"As a reminder of your betrayal?"

"As a reminder of the King's folly in leaving such a trace of his indiscretion. And as a precaution." She slipped it into the gaudiest carpetbag just as the Queen Mother entered.

"I do not wish to interrupt you, my dear, but I did want to say that I am most grateful for your efforts to locate the person who poisoned the King. You must also know that I shall never think less of you for your... position with Willie.

"It's such a pity that this alliance could not be official. I shall miss your singing here in the castle, when you used to practice in the music room. I have urged Willie to have one of the pianos sent south as a surprise, so do not let him know that you are aware that I suggested it."

"No, I would not want to ruin his surprise." Irene spoke in a two-edged tone I recognized very well.

Yet she seemed pensive after the Queen Mother had left and sat sorting through the clothing in an abstracted way, her right hand pausing once to play those phantom notes on the coverlet.

"What piece do you practice?" I finally asked.

Irene glanced at me ironically. " 'Viennese Melody,' my pet. I can't seem to forget the tune."

We worked through dinner, asking that a meal be served us in Irene's sitting room. The truth was that neither of us could stomach taking food with the von Ormsteins any longer; I began to appreciate Irene's demand for instant action. Everything and everyone in the castle had become a reminder of a time now irrevocably past.

Willie visited us after dinner, when the candles had burned low and the fireplaces had been refreshed for the night. He seemed subdued, yet pleased.

"I admire your energy, Irene! How like a general you are, with your hatboxes and trunks and frivolities all lined up like obedient soldiers."

"Yes, I am a mistress of the frivolous, am I not?"

"I'm delighted that you embrace my plans so swiftly. In truth, I feared a bit of a tantrum from you."

"A tantrum, really?" Irene inquired sweetly. "Why ever would you think that?"

"Oh, when women imagine some slight to their self-worth, they can raise quite a fuss. But in this, too, you are an exception, Irene. So pragmatic in your delightfully feminine way. I see I shall be escaping south often."

"Escape! What a clever way to put it. I shall regard my current... removal from Prague as an escape also."

I did not dare look up from my arranging of lacy handkerchiefs in fabric-covered boxes. The cutting edge of Irene's irony blunted on the King's impervious vanity.

He went to take her hands and pull her to her feet before him, like a ruler commanding a subject to rise from a profound bow. I quailed over my handkerchiefs, for I sensed Irene's underlying fury and feared his patronizing ways would push her past containing it. I needn't have worried.

She was a superb actress; never had she mimicked emotions so contrary to her real feelings. Not a false note was sounded, and the King never noticed that she no longer called him by his Christian name.

"I have brought you a gift, Irene."

"A gift? You amaze me, your Majesty."

"Do not thank me. I have never given you jewels-you refused all my attempts, saying that you would wear paste on stage, rather than seem as if your art were supported by admirers' bank accounts. Now that you are no longer in the public eye, you need not worry."

I had to see it. I glanced up, catching the green glint of the emerald gracing the King's signature ring in the shape of a snake. His left hand was extended, a box upon the palm. I could not view its contents from where I sat. How could I manage a change of pose that would not appear to be caused by curiosity? While I vacillated, Irene satisfied all my longings.

"Rubies!" She turned to lift a star-shaped brooch for my inspection. "How extravagant of your Majesty. But-"

"This strange stiff-necked notion of yours on gifts is incomprehensible. You must take it, Irene," he said anxiously, guilt tingeing his expression. "There is no reason to refuse now."

"Not... now." Ice laced her voice. "It is lovely, and quite my color." She pranced to the mirror and poised it at the throat of her pale yellow shirtwaist. The starburst of rubies glittered like a wound. "I can hardly express my... amazement, my grat.i.tude for your generous favor."

"Say nothing of it, Irene." The King had relaxed the moment she accepted the jewel, as if a contract he had worried about was now fully signed. "There will be more baubles. You shall not regret your current course, believe me."

"I do not, and I know I shall not," she returned, smiling. "Not ever."

"You will be ready to travel on the morrow?"

Irene glanced helplessly about the cluttered room. "Oh, I do hope so-"

"Never mind." He patted her hand. "I will not press you. The following day will suit as well. I want my dear friend to be well dressed when I visit her."

With that he clicked his heels in a farewell bow and left. Our maids came soon after. We set them to packing the trunks destined for Paris. I withdrew to my room and, once certain that the maids had retired at last, rose and claimed the two carpetbags I had hidden there earlier from under my bed. Into them fit most of the belongings that had accompanied me in my hasty departure from England.

Then I sat by the window and listened to the ormolu mantel clock tick. Below me moonlight polished the roof tiles to the color of cold steel. Everything seemed painted in shades of grey, like the foggy photographic features of Irene and the King. My room was unlit save by the fading fire. When the clock struck midnight, I lost track and counted thirteen o'clock.

A quarter of an hour later, as planned, the doork.n.o.b to my room turned. But an unexpected figure stepped over the threshold. I clenched my fists as the hall light shone between its trousered legs.

Chapter Twenty-four.

FOX AND HOUNDS.

The train chugged deep into the prettiest valleys and high over the most picturesque hills in Germany. I often imagined the gigantic plume of smoke flung behind us as the engine cleaved the green landscape like a steel plough.

Every clack of the rails and puff of the smokestack seemed to be driving Bohemia, its King and our unhappy memories farther behind. I sighed and glanced at my traveling companion, who was-at the moment-absently fingering the amber dragon that topped his cane.

"You nearly precipitated my demise from sheer shock before we even left," I commented, "but it was a brilliant notion to travel in this guise."

A thin smile stretched my seat partner's rusty mustache. Even in the daylight streaming through the compartment windows, I could not detect the spirit gum that held it on.

"There is some awkwardness in the terminal comfort stations," Irene conceded, "but the benefits of traveling truly 'incognito' far outweigh the inconvenience."

Embarra.s.sment prevented me from inquiring too deeply into the mechanics of her subterfuge. Irene would manage it, I told myself; it was not for me to know precisely how. As always, she made a most incredibly credible man. Her gait, posture and entire att.i.tude altered when she donned male garb. The thought of that narcissistic tyrant immuring such acting talent in a forsaken pile in southern Bohemia quite made my blood boil anew.

But Willie was left far behind, I told myself, like the Devil and all his works. All had gone smoothly. Our stealthy exit from the castle and down the steep road to town led to the waiting coach Irene had hired to take "Rudolph and Hedwig Hoffman," brother and sister, to Dresden. (She did not trust to the Prague train terminal, the first place pursuers would look.) Since she spoke decent German because of her study of opera, this fiction was credible. In Dresden we stopped several streets away from the railway station, Irene wishing the driver to believe that we were visiting relations there.

She caught the four carpetbags that he slung down from the coach roof, allowing me only to carry one for greater authenticity. Male guise even seemed to increase her strength. Once aboard our train, which was composed of the new English-made, single-corridor carriages deployed throughout Germany and Belgium, she wrested our bags down the cramped pa.s.sage into the compartment, thrust them atop the overhead racks with dispatch, then laughed off my amazement.

"No great trick to being the stronger s.e.x, Nell! It's easy when not wearing a constricting whalebone fence and seams that split at any gesture larger than a drawing-room flutter." Irene sat beside me, crossed her legs and lit a self-congratulatory cigarette at our successful escape. I could hardly rebuke her for a habit that aided her disguise and our enterprise.

By evening the bucolic German landscape had evolved into a huddled urban ma.s.s-Nuremberg. After an interminable stop in the station there, we chugged through an utter darkness relieved only by the odd illuminated cottage window. Such cheery glimmers soon slipped from view, like falling stars.

Morning revealed countryside. So we traversed the thick neck of southern Germany, a vast farmland punctuated by the occasional city: Nuremberg, then Frankfort and at last, on the third day, the great Cathedral town of Cologne. Here we were to change trains, and I admit that my heart began beating rather recklessly.

Irene noticed my apprehension.

"You're quite right, Nell. The time between changing trains makes us most vulnerable. We are trapped in the conspicuous fishbowl of a railway station, where any pa.s.serby could be a spy of the King's."

"But he cannot catch up with us!"

"My dear, he can telegraph ahead. He must have agents in all major German cities, any prudent king would. At the least his official friends here have unofficial henchmen they turn to in emergencies."

"I had not thought of him... telegraphing ahead."

"Your mind has been lulled by Bohemia's bucolic ways. You pictured a pursuit from Sir Walter Scott: the King, booted and spurred, harrying his exhausted charger over hill and dale, his cavalry thundering behind him. Our poor, placid train choo-chooing its way toward certain interception... No, these are modern times and the King will use modern methods to trace us. He will telegraph."

"I wish you would let me send a cablegram to G.o.dfrey in London, as I did when I first arrived in Prague."

Irene winced as smoke curled around her bowler brim. "Already one too many times. If the King thinks to inquire at the Prague telegraph office, there will be a record of that message-and to whom it was sent."

"But we need someone in London to aid us-to find us rooms, for we dare not return to Saffron Hill."

"Unfortunately true."

"If I have been derelict in antic.i.p.ating the King's actions, you have not foreseen the complications of our arrival, Irene. Unless we have discreet help, we shall have a hard time disguising our return to London, which is where the King will no doubt a.s.sume us to have gone."

"Not necessarily. He does not a.s.sociate me with London, since he met me in Warsaw and I had come from Milan. And I am American by birth. Still, I would rather he not know where we had gone for as long as possible."

"Then let me telegraph G.o.dfrey, I implore you!"

She looked at me askance from under her bowler. "You seem most attached to our erstwhile compet.i.tor."

"It's only that I know we can rely upon him, and if the King is as formidable a foe as you believe-"

"More so."

"Then I would feel ever so much better if G.o.dfrey were involved."

Irene's eyebrows lifted with unmanly delicacy. "He is a barrister, I suppose. He must have some sense of honor toward a client, more than a King toward a woman, I would hope."

"You do not know him as I do, Irene. G.o.dfrey has been like a brother to me. And-" I paused, for I had never told her this in my letters, feeling somehow disloyal. "And I have a.s.sisted him in... matters... not unlike those you and I used to undertake. G.o.dfrey is no fool. I would trust him with my life."

A smile activated her mustache. "You do," she said shortly. "And you may telegraph the admirable Mr. Norton, but not until we pa.s.s Brussels and are in the port of Ostend." Her expression tightened into worry. "Such a pity that there is but one route from Prague to London, and that riddled with changes of train!"

Irene pounded one leather gloved fist into the other, so much in character that I braced myself for profanity. None came. Instead she sat back against the upholstery, her eyes suddenly distant. I kept a respectful silence. Irene was thinking, and upon that process depended our successful escape.

At Cologne we were forced to pause; no connecting train to Brussels left till late the following morning. Nightfall abetted Irene's disguise as she managed the perilous interrogation of the ticketmaster, purchase of the tickets and inquiries after a hotel near the station. She left three of the carpetbags on being convinced that they would be locked up.

I confess I slept not a wink that night, though the lodgings were spotless and a featherbed as high as whipped cream promised sweet dreams. I knew that Irene chafed at every moment we hesitated along the way; she spent the night vigilant at the window.

Once I heard a sinister click as she took the small revolver from her pocket and examined it. I had forgotten the weapon she carried in London; somehow I'd a.s.sumed she had dispensed with such habits once her life had changed.

In the morning Irene drew me aside as we neared the station. "Nell, you must enter the station alone. Here are the baggage chit and some German coins."

"But I don't speak any German!"

"You will need none to reclaim the bags-and your coins will speak for you in convincing a porter to fetch them aboard. It is best to separate; they hunt for two. I have my ticket, here's yours. I will board just as the train leaves."

With that Irene vanished into the crowd pouring into the vast stone station building. I clutched the baggage claim and a fistful of foreign money, feeling quite as though I had been stranded by an ungentlemanly escort! At least she had undertaken to carry the heavy carpetbag, bearer of our money and the photograph and thus never out of her presence.

I entered the eddy of travelers and found myself harried along as a woodchip that is seized by a current I wasn't used to managing such details as I had been a.s.signed: G.o.dfrey had kindly arranged my previous travel.

I stuttered at the baggage man, but eventually was handed all three carpetbags. Then I scanned the bustling strangers for a capped porter.

Though I had seen dozens earlier, porters were scarce as dodos now. At last I attracted the eye of a slight fellow who looked as if he could carry a tea packet on a good day. He nevertheless managed to stagger the long way to our train and see me into a compartment, at which time I showered him with all the coins in my possession. He left clucking like a contented German hen; I settled by the window to scan the crowd for Irene's figure in its unfamiliar guise.

My heart was racing and my brow was veiled in an unladylike dampness. Steam from the stoking engine drifted past the window like an airy m.u.f.fler. My lapel watch showed departure looming in less than two minutes, and German trains ran on punctuality as much as steam. Why had I ever allowed us to separate? I admonished myself, imagining an increasingly gruesome chain of possibilities.

The creak of the compartment door made me turn. A man's silhouette filled the stingy corridor; this time it was not Irene's.

"I fear this compartment is occupied," I told the intruder.

He grinned like an idiot and entered.

"No, no!" I waved toward the s.p.a.ce. "I expect a traveling companion."

He stepped to the bra.s.s rack above me and-instead of adding his baggage to mine, for he had none-he reached for a carpetbag.

"Sir, that is mine!" I stood to defend my property, dismayed by what a burly fellow I contested. His thick-knuckled hairy hands already clutched the handles. I s.n.a.t.c.hed a corner. My hat lurched onto my forehead, blinding me, as my shoulder seams sang of their imminent separation.

The bone-hard rap of a cane descending on knuckles came before my seams could scream their final dissolution. I pushed hat and hair from my eyes. The intruder's mouth was nursing a clenched fist. Irene stood in the doorway, her cane still raised.

She uttered a string of German words as harsh as the c.o.c.kney she had used on the last person to lay hand upon a carpetbag of mine-the London guttersnipe of years ago.

The man kept sullen silence, eyeing not the cane but the metallic glint of the revolver Irene lifted from her pocket.

The train jerked into a shudder of departure.

"Perhaps he made a mistake," I said.

"He did," she responded tightly in English, so in character that even I almost feared her, but perhaps that was her intention.

More hiccoughs of motion signaled our immediate departure. I was jolted back into my seat, but Irene and our visitor kept upright on braced feet, his narrowed eyes alert for any weakening in her position.

Outside on the platform people's faces oozed past, blurring. The crowds thinned. We chugged through the shadow of the roofed station-yard, only tracks and distant trains accompanying us. I pictured Irene holding the man hostage all the way to Brussels. Instead she slung her carpetbag onto the seat opposite and stepped into the corridor, nodding for him to precede her to the carriage exit. "Wait here," she instructed me.

He regarded the fourth carpetbag as if it were a meal and he a starving Irishman, but moved along, his admonished knuckles still red. They disappeared. I rose to look, but saw only an empty pa.s.sage.

Unsteady, I elected to sit again, eyeing my watch face. A minute ticked by, then two. An incoming train thundered past on a nearby track, doubling the sense of speed and my heartbeat at the same long instant. In another minute, the curtain of charging steel had vanished as quickly as it had appeared. No Irene.

Then she was back, sitting opposite me and slipping her cane through the compartment handles so no one could enter unwanted. Nothing was said as a lucifer struck the sole of her boot and the familiar haze of smoke veiled her pale features.