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Stub always had an uneasy feeling about Blacky Lee. Stub’s state of mind was that of a man watching another holding a cannon cracker and not knowing just when he’d let that cracker explode. At least once a day Stub wondered why he had ever allowed himself to become associated with as nerve-racking a fellow as Blacky Lee. One never knew what was going on in Lee’s mind and never, never knew just when those thoughts would amalgamate with a bang. And sitting there watching Blacky just now, Stub forgot all about how grateful he was for the warmth in the radiator. Blacky Lee had come out of his reverie and was now, by aid of his reflection in the glass, carefully twirling his ginger mustache into a pair of military points. Stub, who always ran on the assumption that now, at last, he knew everything about Blacky Lee, was sorely jolted by the little container of mustache wax which Blacky was using. Never in all the years he had been with Blacky had Stub known him to carry wax or use wax, and now, with their baggage abandoned in Austria, a thing as nonsensical as mustache wax was here in Blacky’s possession! Certainly Blacky was attempting no disguise, for pointing a mustache would be a very weak attempt in that direction. Stub gave over wondering. He sighed and rested his little round face in his pudgy hands. “There was such a nice bottle of anisette in my trunk,” he sighed. “Do you suppose I’ll ever see that bottle again, Blacky?” “Probably never.” “And that nice new suit with the yellow stripes—” “It’s probably adorning the porter of the King’s Hotel—if his taste in clothes is as bad as yours.” “Gosh! You really think so, Blacky?” “You’re lucky,” said Lee, “not to have that suit full of holes—with you in back of each hole.” “Yeah. Yeah, you’re always telling me how lucky I am to be alive,” sighed Stub. “You pull me through hell and high dives with one of your ideas, and then when we escape on the razor edge of execution you tell me how lucky I am! I’m not complaining, you understand, but sometimes I think my nerves just won’t stand it anymore. Tonight we should have been dining with generals and getting paid real money, but here we are, on a train without tickets, in a country which we didn’t enter legally, without so much as an Aldorian dime or a forged birth certificate!” “You haven’t forgotten how to use a pen,” said Lee. “Yeah, but now I haven’t even got a pen. Sometimes, Blacky—” The train came to a screaming halt, nearly throwing Stub into the middle of the floor. He clutched the sill, staring with terrified eyes at Blacky. “That conductor saw us. The Austrians figured we’d shuttle across the frontier and snag this rattler! Hell’s bells, Blacky, what are we going to do now?” “Sit tight and hope,” said Blacky Lee imperturbably. “It’s impossible that they could have extradited us that fast.” “They’d send word that we were in the country without papers,” groaned Stub. “Blacky, I can hear the rats in the dungeons already!” Blacky was giving the troops outside the window an interested examination. A patrol, booted and greatcoated, was splashing flashlights along the side of the track and boarding the train at the next car. “We’re in for it now,” said Stub. “And me without so much as a drink!” Stub twisted his neck so that he could look up the track at the somber figures of the patrol, and then, when he next glanced at Blacky Lee and saw that a 9 mm Webley showed its snout from beneath Blacky’s folded topcoat, his eyes got big and then narrow. Stub, without sigh or protest, put his hand into his side pocket and gripped the butt of the Colt Police Positive .38 therein. If Blacky was going to make a fight for it even against a large and well-armed patrol, then it would be a fight. They sat very still, though there was no perceptible change in Blacky, hearing the patrol going through the cars ahead, hearing the complaints of roused passengers who, having had to stay up to pass through the frontier, now thought they were being slightly imposed upon. The search was coming closer, compartment by compartment. Their compartment door was thrown open by the trainmaster, who consulted his record so as to address the occupants by name and save them as much embarrassment as he could. The trainmaster’s watery eyes came up with a jerk from the record and drilled Blacky Lee. The lieutenant in charge of the patrol was all business. He had stripped off his great gauntlets and tucked them in his belt, but he had his crop in hand and was cutting nervously at his boots as he waited for the trainmaster to speak up. “Well?” said the dark-faced lieutenant. “Your honor,” said the trainmaster, trembling, “I have no record of the two gentlemen in there.” “Ah!” And the lieutenant, with all the savor of a bloodhound at last treeing his quarry, thrust himself into the room, one hand resting on the butt of his gun. Stub was waiting for the shot that would start the war. He could see the troopers in the corridor and the dull gleam of their carbines, and he knew how slight were his chances. But he had an accurate bead upon the lieutenant’s greatcoat, third button from the top. The lieutenant’s smile of triumph suddenly congealed upon his face and then, from the eyes down, there dropped a curtain of fumbling terror. This, in turn, was swept away by a stolid parade-ground expression and looking straight ahead, his heels close together, the lieutenant spoke. “My apologies, Your Highness. We are searching for one Balchard, leader of the Sons of Freedom, reported to have been on this train. My stupidity, Your Highness, is only that of zeal. May I be granted the favor of remaining aboard and posting adequate guard over your compartment?” “I do not care,” said Blacky Lee, “to have attention called to my presence aboard the Trans-Balkan Express. You are excused, Lieutenant. Carry on.” The lieutenant, embarrassed, about-faced and marched out. Angrily he motioned his men from the corridor. The trainmaster stood blinking and peering, stupefied, and undoubtedly promising himself a new set of glasses, pride or no pride, at the next stopover. “Is . . . is there anything Your Highness could wish, sire?” “Yes,” said Blacky Lee. “A bottle of anisette for my friend and a ham sandwich for myself.” “Immediately, Your Highness.” And he stumbled away. Stub looked, slack-jawed, at Blacky Lee, finding it difficult to force a question out of his constricted throat. “Your Highness?” gulped Stub. “He—they called you ‘Your Highness’!” Blacky Lee smiled enigmatically and slid the Webley 9 mm into his side pocket. The train had started again and he sank back, staring thoughtfully out of the window at the flying night. . . .
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