Chapter III: The Orient Express

Not more than three weeks later, Maurice and Zoe stood on the platform of the Gare de l’Est, about to enter upon the second stage of their journey eastwards. Professor Panagiotis had urged that they should start as soon as possible, before the increasing heat should make railway travelling disagreeable, but he scouted Zoe’s suggestion that they should go when he did. Their visiting him at Kallimeri would attract quite sufficient attention, he said, and it was most important that no idea of their being connected in any way with his political schemes should get abroad. He had made the arrangements for their journey, procuring them passports as Maurice and Zoe Smith, and, at his suggestion, Maurice had requested his bankers to honour cheques bearing their signatures in these names. It was understood among their friends that Zoe had persuaded Maurice to take her to Eastern Europe that she might lay the scene of a novel there, and she gave colour to the opinion by the number of note-books of different sorts and sizes which made her luggage heavy, if not bulky. These were destined to cause endless trouble at the several frontiers, for the official mind, unable to understand why so many blank volumes should be needed, conceived the idea that they contained Anarchist literature written in invisible ink, and insisted on subjecting them to severe tests. But this was still in the future, and Zoe was rejoicing in the imminent prospect of romance, to be not only written but lived. During the few hours they spent in London, she had dragged Maurice to Westminster Abbey, that they might visit the obscure grave of “Mr Nicholas Thephany.” Maurice refused sternly to allow her to take a wreath for it, but she succeeded, behind his back, in dropping upon the stone the handful of carnations which had been tucked into her belt. Unfortunately, they were carefully gathered up and returned to her by a polite verger, which spoilt the significance of the act, and exposed her to Maurice’s sarcasms. But nothing could detract from the joy of having an ancestor buried in the Abbey, or of tracing one’s lineage back to the Cæsars.

At the Paris station Zoe’s eyes met Maurice’s, in a kind of half-ashamed smile, across the pile of luggage conspicuously labelled “Smith,” while he was directing the porter, but before she had time to make any remark a uniformed attendant approached.

“The other ladies of Monsieur’s party are here,” he said, and they followed him mechanically, too much astonished to protest. He led the way to a compartment intended for four, in which two ladies were already seated, one elderly, with an almost aggressive air of high breeding, the other a girl rather younger than Zoe, in a smart travelling-gown, which had not come from the hands of any English tailor. Zoe, surveying it from the satisfactory standpoint of her own workmanlike coat and skirt, remarked mentally that it simply shrieked “Vindobona!” The ladies’ luggage, which occupied the other two seats, was labelled “Smith.” With a wave of his hand the attendant motioned Maurice and Zoe to enter, and departed. Zoe imagined that he received an approving glance from the younger lady, who sprang up and began to move her possessions.

“Oh, we are to be fellow-passengers, then?” she cried pleasantly, speaking with a slight foreign accent. “That is excessively agreeable. Pray come in.”

“There must be some mistake----” began Maurice.

“A mistake? But let us convert it into an advantage! We shall be delighted to enjoy your society.”

“Edith! Heart’s dearest!” cried the other lady, speaking English with an obvious effort, “you outrage the proprieties, you affront Monsieur and Mademoiselle. Recall the position, I beg of you.”

“It does not seem to me that Monsieur and Mademoiselle are in the least affronted,” said the girl readily, but with a heightened colour. “Is it not natural for us to travel together--as compatriots, and doubtless distant relations?” with a little bow which had a suspicion of mockery in its politeness.

“You are very kind----” said Zoe stiffly, but the elderly lady interrupted her.

“Did I not tell you so, Emily?” Zoe intercepted an angry glance of warning from the girl. “The young lady is scandalised--shocked--at your behaviour. Pray do not persist.”

“We are very much obliged,” said Zoe firmly, “but we have chosen our seats elsewhere, and our things are waiting for us.”

“But you could have them brought here,” suggested the irrepressible Miss Smith.

“Thank you, but we are going to have dinner as soon as the train starts.”

“Ah, we have dined already, but after this evening we might share a table. Why are you so little kind?” the girl’s voice followed Zoe pleadingly as she closed the discussion by turning away. She had an odd feeling of self-reproach, though she had only acted in the most prudent and proper way, and Maurice offered her no comfort. He could not bring himself to say that the unconventional invitation ought to have been accepted, but it was evident he thought she might have managed to decline it without hurting Miss Smith’s feelings. It was not until they were half-way through dinner that the sense of constraint produced by the incident wore off, and Zoe felt inclined to talk freely.

“I feel so delightfully thrilled!” she said, leaning back luxuriously. “My heart always leaps up when I see the words ‘Orient Express’--just as the sight of a cabin-trunk with a P. & O. label makes me think of the Black Hole and the Mutiny and all sorts of interesting things--and now to be actually on board! Have you found out yet which is the compartment always reserved for an emissary of the British Government?”

“Patience, patience!” entreated Maurice. “Give a man a little time.”

“Well, I have spotted the man--the emissary I mean,” said Zoe triumphantly. “He has J. G. W. on his bag, and he is a soldier and has been in India, and he has the most startlingly blue eyes I ever saw.”

“Now, why startling?” asked Maurice tolerantly.

“Why, with that brown face and fairly dark hair you expect dark eyes, and it gives you quite a shock when he looks up and you see how blue they are.”

“I expect the startling man with the blue eyes got a shock when he looked up and found you staring at him. I know the fellow you mean, but when you managed to find out the details of his personal history beats me.”

“Purely inference, my dear boy. Any one could see he was a soldier, and he has the Indian look about the eyebrows.”

“My good girl, Sherlock Holmes was nothing to you.”

“Thanks, so much! I believe he is a King’s messenger.”

“Inference again, I suppose?”

“Well, he seems to have something on his mind. I can’t quite decide whether he’s in charge of something very precious, or whether he has lived so much among enemies that he’s got into the habit of being always on the alert for an attack.”

“It’s just as well you are a little modest, for I’m pretty certain that a King’s messenger wears a badge of some sort, and lugs a despatch-box about with him.”

“Oh, Maurice, you are dense! Of course he is on very special service, and has been warned not to exhibit anything that would reveal his identity.”

“And he is so clever in concealing it that he lets himself be spotted by the first girl he runs across who’s been reading detective stories! Tell you what, I’ll make up to him and break his self-betrayal to him gently. He really ought to know.”

“Oh no, don’t ask him outright what he is! It’s so much more interesting to think of him as a King’s messenger than as somebody’s nephew on his way to spend part of his leave at Czarigrad. He doesn’t look important enough for a military attaché.”

“Look here, Zoe, you really must curb your unbridled imagination. You’ll have the whole train peopled with mysterious personalities in no time. By the bye,” with elaborate carelessness, “what do you make of our namesakes?”

“Mrs Smith may possibly have married an Englishman,” meditatively, “but her name is the only English thing about her. As for the girl, her name is no more Smith than----”

“Ours is!” cried Maurice. “The plot thickens. Go on.”

“I believe she is a Scythian spy,” said Zoe calmly.

“Oh, draw it mild! That girl? I say, this fitting people with imaginary characters is all very well, but you have no right---- Do spies generally go about chaperoned by elderly aunts?”

“If it is her aunt. Why, Maurice, don’t you see? She has designs upon the document which the King’s messenger is in charge of, of course, and even the very youngest and greenest of King’s messengers would be suspicious of a fascinating unchaperoned young lady by this time.”

“Well, I should have said if she had designs on any one, it was on you.”

“Oh, that’s only a blind. No; I see it! She isn’t sure about the King’s messenger. He has effaced himself so carefully that she is wavering between you and him. My presence may be intended to divert suspicion from you, as the aunt’s is from her, and she will try to attack you by getting round me. Then in the night I shall catch her, with a dark lantern, ransacking my dressing-bag, because she will think I have the document concealed in it. There, Maurice!”

“If you must make up these idiotic things, you might as well try to put just a touch of probability into them.”

“Probability! Why, it’s all but certainty. Of course, she’s not a professional spy. She is some one of very high rank who has got herself into the power of the Scythian Government, either by gambling or by being mixed up in political movements. That explains why, with all her anxiety for our acquaintance, she was determined to keep me in my place. Don’t you know how gratified a City lady feels when she has been presented to Royalty at a bazaar? She tells all her friends how affable the dear Princess was, but that no one would dream of taking a liberty with her. I don’t in the least want to take liberties with Miss Edith Emily Smith, but she is afraid I might, and so she adopts this superior tone. Oh, Maurice, if she only knew! Isn’t it perfectly lovely to think of?”

“The waiter has been watching despairingly for your plate for some time,” said Maurice. “When you have quite finished, I shall be glad to go and get a smoke.”

“And you are to be sure and make friends with the King’s messenger, mind,” said Zoe, hastily finishing her dessert; but Maurice replied darkly, as he turned towards the smoking-car, that he would not promise.

Returning to her own compartment, not without a secret intention of glancing in at Mrs and Miss Smith as she passed, Zoe had a narrow escape of falling headlong over a travelling-bag which the younger lady, with reckless disregard for the safety of the public, was thrusting out into the corridor. The offender was profuse in her apologies.

“Oh, how careless I am!” she cried. “You might have hurt yourself seriously. I should never have forgiven myself if my negligence had injured you, of all people.”

“Your malignity, rather, for it’s quite clear you did it on purpose,” was Zoe’s mental comment. “Why am I so much more precious than all the other people on board?” she asked.

“Oh, because----” with arch hesitation--“because of that mistake about our names, you know, and because you and I are the only young girls in the train. Certainly we ought to help one another.”

“I should say you needed about as little help as any person I know. And you needn’t try to flirt with _me_!” thought the unbelieving Zoe. “How could I help you?” she inquired aloud.

“Oh, come and talk to me a little. My aunt is always sleeping. I feel idle. All the people in the train have some acquaintance, some occupation, except ourselves”--she indicated the slumbering Mrs Smith and herself. “Even you are doubtless travelling for the sake of the business of your respectable brother? Oh!” as she caught the shadow of a smile on Zoe’s face, “is that bad English? Now you see what help you can give me in teaching me to speak my own language.”

“Oh, we have no business to see to; we are only out on a spree--if you know that word?” said Zoe wickedly. “My brother has just done with college, and we felt he deserved a holiday. If we have any business, it’s mine--looking for local colour. You know what that is--the stuff which you have to put into a book if you’re writing it, but which you always skip in reading it? Everybody that knows about my writing is always saying, ‘Oh, you must travel. It will enlarge your mind so much, and think of the local colour you will gain!’ I have note-books crammed full of local colour, only waiting for the stories which are to bring it in, and the worst of it is that when I do write anything, I am always so frightfully interested in the people that the local colour gets crowded out.”

Miss Smith looked somewhat bewildered by this fragment of literary autobiography. “Then you are an author--a Bohemian?” she said, with a distinct touch of disapproval.

“An author? Well, in a sort of way--a very humble way at present. But a Bohemian--oh, no! I only wish I was! Who ever heard such a stolid, steady-going name as Smith associated with Bohemianism?---- I knew it! I knew her name wasn’t Smith!” she told herself delightedly, noticing that the other girl did not wince.

“And I have not even the excuse of looking for local colour!” remarked the self-styled Miss Smith. “I wanted to travel--to be really English--and I made my aunt come. She is a foreigner--you may have noticed?--and she has brought me up abroad with her.”

“I fancy you brought yourself up, wherever you were. I don’t think poor Mrs Smith had much voice in the matter,” thought Zoe. “Well, you ought to be satisfied now,” she said aloud.

“I know I ought, but do you know”--the girl bent towards her confidentially--“I am a little--almost frightened. We have never travelled unattended before, and my aunt is so nervous.”

“But why in the world didn’t you bring a maid or a courier, or both?” cried Zoe, astonished.

“That is what we ought to have done, of course, and at Therma I shall insist on our finding suitable attendants. But I was going to propose that we should join forces for the journey. If you and your brother will favour us with your society--especially at meals--we should have no fear of making disagreeable acquaintances.” She spoke with the utmost coolness, and without any of the blushing diffidence that might have been expected--almost as if the suggestion, which should surely in any case have come from her aunt, was an honour not to be declined.

“My good girl, what _is_ your game?” thought the scandalised Zoe. “Is it Maurice?” with a sister’s instinctive vigilance. “If it is, you are the very coolest hand I ever saw. I don’t think you need be in the least frightened,” she said frigidly. “English ladies are not likely to be molested when there are so many Englishmen in the train.”

“What did I tell you, Eirene?” cried Mrs Smith, waking at an inopportune moment. “You have too little regard for the conventions. This young lady finds your freedom altogether shocking.”

“Edith--Emily--Irene! How many more names has she got?” was Zoe’s mental comment as she watched, rather mercilessly, the flush which rose into Miss Smith’s face.

“I have requested you already to leave this matter to me,” said the young lady coldly, and the aunt collapsed. “Yes, my name is Eirene,” turning to Zoe with a radiant smile. “Spelt with an E, you know,” as Zoe’s eyes wandered to the “E. E. Smith” upon a jewel-case. “We were so anxious to be English that my aunt has been trying to call me by a real English name, but it is no use. I hope you will call me Eirene in future. And you will relieve my curiosity by telling me your name? Z is such a strange initial, and I saw it upon your bag.”

“My name is Zoe,” admitted the owner of the name reluctantly as she rose to leave the compartment.

“A Greek name, surely, like my own? Perhaps we are really distant cousins after all! Then it is settled that you and your brother join us at meals?”

“I beg your pardon, we have already made our arrangements, and secured a table that only holds two,” said the exasperated Zoe, flinging this Parthian shaft as she departed with all the dignity that the motion of the train would allow.

“What is she after?” she asked herself again as she reached her own compartment, whither Maurice had not yet returned. “Can she really be a spy? If so, I suppose the best thing will be to appear quite innocent and unsuspicious. She can’t make us tell anything we don’t want to. I must give Maurice a hint not to let her worm things out of him. The funny part is that I believe she really is frightened. Her eyes were upon every one who passed. Pardon me, that seat is engaged,” as some one pressed past her. “Oh, this is really too much!” for the intruder was Miss Smith, who sat down in Maurice’s place, gripping the arms of the seat as though she feared Zoe would eject her by force.

“I wished to tell you that they will place us at the same table at breakfast,” she said hurriedly. “The man came to ask me just as a matter of course, and I--I said, ‘_Mais sans doute_.’ I meant to do it, and yet--it slipped out at the moment. I am come to entreat you not to countermand the order. You can’t understand what a difference it will make to me to be allowed to travel as a member of a party--of a family.”

The wildest suspicions were seething in Zoe’s brain. What was this girl--a murderess, a Nihilist, or a thief? What designs might she not have on Maurice, on his prospects? Anxiety for him made her manner glacial. “I am sorry we cannot add to our party,” she said. “We are going to stay with friends.”

“But it is only for the journey!” cried the girl eagerly. “Once at Therma, you go your way, I mine. We do not meet again, but you will hear--yes, you will certainly hear about me, and I assure you that you won’t find me ungrateful.”

“I don’t care about your gratitude,” said Zoe bluntly. “What I want to be sure of is that you are not doing anything wrong.”

“Wrong? What wrong should I do? Do you think I am an Anarchist, laden with bombs to fling at the Grand Seignior? I find your suspicions singularly insulting.”

“I am sorry for it. Has it occurred to you that I might think the same of your persistent efforts to force your company upon us?” “That will fetch her, if anything will!” said Zoe triumphantly to herself.

The girl’s eyes flamed. “You are insolent!” she flashed out. “How dare you---- But no, I have drawn it upon myself. Mademoiselle, will you accept my assurance that I have no evil-doing in view? I am taking my journey upon a purely family matter, confided to me by a dying parent. I carry with me my jewels, which are of considerable value--inestimable value to me. Upon their safety may hang the success of my expedition. Once more I ask you to grant me the protection of your company and that of Monsieur your brother, and pray do not think that it is easy for me to entreat. I am not accustomed to it.”

“I think we ought to have some idea of your object before being asked to mix ourselves up with it,” said Zoe, but less firmly.

“If it affected myself alone, I would reveal it to you without a moment’s hesitation, but it concerns others. No, if my assurance is not enough for you, you must continue to regard me as an adventuress, a spy--what you will--and I must endure it.” She folded her hands in her lap with sorrowful dignity, but her lips were quivering, and a tear rolled slowly down her face.

“Oh, don’t cry!” said Zoe hastily, with the modern woman’s horror of tears. “Of course you can have your meals with us, and we’ll travel together if you really want it. Only I can’t say that you belong to us if I’m asked.”

“You will not be asked. A family party will pass unquestioned. It is two ladies alone who would attract attention. Oh, I am so glad!” she cried, abandoning disguise, and drying her eyes vigorously. “Evdotia Vladimirovna--my aunt, I mean--is so frightened, and I have been obliged to encourage her, and I was so frightened myself. Every one might be a spy or a secret agent. Then I saw the luggage with the name ‘Smith,’ and I saw you and your brother, and your faces looked trustworthy, and I thought we should be safe with you. I shall never forget this service, you may be sure,” with a return to stateliness, as she rose and departed.

“I feel a regular fool!” said Zoe viciously to herself. “But, after all, she did play fair. If she had attacked Maurice instead of me, she wouldn’t have had a quarter of the trouble.”

“I have scraped acquaintance with your startling-eyed friend,” said Maurice, coming in. “He is not a King’s messenger, you will be interested to hear, but an Indian officer going back after his leave. He’s to stay a week or two with a friend who’s in the Emathian Gendarmerie, and his name’s Wylie.”

“Well, I told you nearly as much about him simply from inference. Did you hear anything about Miss Smith?”

“Oh, one fat old chap, who seems to come this way about once a week and knows all the officials, was very busy hinting that he had it from the sleeping-car attendant that she was somebody very big travelling _incog_.”

“A Princess running away from school, I should think!” murmured Zoe. “Well, to-morrow morning either she will sink in the general estimation or we shall go up, for we are to breakfast together.”

“You don’t mean to say that you have taken her up after all?” cried Maurice. “Well, don’t say it was my doing.” But his warning tone was not wholly devoid of satisfaction.