The Secret Witness

Renwick obeyed somewhat dubiously and sank, scarcely daring to breathe, beneath the thick foliage beside the arbor which concealed his companion. She seized his hand and he felt her fingers trembling in his own, but he pressed them gently—aware that the tremors of the girl's fingers as the footsteps approached the arbor were being unpleasantly communicated to his own. The breach of hospitality to the household of the Archduke, upon whose land he was, was as nothing beside the breach of etiquette to the Empire by his Chief. Renwick's nerves were good but he trembled with Marishka. The friendship of nations depended upon the security of his concealment—more than that—and less than that—his own fate and the girl's. And so Renwick crouched beside her and silently prayed in English, a language he thought more fitted to the desperate nature of his desires, that the three figures would pass on to another part of the garden, that they, the luckless lovers, might flee to the abandoned tennis court in innocence and peace.

But Renwick's prayers were not to be answered. Had he known at the moment how deeply the two of them were to be enmeshed in the skein of Europe's destiny he would have risen and faced the anger of his host, or, risking detection, incontinently fled. But Marishka's hand clasped his own, and lucklessly, he waited.

The three men reached the gate of the arbor, the smaller one entering first, the giant with the gray beard, at a gesture from their host, following, and they all sat in chairs around the small iron table. Renwick was paralyzed with fear and Marishka's chill fingers seemed frozen to his. There had been rumors in the chancellories of Europe of this visit to Konopisht to see the most wonderful rose garden in Bohemia in mid-June, but Renwick knew, as did every other diplomat in Vienna, that the visit to the roses of Konopisht was a mere subterfuge. If there had been any doubt in the Englishman's mind as to the real nature of the visit, the grave expressions upon the faces of the men in the arbor would speedily have set him right. The Archduke opened a cigarette case and offered it to his companions who helped themselves with some deliberation.