I said nothing to John about the velvet gown. I knew that if I did he would keep me awake talking about all its possible ramifications. Besides, it wasn’t any business of mine. We were led down a damp flight of stone steps, and along another corridor into a part of the building where the floors were wood. I was glad of that because stone floors are cold. We were shown into a room with a heavily barred window, the door of iron bound oak. Its dull thud as it closed told the story of its solidity. I went to the window and found that it overlooked a deep ca?on whose opposite wall was sheer and rocky. We could see nothing else except, below us, about two stories down on that side, where the building conformed to the shape of the mountain, a ledge path, with a stone wall along it. I guessed that it might be the path by which we had climbed to this eyrie.
104I was very sleepy, and so was John, so we lay down on the only bed, fully dressed, and the next thing I knew the sun was pouring in the window. We were facing west. I looked at my watch. It had stopped, but from the position of the sun, I guessed it to be, roughly, around five o’clock. It would begin to be dark inside a couple of hours. I lay still for a minute, wondering what had awakened me. Then a heavy door shut with a dull thud. It was in the next room, I decided, and noticed at the same time that the walls must be much thinner than the doors or I could not have heard the sound so plainly.
Then I heard voices. They were too dim to distinguish words, but there was a man’s voice and a woman’s. I tiptoed to the wall, and placed my ear against it but could not distinguish words. In a moment the door to the other room closed again, and I walked away from the wall just in time. The lock rattled, and then our door swung inward on its hinges, creaking rustily. Not used much, I noted, which mattered to us in that it suggested that the Black Ghost was not in the habit of harboring many prisoners. A man entered, carrying a tray of food.
105“We had orders not to bring lunch because it was thought you would be sleeping,” he said in German, “the Herr Fakat Zol trusts that you have not been inconvenienced.”
“And who,” I asked, “may the Herr Fakat Zol be?”
“The Black Ghost,” he answered, “his name is Fakat Zol.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yes, we were sleeping. I only just wakened. My watch has stopped. Would you mind telling me the time?”
“I have not a watch, gn?diger Herr, I cannot tell you exactly,” he answered, “but it should be half past four. It is the afternoon coffee on the tray and the paper from Herrovosca.”
John got off the bed sleepily, and the man left us.
106More from lack of occupation than for any other reason, I opened the paper. Of course I could not read it. In the exact center of the front page was the portrait of a woman. John came over and stared at the paper over my shoulder. I pointed to the name under the portrait. It read: “Maria Lalena, Rhenia Alariavni.” Which, of course it took no great knowledge of the language to know meant “Maria Lalena, Queen of Alaria.” There was another picture on each side of Maria Lalena’s. One was Conrad’s—we read that, too, and felt like sleuths doing it—and the other was a drawing of the Black Ghost, white Templar’s cross and all. Under it was the legend, “Fakat Zol” and more that we could not understand. And glancing through the rest of the paper, each column seemed peppered with the three names. There was a fourth I feared to find, and did not. It was Helena, Countess Waldek. If Prince Conrad had attacked the validity of Maria Lalena’s claim the name Waldek would have appeared. It did not.
“What do you make of it?” John asked.
“Oh, Conrad is waiting for something to start, that’s all. You remember what the Black Ghost said yesterday about being an opportunist?”
“He’s right, too,” John said, “whatever happens can only be to Conrad’s advantage. This business of raking that girl up was only a mad idea that couldn’t possibly succeed, even in a crazy-quilt country like this. She isn’t the Princess, she’s your cousin’s daughter.”
107“You don’t know that,” I said, “and even if it is true Conrad isn’t going to start anything himself, he’s too afraid of a civil war.”
“Why do you think that? Because the Black Ghost said so? Do you suppose he really knows much?”
“I do think he knows much,” I said, “which is merely guess work, of course. I was very much impressed with him. But I have another reason for thinking Conrad wants peace. He wouldn’t have made that speech on the Cathedral steps if he hadn’t.”
“Yes, that’s true,” John admitted. “I wish we could read this paper.”
“Nonsense,” I laughed, “a lot of reporters have got themselves a few interviews, and filled the paper with them. I don’t believe a thing has happened since yesterday. Everyone is waiting to see what his neighbor is going to do about it.”
“I bow to your superior knowledge,” John laughed, “let’s drink the coffee.”
“I have discovered something,” I said, as we poured it out. “There is a woman in the next room.”
108“The Countess Waldek?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “the wall is too thick to tell, but it is very probable.”
“We ought to be able to communicate with her if it is,” John began to be interested.
“We might dig a hole in the wall,” I suggested.
“Monte Cristo!” he laughed. “That takes too long. I know an easier way. Got a long piece of string?”
“No,” I said. “Why should I have? I don’t save string.”
“Must have a long cord,” he said, fussing in one of his bags. I felt in my pockets hopelessly. I knew quite well I had no string.
“Are you any good,” he asked suddenly, “at puzzles?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
“Nor, I suppose,” he went on, “do you know anything about knitting?”
“It’s a pity,” I said, “that they didn’t shut your grandmother up here with you instead of me.”
109“Yes,” he said. “She is a nice, helpful old lady. However, if, between us, we can manage to unravel that nice handmade sock which cost me half a guinea in London, we will have a long piece of yarn which will immediately put us in communication with the lady next door.”
“I’ll do that,” I said, “nothing easier. During the war they used to send me the most horrible socks from home, and I found an old Frenchwoman who knitted them all up again into good ones. I unravelled them for her, to be sure she would finish before we moved on.” I laid the sock flat on the edge of a wooden chair, took out my slender little gold pen knife which I reflected would have been much more useful to two Monte Cristos if it had been four times as large, with a rough bone handle, though for slicing off the top of the sock it was admirable. After that all I did was pull at it until it began to unravel, and then I went on pulling until in a few minutes we had a very long piece of wool yarn, lying curled at our feet. It took us an hour, then, to untangle it again. I remembered too late that I had learned to wind as I unravelled, to avoid that untangling process. We had to light a candle before we were through. When we had it all wound single, John decided he wanted it wound double, so we started all over again.
110“It would have been less trouble,” I said, “to have dug a hole in the wall.”
“You would say that, now that we are all ready to start operations,” he answered. He then wrote a short note, tucked it into the ball, tied one end of the yarn to the window bar, thrust his arm outside and began throwing the ball toward the next room, and then pulling it back again. I was afraid that before he managed to throw it into the other window the ball of yarn would be frayed beyond use, but I was wrong. John often takes the long way around, but he usually gets there. To my surprise the ball was caught and the line pulled taut. Then we waited, a long time it seemed to me, until at last the yarn slackened, and then John untied it, and pulling very gently on the double loop, finally reached a place on its length where a note had been tied. We opened it eagerly. “Yes,” it began, “I am Helena Waldek. How did you get here? I presume you must have been in that car that passed us last night on the road. We are uncomfortable here, but I think in no personal danger. If you get out before I do please go to Herrovosca to Marie. She may need your help to get away. The Queen is so helpless, she has only her wits now against almost everybody. She sent for me because even Marie has grown hard to manage. I have no hope of getting out in time to be of any help, but they may release you because you are Americans. If they do you must take a message to the Queen. It is most important. Tell her that the Black Ghost wears a ruby ring. I will not tell you what that implies because it will be safer for you not to know. But it is of the utmost importance that the Queen should know it. I cannot tell you how important. It makes their danger far greater than before. Burn this note. H. W.”
111It was a desperate note, and Helena, of course, must be desperate. Whoever Maria Lalena might really be, she had been Helena’s daughter for eight years, anyway. And if she were Marie Waldek, she was in very great personal danger. This Black Ghost would not even consider her, and I couldn’t blame him very much. She had committed a serious offense. And she could not count on popular help. Mobs are never respecters of persons.
“‘Tell the Queen that the Black Ghost wears a ruby ring,’” John quoted.
112“That means,” I said, “that she has recognised the ring, and that the Queen does not know who he is.”
“Yes,” John said, slowly, “Yes. We ought to get out of this. And we ought to hurry. This is a particularly nasty mess for those two women.”
“Helena and Marie?” I asked.
“No. Marie and the Queen. Helena is safer right here, I believe, than she would be anywhere. They aren’t afraid of her while she’s here, and they are afraid of the other two. It’s not normal to hurt people unless you are afraid of them. I think we ought to try to take that message to Yolanda, and try to get it there before anything breaks that the Black Ghost may consider an opportunity, and turn to his own advantage at their cost.”
“I agree,” I said, “but I hope we don’t get caught. It’s been a nice world so far.”
“Don’t worry,” John said, “I think we have a friend among our jailors.”
“The Black Ghost?” I asked, “don’t fool yourself. He is merely showing off his gentlemanly manners.”
113John laughed, “I know that,” he said, “but as we came down the hall I saw a green velvet gown in one of those rooms, and unless it’s a uniform, it belongs to the Countess Visichich.”
“I saw that,” I said. “I wasn’t going to tell you.”
He laughed. “Afraid to spoil my faith in the lady’s morals?” he asked. “Nonsense, Carvin. I don’t know anything about her, but she’s politician first, and I’d be willing to put a big wager on her—well, on her being mostly just politician, at least so far. She had an unattached look about the eyes.”
“And you think she’ll help us to escape?”
“Oh, no, not at all. But I don’t think she’d let us face a firing squad if we were caught trying to escape.”
“That may be,” I acknowledged, “but I’m not going to count on it too heavily. It would be so easy to shoot first and tell her afterward.”
John went to the Window and twisted his arms through the bars, to shake them. I remembered reading somewhere that it was a trick prisoners developed. The bars were solid.
“The walls are fairly thin,” I suggested.
114“Only on the side toward the Countess’ room. It would do us no good to get in there. The other side is stone—look.”
It was true. Stone, roughly cemented over. A month’s job at the least, to dig through that without proper tools, and we had no idea where we’d be if we did get through. “The wall into the hall is thinner than that,” John went on, “but it wouldn’t be much good to us. They’d find any hole we dug in it before it was big enough to get through. This may have been a cellar or a barracks before they made it into—guest rooms. There’s probably a guard in the hall, anyway.”
“Yes.”
“That leaves the ceiling or the floor, or the bars. The ceiling is too high to reach, so let’s try the floor. We want to go down, anyway, so let’s start. Besides, the boards are wide and old.”
“And fastened together with nice little wooden pegs instead of nails.”
“Dowels, you call them,” John said. “If we select a shortish board and dig out said dowels, we might get through to something interesting.”
115John had a pen knife, too, a little larger than mine, but no bowie knife. We selected a suitable board after a little search. Fifteen minutes loosened the board. The wood had shrunk a little in the years since it had been laid, and we dug the dowels out almost easily. Then, by sticking our little fingers into the holes and pulling upward gently and together, we raised the board from the floor. I looked into the hole before we had it up more than a few inches. There was only darkness below. John blew out our candle, and we took the board away, and peered down. There was a room much like ours below; though it was dark, we could see its outlines. It was quite empty. Looking farther we saw that the door was closed, and it smelled damp and musty, but not poisonously so. It was also bare of any sort of furniture, which indicated that it was never used.
116“I’ll jump down,” John said, “and have a go at those bars. I may be able to get them out. Better make a lump under the bedclothes, so if that man comes back he’ll think I’m asleep; and drop the board back in place after I’m through. If I have to get up again you can tie the sheets together for a rope.” Then he dropped through the hole, and I wrapped my overcoat around most of the blankets, which made a passable body except for the head. I finally decided on an old brown angora sweater from the painting stuff where it had been used as packing, with John’s cap tipped at an angle over it, as though to keep the light out of his eyes. Then I carried the candle to the other side of the room, and decided that it was a good enough mummy to deceive a casual eye in that light. There was one rug in the room. Instead of replacing the board I decided to throw it over the hole, and pulled the table over that. Then I turned to Helena’s side of the room.
In order to get her out we must break down the wall that separated us. I couldn’t quite see leaving her without trying to do something about it. I pulled a package of four canvasses strapped together over to the wall, and behind it I dug a small hole in the cement with my gold knife. I knew that Helena heard me because I presently heard her moving some things about in her room, and then she began digging, too. I wanted to warn her about hiding the dust from the hole, but decided that a woman would think of that.
117I had not dug more than a few minutes before my knife snapped off at the handle. The jeweller who made it had not reinforced it for cement digging. I had no other sharp instrument, so I had to stop. I could hear Helena still at it on the other side, though. Then John called to me, and I pulled the carpet away from the hole in the floor.
“In my painting stuff,” he said, “you will find a large wooden box marked ‘etching’ on the cover. In that is some paraffin and a bottle of acid in a wooden barrel with a screw top. You might dig out a couple of small brushes, too, from the other stuff, and give them to me.”
“What’s all that for?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m going to try etching through the bars,” he explained, “it’s so damp here that they are pretty well rusted through anyway. I can do it easily if there’s enough of the acid.”
“You’d better work quietly down there,” I said, “they’ll be bringing our dinner any moment now.”
118I felt quite sure as I went to look for the things that I should not find the acid, as undoubtedly the Black Ghost would consider it a very dangerous weapon. I was mistaken, however, or else they did not know what it was. Probably they considered all painting materials harmless. There was about five ounces of the stuff—enough to rout a small army if anyone had the indecency to throw it in a man’s eyes. I made sure the top of the container was safely screwed on again before I handed it down to John. I knelt and lifted the edge of the rug and was reaching downward as far as possible to meet John’s hand, when a key was turned in the door. John’s fingers had just closed over the wooden barrel of acid. I dropped the other things perforce, trusting to the creaking of the opening door to mask the sound of their fall. I was trying to look as though I were tying my shoe as the man entered with our dinner............