LITMIR.BIZ

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man who had been seated at the writing-table rose to his feet. He was dark, tall, his figure was slim, even elegant, he was well and carefully dressed although in markedly foreign fashion. His grey eyes had a peculiarly chilling effect. The smile upon his lips, however, was a perfectly genuine affair. He appeared to find the situation a little unexpected but amusing.

      “Really?” he exclaimed. “Mr. Mildenhall! I was hoping to make your acquaintance but not quite in this fashion. I am afraid before I ask you to be seated—the young lady will excuse me?—I must ask you, both of you, please, without any hesitation—quickly in fact—to raise your arms towards the ceiling and keep them there.”

      Almost before he realized it Charles found himself looking into the barrel of a revolver held in the speaker’s right hand and Blute felt himself covered by a second weapon held in his left. It was certainly no time for argument. Charles’s first impulsive move forward and the lowering of his right hand had sent his opponent’s finger swiftly and without the slightest hesitation to the trigger of his weapon. Mildenhall raised his arms in approved fashion. Blute had already done the same.

      “Thank you, gentlemen. Now, will you kindly explain this unexpected visit?”

      “I don’t see that any other explanation is necessary than to tell you that this is my chateau and I am asking you what the devil right you have here,” Charles replied.

      “The right of possession.”

      “And your name?”

      “Ah, you are beginning to be inquisitive,” the other observed. “I have special names for most of the countries I visit and they are many. In Switzerland I am known nowadays as Count Gervaise Gunther. That is when I am addressed formally, which rarely happens.”

      “Of the Three G’s!” Blute groaned.

      The Count smiled.

      “You are a man of the world, I perceive, sir,” he remarked, bowing slightly to the speaker. “You have heard of me.”

      This was, as he instantly realized, the bitterest moment of Charles Mildenhall’s life. He was conscious of a sensation which produced in him a feeling of deadly sickness. In his own vanity, in his own self-confidence, he had brought the girl whom he loved and the man with whom he was working into this mortal danger. He had taken a risk, not only on his own account but for them also. It was a horrible thought. If ever he passed out of this ghastly room alive, a possibility which he was inclined to doubt, he would still never forget the agony of these moments.

      “Yes,” Blute admitted after a brief pause, “I have heard of you. I sometimes wondered if the time would ever come when we should meet face to face. I did not think that it would be here, though, or in this fashion.”

      “You have brought to a successful conclusion, Mr. Blute,” the Count observed, reseating himself in his chair but keeping the little dark brown gun with its almost violet-coloured barrel in his right hand, “so many of your schemes in life that I imagine you have forgotten the possibility of failure. I have been one of your admirers, you know. I always felt that if I could have come across a man with a genius for finance, as brilliant in his way as I am in mine, we might have done great things in Europe. We might have become king-makers. We might even have occupied thrones of our own.”

      “You flatter me,” Blute said bluntly.

      “Not in the least. By the by, young lady, will you not honour this poor abode by taking a chair? It is really more your friend Mr. Mildenhall’s than mine, you know, although I am doing the honours just now. Do sit down. The small orange-coloured couch behind you would go with your complexion and hair.”

      “Thank you. I’ll try it,” Patricia assented.

      The Count smiled in approval.

      “I was about to allude, Mr. Blute,” he went on, “to the amazing coup you have brought off which has preserved for Mr. Leopold Benjamin his great fortune. In nearly every country you have not only preserved his wealth but you have added to it. You will be proud to know, I am sure, that even in my own country, Switzerland, your name is as famous even as my own.”

      “It is an honour,” Blute murmured with gentle sarcasm.

      “This present enterprise of yours, though, Mr. Blute, seems scarcely likely to redound so much to your credit,” the Count continued. “I am inclined to fear that you have been a little indiscreet in your choice of an ally.”

      “That,” was the calm reply, “seems to be my affair. If I may be pardoned for saying so, I am not a young man and I cannot support the weight of my two arms held in a vertical position very much longer.”

      “Reasonable,” the other acknowledged. “Let me see—what can we do? Strauss, this way a moment.”

      The man who had admitted them came from the shadows of a further apartment. His master reflected.

      “Let me see if this would work,” he suggested. “Hold Mr. Blute’s right wrist firmly in your fingers, Strauss, and place your hand upon the muzzle of his weapon. If he is willing to relinquish it bring it to me.”

      Blute was not the man to make an effort which was foredoomed to failure. He yielded the revolver.

      “The same course of action with my younger friend, Mr. Mildenhall…Excellent. Both weapons I will keep on the table by my side, gentlemen, until we have arrived at an understanding. By the by, Mr. Mildenhall, we have turned your rackets court temporarily into an execution ground. We have found it very well adapted for the purpose.”

      “I shall be happy to sample it,” Charles observed grimly.

      “It seems to me highly probable,” the Count continued, “that you will have an opportunity. I am not a jealous husband but I do not like young men whose flirtations with my wife become too obvious. There was that hideous-looking Hessian lieutenant, for instance, who has probably saved his skin by going off to Poland. I had no fancy for that young man. Of course, when it comes to the great ones of the world—with the same Christian name as your own,” he reflected with a smile, “a husband may regard the affair with greater leniency. A very charming man, the Archduke.”

      “Do you know, I don’t want to be rude,” Charles ventured, “but I’m getting very bored, and I am sure Mr. Blute is too, with your monologue. What the hell does all this talk about your wife mean?”

      “My wife. I forgot you knew her by her later name, the Baroness von Ballinstrode. She was really a very pretty young woman years ago when she became the Countess Gunther.”

      There was a brief acute silence.

      “Are you telling me,” Charles demanded, “that Beatrice von Ballinstrode is your wife?”

      The Count sighed.

      “Do you mean to tell me that you have never heard of that dear lady’s disreputable connection?”

      “I will answer for it that he did not,” Blute intervened. “Mr. Mildenhall knew only that the Baroness had made an unfortunate marriage with a man who ruined her life and from whom she was divorced.”

      “Ah, but that is where my wife was wrong,” the Count protested calmly. “I never consented to the divorce. If my wife had been a little more reasonable she might have been very useful to me. At any rate, I never had any idea of letting her go. I have not been quite satisfied with her behaviour lately—in fact, my displeasure went so far as to relieve her of her passport—but…”

      “Get on with the matter in hand,” Blute insisted.

      “I am talking to save time,” the Count confided. “I am coming to the point now, though. In this bungled enterprise of yours, Mr. Blute, what have you done with the—er—loot?”

      “It lies at the bottom of the avenue on the left-hand side coming up,” Blute replied without hesitation.

      “Right to my door!” Gunther exclaimed with a gesture of gratitude. “Well, you really

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