John Ironside - The Red Symbol

I laughed. Mary, as I knew, had always been “firm” with her “poppa,” in her girlish days; had, in fact, ruled him with a rod of iron – cased in velvet, indeed, but inflexible, nevertheless!

I started on my delayed journey next morning, and during the long day and night of travel my spirits were steadily on the up-grade.

Cassavetti, the murder, all the puzzling events of the last few days, receded to my mental horizon – vanished beyond it – as boat and train bore me swiftly onwards, away from England, towards Anne Pendennis.

Berlin at last. I drove from the Potsdam station to the nearest barber’s, – I needed a shave badly, though I had made myself otherwise fairly spick and span in the toilet car, – and thence to the hotel Anne had mentioned.

She would be expecting me, for I had despatched the promised wire when I started.

“Send my card up to Fraulein Pendennis at once,” I said to the waiter who came forward to receive me.

He looked at me – at the card – but did not take it.

“Fraulein Pendennis is not here,” he asserted. “Herr Pendennis has already departed, and the Fraulein has not been here at all!”

I stared at the man incredulously.

“Herr Pendennis has departed, and the Fraulein has not been here at all!” I repeated. “You must be mistaken, man! The Fraulein was to arrive here on Monday, at about this time.”

He protested that he had spoken the truth, and summoned the manager, who confirmed the information.

Yes, Herr Pendennis had been unfortunately indisposed, but the sickness had not been so severe as to necessitate that the so charming and dutiful Fraulein should hasten to him. He had a telegram received, – doubtless from the Fraulein herself, – and thereupon with much haste departed. He drove to the Friedrichstrasse station, but that was all that was known of his movements. Two letters had arrived for Miss Pendennis, which her father had taken, and there was also a telegram, delivered since he left.

Both father and daughter, it seemed, were well known at the hotel, where they always stayed during their frequent visits to the German capital.

I was keenly disappointed. Surely some malignant fate was intervening between Anne and myself, determined to keep us apart. Why had she discontinued her journey; and had she returned to England, – to the Cayleys? If not, where was she now? Unanswerable questions, of course. All I could do was to possess my soul in patience, and hope for tidings when I reached my destination. And meanwhile, by breaking my journey here, for the sole purpose of seeing her, I had incurred a delay of twelve hours.

One thing at least was certain, – her father could not have left Berlin for the purpose of meeting her en route , or he would not have started from the Friedrichstrasse station.

With a rush all the doubts and perplexities that I had kept at bay, even since I received Anne’s post-card, re-invaded my mind; but I beat them back resolutely. I would not allow myself to think, to conjecture.

I moped around aimlessly for an hour or two, telling myself that Berlin was the beastliest hole on the face of the earth. Never had time dragged as it did that morning! I seemed to have been at a loose end for a century or more by noon, when I found myself opposite the entrance of the Astoria Restaurant.

“When in difficulties – feed,” Jim Cayley had counselled, and a long lunch would kill an hour or so, anyhow.

I had scarcely settled myself at a table when a man came along and clapped me on the shoulder.

“Wynn, by all that’s wonderful. What are you doing here, old fellow?”

It was Percy Medhurst, a somewhat irresponsible, but very decent youngster, whom I had seen a good deal of in London, one way and another. He was a clerk in the British Foreign Office, but I hadn’t the least idea that he had been sent to Berlin. He had dined at the Cayleys only a week or two back.

“I’m feeding – or going to feed. What are you doing here?” I responded, as we shook hands. I was glad to see him. Even his usually frivolous conversation was preferable to my own meditations at the moment.

“Just transferred, regular stroke of luck. Only got here last night; haven’t reported myself for duty yet. I say, old chap, you look rather hipped. What’s up?”

“Hunger,” I answered laconically. “And I guess that’s easily remedied. Come and join me.”

We talked of indifferent matters for a time, or rather he did most of the talking.

“Staying long?” he asked at last, as we reached the coffee and liqueur stage. We had done ourselves very well, and I, at least, felt in a much more philosophic frame of mind than I had done for some hours past.

“No, only a few hours. I’m en route for Petersburg.”

“What luck; wish I was. Berlin’s all right, of course, but a bit stodgy; and they’re having a jolly lot of rows at Petersburg, – with more to come. I say, though, what an awful shame about that poor chap Carson. Have you heard of it?”

“Yes; I’m going to take his place. What do you know about him, anyhow?”

“You are? I didn’t know him at all; but I know a fellow who was awfully thick with him. Met him just now. He’s frightfully cut up about it all. Swears he’ll hunt down the murderer sooner or later – ”

“Von Eckhardt? Is he here?” I ejaculated.

“Yes. D’you know him? An awfully decent chap, – for a German; though he’s always spouting Shakespeare, and thinks me an ass, I know, because I tell him I’ve never read a line of him, not since I left Bradfield, anyhow. Queer how these German johnnies seem to imagine Shakespeare belongs to them! You should have heard him just now!

‘He was my friend, faithful and just to me,’

– and raving about his heart being in the coffin with Caesar; suppose he meant Carson. ’Pon my soul I could hardly keep a straight face; but I daren’t laugh. He was in such deadly earnest.”

I cut short these irrelevant comments on Von Eckhardt’s verbal peculiarities, with which I was perfectly familiar.

“How long’s he here for?”

“Don’t know. Rather think, from what he said, that he’s chucked up his post on the Zeitung – ”

“What on earth for?”

“How should I know? I tell you he’s as mad as a hatter.”

“Wonder where I’d be likely to find him; not at the Zeitung office, if he’s left. I must see him this afternoon. Do you know where he hangs out, Medhurst?”

“With his people, I believe; somewhere in Charlotten Strasse or thereabouts. I met him mooning about in the Tiergarten this morning.”

I called a waiter and sent him for a directory. There were scores of Von Eckhardts in it, and I decided to go to the Zeitung office, and ascertain his address there.

Medhurst volunteered to walk with me.

“How are the Cayleys?” he asked, as we went along. “Thought that handsome Miss Pendennis was going to stay with them all the summer. By Jove, she is a ripper. You were rather gone in that quarter, weren’t you, Wynn?”

I ignored this last remark.

“How did you know Miss Pendennis had left?” I asked, with assumed carelessness.

“Why? Because I met her at Ostend on Sunday night, to be sure. I week-ended there, you know. Thought I’d have a private bit of a spree, before I had to be officially on the Spree .”

He chuckled at the futile pun.

“You saw Anne Pendennis at Ostend. Are you certain it was she?” I demanded.

“Of course I am. She looked awfully fetching, and gave me one of her most gracious bows – ”

“You didn’t speak to her?” I pursued, throwing away the cigarette I had been smoking. My teeth had met in the end of it as I listened to this news.