"You"re so clever! Where is that Yellow Devil now?"
"Pouf!" giggled Fifi. "On its way to Berlin, _pardie_!"
"That"s easy to say. Tell me something else more expensive."
Nini said, surprised:
"What we know is free to Prince Erlik"s friend. Did you think we sell to Russians?"
"I don"t know anything about you or where you get your information,"
said Neeland. "I suppose you"re in the Secret Service of the Russian Government."
"_Mon ami_, Nilan," said Fifi, smiling, "we should feel lonely _outside_ the Secret Service. Few in Europe are outside--few in the world, fewer in the half-world. As for us Tziganes, who belong to neither, the business of everybody becomes our secret to sell for a silver piece--but _not_ to Russians in the moment of peril!... Nor to their comrades.... What do you desire to know, _comrade_?"
"Anything," he said simply, "that might help me to regain what I have lost."
"And what do you suppose!" exclaimed Fifi, opening her magnificent black eyes very wide. "Did you imagine that n.o.body was paying any attention to what happened in the rue Soleil d"Or this noon?"
Nini laughed.
"The word flew as fast as the robber"s taxicab. How many thousand secret friends to the Triple Entente do you suppose knew of it half an hour after it happened? From the Trocadero to Montparna.s.se, from the Point du Jour to Charenton, from the Bois to the Bievre, the word flew. Every taxicab, omnibus, _sapin_, every _bateau-mouche_, every train that left any terminal was watched.
"Five emba.s.sies and legations were instantly under redoubled surveillance; hundreds of cafes, bars, restaurants, _hotels_; all the theatres, gardens, cabarets, _bra.s.series_.
"Your pigs of Apaches are not neglected, _va_! But, to my idea, they got out of Paris before we watchers knew of the affair at all--in an automobile, perhaps--perhaps by rail. G.o.d knows," said the girl, looking absently at the dancing which had begun again. "But if we ever lay our eyes on Minna Minti, we wear toys in our garters which will certainly persuade her to take a little stroll with us."
After a silence, Neeland said:
"Is Minna Minti then so well known?"
"Not at the Opera Comique," replied Fifi with a shrug, "but _since_ then."
"An _artiste_, that woman!" added Nini. "Why deny it? It appears that she has twisted more than one red b.u.t.ton out of a broadcloth coat."
"She"ll get the Seraglio medal for this day"s work," said Fifi.
"Or the _croix-de-fer_," added Nini. "Ah, _zut_! She annoys me."
"Did you ever hear of a place called the Cafe des Bulgars?" asked Neeland, carelessly.
"Yes."
"What sort of place is it?"
"Like any other."
"Quite respectable?"
"Perfectly," said Nini, smiling. "One drinks good beer there."
"Munich beer," added Fifi.
"Then it is watched?" asked Neeland.
"All German cafes are watched. Otherwise, it is not suspected."
Sengoun, who had been listening, shook his head. "There"s nothing to interest us at the Cafe des Bulgars," he said. Then he summoned a waiter and pointed tragically at the empty goblets.
CHAPTER x.x.xI
THE CAFe DES BULGARS
Their adieux to Fifi and Nini were elaborate and complicated by bursts of laughter. The Tziganes recommended Captain Sengoun to go home and seek further adventures on his pillow; and had it not been for the gay babble of the fountain and the persistent perfume of flowers, he might have followed their advice.
It was after the two young men had left the Jardin Russe that Captain Sengoun positively but affectionately refused to relinquish possession of Neeland"s arm.
"Dear friend," he explained, "I am just waking up and I do not wish to go to bed for days and days."
"But I do," returned Neeland, laughing. "Where do you want to go now, Prince Erlik?"
The champagne was singing loudly in the Cossack"s handsome head; the distant brilliancy beyond the Place de la Concorde riveted his roving eyes.
"Over there," he said joyously. "Listen, old fellow, I"ll teach you the skating step as we cross the Place! Then, in the first _Bal_, you shall try it on the fairest form since Helen fell and Troy burned--or Troy fell and Helen burned--it"s all the same, old fellow--what you call fifty-fifty, eh?"
Neeland tried to free his arm--to excuse himself; two policemen laughed; but Sengoun, linking his arm more firmly in Neeland"s, crossed the Place in a series of Dutch rolls and outer edges, in which Neeland was compelled to join. The Russian was as light and graceful on his feet as one of the dancers of his own country; Neeland"s knowledge of skating aided his own less agile steps. There was sympathetic applause from pa.s.sing taxis and _fiacres_; and they might, apparently, have had any number of fair partners for the asking, along the way, except for Sengoun"s headlong dive toward the brightest of the boulevard lights beyond.
In the rue Royal, however, Sengoun desisted with sudden access of dignity, remarking that such gambols were not worthy of the best traditions of his Emba.s.sy; and he attempted to bribe the drivers of a couple of hansom cabs to permit him and his comrade to take the reins and race to the Arc de Triomphe.
Failing in this, he became profusely autobiographical, informing Neeland of his birth, education, aims, aspirations.
"When I was twelve," he said, "I had known already the happiness of the battle-shock against Kurd, Mongol, and Tartar. At eighteen my ambition was to slap the faces of three human monsters. I told everybody that I was making arrangements to do this, and I started for Brusa after my first monster--Fehim Effendi--but the Vali telegraphed to the Grand Vizier, and the Grand Vizier ran to Abdul the d.a.m.ned, and Abdul yelled for Sir Nicholas O"Connor; and they caught me in the Pera Palace and handed me over to my Emba.s.sy."
Neeland shouted with laughter:
"Who were the other monsters?" he asked.
"The other two whose countenances I desired to slap? Oh, one was Abdul Houda, the Sultan"s star-reader, who chattered about my Dark Star horoscope in the Yildiz. And the other was the Sultan."
"Who?"
"Abdul Hamid."
"What? You wished to slap _his_ face?"
"Certainly. But Kutchuk Sad and Kiamil Pasha requested me not to--accompanied by gendarmes."