The Four Hundred Page 3

  A cough, suddenly so near, so loud, went directly to Austin's heart before he allowed his eyes to register the intruder.

  Austin's arms hung over either side of the bath, his head was back and the cigar in his mouth would certainly have fallen had his confidence not been restored by what his hand now found. Old habits, even in sophisticated environments, die hard.

  The servant saw what was in fact a Smith & Wesson .32 rimfire pistol appear from behind the enamel bath and believed in that instant all he had heard about the wild continent of America. He thrust a cable at the man in the bath as if his life depended upon it. Austin took the paper. The servant clicked his heels in a rising motion, spun round and was gone before Austin had time to begin reading.

  Too young for the Civil War, Austin had awaited his brother's return to New York and, together with George, had become a willing pupil in the art of making money. They had explored every illegitimate postwar avenue they encountered. Eventually, experience had given them influence, and natural intelligence had provided increasing success. Silver dollars, "green-issue bucks," bonds and bills had become their business. The two brothers had exploited to the full discovered "situations," as they called each potential hit. With various partners, utilizing what was stolen or forged, they had found ways to turn paper into dollars and cents, which they spent in a style to which they became accustomed. The few friends they had made remained loyal. The few men they had bought gave service proportionate to payment. They had accumulated if not substantial, then adequate funds for whatever enterprise they might decide upon next. As did many amongst their associates and friends, they dined at Delmonico's, were seen in many a theater lobby and seldom missed a charity or public occasion of the sort designed for the elite but, unbeknownst to most, attended only by the inconsequential. Life in New York had become, if not wealthy, pleasant. Then George had gone south to Norfolk, Virginia, with some scheme, whose details Austin had discovered much later as he sat looking at George through chicken wire stretched across iron bars. It was the nearest Austin had come to being "inside." His occasional nights, in the past, in the care of "New York's finest" were no comparison to the degradation and appalling conditions that George continued to endure. George was more miserable to have been caught than self-pitying at his surroundings. He was certainly resilient enough to want escape at the earliest opportunity—one that Austin immediately began to arrange. Then, on a tip-off by the very prison guard who was to ensure George's "release," Austin had found himself—not, as he bad declared himself to be, a relative, but as a suspected associate of the prisoner's—a hunted man. Once he was back in New York, Chief of Detectives Irving, many times a guest at "their" table at Delmonico's, having heard of George's entrapment, had pointed Austin east. So to Europe he had gone, and there he remained.

  Irving, months later, had informed Austin, via an agreed-on poste restante, that the pressure was off. In his own time, it was suggested, Austin, who was in no rush to repatriate himself, could now return to America assured of protection. Next, word had come from the same source that brother George had escaped from Wheeling Prison; then, in another cable, that he had been caught again; and yet a third message had conveyed to Austin the joyous information that Irving had met brother George at the New York harborside alive, well and traveling east.

  The cable now in Austin's hand was the second to have arrived that same day: the first, Irving's last; this, was also from America but directly from George. The words written in New York clearly set forth a rendezvous—in England.

  Austin pulled the plug deftly with the chain around his toe; water began to gurgle away. As he stepped from the bath, he began making plans.

  §

  The city of Wiesbaden was the chief town of one of the numerous petty principalities scattered over the face of Europe at this time. Since Roman days the town had been famous for its hot springs, consequently its hot baths. Thus a good many people came to take the waters, hoping to benefit from the reputedly marvelous cure.

  The daily routine of these throngs began with coffee in bed at eight; then, dressing gowns donned, either private or public baths were enjoyed in the hot mineral waters which were conducted directly to all the hotels.

  Half an hour in the bath for the dedicated, less for those impatient to be up, out and at Society's throat, and no time at all for those who still considered a damp sponge their maximum concession to personal hygiene.

  A light breakfast or the full table du matin, whichever will power dictated, prepared the now fully stimulated subject for the day's offerings. Sashaying along corridors, sweeping down staircases and sallying out of doors, ladies and gentlemen representing all the strata of European societies drank the water, meandered in the parks, listened to the band and saw or were seen.

  At two in the afternoon a quartet played in the Musiksaal, and most of the idlers gathered there to listen and eat lunch. At four o'clock the Northern European version of siesta began; liaisons of the night, passing the scrutiny of daylight and encouraged by the chilled Hochheimer, retired to conjoin on soft quilts in large bedrooms. At seven P.M. was the ponderous table d'hote dinner. At nine everyone flocked to the Casino, and the game, for which the entire day had been preparation, began.

  §

  The wheel was spinning as Austin reached a large roulette table in the center of the huge, ornate room. He joined the group around the green baize as the click-click of the ball on the number ridges brought several of them to their feet. The silence of the final moment after the ball dropped into place could have been broken by a pin falling onto velvet. Zero. Only one chip in the right place. But there were two winners. The young Prussian officer contained his jubilation in an undisguised look of great affection across the table. Austin saw the Countess once again. Her profile seemed molded out of porcelain; only her eyes glittered. As his winnings were thrust at the young officer, she smiled.

  A hand barely touched the shoulder of this lovely woman, but it was enough to take away all joy. Austin saw her face—beautiful still, but now dead. He looked at the man behind her—the other winner. In old-fashioned spectacles and a seedy coat, "the man of ice," Francois Blanc looked more like a country advocate than the head of a great gambling establishment.

  Vast as his ambition and achievements were, he was a man of the simplest tastes. Impervious to flattery, he was a hard-headed, silent man who kept a lavish table yet ate sparingly himself. He had a superb wine cellar yet was content to sip only mineral water. And he never gambled.

  Blanc had only two passions. The first: money; accumulated from the "butterflies of society" who "scorched their wings in the flame of his casino"; its power interested him. His second passion, he adored. As he pulled back her chair and the lovely woman stood up before him, it was obvious he possessed and was possessed by her: the Countess, his wife.

  Austin watched the Countess and her husband part, with barely a nod between them. Blanc toward the conservatory, the Countess toward the stairway.

  Immediately, the young Prussian—with good sense, thought Austin—stood up, gathered his chips and began to cross toward the Caisse, presumably to cash his winnings. Austin hoped that Blanc was now alone. What he was about to do might well prove difficult; but quite simply, Austin needed the money.

  §

  With intense displeasure, Francois Blanc replaced the cutlery on his plate beside a piece of cold chicken and watched Austin Byron Bidwell close the conservatory door, turn and smile.

  "Monsieur..." began Austin. Blanc wiped his mouth with the starched napkin, fixed Austin with a piercing look and interrupted.

  "It is Count."

  The gaze intensified; Austin swallowed. Blanc stared at him a moment longer, then dispensed with Austin as one might an unwanted thought. He began to eat once more. Austin—in brocade waistcoat and with a silk square in his top pocket, in contrast to Blanc's somber appearance—suddenly felt awkward.

  "The bill of exchange," said Austin. He had introduced the idea to Blanc the d
ay before; this was merely a reminder.

  The Count looked up. When he spoke, it was decisively. "I will accept it at seventy per cent."

  Austin's immediate indignation was obvious, but ignored by Blanc, who merely awaited his reply.

  A bill of exchange was a convenient way of carrying money. Less interest paid to the issuing bank and a further commission to the purchaser, it provided, during an agreed-upon time period, substantial funds in a form acceptable internationally. But for Blanc to ask thirty per cent to cash Austin's bill was outrageous.

  "It is a week's bank holiday we have here in Wiesbaden," said Blanc smoothly, "and, as no doubt you are aware, only my Casino carries such a sum as is in question."

  Austin thought of his two-thousand-dollar bill of exchange and knew he had no choice.

  "After my dinner," said the Count. Austin was dismissed.

  "Wait for me outside," finished Blanc. Austin went.

  Francois Blanc grimaced as he felt a pain in his chest and then unhurriedly belched—loudly.

  §

  Two pairs of hands pushed with equal passion at the top of tight breeches that stubbornly refused to give way. From the sides, panting with exertion, the young Prussian officer prised the cloth inch by inch from his skin; from behind, with less patience, two female hands pushed with a strength that during lovemaking comes from only one source.

  Legs up, frills everywhere, her bodice undone, the Countess lay on the floor feeling the young flesh of the Prussian officer as bosom, stomach and bare limbs gratefully accepted all his grasping caresses. Groin, to groin, mouth to mouth, on the carpet against the chaise-longue from which they'd fallen, oblivious of any world but that of passion, the two young people began to enjoy the primal exchange granted to male and female.

  Had Countess Elizabeth known at that moment the immediate consequences of her actions, it must be assumed she would never have begun, or at least not continued; but as the breeches finally slipped completely off the smooth backside of the young Prussian, with a stifled scream of delicious pleasure, Elizabeth surrendered to the manhood pressed between her thighs.

  §

  Francois Blanc was quite a tall man, thought Austin, and extremely thin, but as Blanc stopped on the stairway to catch his breath, Austin remarked to himself on the man's unhealthy pallor. Below them they could see chandeliers which hung over each roulette wheel. For a moment, the expression Austin had heard proved correct; the people swirling about the tables did look exactly like moths around a flame. Recovered, Blanc quickened his pace, and the two men walked rapidly down the corridor to the large door at the end.

  §

  Her approaching orgasm forced the young Countess to take gasps of air between moans of ecstasy that were as rhythmic as were the thrusts the young Prussian made with the same expertise he had applied to mastering an altogether different sword—one that he would never, unfortunately, use again.

  The door opened, and Francois Blanc stepped into the last chapter of two lives. Austin watched in astonishment. Blanc actually managed to close the door behind him. The key to the chest Blanc had been bound for was still in one hand as his fury began. Austin was mesmerized with the fascination of a blameless witness. The Countess certainly said, "Francois" twice. She called her husband's name once in question, as she tried to fathom from the deep waters of sexuality the image she saw as she surfaced; the second time, it was an exclamation at the action her husband had taken. Austin saw the young Prussian try vainly to extricate himself, but he was caught in several places, buttons to frills.

  As Blanc raised the heavy chair in an astonishingly sweeping movement with the strength of rage, Austin watched the Countess break free and, legs apart, crablike, manage to push herself just beyond the head and shoulders of her young lover. The strangulated roar from Blanc was lost as a scream from the Countess and a shout from the Prussian fused into breaking bone and sinew. Definitely dead, was all Austin could think—and of course, the young Prussian was, in that moment and the few twitching seconds that followed, deprived of life.

  Francois Blanc stood breathing heavily for several moments, then suddenly threw back his head and chest and began to stagger. His color changed from white to puce. Clawing at his heart as if to grasp it, Francois Blanc sank onto his knees; then, as spasms wracked his body, collapsed to the floor, convulsing twice until a dry, choking sound faded from his throat and blood-flecked bubbles popped and dribbled from his half-open mouth. Definitely dead.

  Austin stood like a rabbit in a corner after two threatening cobras have miraculously vanished—disbelieving. Only his eyes moved, and they saw everything. The key on the floor; the Countess; the chest in the corner; the Countess Elizabeth; the young Prussian with the matted, bloody blond hair; the beautiful young Countess; Francois Blanc twitching still; the white porcelain face, bosom, stomach, thighs of the beautiful young Countess Elizabeth—widow.

  Austin assessed the situation, as did the Countess. He grinned cautiously. She took a moment, then closed her legs; but not, Austin noted, without first the trace of a smile, then tears—tears and laughter.

  For Austin, well, he had never seen so much of a woman before knowing more of her pedigree. No formal introductions.

  "I don't know your name," the Countess had said as Austin took up the key to cross to the chest.

  "Warren . . . Frederick Albert Warren," he had replied with swift invention—after all he had no idea how all this might turn out.

  Unspoken decisions had already been made, both knew. The Countess had managed to dress herself without help, but the Prussian had proved a problem. Thus, again four hands had pulled at the stubborn breeches—this time, although with equal passion, in the reverse direction. The deft movement Elizabeth had made with her hand to tuck in the obvious protrusion had given Austin (made all too aware, by immediate events, of his own mortal coil) pause.

  He made adjustments to the scene. The open and empty chest was the obvious reward—the objective of an intruder. The young man, an unfortunate victim. The great Francois Blanc, a sad but natural loss. His successors had buried him so quickly, the joke became that Blanc's demise had been effected with more speed than his birth. Nobody had liked him, and everyone soon forgot him

  The long corridor to the other door at the top of the stairway overlooking the Casino had been hard on their nerves, but Austin and the Countess had made it—unobserved. By carriage with clothes and trunks thirty miles to a different town, its station and a train Austin and Elizabeth managed with the ease two parties achieve who are equally committed to the same course. Partners of a sort.

  A whistle blew loud and long, startling Austin, who had settled among the furs, blankets and hastily stowed trunks in the first-class compartment with Elizabeth. She put her head on his shoulder, tears now abated. The train jerked into motion, and as its wheels gathered momentum to take this young couple away in the night, bright eyes exchanged a look of anticipation—the horror of the hours before already fading—to be consumed in a passion altogether more controlled—of declarations made, revealed intentions accepted. They had established a mutual respect. Their preamble to animal abandon had not been weeks of formalized posturing but—Austin smiled—well, rather unusual. The boy from South Brooklyn with the money and the girl. To stop a surge of laughter, he spoke to the soft, glittering eyes staring up at him.

  "In America we have, courtesy of Mr. Pullman, what are known as sleeping cars. Should I get an opening, I would readily invest in such a venture here in Europe."

  All the Countess Elizabeth said was "It would appear to be an idea with excellent prospects."

  At which Austin pulled down the window blind and the train thundered out of the town into the dark night.

  Mac

  FEBRUARY 27, set apart as the National Thanksgiving for the recovery of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, was not only a national holiday but a brilliant and successful occasion. The celebration was at first intended as little more than a private service; it be
came the grandest outburst of unanimous popular emotion witnessed in England since the age of the Tudors. The deep sympathy of the nation during the painful, terrible days of the Prince of Wales's illness was acknowledged by the Queen, Victoria: "The remembrance of this day and of the remarkable order maintained throughout will forever be affectionately in our heart. Words are too weak to say how very deeply touched and gratified we have been by the immense enthusiasm and affection exhibited towards our dear son and ourself from the highest down to the lowest, on the long progress through the capital, and we would earnestly wish to convey our warmest and most heartfelt thanks to the whole nation for this great demonstration of loyalty."

  The day dawned with weather that was all that could be desired. The crowds in the streets were denser than ever before, and the decorations along the royal route such as had never before been seen in London. Individual householders, each of the many guilds and every local council vied with the others in doing honor to the great event, more especially in the city proper; the spectacle, looking eastward from Temple Bar, was never to be forgotten by those who witnessed it.

  Soon after twelve o'clock, the band in the inner court of Buckingham Palace struck up "God Save the Queen." At the same instant, the Speaker's coach was driven out to the semicircle in front of the Palace and placed in position to head the procession. The carriage of the Lord Chancellor followed, and in a few minutes the order to proceed was given. As the first of the royal carriages emerged from the central gate, the center window of the state room over the portico was opened. The exiled Emperor Napoleon III of France and his wife, the Empress Eugenie, stepped out onto the balcony.

  When the carriage conveying the Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales came out from the courtyard, the Emperor took off his hat; then both he and the Empress bowed, more than once, to her Majesty and Their Royal Highnesses. As the procession reached the Mall, the masses on either side of the line raised a cheer, which was instantly taken up by those who as yet could not get even a distant glimpse of the Queen or Prince. The cheering strengthened until an incessant roar from the vast gatherings, with cries of "God bless the Queen" and "God bless the Prince of Wales," enveloped the procession in a balm of loving emotion, stirring pride in every heart at being one and part of the greatest nation on earth. Turning from the Mall out to the front of St. James's Palace, the procession followed a route prescribed along Pall Mall and the Strand, through Temple Bar, to end at St. Paul's Cathedral.