"You will forgive me for sending for you, will you not? But it will not do for you to move in the dark. Trust no one but me." He took up the papers on the table and handed them to the American. "Now go to your room, and study these papers carefully with my notes upon the margins, for it is according to this that the council must act tomorrow. But see no one else tonight. Tomorrow morning I will come to your room and tell you of my plan to enter the vault."
"I shall do as you suggest, Monsieur. I am very tired. When I read these papers I shall be ready for a good night of sleep."
"That is well. Good night, Monsieur."
"Good night."
In the seclusion of his room, the Leader of Nemi had much to think of. The labyrinth had grown deeper, its mazes more tortuous, but like Theseus he still held to the silken cord which bound him to Tanya Korasov, and having trusted to his own instincts he was now ready to follow blindly where she led him. But it was clear that Tanya had not under-rated the skill and strength of Monsieur Khodkine. He was indeed an adversary worthy of any man's metal. Under his polished veneer, Monsieur Khodkine was made of hardy wood of a fine grain but none the less strong because of that. Though there had been no chance to verify his impressions by a conversation with Tanya, Rowland had decided that Khodkine was working in the interests of Germany for a separate peace with Russia, which would throw all the strength of the German armies upon France, England, Italy and the United States. A mere surmise and based upon the instinct that Tanya was true and a friend of Russia, for which Rowland had fought and was fighting. Without Tanya the whole structure of his intrigue fell to the ground. If he believed that Madame Rochal was an agent of the Provisional Government of Russia, he must also believe that Tanya was plotting against it. And if Madame Rochal were an agent of the Wilhelmstrasse working in the same interests as Monsieur Khodkine, why should the Russian distrust her?
And what was the threat which Khodkine held over Tanya? There seemed no end to the tangle and no course of action but to move softly and await developments. The story of the amount of treasure in the vault below the Tree had opened his eyes. Here, perhaps, was the answer to some of the questions that perplexed him. Politics of the sort that had been disclosed here, would stop at nothing. The times in which he lived made murder a matter of small importance, and what was his own career in France but that of murder highly specialized? Rowland was sure that his own safety now hung upon his continued display of friendship and collaboration in Monsieur Khodkine's plans. And those plans in brief seemed to be nothing less than the looting of the strong-box of Nemi before Madame Rochal or Max Liederman could get at it. And for what Cause? For Germany? Or merely for Grisha Khodkine?
Rowland had no weapons, not even a pocket-knife, and Khodkine carried an automatic in his hip pocket, for Rowland had contrived to brush his arm against it earlier in the evening. The situation was interesting, but hardly to his liking. He longed for a good American Colt revolver, one shot of which, well placed, was worth all the automatics in the world.
But the business before him tonight admitted of no delay nor of any consideration for his own safety. At one o'clock he was to meet Tanya at the lower end of the garden, and with luck, by morning the money and papers in the vault would be well out of harm's way if Tanya could find a place for their safe-keeping. Then, so far as Rowland was concerned, they might dynamite the vault to their heart's content.
"Droite 72 Gauche 23 Droite 7." He had repeated the figures to himself frequently and now continued to do so, taking a new delight in their significance. Twenty-five millions of francs! Five million dollars! They might go far, if properly used, in the interests of the cause he served. Whose money was this? How long had it accumulated? And what the purpose of those who had contributed? Peace? Surely Peace would come most quickly if Germany were defeated. And was he not the President of Nemi--the chosen of the Council to represent all the members of the society, whether socialists, revolutionists, maximalists, minimalists or what not? The way was difficult. So difficult that there was no arbitrament but the sword. The counter revolutionists of Russia should not betray France, and those who led Russia to destruction under the protection of a fine catchword should not succeed in their treachery if it was in his power to prevent.
Reasoning in this way, Phil Rowland lighted another of the cigarettes of the dead Ivanitch while he scanned the documents entrusted to him by Grisha Khodkine and awaited the hour when he should join Tanya Korasov below in the garden. He had no watch but a clock in the hall downstairs announced the hours slowly. At eleven he blew out his candle and sat in a chair by the window; waiting and listening. It was necessary that Monsieur Khodkine should be disarmed. He heard footsteps in the hall outside from time to time and snored discreetly. He had taken the precaution to fasten the bolt of his door and so feared nothing from the hall. Outside in the garden all was quiet. The moon had set--the moon that had shed its inconstant beams upon his own dissimulation and Zoya Rochal's.... Alluring female, that! The essence of all things enchanting, the woman of thirty, a woman with a past.... A component of faint delightful odors.... Women like that had a way of going to a fellow's head. What the deuce had happened to her after Rowland's sudden exit from the stage she had set for him? He smiled as he remembered the results of his rather violent caress. If Tanya hadn't----