The Broken Thread Read online

foran al-fresco entertainment. Happiness was the keynote of the pleasurejaunt, and the stately Lady Remington seemed pleased with thecompanionship of the dignified doctor. The details of an entertainmentare rendered easy in a land where men, women, and children are trainedthrough the centuries to the refinements of pleasure.

  Raife and Gilda found themselves wandering alone in a grove of trees,those dark-hued olives with leaf and branch in silhouette against acerulean sky. This was the first occasion when opportunity had servedfor the display of a pent-up passion. With a fierceness that belongs tothe madness of a love that has been controlled, almost discomforted, bycircumstances Raife caught Gilda in his arms! Love may be blind, butlove is alert. Crumpling leaves and a footstep brought Raife to hismore complete sense. Turning, he saw the uncanny form of the Apacheperson, the forbidding creature who had spoken to him outside the cafe,on the night when Gilda had sent the little Italian girl to fetch him toher. With a gesture of impatience, that expressed thwarted opportunity,he said: "Who is that fellow, Gilda? Why is he here? How did he gethere?"

  Gilda trembled, and held her head between her hands. "I don't know,"she stammered. "Don't ask me. I don't know!"

  Brief is the life of golden opportunity, and Raife's happiness had beenbroken by this phantom person of the forbidding aspect. A Saxon canlove, but a Saxon can sulk. All that was Saxon in Sir Raife Remingtoninduced him to sulk at this moment. They returned to where the tableswere laid with that tempting display of napery and polished silver whichis so well understood by the continental caterers. Lady Remington andDoctor Malsano were conversing agreeably. Gilda was evidentlydistressed, and Raife remained sulky. As they met again, the doctor wassaying: "Your son was telling me, Lady Remington, that the Baroness vonSassniltz is a friend of yours. She is staying, I understand, at thesame hotel with us?"

  "Oh, yes, Doctor Malsano, I know the baroness. She visits us atAldborough Park, my son's place, you know, near Tunbridge Wells."

  "How very interesting. I have often felt I would like to meet thebaroness. They tell me she is a very brilliant lady." This was saidwith much unction.

  The day that had opened so brightly, and with so much pleasure to Raife,was no longer pleasing to him. He was haunted by that Apache-lookingfellow, whose hateful appearance in the olive grove had robbed him ofthe gratification that he felt should have been his. The course of truelove is rarely smooth. It is often very rough. The weird happenings,since Raife and Gilda had met and talked, the brief love way into theirsouls on the front at Southport, had crowded their lives with mixed joyand sorrow. In these charming al-fresco surroundings, where thedaintiness of human service blended with nature's choicest gifts, thereshould have been peace and quietude of spirit. It was not to be. Thehaunting thought of his father's dying words recurred again and again."The trap--. She--that woman."

  His whole life's blood should go out to this woman, whom he loved with apassion that belonged to a fierce nature. Yet at every pace orrevolution in the progress of their intimacy there was a dark passage, asinister obstacle.

  The dignified uncle repelled him, although he, apparently, wasfascinating his stately and severely exclusive mother. The forbiddingfigure of the Apache had completed, for a while, his sense ofdepression. The happiest people were, apparently, Lady Remington, thedoctor--and the chauffeur--who had found companionship with a soft-eyed,brainless, dark-skinned maid, of the type that serves, and is happy inserving.

  When the hired car bowled merrily around on the return journey andpulled up at the hotel, and a smiling group of servants assisted them intheir entrance to the hotel, the Baroness von Sassniltz greeted LadyRemington. The opportunity and all the circumstances were of such anature that it was almost necessary that Lady Remington should make thepresentation. Thus Doctor Malsano and Gilda Tempest met the Baronessvon Sassniltz.

  It is necessary to talk of the Baroness von Sassniltz. She was rich,and of ancient lineage, but not of that old-world type which belonged tomiddle and eastern Europe, when the most exalted lady was little morethan the ordinary _frau_ or housewife. The baroness was brilliant andaccomplished, and she was endowed with a commanding presence. She washandsome rather than beautiful, and as for her age--what does it matterso long as she remained attractive, and commanded the admiration ofmost, and the devotion of many, men.

  Modern travel is so easy and it is so frequent that there is a closerintercourse in the society of nations. Switzerland and the Riviera arethe acknowledged playgrounds where, by international accord, the crookmay jostle the noble, and the conventions of the capitals of the worldare allowed a licence and freedom undreamt of a decade ago.

  Lady Remington first met the baroness at the Angst Hotel, Bordighera.The frigid bows which are grudgingly given by the highly-born in suchcircumstances, melted somewhat when, next season, mutual recognition wasforced on them by an untimely jostle at the gaming tables of MonteCarlo. Of course those tables were never really fashionable, but theyhave always been fascinating. They possess the requisite diablerie toamuse the most exclusive and bored aristocracy of the countries ofEurope. A further chance meeting at San Moritz completed the essentialsnecessary to break down the hidebound conventions that surround women'sintroductions to one another.

  Lady Remington and the Baroness von Sassniltz thus became friends. Thebaroness, so much younger than Lady Remington, possessed a vivacity andsense of initiative in the matter of social entertainment, which werevery pleasing to her ladyship. The arduous nature of the late SirHenry's political life had been responsible for much that was almostdrab in his wife's career, which had been beautifully devoted to herhusband.

  The baroness's jewels were a frequent topic of conversation in most ofthe capitals of Europe. The joy of possession is very great to thewoman who owns jewellery, and the joy seems to increase with the riskthat is attached to travel. The hairbreadth escapes, the thrills, andthe states of panic attending the conveyance of the baroness's jewelsfrom one spa to another, were worth more than the cost of thoseexpensive baubles. Her maid lived in a constant state of dread andapprehension in her efforts to protect the precious trinkets. There wasnot a crook in Europe who was not striving to outwit that poor woman androb the baroness at the same time. Every variety of human emotionfollowed in their train, and the alert little Fraulein Schneider was thecustodian of the priceless baubles, and ever on her guard to confuse thecommon enemy. Humanity is frail, and the most austere have a weak spot.Fraulein Schneider's vigilance had become so much a part of hercharacter that there were very few who detected the weak point in herarmour. Coiled in a shapeless bunch at the back of her head there werelong plaited strands of yellow hair. No one ever knew just how much ofthat hair there was, but the strands seemed interminable. This yellowhair was the one weak spot through which she could be approached. Itwas combed and pomaded, and plaited with scrupulous care. Everythingabout Fraulein Schneider was characterised by extreme care, from theguarding of the baroness's jewels to the setting of the miniature blackand white bonnet that surrounded the mighty monument of yellow hair.

  "What beautiful hair, Fraulein!" was sufficient to extract a gratifiedsmile, which was the first step towards relaxed vigilance. DoctorMalsano knew this weakness, and he watched and waited for theopportunity to apply the knowledge for his profit. A polished criminalis liable to take long chances when a big haul of booty appearsprobable. The doctor had shown himself rather indiscreet these last fewdays. Crossing the foyer of the hotel, after a long chat with thecharming Lady Remington, he stumbled and almost fell into the arms of alittle Englishman, who protested in such a ludicrous voice that theincident raised a titter among the guests at the hotel. There was nodesire for laughter on the doctor's part. In that brief, short while hehad recognised Detective-Inspector Herrion of Scotland Yard. Thisimmaculate little gentleman, with his fair hair parted in the middle,and a waxed moustache, was none other than the famous Herrion. Adetective to-day, to be successful on the continent of Europe, mustcombine
the qualities of an Admirable Crichton, with the cunning of astoat. Detective-Inspector Herrion excelled these attributes, and,under alternating masks that varied from the superficial inanity of aScarlet Pimpernel to the repellance of a viper, he did society muchdaring service. The apparent young sprig of aristocracy, with thedeliciously insipid drawl and the grotesque monocle, was none other thanHerrion, the one man of all others whom Doctor Malsano dreaded. Thisdainty little gentleman presented a very different appearance a fewminutes later as he stripped before the mirror of the hotel washstand herevealed to himself the sinewy and fibrous muscles of the well-trainedathlete.

  Herrion was an athlete trained in that lithe school that embodies everyactive form of sport, from football to fencing, from _la savate_ to themodern savage form of fighting and boxing. Equally deadly with aBrowning revolver, a