‘I don’t wish to make acquaintance with strangers.’
She turned her back on him and next time he saw her, cut him dead.
She was a tiny old woman, just a few little bones in a bag of wrinkled skin, and her face was deeply furrowed. It was obvious that she wore a wig, it was of a mousy brown, very elaborate and not always set quite straight, and she was heavily made up, with great patches of scarlet on her withered cheeks and brilliantly red lips. She dressed fantastically in gay clothes that looked as though they had been bought higgledy-piggledy from an old-clothes shop and in the daytime she wore enormous, extravagantly girlish hats. She tripped along in very small smart shoes with very high heels. Her appearance was so grotesque that it created consternation rather than amusement. People turned in the street and stared at her with open mouths.
Ashenden was told that Miss King had not been to England since she was first engaged as governess of the prince’s mother and he could not but be amazed to think of all she must have seen during those long years in the harems of Cairo. It was impossible to guess how old she was. How many of those short Eastern lives must have run their course under her eyes and what dark secrets must she have known! Ashenden wondered where she came from; an exile from her own country for so long, she must possess in it neither family nor friends: he knew that her sentiments were anti-English and if she had answered him so rudely he surmised that she had been told to be on her guard against him. She never spoke anything but French. Ashenden wondered what it was she thought of as she sat there, for luncheon and dinner, by herself. He wondered if she ever read. After meals she went straight upstairs and was never seen in the public sitting-rooms. He wondered what she thought of those two emancipated princesses who wore garish frocks and danced with strange men in second-rate cafés. But when Miss King passed him on her way out of the dining-room it seemed to Ashenden that her mask of a face scowled. She appeared actively to dislike him. Her gaze met his and the pair of them looked at one another for a moment; he imagined that she tried to put into her stare an unspoken insult. It would have been pleasantly absurd in that painted, withered visage if it had not been for some reason rather oddly pathetic.
But now the Baroness de Higgins, having finished her dinner, gathered up her handkerchief and her bag, and with waiters bowing on either side sailed down the spacious room. She stopped at Ashenden’s table. She looked magnificent.
‘I’m so glad you can play bridge to-night,’ she said in her perfect English, with no more than a trace of German accent. ‘Will you come to my sitting-room when you are ready and have your coffee?’
‘What a lovely dress,’ said Ashenden.
‘It is frightful. I have nothing to wear, I don’t know what I shall do now that I cannot go to Paris. Those horrible Prussians,’ and her r’s grew guttural as she raised her voice, ‘why did they want to drag my poor country into this terrible war?’
She gave a sigh, and a flashing smile, and sailed on. Ashenden was among the last to finish and when he left the dining-room it was almost empty. As he walked past Count Holzminden, Ashenden feeling very gay hazarded the shadow of a wink. The German agent could not be quite sure of it and if he suspected it might rack his brains to discover what mystery it portended. Ashenden walked up to the second floor and knocked at the baroness’s door.
‘Entrez, entrez,’ she said and flung it open.
She shook both his hands with cordiality and drew him into the room. He saw that the two persons who were to make the four had already arrived. They were Prince Ali and his secretary. Ashenden was astounded.
‘Allow me to introduce Mr. Ashenden to your Highness,’ said the baroness, speaking in her fluent French.
Ashenden bowed and took the proffered hand. The Prince gave him a quick look, but did not speak. Madame de Higgins went on:
‘I do not know if you have met the Pasha.’
‘I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Ashenden,’ said the Prince’s secretary, warmly shaking his hand. ‘Our beautiful baroness has talked to us of your bridge and His Highness is devoted to the game. N’est-ce pas, Altesse?’
‘Oui, oui,’ said the Prince.
Mustapha Pasha was a huge fat fellow, of forty-five perhaps, with large mobile eyes and a big black moustache. He wore a dinner-jacket with a large diamond in his shirt-front and the tarboosh of his country. He was exceedingly voluble, and the words tumbled out of his mouth tumultuously, like marbles out of a bag. He took pains to be extremely civil to Ashenden. The Prince sat in silence, looking at Ashenden quietly from under his heavy eyelids. He seemed shy.
‘I have not seen you at the club, Monsieur,’ said the Pasha. ‘Do you not like baccarat?’
‘I play but seldom.’
‘The baroness, who has read everything, tells me that you are a remarkable writer. Unfortunately I do not read English.’
The baroness paid Ashenden some very fulsome compliments, to which he listened with a proper and grateful politeness, and then, having provided her guests with coffee and liqueurs, she produced the cards. Ashenden could not but wonder why he had been asked to play. He had (he flattered himself) few illusions about himself, and so far as bridge was concerned none. He knew that he was a good player of the second class, but he had played often enough with the best players in the world to know that he was not in the same street with them. The game played now was contract, with which he was not very familiar, and the stakes were high; but the game was obviously but a pretext and Ashenden had no notion what other game was being played under the rose. It might be that knowing he was a British agent the Prince and his secretary had desired to see him in order to find out what sort of person he was. Ashenden had felt for a day or two that something was in the air and this meeting confirmed his suspicions, but he had not the faintest notion of what nature this something was. His spies had told him of late nothing that signified. He was now persuaded that he owed that visit of the Swiss police to the kindly intervention of the baroness and it looked as though the bridge-party had been arranged when it was discovered that the detectives had been able to do nothing. The notion was mysterious, but diverting, and as Ashenden played one rubber after another, joining in the incessant conversation, he watched what was said by himself no less closely than what was said by the others. The war was spoken of a good deal and the baroness and the Pasha expressed very anti-German sentiments. The baroness’s heart was in England whence her family (the stable-boy from Yorkshire) had sprung and the Pasha looked upon Paris as his spiritual home. When the Pasha talked of Montmartre and its life by night the Prince was roused from his silence.
‘C’est une bien belle ville, Paris,’ he said.
‘The Prince has a beautiful apartment there,’ said his secretary, ‘with beautiful pictures and life-sized statues.’
Ashenden explained that he had the greatest sympathy for the national aspirations of Egypt and that he looked upon Vienna as the most pleasing capital in Europe. He was as friendly to them as they were to him. But if they were under the impression that they would get any information out of him that they had not already seen in the Swiss papers he had a notion that they were mistaken. At one moment he had a suspicion that he was being sounded upon the possibility of selling himself. It was done so discreetly that he could not be quite sure, but he had a feeling that a suggestion floated in the air that a clever writer could do his country a good turn and make a vast amount of money for himself if he cared to enter into an arrangement that would bring to a troubled world the peace that every humane man must so sincerely desire. It was plain that nothing very much would be said that first evening, but Ashenden as evasively as he could, more by general amiability than by words, tried to indicate that he was willing to hear more of the subject. While he talked with the Pasha and the beautiful Austrian he was conscious that the watchful eyes of Prince Ali were upon him, and he had an uneasy suspicion that they read too much of his thoughts. He felt rather than knew that the Prince was an able and astute man. It was
possible that after he left them the Prince would tell the other two that they were wasting their time and there was nothing to be done with Ashenden.
Soon after midnight, a rubber having been finished the Prince rose from the table.
‘It is getting late,’ he said, ‘and Mr. Ashenden has doubtless much to do to-morrow. We must not keep him up.’
Ashenden looked upon this as a signal to take himself off. He left the three together to discuss the situation and retired not a little mystified. He could only trust that they were no less puzzled than he. When he got to his room he suddenly realised that he was dog-tired. He could hardly keep his eyes open while he undressed, and the moment he flung himself into bed he fell asleep.
He would have sworn that he had not been asleep five minutes when he was dragged back to wakefulness by a knocking at the door. He listened for a moment.
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s the maid. Open. I have something to say to you.’
Cursing, Ashenden turned on his light, ran a hand through his thinning and rumpled hair (for like Julius Caesar he disliked exposing an unbecoming baldness) and unlocked and opened the door. Outside it stood a tousled Swiss maid. She wore no apron and looked as though she had thrown on her clothes in a hurry.
‘The old English lady, the governess of the Egyptian princesses, is dying and she wants to see you.’
‘Me?’ said Ashenden. ‘It’s impossible. I don’t know her. She was all right this evening.’
He was confused and spoke his thoughts as they came to him.
‘She asks for you. The doctor says, will you come? She cannot last much longer.’
‘It must be a mistake. She can’t want me.’
‘She said your name and the number of your room. She says: quick, quick.’
Ashenden shrugged his shoulders. He went back into his room to put on slippers and a dressing-gown, and as an after-thought dropped a small revolver into his pocket. Ashenden believed much more in his acuteness than in a firearm, which is apt to go off at the wrong time and make a noise, but there are moments when it gives you confidence to feel your fingers round its butt, and this sudden summons seemed to him exceedingly mysterious. It was ridiculous to suppose that those two cordial stout Egyptian gentlemen were laying some sort of trap for him, but in the work upon which Ashenden was engaged the dullness of routine was apt now and again to slip quite shamelessly into the melodrama of the ‘sixties. Just as passion will make use brazenly of the hackneyed phrase, so will chance show itself insensitive to the triteness of the literary convention.
Miss King’s room was two floors higher than Ashenden’s, and as he accompanied the chamber-maid along the corridor and up the stairs he asked her what was the matter with the old governess. She was flurried and stupid.
‘I think she has had a stroke. I don’t know. The night-porter woke me and said Monsieur Bridet wanted me to get up at once.’
Monsieur Bridet was the assistant-manager.
‘What is the time?’ asked Ashenden.
‘It must be three o’clock.’
They arrived at Miss King’s door and the maid knocked. It was opened by Monsieur Bridet. He had evidently been roused from his sleep; he wore slippers on his bare feet, grey trousers and a frock-coat over his pyjamas. He looked absurd. His hair as a rule plastered neatly on his head stood on end. He was extremely apologetic.
‘A thousand excuses for disturbing you, Monsieur Ashenden, but she kept asking for you and the doctor said you should be sent for.’
‘It doesn’t matter at all.’
Ashenden walked in. It was a small back room and all the lights were on. The windows were closed and the curtains drawn. It was intensely hot. The doctor, a bearded, grizzled Swiss, was standing at the bedside. Monsieur Bridet, notwithstanding his costume and his evident harassment, found in himself the presence of mind to remain the attentive manager, and with ceremony effected the proper introduction.
‘This is Mr. Ashenden, for whom Miss King has been asking Dr. Arbos of the Faculty of Medicine of Geneva.’
Without a word the doctor pointed to the bed. On it lay Miss King. It gave Ashenden a shock to look at her. She wore a large white cotton night-cap (on entering Ashenden had noticed the brown wig on a stand on the dressing-table) tied under the chin and a white, voluminous nightdress that came high up in the neck. Nightcap and nightdress belonged to a past age and reminded you of Cruikshank’s illustrations to the novels of Charles Dickens. Her face was greasy still with the cream she had used before going to bed to remove her make-up, but she had removed it summarily and there were streaks of black on her eyebrows and of red on her cheeks. She looked very small, lying in the bed, no larger than a child, and immensely old.
‘She must be well over eighty,’ thought Ashenden.
She did not look human, but like a doll, the caricature of an old, old witch that an ironic toymaker had amused himself with modelling. She lay perfectly still on her back, the tiny little body hardly marked under the flatness of the blanket, her face even smaller than usual because she had removed her teeth; and you would have thought she was dead but for the black eyes, strangely large in the shrunken mask, that stared unblinkingly. Ashenden thought their expression changed when she saw him.
‘Well, Miss King, I’m sorry to see you like this,’ he said with forced cheerfulness.
‘She cannot speak,’ said the doctor. ‘She had another little stroke when the maid went to fetch you. I have just given her an injection. She may partly recover the use of her tongue in a little while. She has something to say to you.’
‘I will gladly wait,’ said Ashenden.
He fancied that in those dark eyes he saw a look of relief. For a moment or two the four of them stood round the bed and stared at the dying woman.
‘Well, if there is nothing I can do, I may just as well go back to bed,’ said Monsieur Bridet then.
‘Allez, mon ami,’ said the doctor. ‘You can do nothing.’
Monsieur Bridet turned to Ashenden.
‘May I have a word with you?’ he asked.
‘Certainly.’
The doctor noticed a sudden fear in Miss King’s eyes.
‘Do not be alarmed,’ he said kindly. ‘Monsieur Ashenden is not going. He will stay as long as you wish.’
The assistant-manager took Ashenden to the door and partly closed it so that those within should not hear his undertones.
‘I can count on your discretion, Monsieur Ashenden, can I not? It is a very disagreeable thing to have anyone die in a hotel. The other guests do not like it and we must do all we can to prevent their knowing. I shall have the body removed the first possible moment and I shall be extremely obliged if you will not say that there has been a death.’
‘You can have every confidence in me,’ said Ashenden.
‘It is very unfortunate that the manager should be away for the night. I am afraid he will be exceedingly displeased. Of course if it had been possible I would have sent for an ambulance and had her taken to the hospital, but the doctor said she might die before we got her downstairs and absolutely refused to let me. It is not my fault if she dies in the hotel.’
‘Death so often chooses its moments without consideration,’ murmured Ashenden.
‘After all she is an old woman, she should have died years ago. What did this Egyptian prince want to have a governess of that age for? He ought to have sent her back to her own country. These Orientals, they are always giving trouble.’
‘Where is the Prince now?’ asked Ashenden. ‘She has been in his service for many years. Ought you not to wake him?’
‘He is not in the hotel. He went out with his secretary. He may be playing baccarat. I do not know. Anyhow I cannot send all over Geneva to find him.’
‘And the princesses?’
‘They have not come in. They seldom return to the hotel till dawn. They are mad about dancing. I do not know where they are and in any case they would not thank me for dragging them away from their di
versions, because their governess has had a stroke, I know what they are. The night-porter will tell them when they arrive and then they can please themselves. She does not want them. When the night-porter fetched me and I went into her room I asked where his highness was and she cried with all her strength: no, no.’
‘She could talk then?’
‘Yes, after a fashion, but the thing that surprised me was that she spoke in English. She always insisted on talking French. You know, she hated the English.’
‘What did she want with me?’
‘That I cannot tell you. She said she had something that she must say to you at once. It is funny, she knew the number of your room. At first when she asked for you I would not let them send. I cannot have my clients disturbed in the middle of the night because a crazy old woman asks for them. You have the right to your sleep, I imagine. But when the doctor came he insisted. She gave us no peace and when I said she must wait till morning she cried.’
Ashenden looked at the assistant-manager. He seemed to find nothing at all touching in the scene he related.
‘The doctor asked who you were and when I told him he said that perhaps she wished to see you because you were a compatriot.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Ashenden dryly.
‘Well, I shall try to get a little sleep. I shall give the night-porter orders to wake me when everything is over. Fortunately the nights are long now and if everything goes well we may be able to get the body away before it is light.’
Ashenden went back into the room and immediately the dark eyes of the dying woman fixed upon him. He felt that it was incumbent upon him to say something, but as he spoke he reflected on the foolish way in which one speaks to the sick.