Flashman And The Tiger

"At the moment, Ischl police station. With Delzons, helping the Austrians trace the Holnup fugitives. Doubt if they’ll catch any. No general alarm, you see. Oh, there was a fine hue and cry after you and Starnberg at first. But Delzons and I had our cyphers away to London and Paris soon after, the whole tale, Starnberg and all. That set the wires sparking to Berlin and Vienna." His lean face twisted in a sour grin. "Never knew our Foreign Office could shift so spry, but once they’d telegraphed our Vienna embassy, and the Frogs', and our ambassadors had requested an urgent audience with the Emperor in person … well, silence fell. No more hue and cry for you. London directed me to call on the governor of Upper Austria, no less, and assure him of our entire discretion. God knows what Franz-Josef thought of our presumption—and Bismarck’s—in saving his life behind his back. But not a word’s being said publicly. The Austrian peelers have been advised to treat us and Delzons' people as tourists. So presently we can all go home. Job well done."

He clapped his hands on his knees with finality and stood up, taking a turn to the window. "No question of you making a report. Not officially on service. But I’d be glad of your views on a couple o' things …" He cleared his throat. "This Princess Kralta—what about her?"

What with this and that, she’d gone clean out of my mind. "She’s Bismarck’s mistress, or was. Why, what’s happened to her?"

"Nothing. What you’ve just said explains why. The Ischl police questioned her after the lodge fracas, of course. Known companion of the missing Starnberg. No arrest, though." He gave an amused snort. "From what I’ve seen of the lady, I’d as soon try to collar the Queen. Very hoch und wohl-geboren. Anyway, whatever she told ’em, it brought a couple o' bigwigs post-haste from Berlin yesterday, and I was summoned by the governor and presented to the lady as though she were the Tsar of Russia’s aunt. Care to guess what she wanted? News of you." Even poker-faced Hutton couldn’t keep the curiosity out of his eyes. "I told her you were indisposed and she started up, white as paper. `Not injured?' cries she. I told her you were on the mend. `Thank God!' says she, and sat down again. Desired me to convey her wishes for your recovery, and trusts you’ll call upon her in Vienna, when convenient." He gave the ceiling a jaundiced glance. "Grand Hotel, 9 Karnthner King."

Drawing his own conclusions, no doubt. Well, honi soit to you, Hutton. I felt better already, for there’s no finer tonic than the news that a splendid piece of rattle is turning white as paper and thanking God that you’re on the mend. "We have Vienna", by gum—she’d truly meant it, the little darling.

"Hutton," says I, "how long before I’m on my feet?"

"Few days, the doctor says. Once the stitches are out. We can take it, then," says he, "that the lady was not a Holnup accomplice of Starnberg’s?"

"Well, Berlin don’t seem to think so! Nor the Austrians." I considered. "No … I’d say she’s a genuine Bismarck agent, and Starnberg hoodwinked her as he did the rest of us, the clever little bastard. If she’d been a Holnup she’d have been out of Ischl long before the traps caught up with her, wouldn’t she?"

The truth was I didn’t care a rap, and didn’t want to know—not when I thought of that voluptuous torso and long white limbs and the golden mane spilling over her shoulders, all waiting in Vienna. What the devil, you don’t bed ’em for their politics, do you?

He didn’t argue, but asked a few more questions about her which I answered with a discretion that didn’t fool him for a moment. I suspect the great long rat was jealous—and not only where Kralta was concerned, for he reverted to Caprice again, with a warmth which I thought quite unbecoming in a Treasury hatchet-man, the lecherous old goat.

"Never seen her like," he repeated, and sighed. "Dear delight to look upon, cold steel within. Mind you, she has her soft side. You should ha' seen her chivvying us up to the mine to bring you down. Fairly shrilling at us to make haste, swore you were dying by inches and we’d be too late. And when she stitched you up she was blubbing. Muttering in French. Quite a taking she was in." He sounded almost piqued.

"Well, you know what women are, ministering angels and all that," says I, pretty smug.

"Aye," says he, pretty dry, and added apropos of nothing that I could see: "She told Delzons she killed Starnberg in self-defence."

I remarked that when a chap was trying to cut your head off, it was a legitimate excuse.

"To be sure. We fished him out o' that pool, you know. Three wounds. One clean through the pump, a cut on his left wrist, and the third through his right arm. Odd, that."

"What’s odd about it?"

"You don’t truss a man’s sword-arm after you’ve killed him. I’d say he was already disarmed when she did him in."

I gave him my best country-bumpkin gape. "Now I don’t follow. He’s dead and good riddance, ain’t he? Well, then, self-defence’ll do, I’d say. Does it matter?"