Rowland frowned into the darkness outside. Tanya! He would have given much if Tanya Korasov hadn't come along just at that moment. Women were strange creatures. He had fallen immeasurably in Tanya's eyes, the only ones at Nemi that mattered. He hadn't really wanted to kiss Zoya Rochal. It was merely that her lips were there to take--and he had taken them. He seemed quite sure that Madame Rochal had not been displeased.... And tomorrow he must still play the game.
The clock in the hallway struck the half hour. Half-past twelve. Rowland bent over and took off his shoes and then moved stealthily to the window where he stood behind the curtain peering out into the obscurity of the garden. There was no lantern upon the mound and no dark figure watching by the Tree as there had been last night. Sure that no one was watching outside, he stuck his head and shoulders out of the window and looked around. All the lights were out. He had at first thought of descending from the window which was less hazardous than passing down the corridor and stairs, but remembered that last night after Tanya's warning he had assured himself that there was no means of entrance to his room by the window. The wall below was quite bare of vines or projections and at least thirty feet high. There was nothing for it but to go by the corridor.
And so with infinite pains to make no sound he slowly moved the bolt of the door until it was drawn entirely back and then waited listening. Silence. He turned the knob cautiously and opened the door. So far so well. After another moment of listening he took up his shoes and on tip-toe went noiselessly down the hallway. The house was as silent as the tomb. If the other members of the Council had any suspicion of one another or of him they gave no sign of it. The house indeed was too quiet--a snore from the door of Monsieur Khodkine would have comforted him.
At the top of the stairway he paused. There was one step that creaked, the tenth from the bottom, he had counted it as he came up tonight. The tenth from the bottom and there were thirty-three in all. The twenty-third then.... He went down carefully until he had counted twenty-two and then with a hand on the balustrade stepped over what he thought would be the offending stair upon the twenty-fourth--when a loud crash seemed to resound from one end of the echoing house to the other. Idiot! Twenty-four of course! He had not counted the top step.
To his own ears, used to the silence of the house, the noise seemed loud enough to have awakened the dead Ivanitch, and he stood listening for a long minute, awaiting the shuffling of feet or the sounds of opening doors above. But nothing happened. The Councilors of Nemi still slept. Rowland grinned. "Fool's luck," he muttered to himself and carefully opening the door into the garden, went out, stealing along the shrubbery past the kitchen, and in a moment had reached the security of the trees. There he stopped to put on his shoes and repeat to himself the numbers of the combination. "72 23 7. Gauche Droite Gauche." Or was it Droite Gauche Droite? The numbers were right--but the direction---- This was no time to be uncertain in such a matter. That Boche bombing party must have done something queer to his head. No. It was Droite, Gauche, Droite--he was sure. Tanya would confirm that perhaps.
He found her in the shadow of the designated trees where she had preceded him by some moments. She wore her cowl and robe from beneath the folds of which she brought forth a revolver which she handed to him.
"You have read my mind, Mademoiselle," he whispered joyfully, "it was this that I wanted the most."
"You heard nothing?"
"No. But one of the steps creaked abominably. And you--have you been here long?"
"No. I came down the back stairs." And then, turning into the shrubbery beside them with no more ado, "Follow me, Monsieur," she said.