Looking across the room Trent saw two long French windows lighting it. One was open. Instead of the balcony upon which the intruder assumed these windows opened, they led into a large courtyard some eighty feet long and forty feet wide. He did not understand how it was this great open space should have its being in the middle of the castle. There seemed no reason why it existed in a building of this sort. He was to find later that its origin was accidental. What was now a paved and open courtyard had been the magazine of the castle during the Turkish occupation of Croatia. The castle itself had never given in to the Ottoman conqueror. It had been shelled in the Reformation uprising in 1607 and a ball shot had exploded the ammunition. The chamber had never been rebuilt but a century later was turned into a pleasant garden.
Trent stepped through the open window and down three steps into the courtyard. It was plainly much used. There were lounges and chairs and tables. Pausing at one of them he saw London and New York papers which he had brought up from Fiume earlier in the week. There were French novels and bon-bons and a feather fan. Evidently the prince was not without his feminine companionship. In one of these big chairs Trent sat down and looked about him. The room from which he had come faced due east. To the north and south were plain solid walls without windows. Only to the West at the other end of the space could he see that the walls were pierced with French windows. As he looked these were suddenly illuminated. He made no motion. He felt reasonably certain that he was in such a position as to be unobserved.
But he grew less calm when the count's unmistakable figure passed up and down before the two windows and finally opening one stepped out into the courtyard. Behind him came Hentzi who should have been in bed long ago. The two passed so close he could have touched them. They were speaking rapidly and in what he supposed must be the Croatian tongue. Twice he heard his name mentioned. The count always called him by the assumed name of Alfred pronouncing it "Arlfrit."
It was not pleasant hearing. They might be, for all he knew, discussing his already discovered absence from his room. It was true he had bolted the door but someone from the outside might have detected the dark-clad climber making his unlawful ascent. Already a search might be in progress which would eventually claim him as the third failure. Count Michæl was often so excited about trivial things that the listener was not able to guess whether his present mood was the outcome of some small irritation or of something far more sinister. There recurred frequently the name of Pauline and once or twice the count pointed to the windows where slept the man whom his people had mourned as dead.
There was one moment of dreadful anticipation for the American. He noticed that Hentzi was permitting himself to argue with his master. Suddenly as the twain passed by Trent's refuge the count buffetted his secretary on the head. It was Count Michæl's favorite expression of annoyance. Trent himself had suffered thus on the golf links. Hentzi ducked in time to receive merely a glancing blow but he gripped the arm of Trent's chair to steady himself. If he had taken his eyes off the count's still upraised hand he could not have failed to see the intruder.
For a full half hour Anthony Trent sat quiet. Then the count and Hentzi left him alone. Now that immediate risk of detection seemed past Trent assured himself that his evening had been well spent. Undoubtedly Count Michæl's rooms, the rooms he wanted to investigate—were those through whose windows the two had come and gone. He memorized as well as he could the position in the corridors the doors would occupy. The discovery of this courtyard three floors in depth helped him to understand what had baffled him in his explorations of the corridors many of which came to abrupt meaningless ends. In other days they had continued across the space that had once been arsenal, magazine and strong room.
He made his way through the open window and past the sleeping men without mishap. In the corner of a panel in the armoire he bored two small holes and blew away the dust that fell from them. He descended the copper pipe prepared to find his room invaded by vengeful servants. But it was as he had left it. It was not for his arrest that the count had dragged Arlfrit into his conversation.