The Passenger from Calais | Page 3

questionable though it might be, and here she was
evidently about to make the attempt. It was a little barefaced, but I
admit that I was amused by it, and not at all unwilling to measure
swords with her. She was presumably an adventuress, clever, designing,
desirous of turning me round her finger, but she was also a pretty
woman.
"I beg your pardon," she began almost at once in English, when the
waiter had brought her a plate of soup, and she was toying with the first
spoonful, speaking in a low constrained, almost sullen voice, as though
it cost her much to break through the convenances in thus addressing a
stranger.
"You will think it strange of me," she went on, "but I am rather
awkwardly situated, in fact in a position of difficulty, even of danger,
and I venture to appeal to you as a countryman, an English officer."
"How do you know that?" I asked, quickly concluding that my light
baggage had been subjected to scrutiny, and wondering what
subterfuge she would adopt to explain it.
"It is easy to see that. Gentlemen of your cloth are as easily
recognizable as if your names were printed on your back."
"And as they are generally upon our travelling belongings." I looked at
her steadily with a light laugh, and a crimson flush came on her face.
However hardened a character, she had preserved the faculty of
blushing readily and deeply, the natural adjunct of a cream-like
complexion.
"Let me introduce myself in full," I said, pitying her obvious confusion;
and I handed her my card, which she took with a shamefaced air, rather
foreign to her general demeanour.
"Lieut.-Colonel Basil Annesley, Mars and Neptune Club," she read
aloud. "What was your regiment?"

"The Princess Ulrica Rifles, but I left it on promotion. I am unattached
for the moment, and waiting for reëmployment."
"Your own master then?"
"Practically, until I am called upon to serve. I hope to get a staff
appointment. Meanwhile I am loafing about Europe."
"Do you go beyond Lucerne?"
"Across the St. Gothard certainly, and as far as Como, perhaps beyond.
And you? Am I right in supposing we are to be fellow travellers by the
Engadine express?" I went on by way of saying something. "To
Lucerne or further?"
CHAPTER II.
"Probably." The answer was given with great hesitation. "If I go by this
train at all, that is to say."
"Have you any doubts?"
"Why, yes. To tell you the truth, I dread the journey. I have been doing
so ever since--since I felt it must be made. Now I find it ever so much
worse than I expected."
"Why is that, if I may ask?"
"You see, I am travelling alone, practically alone that is to say, with
only my maid."
"And your child," I added rather casually, with no second thought, and
I was puzzled to understand why the chance phrase evoked another
vivid blush.
"The child! Oh, yes, the child," and I was struck that she did not say
"my" child, but laid rather a marked stress on the definite article.
"That of course increases your responsibility," I hazarded, and she

seized the suggestion.
"Quite so. You see how I am placed. The idea of going all that way in
an empty train quite terrifies me."
"I don't see why it should."
"But just think. There will be no one in it, no one but ourselves. We
two lone women and you, single-handed. Suppose the five attendants
and the others were to combine against us? They might rob and murder
us."
"Oh, come, come. You must not let foolish fears get the better of your
common sense. Why should they want to make us their victims? I
believe they are decent, respectable men, the employes of a great
company, carefully selected. At any rate, I am not worth robbing, are
you? Have you any special reason for fearing thieves? Ladies are
perhaps a little too reckless in carrying their valuables about with them.
Your jewel-case may be exceptionally well lined."
"Oh, but it is not; quite the contrary," she cried with almost hysterical
alacrity. "I have nothing to tempt them. And yet something dreadful
might happen; I feel we are quite at their mercy."
"I don't. I tell you frankly that I think you are grossly exaggerating the
situation. But if you feel like that, why not wait? Wait over for another
train, I mean?"
I am free to confess that, although my curiosity had been aroused, I
would much rather have washed my hands of her, and left her and her
belongings, especially the more compromising part, the mysterious
treasure, behind at Calais.
"Is there another train soon?" she inquired nervously.
"Assuredly--by Boulogne. It connects with the train from Victoria