The Adventures of Hiram Holliday (22 page)

'My God, no!' said Hiram Holliday, flatly and definitely. 'And leave you
here....'

For the first time since he had known her, Hiram heard Irmgarde laugh. Her face was one dancing mischief. She said:
‘
Mein Liebes.
...
Now it is you who are making the great melodrama. Don't you
know who I am? I am the Grafin
Irmgarde von Helm, who is under the protection of Minister Doctor Heinrich Grunze. They can do nothing to me. Yes, they will call Doctor Grunze. And then I will laugh at
him.
^’

The first ray of hope took Hiram's heart on the upswing. 'Irmgarde.... Are you telling me the truth ?'

In her enthusiasm and sincerity and excitement she lapsed for a momentinto German:
^‘
j
a,ja,ja
,
Lieber, dummer Mann.
...
You must understand. Grunze has been
too
clever. No one but he actually knows that Hermann Weide is Hiram Holliday. All the others, the men who made the arrest, the woman who recognized you as her nephew, the man who went to Paris, all, all, were obeying orders blindly in the German way. When Hermann Weide is gone, and I am found here, it will be Grunze who will have to hush it up so that there is no scandal. When you are Hiram Holliday again, you are safe....'

Hiram was half convinced. What the
Grafin
had said was true. The very air-tight nature of the frame-up could defeat it -if he were free, if he were Hiram Holliday again. But between the condemned Hermann Weide in the cell in Moabit prison, and his old self there was such a vast unbridgeable chasm. He said: 'Irmgarde.... It sounds impossible
...
how....'

She knew she had won. She laughed at him again, and Hiram saw the daring, brilliant woman, thrilled to the core by her adventure, and he remembered why she had driven that night to the pogrom, the night that seemed so many years ago.' For a thrill,' she had said.

Now she said: 'First we change clothes.
Marsch!
Immediately! Then I tell you. Quick!'

Her
tempo,
her excitement caught Hiram up. If this then was to be the last adventure, at least it was still adventure, and better to go out with the obliterating beat of bullets....

They stripped and changed. They had to chance that Grunze's name and order were really powerful enough to leave them their half-hour unobserved. But Irmgarde knew the German capacity for obeying an order implicitly. She helped Hiram into her clothing. She had even thought of wearing fiat-heeled sports shoes of a larger size. He got his feet into them. The hood covered his head, and she wound the white tulle around and around his throat.

'Bandage me carefully, carefully, my Hiram
..
she said. 'Make no mistake.'

Hiram wound the bandage around her head as it had been around his, carefully covering every speck of the flame-coloured hair that she wore caught up tightly in a net. She had thought of everything. He bandaged his spectacles on to her swathed face, leaving the eyes free as his had been. She said: 'Have no fear of the colour of my eyes. They will not notice it tonight. And in the morning, the red-haired
Gra
fin
will be awaiting them, green eyes and all.'

They completed the exchange in seven minutes. Then Hiram Holliday was the
Gra
fin
and stood there, cloaked and hooded, and Irmgarde, suited and bandaged, was Hiram Holliday, and sat bent over on the steel cot, and said to him in her low voice: 'Listen carefully. Mark everything I say in your memory. Do not interrupt me for I must finish before they come. Gather together your nerves like steel. And do not disobey me in the slightest for everything has been thought of, everything has been planned. Obey to the letter.

'Listen now. When they come, stand as you are. In your right hand hold this paper I give to you, hold it so at all times it can be seen. With your left hand keep my handkerchief to your mouth, and you are sobbing, sobbing, always sobbing. You are broken and sobbing, as I would be were I leaving you. I will be standing in the corner, my back to the door, my head upon my arm. I, too, am despairing. Follow the man who will lead you, always sobbing, sobbing. Look not to the right or the left. Go behind him, the paper showing. You will pass through the office of the Governor. Do not stop, do not speak. Walk as a woman walks who has lost her lover. He will then precede you to the door and lead you to the outside. Your car and chauffeur is waiting there, the car and chauffeur of the Grafin von Helm. Say nothing. Get in. He has his instructions. He will drive you home. When you arrive there he will say:
'Hat die Frau Grafin noch befehle?
^’
Remember the sound of that. You will still be sobbing. Shake your head for 'no,' and enter quickly the house with the key that you will take from your -my purse. Go up in the lift to our
...
my room on the third floor. Leave there that paper which is Grunze's highest pass, which permits him or his representative to go anywhere.'

She paused for a moment to let her instructions sink in. Then she said again: 'Good. It will be eight o'clock when you leave here, quarter-past eight when you are home. In my room you will find clothes that will fit you, a suitcase with linen and necessaries. In the clothes will be money. Dress. Place my clothes neatly as I am accustomed. Disturb the bed.
Wet my tooth-brush. Spill mouth
wash in the bathroom. Use the soap. Wait until nine, o'clock. Leave, not by the lift, but by the staircase. Do not pause. Do not hesitate. Go on down. Do not under any circumstances go into the
salon
or any other room. Let yourself out by the door you know, carrying the suitcase. Walk quickly away. Do not take a taxicab until you have walked for five minutes. Then drive to the Friedrich Strasse Bahnhof and go in. It will be a quarter-past nine.'

She stopped again. Hiram's heart was beating so that he could hear it. She went on: 'Go into a telephone-box. Telephone to your people in Paris. Be clever. Be cautious. Do not mention your name. Make them understand that they must send you your papers by the night aeroplane so that you will have them in the morning. The express from Paris arrives at twenty minutes to ten. Go to the gate, and when the people come out, mingle with them as though you had just arrived. Go out, enter a taxi and drive to the Hotel Adlon. Register there as Hiram Holliday. Make some remark calling attention to your trip to Paris and your return to Berlin. You are very tired and anxious to go to your room. If he asks for your passport tell him you will send it down in the morning. Go to your room. Telephone to all the friends you know, and say that you have returned to Berlin from Paris. Be natural. Be normal. Make appointments.... From then on, if you do as I say, you are safe.'

Far down the corridor the footsteps
began....
'And above all, my dearly beloved man. Never call me. Never seek to see me again. Never speak of me. Never give sign that ever you knew of me. Now, summon your great and dear courage.' She paused again, then crossed herself quickly and said:
'Gott set mit uns.
..
’
The footsteps were
louder....

Hiram Holliday began to concentrate. There was no turning back now. He thought of what little Lisette, the circus queen in Paris, had once taught him of the foundation of classical pantomime. It was to believe with every ounce of strength, spiritual and physical, that you
were
what you were pretending to be. He believed. He was. His body began to take on the form and pose that had been Irmgarde's, his head to hang at the tragic angle of a weeping woman. He sobbed as he had heard her sob the night she had begged him not to leave her house.

The turnkey came with two soldiers. He tapped the unhappy
Grafin
politely upon the shoulder. They had no more than a perfunctory glance for the prisoner who stood with his face to the wall, his head resting on an arm. The iron door grated into place. The long, slow march through the prison to the outer air began, the three men in the lead, the broken woman following. In his cell, the prisoner sank to his knees and bent his head over his folded hands, and remained there while the sounds of the departing footsteps, and the half-hushed, torn sobbing of the departing one had been stilled by distance, and for long, long afterwards, so long that it was safe to turn the
prayer from supplication to tha
nkfulness and praise.

How Hiram Holliday Was in Berlin but the Woman with Red Hair Was Not

Hiram Holliday walked into the Friedrich Strasse Bahnhof at sixteen minutes past nine by the station clock. He was dressed in a dark suit, wore a raincoat of the type he had always had, carried a leather suitcase on which were labels from London and Paris hotels. H
e went into a red telephone-box
and put in a call for Clegg, the Chief of the
Sentinel
Bureau in Paris. His line of action was half-planned. He hoped that Clegg would recognize his voice when he came to the wire and understand what he wanted, but he was not certain that he would. He had not had much to do with him in Paris.

The call went through. He heard the French operator, and then heard Clegg say: 'Hello. Yes, this is Clegg, Paris Bureau. Who is
it?'

Hiram spoke strongly and robustly: 'Hello, Clegg. Say, I'm back in Berlin again. Will you fellows send me that stuff of mine that I left in Paris ?'

It didn't work. Clegg said testily: 'Who is this speaking ? I don't know what you are talking about. Who is this
?'

And then Hiram had an inspiration. He said: 'Hayseed, on vacation!'

There was a long silence from the other end, and then Clegg said: 'Oh, oh! I get it. Wait a minute. How do I know ?'

'Try me,' said Hiram and waited. There was another pause and then Clegg asked:

'What's a "20 Head"?'

Hiram grinned in appreciation and answered immediately: 'Two Column two-line 18 pt Cheltenham Bold Lower Case banked head, 23 units to the line.' One did not
spend fourteen years on a copy
desk for nothing. It was clever of Clegg to have remembered it; as clever as his translation of 'Hayseed, on Vacation,' to 'Hiram Holliday.'

' Okay. You back at the Adlon ? I'll get it off on the midnight plane. You'll have it in the morning. You been having some bad weather over there
?'

Hiram understood him. He replied: 'Thanks. It's fine here now. Cleared up a lot. Adlon is right. Much obliged,' and rang off.

Then he called a taxi and told the chauffeur to drive to the Adlon. He felt better, but his nerves were still terribly shaken. His escape from the prison had been bad enough, but the task of changing his clothes in Irmgarde's room and getting out of the house had seemed even worse, because for some reason he could not fathom he was in a sweating fear from the time he entered the house as the Grafin von Helm, and quit it as Hiram Holliday. On the way out he had come close to entering the wonderful, graceful, old-fashioned
salon
for a last look. His hand had been on the door when he recalled her warning, 'do not pause, go on down, do not go into the
salon
or any other room,' and he went on. She had taken a terrible risk for him. He owed her implicit obedience. The feeling of fear left him once he was outside the house.

He walked into the Hotel Adlon and went up to the desk. The clerk automatically shoved a registration card at him in a little leather holder, and then looked up and said: 'Ah, Herr Holliday. Back
wis
us so soon again. I did not know you first wisout your glasses. You enchoy your little trip to Paris ? Let me see, what room you haff before. Sirty-two. You like that one again?'

'Yes, thank you,' said Hiram steadily, 'that will be fine. Broke my glasses on the train. Damned nuisance.'

The clerk made a clucking n
oise and said: 'You let me haff
your passport, please ' Hiram was about to speak when he
said:
‘
Ach
,
it is not necessary. I haff all se information from last time. You can let me haff it tomorrow if I should need it. We are glad to see you
back....'

Hiram went upstairs. Not even Room 32 could shake
him
any more. He carried out Irmgarde's last instruction and called up two of the correspondents from the American Press services he had met, announced his return from Paris, and made tentative luncheon engagements. Then suddenly all his strength seemed to melt from him. He reached the bed and fell on it, worn out, exhausted, and in a minute fell asleep. He was awakened by the telephone ringing. He was still in his clothes and badly befuddled. The clerk said
:'
Mr Holliday ? We have a
Rohrpost,
a special delivery letter for you downstairs. Shall we send it
up?'