Much relieved by this reasonable attitude, Zoe went downstairs again, found the official in charge of the treasure, obtained all possible assurances from him, and returned to Eirene, who had opened the jewel-case, and with reluctant fingers was rearranging its more obvious contents—the trinkets which, as she had told the French lady, had belonged to her mother—in their proper places.
“Take it quickly, before I change my mind,” she said, locking it hastily.
CHAPTER VI.
A TRAP.
The week’s stay at the Han was drawing to a close. Twice the train from “Europe” had deposited its passengers at the station, and they had been sent on by road, as those of the wrecked train had been, to rejoin the line on the other side of the river. Gangs of navvies were at work on the repairs to the bridge, and the passage of construction-trains kept the station staff busy. Maurice and Wylie had extricated as much as possible of their possessions and those of the girls from the pile of damaged and partially plundered luggage (for the navvies had enjoyed first choice) rescued from among the débris, and the village carpenter found himself overworked, or so he asserted, with orders for making new boxes and repairing others. The party at the inn had been increased by the addition of Haji Ahmad, a trusted Roumi servant of Wylie’s friend Captain Palmer, who had been sent to make himself generally useful, which he did. Poor Mrs Smith had been buried in the neglected churchyard, a ragged and dirty priest hurrying through a service which seemed little more intelligible to himself than to the three English who listened, and displaying an indecent keenness as to the fees due to him.
“Eirene,” said Zoe, on the fifth day of their stay, “Maurice wanted me to ask you what you would like put on the tombstone. He has found a man who can carve letters, and he would like to make sure that it is properly done before we leave.”
“‘Evdotia Vladimirovna’—nothing else,” replied Eirene, after a moment’s reflection. “Some day I shall build a memorial church here, to commemorate her fidelity, but it is not the time for that yet.”
Zoe wondered silently whether the poor lady might not have preferred a peaceful life to this honoured death, and Eirene caught her look. “You know that she was not really my aunt?” she said doubtfully.
“I have thought it might be so,” returned Zoe.
“She was my mother’s—companion,” said Eirene, hesitating over the word, “and then she was one of my governesses. I was obliged to tell her what I meant to do, and she could not let me come alone. I said I should go without her, but of course I could not have done it. I knew she would come sooner than that. And I told her what to do, and she really tried to do it. You don’t know how cunningly I laid my plans!” with sudden enthusiasm. “I made use of my father’s steward to take passages to America for us from Havre, and get American passports for us as Mrs Silas Lapham and Miss Philadelphia Lapham, and to transfer money in that name to a bank in New York. He is a Jew, and I knew that however heavily I bribed him to silence, he would betray me if he found himself in danger, so I let him think he was wholly in my confidence, and yet I never trusted him at all. Through an English merchant with whom my father had dealings, I got these English passports, and then all was clear. We had been staying at a French watering-place, and we left it in our proper characters and embarked on the Nord Express. Our maids went on unsuspiciously with the luggage to—where we used to live, but Evdotia Vladimirovna and I had left the train at the first stopping-place and returned to Paris. A duplicate set of luggage was sent through to Havre in the name of Lapham, to make further confusion, while we, with entirely different luggage, took tickets for the Orient Express as Mrs and Miss Smith. I knew that if Levinssohn betrayed us, he could only direct pursuit to Havre, where the false luggage would be stopped; but it would be some days before they would suspect we were not coming that way at all, and by that time our traces in Paris would be lost. I was foolish in being so frightened at Vindobona, for it was most unlikely that my precautions should have failed, but it was terrible to think that after such a bold stroke I might be dragged back.”
“Well, I only hope you had a good reason for it all,” was Zoe’s unsympathetic rejoinder. Eirene looked offended.