He tossed a copy of the Neue Freie Presse on the table.  Oscar had been down to the Springs to explore, and brought back news, gained from the stablemen at the hotel, that Chauvenet had left the hotel, presumably for Washington.  It was now Wednesday in the third week in April.

“Oscar, you were a clever boy and knew more than you were told.  You have asked me no questions.  There may be an ugly row before I get out of these hills.  I should not think hard of you if you preferred to leave.”

“I enlisted for the campaign—­yes?—­I shall wait until I am discharged.”  And the little man buttoned his coat.

“Thank you, Oscar.  In a few days more we shall probably be through with this business.  There’s another man coming to get into the game—­he reached Washington yesterday, and we shall doubtless hear of him shortly.  Very likely they are both in the hills tonight.  And, Oscar, listen carefully to what I say.”

The soldier drew nearer to Armitage, who sat swinging his legs on the table in the bungalow.

“If I should die unshriven during the next week, here’s a key that opens a safety-vault box at the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York.  In case I am disabled, go at once with the key to Baron von Marhof, Ambassador of Austria-Hungary, and tell him—­tell him—­”

He had paused for a moment as though pondering his words with care; then he laughed and went on.

“—­tell him, Oscar, that there’s a message in that safety box from a gentleman who might have been King.”

Oscar stared at Armitage blankly.

“That is the truth, Sergeant.  The message once in the good Baron’s hands will undoubtedly give him a severe shock.  You will do well to go to bed.  I shall take a walk before I turn in.”

“You should not go out alone—­”

“Don’t trouble about me; I shan’t go far.  I think we are safe until two gentlemen have met in Washington, discussed their affairs, and come down into the mountains again.  The large brute we caught the other night is undoubtedly on watch near by; but he is harmless.  Only a few days more and we shall perform a real service in the world, Sergeant,—­I feel it in my bones.”

He took his hat from a bench by the door and went out upon the veranda.  The moon had already slipped down behind the mountains, but the stars trooped brightly across the heavens.  He drank deep breaths of the cool air of the mountain night, and felt the dark wooing him with its calm and peace.  He returned for his cloak and walked into the wood.  He followed the road to the gate, and then turned toward the Port of Missing Men.  He had formed quite definite plans of what he should do in certain emergencies, and he felt a new strength in his confidence that he should succeed in the business that had brought him into the hills.

At the abandoned bridge he threw himself down and gazed off through a narrow cut that afforded a glimpse of the Springs, where the electric lights gleamed as one lamp.  Shirley Claiborne was there in the valley and he smiled with the thought of her; for soon—­perhaps in a few hours—­he would be free to go to her, his work done; and no mystery or dangerous task would henceforth lie between them.