“As we have not found anything belonging to me up there,” he said to Sergeant Meyer, as the latter prepared to step into the cab that was waiting for them outside, “I don’t think there is any necessity for me to follow you to his Excellency’s office. What do you think?”
“You know best, monsieur, of course,” replied Meyer. “I have a very short report to make about the woman’s absence, together with every article of stolen property; also the fact that our two fellows are no doubt on her track, as I do not see them anywhere about. His Excellency must then decide, if it is worth while going to the ‘Kaiser Franz’ to-night on the chance of finding her there, or leave the matter alone till her return.”
“I should think the latter is by far the wisest course,” said Iván hastily; “however, that is none of my business. Will you tell his Excellency, that as my property has not been found, I will call on him again to-morrow morning, and in the meanwhile will communicate with Madame Demidoff?”
Sergeant Meyer and his assistant bowed to Iván as they stepped into the fiaker. Volenski waited a few moments till the sound of the wheels died out in the distance, then taking a cigarette from his case he lighted it with great deliberation and sauntered off towards the Ringstrasse with an anxious but determined look on his young face.
CHAPTER XI.
Poor Volenski had begun to look very haggard and careworn; the mental strain of the past few days was beginning to tell upon him. He was paying less attention to his dress, there was an absence of elasticity in his step, and an almost furtive look in his usually so frank, if dreamy eyes. He realised this, as, having reached the brilliantly lighted cafés that enliven both sides of the Opern and Kolowrátring, he caught sight of his own figure in one of the tall pier-glasses beyond the windows of the shops, and noticed the untidy look of his cravat, the dusty appearance of his clothes. He looked at his watch; it was barely nine o’clock—time enough to pay a flying visit to his hotel and remedy the obvious defects of his toilet, before he sallied forth to accomplish the task he had in a moment’s resolution set himself to do.
It was with the greatest care that he proceeded to change his clothes for the conventional black and white of evening attire, not forgetting the bouquet in his buttonhole, nor the fine handkerchief peeping from the pocket of the coat. He wished to look the perfect type of the young man about town—idle, elegant, and gay—a rôle he had played so much during the greater part of his life that it had become second nature; and especially he wished to leave absolutely behind him all traces of the harassed conspirator, who feels himself tracked, and dreads at every turn to meet his doom.
There was no doubt that since the fatal moment when the candlesticks were stolen on the Austrian frontier, fate loomed dark against him and his friends, and he had been alone to face the dangers and difficulties, to battle against relentless chance. The most adverse coincidences had surrounded him from the first, and when luck appeared to be on the turn, some untoward, wholly unforeseen event occurred, to dash any hope he may have had to the ground. First the Cardinal’s unfortunate idea of entrusting Madame Demidoff with the candlesticks, then the robbery at Oderberg, next the escape of one of the thieves with the very articles that were of such paramount importance; finally the one grand opportunity he would have had to-night, but for Grete Ottlinger’s wonderful luck, or foresight, in taking the booty along with her.
But from all this chaos of mischance the unfortunate young man had gleaned one fresh ray of hope. He hardly dared to trust to it, but it gave him the inestimable boon of being able to act for himself, to be actually employed in trying to rescue himself and his friends from the terrible position into which his well-meant blunder had led them. It meant that with tact and diplomacy all was not lost yet, and that in the meanwhile he would at least be free from the intolerable torture of inactivity, waiting, wearily waiting, for that crushing blow that might descend at any moment.
As it was getting late, and Vienna was in the full swing of its usual evening entertainments, Volenski found his way to the “Kaiser Franz,” a brilliantly lighted but tumble-down looking hotel in the Muzeumgasse, which had been named to him by the police as the usual nightly haunt of Grete Ottlinger. Everyone who has been to Vienna, probably, has noticed this hotel, with its flashy front, decorated with masses of gilded plaster, broken and tarnished, and its showy-looking porters in threadbare knee-breeches that show signs of once having been of crimson plush, and gold-laced coats that but too plainly proclaim the second-hand wardrobe dealer’s shop. It is mostly very noisy from within, especially in the small hours of the morning.