Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie [48]
The Elite Corps made once more a double lane where somebody was expected to make an entrance. It was not the old Empress this time. She sat on her dais awaiting whoever was coming.
And at last he came. The music changed as he came. It gave out that motif which by now Stafford Nye had got by heart. The melody of the Young Siegfried. Siegfried’s horn call, rising up in its youth and its triumph, its mastery of a new world which the young Siegfried came to conquer.
Through the doorway, marching up between the lines of what were clearly his followers, came one of the handsomest young men Stafford Nye had ever seen. Golden-haired, blue-eyed, perfectly proportioned, conjured up as it were by the wave of a magician’s wand, he came forth out of the world of myth. Myth, heroes, resurrection, rebirth, it was all there. His beauty, his strength, his incredible assurance and arrogance.
He strode through the double lines of his bodyguard, until he stood before the hideous mountain of womanhood that sat there on her throne; he knelt on one knee, raised her hand to his lips, and then rising to his feet, he threw up one arm in salutation and uttered the cry that Stafford Nye had heard from the others. ‘Heil!’ His German was not very clear, but Stafford Nye thought he distinguished the syllables ‘Heil to the great mother!’
Then the handsome young hero looked from one side to the other. There was some faint recognition, though an uninterested one, of Renata, but when his gaze turned to Stafford Nye, there was definite interest and appraisal. Caution, thought Stafford Nye. Caution! He must play his part right now. Play the part that was expected of him. Only–what the hell was that part? What was he doing here? What were he or the girl supposed to be doing here? Why had they come?
The hero spoke.
‘So,’ he said, ‘we have guests!’ And he added, smiling with the arrogance of a young man who knows that he is vastly superior to any other person in the world. ‘Welcome, guests, welcome to you both.’
Somewhere in the depths of the Schloss a great bell began tolling. It had no funereal sound about it, but it had a disciplinary air. The feeling of a monastery summoned to some holy office.
‘We must sleep now,’ said old Charlotte. ‘Sleep. We will meet again tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock.’
She looked towards Renata and Sir Stafford Nye.
‘You will be shown to your rooms. I hope you will sleep well.’
It was the Royal dismissal.
Stafford Nye saw Renata’s arm fly up in the Fascist salute, but it was addressed not to Charlotte, but to the golden-haired boy. He thought she said: ‘Heil Franz Joseph.’ He copied her gesture and he, too, said ‘Heil!’
Charlotte spoke to them.
‘Would it please you tomorrow morning to start the day with a ride through the forest?’
‘I should like it of all things,’ said Stafford Nye.
‘And you, child?’
‘Yes, I too.’
‘Very good then. It shall be arranged. Good night to you both. I am glad to welcome you here. Franz Joseph–give me your arm. We will go into the Chinese Boudoir. We have much to discuss, and you will have to leave in good time tomorrow morning.’
The menservants escorted Renata and Stafford Nye to their apartments. Nye hesitated for a moment on the threshold. Would it be possible for them to have a word or two now? He decided against it. As long as the castle walls surrounded them it was well to be careful. One never knew–each room might be wired with microphones.
Sooner or later, though, he had to ask questions. Certain things aroused a new and sinister apprehension in his mind. He was being persuaded, inveigled into something. But what? And whose doing was it?
The bedrooms were handsome, yet oppressive. The rich hangings of satin and velvets, some of them antique, gave out a faint perfume of decay, tempered by spices. He wondered how often Renata had stayed here before.
Chapter 11
The Young And The Lovely
After breakfasting on the following morning in a small breakfast-room downstairs, he