Роберт Чамберс - The Dark Star

"Wait," he shouted back; "I'll show you and your friends behind us what speed really is."

The car was still slowing down as they passed over a wooden bridge where a narrow road, partly washed out, turned to the left and ran along a hillside. Into this he steered.

"Who is it chasing us?" he asked curiously, still incredulous that any embassy whatever was involved in this amazing affair.

"Friends."

"More Turks?"

She did not reply.

He sat still, listening for a few moments, then hastily started his car down the hill.

"Now," he said, "I'll show you what this car of mine really can do! Are you afraid?"

She said between her teeth:

"I'd be a fool if I were not. All I pray for is that you'll kill yourself, too."

"We'll chance it together, my murderous little friend."

The wind began to roar again as they rushed downward over a hill that seemed endless. She clung to her seat and he hung to his wheel like grim death; and, for one terrible instant, she almost lost consciousness.

Then the terrific pace slackened; the car, running swiftly, was now speeding over a macadam road; and Neeland laughed and cried in her ear:

"Better light another of your hell's own cigarettes if you want your friends to follow us!"

Slowing, he drove with one hand on the wheel.

"Look up there!" he said, pointing high at a dark hillside. "See their lights? They're on the worst road in the Gayfield hills. We cut off three miles this way."

Still driving with one hand, he looked at his watch, laughed contentedly, and turned to her with the sudden and almost friendly toleration born of success and a danger shared in common.

"That was rather a reckless bit of driving," he admitted. "Were you frightened?"

"Ask yourself how you'd feel with a fool at the wheel."

"We're all fools at times," he retorted, laughing. "You were when you shot at me. Suppose I'd been seized with panic. I might have turned loose on you, too."

For a while she remained silent, then she looked at him curiously:

"Were you armed?"

"I carry an automatic pistol in my portfolio pocket."

She shrugged.

"You were a fool to come into that house without carrying it in your hand."

"Where would you be now if I had done that?"

"Dead, I suppose," she said carelessly…. "What are you going to do with me?"

He was in excellent humour with himself; exhilaration and excitement still possessed him, keyed him up.

"Fancy," he said, "a foreign embassy being mixed up in a plain case of grand larceny!—robbing with attempt to murder! My dear but bloodthirsty young lady, I can hardly comprehend it."

She remained silent, looking straight in front of her.

"You know," he said, "I'm rather glad you're not a common thief. You've lots of pluck—plenty. You're as clever as a cobra. It isn't every poisonous snake that is clever," he added, laughing.

"What do you intend to do with me?" she repeated coolly.

"I don't know. You are certainly an interesting companion. Maybe I'll take you to New York with me. You see I'm beginning to like you."

She was silent.

He said:

"I never before met a real spy. I scarcely believed they existed in time of peace, except in novels. Really, I never imagined there were any spies working for embassies, except in Europe. You are, to me, such a rare specimen," he added gaily, "that I rather dread parting with you. Won't you come to Paris with me?"

"Does what you say amuse you?"

"What you say does. Yes, I think I'll take you to New York, anyway. And as we journey toward that great metropolis together you shall tell me all about your delightful profession. You shall be a Scheherazade to me! Is it a bargain?"

She said in a pleasant, even voice:

"I might as well tell you now that what you've been stupid enough to do tonight is going to cost you your life."

"What!" he exclaimed laughingly. "More murder? Oh, Scheherazade! Shame on your naughty, naughty behaviour!"

"Do you expect to reach Paris with those papers?"

"I do, fair houri! I do, Rose of Stamboul!"

"You never will."

"No?"

"No." She sat staring ahead of her for a few moments, then turned on him with restrained impatience:

"Listen to me, now! I don't know who you are. If you're employed by any government you are a novice―"

"Or an artist!"

"Or a consummate artist," she admitted, looking at him uncertainly.

"I am an artist," he said.

"You have an excellent opinion of yourself."

"No. I'm telling you the truth. My name is Neeland—James Neeland. I draw little pictures for a living—nice little pictures for newspapers and magazines."

His frankness evidently perplexed her.

"If that is so," she said, "what interests you in the papers you took from me?"

"Nothing at all, my dear young lady! I'm not interested in them. But friends of mine are."

"Who?"

He merely laughed at her.

" Are you an agent for any government?"

"Not that I know of."

She said very quietly:

"You make a terrible mistake to involve yourself in this affair. If you are not paid to do it—if you are not interested from patriotic motives—you had better keep aloof."

"But it's too late. I am mixed up in it—whatever it may mean. Why not tell me, Scheherazade?"

His humorous badinage seemed only to make her more serious.

"Mr. Neeland," she said quietly, "if you really are what you say you are, it is a dangerous and silly thing that you have done tonight."

"Don't say that! Don't consider it so tragically. I'm enjoying it all immensely."

"Do you consider it a comedy when a woman tries to kill you?"

"Maybe you are fond of murder, gentle lady."

"Your sense of humour seems a trifle perverted. I am more serious than I ever was in my life. And I tell you very solemnly that you'll be killed if you try to take those papers to Paris. Listen!"—she laid one hand lightly on his arm—"Why should you involve yourself—you, an American? This matter is no concern of yours―"

"What matter?"

"The matter concerning those papers. I tell you it does not concern you; it is none of your business. Let me be frank with you: the papers are of importance to a foreign government—to the German Government. And in no way do they threaten your people or your country's welfare. Why, then, do you interfere? Why do you use violence toward an agent of a foreign and friendly government?"

"Why does a foreign and friendly government employ spies in a friendly country?"

"All governments do."

"Is that so?"

"It is. America swarms with British and French agents."

"How do you know?"

"It's my business to know, Mr. Neeland."

"Then that is your profession! You really are a spy?"

"Yes."

"And you pursue this ennobling profession with an enthusiasm which does not stop short of murder!"

"I had no choice."

"Hadn't you? Your business seems to be rather a deadly one, doesn't it, Scheherazade?"

"Yes, it might become so…. Mr. Neeland, I have no personal feeling of anger for you. You offered me violence; you behaved brutally, indecently. But I want you to understand that no petty personal feeling incites me. The wrong you have done me is nothing; the injury you threaten to do my country is very grave. I ask you to believe that I speak the truth. It is in the service of my country that I have acted. Nothing matters to me except my country's welfare. Individuals are nothing; the Fatherland everything…. Will you give me back my papers?"

"No. I shall return them to their owner."

"Is that final?"

"It is."

"I am sorry," she said.

A moment later the lights of Orangeville came into distant view across the dark and rolling country.