Codeword Golden Fleece Read Free

thought in your bewitching head.’
    ‘You haven’t got yourselves mixed up in some crazy business in which you’ll all have to risk your lives again?’
    ‘No, no. We haven’t as much as a fragment of a map of a “Forbidden Territory” between us, or a sniff of the Devil’s brimstone.’
    ‘You swear that, Greyeyes?’
    ‘I do indeed. We are all, as ever, the playthings of the Gods, and none of us can say what our tomorrows may bring; but tonight there’s not a thing to prevent us from giving our thoughts to how best we can enjoy our holidays.’
    Richard had come up behind his wife, and gazing down fondly on her chestnut curls he placed his two hands on her bare shoulders, as he said: ‘Just think of it, my sweet. In three weeks’ time we’ll be in Vienna again. Vienna—where I first showed you what luxury and gaiety and love could mean.’
    ‘Richard, my love!’ She quickly clasped one of his hands and turned her face up to him. ‘Of course, it was stupid of me. Just a silly feeling like someone walking over my grave. Forget it, please.’
    Rex had turned on the radio and twiddled the knob until he got a band. Then he pulled Lucretia up out of her chair and made her dance a few turns with him in the middle of the big room.
    Soon they were all laughing again as gaily as they had during dinner. De Richleau ordered up two magnums of champagne. They were all connoisseurs enough to know that the wine was exceptionally mature and fine, but only Simon noticed that it was Veuve Cliquot, Dry England, 1906, a wine that would almost certainly have been dead from its great age had it been in bottles; and he knew it to be the Duke’s very finest, of which he had only half a dozen magnums left.
    It was one o’clock before they broke up, Rex and Simon leaving together, and Richard, Marie Lou and Lucretia, who were staying with the Duke, going to their rooms.
    When they had left him de Richleau drew wide the curtains of one of the windows, opened it and stepped out on to the shallow balcony. The dance was still in progress further up the street. The music of the band came faintly to him. The street lamps shone with a warm friendly glow on the pavements, where a few young couples, who had left the ballroom for a breath of air, were strolling up and down.
    For a few moments he remained there, looking down upon those young, carefree people, yet with unseeing eyes. He had laughed as gaily as any of his guests all the evening, but now he was a sober and sadly troubled man. He was wondering desperately if all six of them would ever meet again. For a second he had an absurd impulse to rush downstairs, and out into the street after Rex and Simon; to call them back so that he might at least make certain of looking upon their well-loved faces just once more. But it was too late now, even for that.
    With a little sigh he turned back into the room and put out the lights, still heavy with the grim foreboding that, if they ever did come together again, it could only be in a world gone mad. In what circumstances of distress, and perhaps terror and despair, they might meet, he knew that time alone could show.

2
The Secret Rendezvous
    Lubieszow was a long, low house set in a clearing of the forest. It had no garden as the English think of gardens, but shady walks wound among the trees and flowering shrubs bordered its drive, while, at the back, a wide terrace with a pleasant view looked out over the meadows to a great lake into which ran the river Stachod.
    It was very peaceful there as the countryside of Russian Poland is sparsely populated, and Pinsk, the only town of anysize, lay a good thirty-five miles away to the north-eastward across the desolate Pripet Marshes.
    De Richleau was enjoying his stay with the fat, jovial Baron Lubieszow, mainly because it was such a contrast to his normal life of a round of engagements among his many friends in the great cities and fashionable holiday resorts. The placid, orderly life of the Polish