General Harbord listened to the gasped-out story with a face of granite, and called his chief of staff.
“Have we time to stop the attack?” he asked.
“Impossible, sir,” said the chief. “There is just a minute and a half. We should only disorganize it.”
So they sat and waited—through a minute which seemed like an hour—and then the reports came pouring in—of the massed machine-gun fire which had greeted the attack at the very outset, of the rifles waiting in the woods; oh, yes, our men had gone on, but the casualties were very heavy, especially among the officers—yes, Colonel Catlin too. The Germans had seemed to know the very minute to expect them....
There was a brief trial, late that night, and a swift conviction. The accused had denied nothing, admitted nothing—merely shrugging his shoulders as he listened to Selden’s story and realized the game was up—asking only that he might write a letter to his wife; and at dawn a firing-squad had ended the affair.
Selden had, of course, not seen the letter, but it shocked him now to think that the woman to whom the man wrote that night was the lovely being who had summoned him to a rendezvous. He had made no inquiries—indeed, had sought to drop the whole sordid incident out of his consciousness. But now he began to wonder who the man really was. How had he managed to win this gorgeous woman? What had he said in the letter?
The censor, of course, would permit him to say little except good-bye; certainly he would not permit him to mention Selden’s name, or even to refer to him indirectly. Most probably the letter had never been sent at all—had been simply turned over to the intelligence department. But, in that case, how had she known? In any case, how had she known?
The thought brought him bolt upright. It would have been wiser to keep that strange trio under observation. He had been wrong to yield to the feeling that he was in the way. That the baron had come to Monte Carlo merely to pay his respects and introduce the prince Selden did not for an instant believe—and what place better than an opera box for a discreet talk? Decidedly he should have gone along!
Perhaps it was not yet too late. He glanced at his watch—yes, eleven forty-five—the opera was over. But there remained Ciro’s and the Sporting Club....
In another instant, he was kicking off his slippers and reaching for his shoes.