The Legion of the Lost, стр. 40
‘Peter, from Trenborg! He looks excited, he has been hurrying. Please God, it is not bad news!’
There were other sounds. Palfrey went on shaving but with an unsteady hand. He could hear a murmur of conversation and an occasional exclamation that might have been of dismay.
As he drew the razor across his chin for the last time he winced, then watched the blood welling up from a small cut. He looked at his hand; the fingers were trembling.
The voices went on in the large room, and downstairs. He forced himself to wash, dabbed at the cut ineffectually, then heard the sound for which he had been waiting.
The downstairs door opened, light footsteps sounded on the stairs. From the door of the bathroom he saw Dross.
Chapter Twenty
A Remarkable Fact
When the little chemist was half way up the stairs, Palfrey could contain himself no longer.
‘What is it?’ he called down. ‘What’s the news from Trenborg?’ His lips were stiff, articulation was difficult. It was not only that he was on edge for news from the fjord-side village; so much depended on what von Lichner had done, or tried to do. As Dross looked up at him a dozen thoughts ran through Palfrey’s mind, the most vivid of them that he had been an utter fool to place the slightest reliance in the German’s words.
Then Dross smiled.
Palfrey drew back a step in amazement. On the chemist’s lips was a smile of ineffable delight, a radiance which spread from his eyes and closed about Palfrey with a warm, exhilarating glow.
‘I hurried as much as I could,’ said Dross, ‘but my visitor was so excited with his good news that he could not get it all out quickly. All is well at Trenborg!’
‘Ah!’ said Palfrey. It was an anti-climax; he felt that he wanted to stand and grin inanely at the chemist. Then Dross reached the landing and Palfrey stirred himself, pushing open the door of the larger room.
Conroy, Brian and Stefan were seated at a small table, drinking passable coffee. Drusilla was standing by a tiny window and looking over the countryside. All of them looked at the newcomers, their conversation fading abruptly, their suspense obvious. But Dross’s smile and the expression on Palfrey’s face signified reassurance enough. Conroy pushed his chair back and jumped to his feet.
Palfrey glanced at Drusilla; her lips were parted and she looked breathless. Palfrey raised a hand towards her as Dross said softly: ‘Very good, my friends. It is a most remarkable thing, a miracle! And there are those who do not believe in the hand of the Lord!’ There was deep scorn in his voice, Palfrey was suddenly reminded of Brian and his Methodist parson. ‘All the men and boys in Trenborg were arrested,’ went on Dross, ‘and all the women between twenty-one and forty. They were to be taken into Fredericia for questioning—we all know what that means. And then—’ he paused and raised a hand towards the ceiling, his eyes glowed with the fervour of an apostle – ‘and then they were all released! No explanation was given, no explanation at all! One moment they were herded together in a small room, helpless and facing unknown horrors, the next they were free and on their way to their homes and families. There is much rejoicing in Trenborg, and rightly so. The Lord be praised!’ he cried. His voice rang through the long, low-ceilinged room and brought to them all a consciousness of his deep faith. ‘But I have neglected my guest downstairs. I must return to him. You see that you have good reasons for feeling secure here?’ He smiled at them again before going out and closing the door gently.
Palfrey said: ‘Von Lichner, of course. There isn’t any reasonable doubt. He may not be all-powerful, but he managed to pull some strings. Now we have to try to work out all the implications.’ He stepped to the winged armchair, sitting down and pulling out his pipe. ‘Who has ideas?’
‘We all have,’ said Conroy. ‘It was a good move to let the Baron go.’
‘It is beginning to look like it,’ said Stefan quietly. ‘But we cannot take it for granted. What do you think, Sap?’
Excited at first but gradually quietening down, the others talked – suggestions, theories and ideas passing to and fro, offered from one, returned by the other. Stefan said: ‘You’re not forgetting, Sap, that he made it clear that he could not guarantee that we would be unmolested? ‘
‘Hardly,’ said Palfrey. ‘But he has some influence. Well—’ he stood up and knocked out his pipe in a clay ash-tray. ‘We’ll start for Berlin tomorrow morning, and see what develops there. All right with you all?’
They basked in the knowledge of the rejoicings at Trenborg for the rest of the day and were thinking of going to bed when Dross, not for the first time, came upstairs. He looked thoughtful, more so than he had during the day – and he had a slim envelope in his right hand.
‘A message has been brought from London,’ said Dross quietly. ‘It has been delayed—it reached here last night but the man who should have brought it early this morning met with an accident. Do not think it has been interfered with,’ he added hastily. ‘I am concerned only in case the delay is of consequence.’
It was the first time since the morning that he or the others had been conscious of any tension. There was a regular system of messages coming to and from Wylen and other places, mostly by air, and he had no doubt of the authenticity of the message. When he opened it he saw that it was from the Marquis, in code. It was dated two days before; there was not a great deal of writing.
Dross stood by the open door and the others crowded about Palfrey. Laboriously he decoded the message, repeating it aloud:
‘There is no doubt at all that