VII
THE ONLY KOLDO
Three hours after his pole-vault, Mr. Alexander H. Pike, wearing a dinner-jacket newly ironed by his man-slave, and with a soft hat crushed jauntily down over the right ear, was pacing back and forth in the main corridor of the Hotel de l'Europe waiting for the dread summons to the table d'hote.
He had to admit to himself that his nerves seemed to be about as taut as piano wires. He told himself that possibly he was "up against it," and yet he had stood on the brink of disaster so often during his college career without acquiring vertigo, that the experience of the afternoon was like a joyous renewal of youth.
He had no set program but he had a feeling that if he was to be questioned he would lie entertainingly.
Of one thing he was certain—it would help his case if he made no attempt to hurry across the frontier. He believed in the wisdom of hunting up the authorities whenever the authorities were hunting for him. For instance, in the prep school, after getting the cow into the chapel, he discovered her there and notified the principal and was the only boy who did not fall under suspicion. To assume a childlike innocence and to bluff magnificently,—these had been the twin rules that had saved him so often and would save him now, unless he should be confronted by the princess or the two guards, in which case—he whistled softly.
Suddenly two men came slamming in at the front door and stalked down the avenue of palms. They seemed to be throbbing with the importance of their errand, as they moved toward a little side office, which was the official lair of the manager.
One of the men was elderly and wizened and the other was a detective. Pike knew it as soon as he glanced at the heavy jowls and the broad face and heard the authoritative footfall. He knew, also, that he was not a bona fide detective, but a municipal detective, who is paid a monthly salary and walks stealthily along side streets in citizen's dress, all the time imagining that the people he meets take him to be a merchant or a lawyer. In this he is mistaken, for he resembles nothing except a municipal detective.
If Mr. Pike had known that the officer who accompanied Popova was the celebrated Koldo, chief of the secret service, no doubt the impulse to retreat to his apartment and get behind the bed canopies would have been stronger. He knew, however, that no detective of analytical methods would expect to find the criminal standing at his elbow, so he followed the two over to the office and calmly wedged himself into the conference.
The great Koldo was agitated as he told his story to the manager, who was a polite and sympathetic importation from Switzerland. Popova stood by and corroborated by nodding.