THUMBSCREWS

The salon of conversation, as the mirrored, gilded, and highly varnished apartment was grandiloquently termed, had been the very spot chosen for our presumably not very terrible ordeal.  Things were well under way.  At the desk in the corner one officer was jotting down notes as to the clearance papers and the cargo; while at a table in the foreground sat his comrade, in a lieutenant’s uniform, with the captain of the Re d’Italia at his right, swart-faced and silent, and the list of the passengers lying before the pair.

As I entered a few moments behind Van Blarcom, I perceived that the interrogation had already run a partial course.  Pietro Ricci, the reservist, had, no doubt, emerged with flying colors and now stood against the wall beside the doughty agent of the Phillipson Rifles, who had apparently satisfied his inquisitor, too.  Near the door a group of stewards had clustered to watch with interest; and as I stood waiting, the girl in furs came in.

I put myself a hypothetical query.

“If a girl,” I thought, “materializes from the void, asks an incriminating favor, and vanishes, does that put one on bowing terms with her when one meets her again?” Evidently it did, for she smiled brightly and graciously and bent her ruddy head.  But she was pale, I noticed critically; there was apprehension in her eyes.  Wasn’t it odd that the prospect of a few simple questions from an officer should disconcert her when she had possessed the courage, or the foolhardiness, to sail on this line at this time?

Really I could not deny that all I had seen of her was most suspicious.  For aught I knew, the secret-service man might be absolutely right.  I had treated him outrageously.  I owed him an apology, doubtless.  But I still felt furious with him, and when she looked anxiously at those officers, I felt furious with them too.

Van Blarcom, his brief questioning ended, was turning from the table.  As he passed, I made a point of smiling companionably at the girl.

“Now for the rack, the cord, and the thumbscrews,” I murmured to her, making way.

The lieutenant was a tall, lean, muscular young man with a shrewd tanned face in which his eyes showed oddly blue, and he half rose, civilly enough, as the girl advanced.

“Please sit down,” he said with a strong English accent.  “I’ll have to see your passport if you will be so good.”  She took it from the bag she carried, and he glanced at it perfunctorily.

“Your name is Esme Falconer?”

“Yes,” she replied.

It was the name of the little Stuart princess, the daughter of Charles the First, whose quaint, coiffed, blue-gowned portrait hangs in a dark, gloomy gallery at Rome.  I was subconsciously aware that I liked it despite its strangeness, the while I wondered more actively if that Paul Pry of a Van Blarcom had imparted to the ship’s authorities the suspicions he had shared with me.