the last word, so there. Delzons, her chief, who knew her better than anyone, had a different explanation which he gave me the day before we left Ischl, and you must make of it what you will.

Hutton had gone back to London by then, after assuring me that Government was satisfied; no official approval, of course, but no censure either; my assistance had been noted, and would be recorded in the secret papers. Aye, I’m still waiting for my peerage.

Delzons had stayed on to close the Ischl house as soon as I was fit to take the open air. Paris was no keener on maintaining bolt-holes out of secret funds than London, and the pair of us transferred to the Golden Ship, myself to complete my convalescence and Delzons to enjoy a holiday—or so he said, but I suspect he was keeping an eye on me to see that I didn’t get into mischief. I was glad enough of his company, for he was the best kind of Frog, shrewd and tough as teak, but jolly and with no foolish airs.

It would be late November, when I was healed and feeling barely a twinge, that we walked across the Ischl bridges and up the hill to the royal lodge. The trees were bare, there was a little snow lying, and the river was grey and sullen with icy patches under the banks. The lodge itself was silent under a leaden sky, with only a servant in sight, sweeping leaves and snow from the big porch; it would be months before Franz-Josef returned to add to the collection of heads in that dark panelled chamber where his aides had crawled about, giggling in drink, and I’d had conniptions as I stared at the doctored cartridges.

We circled the place, and Delzons pointed out the spot where he’d lain doggo and Caprice had slipped away to shadow the Holnups. I studied the open ground, dotted with trees and bushes, between where we stood and the lodge, and remarked that a night-stalk would have been ticklish even for my old Apache chums, Quick Killer and Yawner.

"But not for la petite," smiles Delzons. "She has no equal. Is it not remarkable, one so delicately feminine, so pretty and vivace, so much a child almost, but of a skill and courage and … and firm purpose beyond any agent I have seen?" He nodded thought-fully. "We have a word, colonel, that I think has no equivalent in English, which I apply to nothing and no one but her. Formidable."

"She’s all o' that." Plainly he was as smitten with her as Hutton had been, but with Delzons it was fond, almost paternal. "Where did she learn to stalk and … so on?"

"In the Breton woods as a child, with her three elder brothers." Ile chuckled. "She was une luronne—a tomboy, no? Oui, un garcon manqué. Six years younger than they, but their match in all sport, running, climbing, shooting … oh, and daring! And they were no poules mouillées, no milksops, those three lads. Yet when she was only twelve she was their master with foil and pistol. Some brothers would have been jealous, but Valéry and Claude and Jacques were her adoring slaves—ah, they were close, those four!"

"You knew ’em well, then," says I, as we strolled back.

"Their father was my copain in Crimea, before I joined the intelligence. I was to them as an uncle when they were small, and grew to love them, Caprice above all … well, a lonely bachelor engrossed in his work must have something to love, non?" He paused, musing a moment, then went on. "But then I was posted abroad for several years, and lost touch with the family until the terrible news reached me that the father and three sons had all fallen in the war of ’70—he was by then chef de brigade, and the three boys had but lately passed through St Cyr. I was desolate, above all for Caprice, so cruelly deprived at a stroke of all those she loved. I wrote to her, of my grief and condolence, assuring her of my support in any way possible. Thus it was, two years later, when I came home to command the European section of the departement secret, that she came to see me—asking for employment. Mon dieu!" He heaved in emotion, and at once became apologetic. "Oh, forgive me … perhaps I weary you? No? Then het us sit a moment."

We settled on a bench by the path overlooking the river, and Delzons lit his pipe, gazing down at the distant snow-patched roofs.

"You conceive my amazement, not only to discover that my little gamine had become a lovely young woman, but that she should seek an occupation so unsuitable, mais inconcevable, for one so chaste et modeste. `Why, dear child?' I asked. `I cannot be a soldier like my father and brothers. I shall fight for France in my own way.' That was her reply. As gently as might be, I suggested that there were other ways to serve, that the world of the département secret was a hard and dangerous one, and … highly unpleasant in ways which she, a convent-reared girl of eighteen, could not conceive. Do you know what she said, colonel? `Uncle Delzons, I have studied the world from the tableaux vivants of the Folies Gaités, and moved among its clientele, who are also hard, dangerous, and unpleasant.' Before I could even express my scan-dal, for I had known nothing of this, she added—oh, so quiet and demure with that laughter in her innocent eyes—`Also I am fluent in languages, and fence and shoot even better these days.' "

Delzons took the pipe from his mouth, looked at it, and stuck it back. "What could I say? I was shocked, yes—but I saw, too, that beneath the fresh, lovely surface there was a metal that I had never suspected. It is rare, such metal, and essential to the département secret. And if I had refused her, I knew there were other sections of the département which would not." He laughed ruefully. "The truth was, she was a gift to any chef d’intelligence. And so she proved, in small things at first, as translator, courier, embassy bricoleur—what you call jack-of-all-trades—and later as secret agent in the field … and you know what that means. Yes … she was the best."

I said he must have been sorry to lose her, and he grimaced. "She told you? Yes, sorry … but I rejoiced also. For six years I had lost sleep, whenever she went into danger. Oh, seldom enough—our work, as you are aware, brings a moment’s peril in a year of routine—but when that peril comes … No, I am glad she has gone. When I think of the risks she ran—of her facing a man like Starnberg to the death, my heart ceases to beat. If we had lost her … my friend, I should have died. It is true, my heart would have ceased forever then."

The usual exaggerated Froggy vapouring, but Delzons wasn’t the usual Frog, and I guessed he believed it. I took the opportunity to canvass his opinion.

"Well, you needn’t ha' fretted. He was a capital hand with a sabre, but not in her parish." I paused deliberately. "Can’t think I’ve ever seen a neater … execution."

His head came round sharply. "Ah! You confirm M. ’Utton’s opinion—which I happen to share. The evidence of Starnberg’s wounds was conclusive. As you say … an execution." His eyes were steady on mine. "But in my report, self-defence. As it must always be when an agent kills … in the line of duty."

That reminded me of something Hutton had said. "He told me Starnberg wasn’t the first she’d sent down. Were the others self-defence, too?"

He frowned and muttered a nasty word. "I have a great respect for our colleague ’Utton, but he talks too much." He sucked at his dead pipe, and continued rapid-fire. "Yes. She has killed before. Twice. In Egypt, in Turkey. One was a minor diplomat who had found out she was a French agent. The other an informer whose silence was essential. She was not under my control on either occasion. My responsibility is for Europe. She was on detachment to another section. I did not seek details." Abruptly he got to his feet, his mouth set like a trap. "Nor have she and I ever mentioned the incidents. Shall we walk on, colonel?"

And this was the girl who had giggled with me over Punch. I fell into step beside him as we walked down to the bridges, his stick fairly cracking at each stride, but there was a grim grin under his heavy moustache.

"Oh, M. ’Utton!" cries he. "So talkative, so shrewd! No doubt he offered you his theory that she slew Starnberg in cold blood because of a tendre for you? Bon sang de merde!" He gave a barking laugh. "Enraged because he had wounded, perhaps slain, her lover! Perhaps you believe that yourself, because you were lovers in Berlin—oh, I know all about her `holiday task' for Blowitz! What, you do not believe ’Utton’s theory? I congratulate you!" He calmed after a few steps. "Your affaire in Berlin was an amour passant, then. Not of the heart."

Gad, they’re a tactful, tasteful lot, the French. "Not on my side," I told him.

"Nor on hers, whatever the so-shrewd ’Utton may think. Shall I tell you why she killed Starnberg as she did?"

Ile had stopped on the bridge, turned to face me. "I told you her father and brothers fell in the war of ’70 against the Germans, and what she said of fighting in her own way. I did not tell you how they died. Papa and Jacques were killed in the battle at Gravelotte. Claude died of his wounds, neglected … in a German hospital. Valéry was in the intelligence. He was captured at St Privat on a mission d’espionnage. He was shot by a firing squad of Fransecky’s Pomeranians, the day after the signing of the armistice, February the first, 1871!" Suddenly the eyes in the bulldog face were bright with angry tears. "They knew the armistice had been signed, but they shot him just the same. Just the same! German chivalry."

It had started to snow, and he was hunched up against the chill wind, staring down at the river.

"So they were gone, all four, it seemed in a moment … as the poet says of a snowflake on the water. Did I mention that the diplomat in Turkey and the informer in Egypt were both Germans? No? Well, Caprice does not like Germans. As the Count von Starnberg discovered. But I am keeping you standing in the cold, colonel! Give me your arm, my friend! Shall we seek a café and a cup of chocolate—with a large cognac to flavour it, eh?"

• • •

Some clever ass has said that "if" is the biggest word in the language, but I say it’s the most useless. There have been so many coincidences in my life, good and bad, that I’ve learned the folly of exclaiming "If only … !" They happen, and that’s that, and if the one that brought my Austrian odyssey to a close was uncommon disastrous—and infuriating, because I’d foreseen its possibility—well, I can be philosophic now because, as I’ve observed before, I’m still here at ninety, more or less, and you can’t ask fairer than that.

But that don’t mean I’ll ever forgive the drunk porter who mislaid my trunk at Charing Cross, because if he hadn’t … there, you see, "if " almost got the better of me, and no wonder when I think what came of that boozy idiot’s carelessness. Shocking state the railways are in.

However, we’ll come to Charing Cross all in good time. I’d have been there weeks earlier if (there it is again, dammit) Kralta hadn’t been so amorously intoxicated, and the circumstances of our reunion in Vienna so different from what I’d expected. When I took the train from Ischl early in December I was looking forward to a couple of cosy and intimate weeks in which I rogered her blue in the face, sparked her to the opera or whatever evening amusements Vienna offered, wined and dined of the best, saw the sights, took her riding (for she looked too much like a horse to be anything but an equestrian), viewed the Blue Danube from the warm comfort of her bedroom, and back to the muttons again. A modest enough ambition, and would have had me home again by Christmas. Well, I was taken aback, if not disappointed, by what awaited me at the Grand Hotel, and followed in the ensuing weeks.

I’d telegraphed from Ischl to advise her that I’d be rolling in, and when I arrived at the Grand, which was the newest and best-appointed of the leading hotels, she was awaiting me in a suit of rooms that Louis XIV might have thought too large and opulent for his taste. Vienna’s like that, you see; in most great cities the new districts are where the Quality hang out, but in Vienna the old sections are the exclusive ones, infested by the most numerous nobility in Europe, living in palaces and splendid mansions built centuries ago by ancestors who plainly felt that even a lavatory wasn’t a lavatory unless it could accommodate a hunt ball, with gilded cherubs on the ceiling and walls that looked like wedding cakes. Even new hotels like the Grand were to match, and the whole quarter reeked of money, privilege, and luxury in doubtful taste. It was reckoned to be the richest Upper Ten outside London, and the two hundred families of princes, counts, and assorted titled (rash spent ten million quid among ’em per annum, which ain’t bad for gaslight and groceries. They spent more, ate more, drank more, danced more, and fornicated more than any other capital on earth (and that’s Fetridge[23] talking, not me), and cared not a rap for anything except their musical fame, of which they’re wonderfully jealous—not without cause, I’d say, when you think of the waltz.

I’d arranged to arrive in town late, at an hour when Kralta would he cleared for bed and action, but when I reached the hotel close on midnight I saw that I’d been too long in the provinces; the hall was thronged with revellers, the dining salon was full, and an orchestra was going full swing. Even so, I was unprepared for the start I received when I was ushered into her drawing-room: where I’d looked to find her alone, there were thirty folk if there was one, all ablaze in the pink of fashion, and me in my travelling dirt.

And she, whom I’d imagined flinging aside her fur robe and flying to my arms, was magnificent in tiara, long gloves, and ivory silk, the image of her photograph, standing amidst her society gaggle, waiting calmly for me to approach, as though she’d been royalty. Which of course she was—European royalty, leastways.

But I couldn’t complain of her welcoming smile, with a hand stretched out for me to kiss. "At last, we meet in Vienna!" says she softly, and then I was being presented to Prince This and Baroness That, and Colonel von Stuff and Madame Puff—and this I’ll say for them, there wasn’t a sneer or a sniff at my tweeds, such as you’d get from Frogs or Dagoes or our own reptilia; Vienna wasn’t only polite, it was downright friendly and hospitable, putting a glass in my hand, coaxing me to the buffet, inquiring after my journey, asking how long I’d been in town, exclaiming that I must call or dine or see such-and-such, the men frank and genial, the women gay and easy—some damned handsome pieces there were, too—and Kralta, smiling coolly with her hand on my sleeve, guided me effortlessly through the crowd and out into a secluded alcove—and then she was in my arms, her mouth open under mine, fairly writhing against me, and I was making up for weeks of abstinence and wondering when we could get to work in earnest when suddenly she left off and buried her head on my shoulder.

"Thank God you are safe!" says she, in a choking voice. "When I heard what that … that vile traitor had done to you, I thought I should run mad! Oh, thank God, thank God!"

Thank a nimble little Parisienne cut-throat, thinks I, but all I did was murmur comfort, kissing her again and swearing that I’d been baying the moon at the thought of her, and when could we get shot of her guests? She laughed at that, holding my hands and regarding me fondly, and I found myself marvelling that a woman whose looks didn’t compare to half of those on view in her drawing-room could rouse such desire in me—mind you, there wasn’t a shape among ’em to match the splendid body in its ivory sheath, or a carriage to set beside that striking figurehead with its long gold tresses coiled beneath the diamond crown.

I had to bottle my ardour for more than an hour, for while the fashionable crowd soon dispersed, four who seemed to be her prime intimates stayed to sup with us. They were an oddish group,

I thought: some Prince or other, a distinguished greybeard with an order on his coat, and three females, all extremely personable. One of ’em, a countess, was dark and soulful and soft-spoken, and possessed of the most enormous juggs I’ve ever seen; how she managed her soup, heaven knows, for I’ll swear she couldn’t see her plate. T’others were a prattling blonde who flirted out of habit, even with the waiters, and a slender, red-haired piece who drank like a Mississippi pilot, with no visible effect. The Prince was plainly a big gun, and most courteous to me, and Kralta was at her most stately, so it was a decorous enough meal bar the blonde’s chatter and coquettish glances, which no one deigned to notice. Good form, the Viennese.

We parted at last, thank the Lord, with bows and nods and polite murmurs, Kralta led the way to her bedchamber, and I was all over her at once, with growls of endearment and a great wrenching of buttons. It was a true meeting of minds, for I doubt if a woman ever stripped faster from full court regalia, and we revelled in each other like peasants in a hayrick, from bed to floor and back again, I believe, but I ain’t sure. And when we were gloriously done, and I lay gasping while she wept softly and kissed the healed scar on my flank, murmuring endearments, I thought, well, this is why you came to Europe, Flash, and Ischl was worth it. She said not a word then or thereafter about Starnberg or the plot, and I was content to let it lie.

I staggered out presently to visit the little private lavatory in an ante-chamber off the drawing-room, and was taken flat aback when who should come out of the thunder-house but the Prince, clad in a silk robe with his beard in a net. What the deuce he was doing on the premises, I couldn’t imagine, but I admired his aplomb, for I’d ventured out in a state of nature, and he didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow, but waved me in with a courtly hand, bade me "Gute nacht", and disappeared through a door on the far side of the drawing-room. I performed my ablutions in some bewilderment, and my good angel prompted me to wrap a towel round myself before venturing out, for when I did, damned if the door he’d used didn’t open, and a massive bosom emerged, followed by the soulful countess in a night-rail fashioned apparently from a scrap of mosquito-net. She gave a start at the sight of me: murmured "Entschuldigung!", collared a decanter from the side-board, and with a sleepy smile and "Bis spater", vanished whence she had come.

Kralta was repairing the damage before her mirror when I rolled in, much perturbed.

"That Prince and the women—they’re out there, large as life! Who is he, for God’s sake?"

"My husband," says she. "You were presented to him."

Well, all I’d caught in the confusing moment of arrival had been "von und zum umble rumble", as so often happens. I considered, hard.

"Ah! I see. Your husband, eh? And the women?"

"His mistresses," says she, carefully rouging her lip. "It is convenient that we share the apartment. It is quite large enough, you see." She began to brush her hair, while I struggled for an appropriate rejoinder, and could think of only one.

"Mistresses, eh? Well, well." She continued to brush calmly, so I added another trenchant observation. "He has three of them."

"Yes. The fair one, Fraulein Boelcke, I had not met before this evening. She talks too freely, don’t you think?"

But my conversational bolt was shot. For once I was at a loss—as who would not be, on discovering that while he was bulling a chap’s wife all over the shop and probably making a hell of an uproar, the chap himself was virtually next door brushing his teeth or pomading his eyebrows—and even now might be conducting an orgy just across the way with three trollops while the wife of his bosom was smiling tenderly on her bemused lover, kissing him fondly, leading him back to bed, and settling into his arms for conversation and drowsy fondling which must lead inevitably to another outbreak of feverish passion? And it did, even noisier and more protracted than before, for this time she occupied the driving seat, if you know what I mean, and rode herself into a sobbing frenzy they could have heard in Berlin.

I’m an easy-going fellow, as you know, but it struck me as I lay there, urging her on with ecstatic roars and the occasional slap on the rump, and afterwards cradling her to sleep on my breast, that this was a pretty informal household, and would take getting used to. I’m all for cuckolding husbands, and don’t give a dam if (hey know it, unless they’re the hellfire horse-whipping sort who’ll resent it; indeed, there’s nothing like a good gloat in the grinding teeth of some poor muff to whom you’ve awarded antlers. But when the muff is not only complaisant but approving, and meets you with every politeness at luncheon next day, and his wife is on cordial terms (as cordial, that is, as Kralta could ever be) with the fair trio he’s been using as though he were the Sultan of Swat, well, it’s novel, and I wasn’t sure that I cared for it above half.

It took me a few weeks to settle my thoughts on the subject, and reflection was made no easier by the distractions Vienna afforded. I’ve never wallowed in such sumptuous indulgence in my life; even being a crowned head in Strackenz didn’t compare to it. The place was dedicated to sheer pleasure in those days, and I guess I became intoxicated in a way that had nothing to do with drink, although there was enough and to spare of that. Perhaps I was still fagged from my ordeal; at all events I was content to be borne along on that gay, dazzling tide, idling and stuffing and boozing and viewing the capital’s wonders by day, consorting with Kralta’s vast social circle (which included the Prince and his skirts as often as not) of an evening, and letting her have her haughty head by night.

She was a demanding mistress, and if she’d hadn’t been such a prime mount, and besotted with me to boot, I might have brought her to heel—or tried to. That she was an imperious piece I knew, but now I saw it wasn’t just her nature, which was the root of her pride, but the life she led which fostered that almighty growth. Vienna seemed to be at her feet; she was deferred to on all sides, and placed on a social level not far short of imperial, toad-eaten by the flower of society, and ruling it with a tilted chin and cold eye. The style in which she lived argued fabulous wealth, and she spent it like a whaler in port, on the slightest whim; small wonder she liked to call the tune in bed.

Speaking of imperial, I had a taste of that when she took me, with the Prince and his hareem in tow, to a gala ball at Schonbrunn, where the Emperor and Empress condescended to mingle with Vienna’s finest. That was a damned odd turn, eerie almost, for a moment came when, with Kralta standing by like a magnificent ring-mistress, I found myself face to face with Franz-Josef and the superb Sissi. He drew himself up to his imposing height, whiskers at the high port, and stared me straight in the eye for a long moment; he said not a word, but held out his hand, and ’twasn’t the usual touch-and-away of royalty, but a good strong clasp followed by a hearty shake before he passed on, Sissi following with a smiling turn of her lovely head. That’s his vote of thanks for services rendered, thinks I, and the most he can do or I can expect—but I was wrong. There was something more, though whether ’twas his idea or Sissi’s I can’t say. When the dancing began, and I was restoring myself with a glass of Tokay after whirling Kralta’s substantial poundage round the floor, a lordly swell with a ribboned order presented himself and informed me that Her Imperial Majesty would be graciously pleased to accept if I were to beg the honour of leading her out for the next dance.

It was unprecedented, I’m told, to a foreign stranger, and a commoner at that. You may be sure I complied, with a beating heart, I confess. And so I waltzed beneath the chandeliers of Old Vienna, under the eyes of the highest and noblest of the Austrian Empire, with Strauss himself flogging the orchestra, and my partner was that magical raven-haired beauty who had all Europe at her feet, and I didn’t tread on ’em once. Afterwards I led her back to Franz-Josef, and received his courteous nod and her brilliant smile.

Well, I’ve rattled the Empress of China and Her Majesty of Madagascar, to say nothing of an Apache Princess and (to the best of my belief) an Indian Rani, and that’s my business, to be written about but not spoken of. But I can tell my great-grandchildren face to face that I’ve danced with the Queen of Hearts. And she, of course, has danced with me.

We spent Christmas at a castle of Kralta’s—or her husband’s, I never found out which—high in the snowy Tyrolean mountains, and toasted in the New Year in a luxurious hunting lodge in a little valley whose inhabitants spoke a strange sort of German laced with Scotch expressions—the legacy, I’m told, of medieval mercenaries who never went home, doubtless for fear of arrest. Both places were full of titled guests invited (or commanded, rather) by Kralta, and we drove in sleighs and skated and tobogganed and revelled by evening and pleasured by night, and it was Vienna in the Arctic, with the Prince always on hand, bland and affable as ever with his popsies around him (one of ’em a new bird, an Italian, who’d replaced the garrulous blonde, no doubt on Kralta’s orders) and it was all such enormous fun that I was heartily sick of it.

Don’t misunderstand me—it wasn’t a surfeit of debauchery and the high life, although there does come a time when you find yourself longing for a pint and a pie and a decent night’s sleep. And it was only partly that I was beginning to miss English voices and English rain and all those things that make the old country so different, thank God, from the Continent. No, I was beginning to realise what had irked me from the first—being just another player iii their game, having it taken for granted that I’d be a compliant member of Kralta’s curious ménage, as though I were the latest recruit, if you know what I mean. I’ve always been a free lance, so to speak, going my own way on my own terms, and the notion that Viennese society was raising its weary eyebrows and saying: "Ah, yes, this Englishman is new to her entourage; how long will he last, one wonders?", and that Kralta probably thought of me as her husband did of his trollops … no, it didn’t suit.

The final straw came on a night in the hunting lodge when I’d become so infernally bored that I’d gone to the village for a prose with the peasants at the tavern, and came home in the small hours. Some of the guests were still about in the principal rooms, drinking and flirting and casting (I thought) odd looks in my direction. I went up, and was making for the chamber I shared with Kralta when a soft voice called and I turned to see the Prince’s maitresse-en-titre, she of the heroic bosom, standing in an open doorway in a silk night-rail that was never designed for sleeping.

"The Prince is with her highness tonight," says she, with an arch look. Is he, by God! thinks I, and for a moment was seized with an impulse to stride in and drag him off her by the nape of h i s cuckolded neck—or her off him, more like, the arrogant bitch. Countess Grosbrusts was watching to see what I made of it, so I looked her over thoughtful-like, and she smiled, and I grinned at her, and she shrugged, and I laughed, and she laughed in turn which set ’em shaking, and as she turned into her room, casting a backward glance, I sauntered after, thinking what a capital change for my last night in Austria.

It was the custom at the lodge for the whole troop to gather for a late breakfast in the main salon, so I waited until all had assembled, despatched a lackey to Kralta’s quarters with orders to pack my traps and send ’em to the station, strolled down with Lady Bountiful on my arm, and announced to the company that I was desolated to have to leave them that day, as urgent affairs in London demanded my attention (which was prophetic, if you like).

Kralta, seated in state by the fire with her toads clustered round stirring her chocolate for her, went pale; she was looking deuced fetching, I have to say, in a white fur robe which prompted happy memories of the Orient Express. I made my apologies, and her eyes were diamond-hard as she glanced from me to my buxom companion and then to the Prince (who was looking a shade worn, I thought), but she would not have been Kralta if she hadn’t responded with icy composure, regretting my departure without expression on that proud horse face. I kissed her hand, made my bow to the Prince, advised him to stick at it, saluted the company, and departed, with a last smile at the splendid white figure seated in state, her golden hair spilling over her shoulders, inclining her head with the regal condescension she’d used at our first meeting. By and large I like to leave ’em happy, but I doubt if she was.

• • •

Three days later I was at Charing Cross Station on one of those damp, dismal evenings when the fog rolls inside the buildings and the heart of the returning traveller is gladdened by the sight and smell of it all, London with its grime and bustle and raucous inhabitants, and there ain’t a "Ja, mein Herr," to be heard, or a sullen Frog face, and not a plate of sauerkraut in sight. I could even listen with fair good humour to the harassed excuses of the Cockney porter carrying my valise as he protested that he didn’t knaow nuffink abaht the trunk, guv', ’cos ’Erbert ’ad gorn ter the guard’s van for it, and where the ’ell ’e’d got ter, Gawd ownly knew. Sid and Fred were appealed to, search parties were despatched, and ’Erbert was discovered in the left-luggage office, reclining on a lower shelf in a state of merry inebriation. My porter gave tongue blasphemously.

"I knoo the barstid was ’arf-seas over when ’e come on! Din' I say? Din' I? Well, ’e can pick up ’is money if the super sees ’im, an' chance it! Serve the bleeder right, an' all! I’m sorry, guv'! Look, I’ll whistle a cab for yer, and Sid an' Fred’ll ’ave yer trunk run dahn in no toime!"

It was music to my ears, and I dawdled patiently, drinking in the sights and sounds of home, and even chuckling at the sight of the semi-comatose ’Erbert leaving off his rendition of "Fifteen men onna dead man’s chest, yow-ow-ow an' a bottlarum" to assure my porter, whose name was Ginger, that ’e was a blurry good mate an' a jolly ole pal, before subsiding among the piled baggage.

"Stoopid sod!" cried Ginger. "Gawd knaows w’ere ’e’s put it! Doan’t worry, guv', we’ll foind it! ’Ere, Sid, wot trains is goin' aht jus' naow? Can’t ’ave the gen’man’s trunk bein' sent orf by mistake, can we?"

"Eight o’clock’s leavin' shortly f’m Platform Free!" said Sid.

"Jeesus wept, that’s the bleedin' boat train! Naow, ’e wouldn’t, would ’e? ’Ere, Fred, be a toff an' nip dahn to Free, jus' ter mike shore, an' we’ll ferret abaht rahnd the cab-stands an' that—jus' you wait, guv'! We’ll ’ave it in arf a tick!"

I continued to loiter as Fred set off for Platform Three, and just then a neat little bottom tripped past, making for the tea-room, and I sauntered idly after it, curious to see if the front view lived up to the trim ankles and waist. No more than that, but it changed my life, for as I strolled along my eye caught sight of "3" above a ticket gate, and I changed course to see how Fred was doing in his quest for my trunk. The train was within a few minutes of leaving, heavy bags were going into the guard’s van, and Fred was emerging, shaking his head—and at that moment I caught sight of a familiar face down the platform, and strolled along to make sure. He was carrying a bag, and making for a group of fellows standing by a carriage door. I hove up by him, grinning.

"Hollo, Joe!" says I. "Taken up portering, have you?"

He wheeled round, and absolutely almost dropped the bag in astonishment. "Good God—Flashman!" cries he. "Why—they’ve found you, then!"

"Found me! They can’t even find my blasted trunk! Here, what’s the matter? I ain’t a ghost, you know!"

For he was staring at me as though he couldn’t believe his eyes—or eye, rather, for he’d only one ogle, and it was wide in astonishment, which you didn’t often see in the imperturbable Garnet Wolseley.

"Stewart! He’s here!" cries he, to the men by the carriage, and as they turned to look my heart gave a lurch, and my stick fell clattering to the platform. The man addressed, tall, dark, and grinning all over his face, was striding forward to grip my hand—young Johnny Stewart, a Cherrypicker long after my time, but an old comrade from Egypt.

"Wherever did you spring from?" cries he. "Heavens, I’ve been turning the town upside down for you—at your clubs, your house, everywhere …"

But I wasn’t listening. I’d recognised the others at once—Cambridge, commander-in-chief of the Army, with his grey moustache and high balding head; Granville, the Foreign Secretary; and jumping down from the carriage and hastening towards me with his quick, neat step, hand outstretched and eyes bright with joy, the last man on earth I wanted to see, the man I’d left England to avoid at all costs: Chinese Charley Gordon.

"Flashman, old friend!" He was pumping my fin like a man possessed. "At the eleventh hour! Did you know—oh, but you must have, surely? Where have you been? Stewart and I had given up all hope!"

Somehow I found my voice. "I’ve been abroad. In Austria."

"Austria?" laughs he. "That ain’t abroad! I’ll tell you where’s abroad—Africa! That’s abroad!" He was grinning in disbelief. "You mean you didn’t know I was going back to Sudan?"

I shook my head, my innards like lead. "I’m this minute off the train from Calais—"

"The very place we’re bound for! Stewart and I are off to Suakim this very night! He’s my chief o' staff … and just guess—" he poked me in the chest "—who I’ve been moving heaven and earth to have as my intelligence bimbashi! Isn’t that so, Garnet? But you were nowhere to be found—and now you drop from the skies! … and you never even knew I was going out!"

"’Twasn’t confirmed until today, after all," says Joe.

"If Flashman had been in Town, he’d ha' caught the scent a week ago!" cries Gordon. "Eyes and ears like a dervish scout, he lifts! I low d’ye think he’s here? He knew by instinct the game was afoot, didn’t you, old fellow? My word, and I thought only we HreIandmen had the second sight!" He stepped closer, and his eyes held that barmy mystic glitter that told me God was going to he hauled into the conversation. "Providence guided you … aye, guided you to this very platform! Don’t let anyone try to tell me there’s nothing in the power of prayer!"

If there had been I’d have been back in Austria that minute, or m Wales or Paisley even—anywhere away from this dangerous maniac gripping my sleeve and not letting me get a word in edge-wise. I shot a wild glance at the others: Cambridge pop-eyed, Granville smiling but puzzled, Stewart alert and wondering, and only Joe having the grace to frown and chew his lip. I was speech-less at the effrontery of the thing, but Gordon, of course, couldn’t Nee an inch beyond what he thought was a priceless stroke of luck, the selfish hound. It was famous, the happiest of omens … and tit last I found my tongue.

"But I’ve just arrived—I’m going home!" I protested, and any normal man would have been checked for a moment at least, but not Gordon, drunk with enthusiasm.

"You were—and you shall, one o' these days! But you don’t think I’m letting you slip now? Not when Fate has delivered you into my hands?" He was all jocularity—and earnest an instant later, gripping my coat. "Flashman, this is big, believe me. Bigger than China, even—perhaps bigger than anything since the Mutiny. I don’t k now yet—but I do know it calls for the best we’ve got. It’s going to he the hardest thing I’ve ever tackled … and I need you, old comrade." He was a head shorter than I, and having to stare up at me with those pale hypnotic eyes that made you feel like a rabbit before it snake. "See here, I know it’s sudden, and here I am springing it on you like a jack-in-the-box—but the Mahdi’s sudden too, and Osman Digna, and every minute counts! Let me tell you on the train—too much to explain now—and I don’t even know how I’ll set about it, only that we’ve got to set the Sudan to rights before that madman destroys it. It may mean a fight, it may mean a rearguard action, can’t tell yet—and neither can they." He jerked his head at the others. "But they’re putting the power in my hands, flashman, and I can choose whoever I wish."

He stepped back, and he was grinning again. "And I have no hesitation in asking leave of His Grace the Commander-in-Chief—" a duck of the head towards Cambridge "—and the Cabinet—" a nod to Granville "—and our chief man-at-arms—" a flourish at Joe, who was trying to interrupt "—to enlist Sir Harry Flashman, and to the dickens with regulations and usual channels! Well, Harry, what d’ye say?"

Before I could speak, Joe got his word in. "Short notice—" he was beginning, and got no further.

"When did he ever need notice? Some notice he had at Pekin, didn’t he? Remember, Garnet? Or at Balaclava, or Cawnpore, or Kabul!" He wasn’t soft-spoken at the best of times, and in his excitement he was almost shouting, and passengers were turning to stare at us. "He don’t need more than a word and a clear road! Do you?"

This was desperate, but the suddenness of it all still had me at a loss for words—that was the effect that Gordon had, you know, when he was in full cry. He was all over you, beating you down by his vanity-fed fervour, blind to everything but his own point of view. Five minutes ago I’d been carelessly eyeing a jaunty backside while Fred or Ginger looked for my luggage—and now I was being dragooned into God knew what horror by this arrogant zealot—and they called the Mahdi a fanatic!

"Hold on, Charley!" I blurted out. "I … I’m looking for my traps, dammit! And … and I haven’t seen my wife yet, or … or—"

"Your traps can be sent on!" cries he. "Why, you’re all packed! And Wolseley’ll make your excuses at home, won’t you, Garnet? We shan’t be away forever, you know. Besides," cries he merrily, "if I know bonny Elspeth she’ll never let you hear the last of it if you don’t fall in now! Why, if she were here she’d be bustling you aboard!"

That was the God’s truth, by the way. Duty was Elspeth’s watch-word, especially when it was my duty—hadn’t she shot me off to India more than once, weeping, I grant you (though what she’d been up to with those grinning Frogs after Madagascar, once I’d been despatched to the cannon’s mouth, I didn’t care to imagine). But just the thought of her now, not a couple of miles away, and the radiant smile and glad cry with which she’d run to me, lovelier by far than those stale loves I’d been wasting my time on for weeks past, and her adoring blue eyes … no, the hell with Gordon, the selfish lunatic, having the impudence to buttonhole me in this outrageous fashion! And I was bracing myself to put my foot down when Cambridge spoke.