Heathersleigh Homecoming (38 page)

 75 
North From Paris

Leaving Ramsay's room, Amanda hurried down the hall, then quickly up the stairway.

She walked straight to her room and began hurriedly changing clothes. The next phase of her plan required an altogether different fashion statement, one which she hoped would draw far fewer eyes than had Mademoiselle Très Chic.

She had made arrangements to keep some of her things at the hotel until she returned. She had already left them at the desk. She needed to travel as lightly as possible. She was ready to go and would await Barclay on the street outside the station, watch and listen to find out where he was going, and make use of Gertrut Oswald's passport one last time to follow him.

She left her room and started toward the lobby.

Halfway down the first flight of stairs, suddenly she heard the voices of the three coming up from the ground floor.

“ . . . all goes well . . . see you in the north . . . or perhaps Vienna. . . .” It was Barclay's voice.

“ . . . may need to use the lighthouse myself,” said Ramsay, “ . . . how it develops.”

“I'm off, then,” said Barclay, “ . . . train to Brussels . . . thirty-five minutes.”

The next thing she heard, two sets of feet began to ascend the stairs along with Ramsay's and Sadie's voices. Amanda slunk back out of sight on the landing of the fourth floor. Closer and closer came the voices, then turned off the landing at the third floor. The instant they were down the hall toward their room, Amanda flew down the rest of the way. There was not a second to waste. She couldn't lose Barclay now.

She exited onto the street just in time to see him disappearing in a cab in the direction of the station. She hailed another and was soon on her way after him.

She reached the station less than a minute behind the white-haired Englishman and hurried inside. The sights and sounds and bustle of the station reminded her of the terror of the Vienna station when she had just barely escaped his clutches. Now the tables were turned—she was following
him
. And she wouldn't be so easily recognizable now!

She glanced quickly at the schedule board.

There it was—Brussels, nine-thirteen.

Where was Barclay? She'd lost him!

Frantically she looked all about. There he was, stopped briefly at a kiosk. Perfect—she would board the train ahead of him! He would suspect nothing.

Amanda ran for the ticket window.

 76 
Ramsay's Fury

Notwithstanding that they too would be parting in another couple of hours, Ramsay and Adriane entered their suite leisurely and in bright spirits.

Ramsay took off his coat, tossed it over a chair, sat down on the couch, and opened the newspaper he had brought up from the lobby. He did not notice anything amiss until twenty or thirty minutes later as he began thinking about his own preparations to leave.

Chatting with Adriane, he walked to his bureau to gather up his personal things. There, on top of his own wallet, sat a very strange, yet somehow familiar-looking, red beret. He looked at it, momentarily confused. Beside it, neatly folded, was a silk chartreuse scarf.

“Darling, this isn't
yours
 . . . ?” he began with a bewildered expression, reaching out and picking up the beret. “I'm sure I've seen it, but don't recall—”

Suddenly he stopped. What was that paper beneath it . . . that oddly familiar handwriting!

“What the—” he exclaimed, throwing down the beret and grabbing up the single sheet of hotel stationery with the sinking feeling of having been duped.

Just a couple of little items to remember me by, Ramsay dear, he read. I won't be needing them again now that they have served their purpose. At first I thought you recognized me, but the more I saw of you these last few days, the more I realized you had eyes only for another. Under the circumstances, I didn't think you'd mind giving me a little money, especially in that it does not appear that providing for me is high among your concerns of the moment. Call it a sharing of assets between husband and wife. Give Adriane my regards, but don't try to follow me. You couldn't find me in Milan, and you won't find me in Paris.

Even before he was finished, her name was again on his lips with nearly as much venom as it had been in Vienna.

Amanda!
he shouted angrily as he now rifled through his things.

“My money!” he cried. “The minx has stolen every franc I had . . . and my passport is with them!”

“You can't mean she was actually in our room,” said Adriane. “How could she have gotten in?”

Ramsay shook his head, spinning about in a rage, tearing through every drawer in the bureau.

“Must have been when we were at breakfast,” he said, gradually calming. “I can't tell . . . she may have taken more too. I had some papers. . . .”

Even in the midst of his search, he felt almost a begrudging admiration for Amanda's spunk.

“How did you do it, you shrew?” he said half to himself, sitting back down to take stock of the suddenly changed situation. “Barclay may have misjudged you, Amanda my dear. But I never did. Maybe I knew you had it in you all along.”

A thin smile broke across his lips, and he added silently to himself, “It's too bad, Amanda. We might have had something together, you and me, if it wasn't for your blasted English morality. Unfortunately, it's too late for you now. You have gone too far this time . . . and now I shall have to kill you.”

“Where do you think she is?” asked Adriane. “Maybe she's still in the hotel.”

“Oh no, she's gone by now,” said Ramsay, the momentary smile disappearing from his face. “If I know Amanda, she is long gone.”

“Where, then?”

“On her way to England, no doubt. But I'll be on the ship from Cherbourg this afternoon. Of course, she'll expect that, and you can bet I won't see
her
on board.”

“What about your passport?”

Ramsay smiled and pulled back his coat to reach inside its vest pocket.

“Fortunately,” he said, “I have duplicates.”

He paused and grew pensive. “I don't know where she is at this moment,” he said. “But one thing is for certain. She'll be back in London before the week's out. And that's where I will get my hands on her again. She may be feeling herself very clever after this little
game with the scarf and the hat, prancing about under my nose. But she won't outsmart me again.”

 77 
Spy vs. Spy

Hartwell Barclay sat in the northbound train toward Brussels.

Most travel in the war zone had been curtailed, though his Austrian passport and high connections made the transfer out of France into German-occupied Belgium easy enough.

A stooped woman dressed in black from head to foot with a black scarf around her neck shuffled down the aisle with a limp and brushed rudely past him, knocking his elbow from its armrest.

“Watch yourself, old woman,” he said irritably, half glancing toward the figure.

A surly grunt of response sounded. She continued on and sat down two seats behind him.

Paying her little heed, his thoughts returned to the approaching journey which had become necessary across the Channel. He didn't like this business of returning to the land of his birth. Too many thoughts and reminders of the past filled him. In his deepest heart he was a man haunted by a host of private fears. He was able to exude confidence and impose his will on others when in comfortable surroundings of his own choosing, and when bolstered by the presence of his loyal subjects. But if challenged man to man in the absence of such, he might wilt like a schoolboy threatened by the class bully. Though he did his best to hide it, he was actually a timid man hounded by guilt for a past he could not face even in the privacy of his innermost heart. That guilt had in no way been assuaged by the betrayal of his native homeland, and he was not especially anxious to set foot on its soil again. He had at one time been a man of relatively high profile and could not help being nervous that he might be in more jeopardy than he realized.

The train had filled as they neared Brussels. Gradually the seating grew crowded. Barclay did his best to keep to himself but found the press of disgusting and smelly human flesh repulsive.

Behind him a loudmouthed Belgian, who had apparently had too much to drink before boarding, was attempting to strike up a conversation with his neighbor, who was not inclined in the least to engage with him in dialog.

“What's your problem, old woman? Cat got your tongue, or are you deaf!” he said after she had said nothing in response to a string of loud questions and attempted off-color anecdotes. “Can't you see I'm talking to you?”

The woman continued not to reply, trying yet again to turn away, an attempt made difficult by the fact that they were seated beside each other, and she had only the window on her other side to keep her company.

“What's the matter,” he said, “am I not good enough for the likes of you?”

His attempts grew louder and louder, gradually filling the entire coach. Unconsciously Barclay turned around and looked to see what sort of fool was causing the ruckus. His gaze, however, was diverted toward the old woman in black who was the object of the drunken man's abuse. Though he could only see one side of it, for she was facing the window, her aspect and complexion seemed remarkably youthful for a woman who otherwise appeared sixty or more. Not only that, though he couldn't quite place it, there was an uncannily familiar—

“Brussels, five minutes!” called out the conductor, coming through the coach. “Next stop . . . Brussels.”

Barclay turned back around at the sound. The train immediately began to slow. Now commotion filled the coach as bustling passengers began gathering up suitcases and bags, parcels and umbrellas, and putting on coats. One by one they stood and some began moving toward the doors. Whatever became of the loud man's further efforts with his unfriendly neighbor, they were drowned out in the hubbub occasioned by their arrival in the station.

Barclay himself stood as the passengers made their way down the aisles to exit the train. Once the coach was mostly empty, he eased into the aisle, glancing around for one last look at the curious old woman. She still sat unmoving, her face turned away. He stared at her another moment or two. As he did his gaze narrowed slightly and he took a step toward her, his brain trying to place what it was about her that seemed to draw his eyes.

All at once the bothersome man who had been beside her came lumbering up the aisle, bumped straight into him as he proceeded toward the exit, nearly knocking Barclay off his feet.

“Get going, man!” he shouted, his foul drunken breath nearly causing Barclay to swoon. “Didn't you hear the conductor? We're in the station. Get moving . . . you're in my way.”

Barclay stepped aside, let the belligerent fellow by, then followed him out and into the station.

Behind him, a minute or two later, the silent old woman in black slowly stepped out of the train, glanced about cautiously, then ambled off after Barclay's retreating form.