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Updated: May 5, 2025
And above all, who was the man and had he been watching when I tossed that wretched extra across the rail? I saw something of him, of course, as time went on. Naturally we four bold spirits, the ubiquitous McGuntrie, Van Blarcom, the young reservist Pietro Ricci, a very good sort of fellow, and I were herded together beyond escape.
I thought it was because she was Franz von Blenheim's agent and the paper had an account of him that might have served as a clue to her. She says, though, that she never heard of him. And I may be all kinds of a fool, but it sounded straight. "Then, there's Van Blarcom, hang him! He seemed to take a fancy to me.
Take it from me, you'd better draw out quietly, instead of being arrested, tried, shot, or imprisoned maybe or being sent home with an unproved charge hanging over you, and having all your friends fight shy of you as a suspected pro-German. Isn't that so?" "You certainly," I agreed, "draw a most uninviting picture. I'll have to consider this, Mr. Van Blarcom, if you'll give me time?"
An unexpected voice addressed the lieutenant at my back. "I was standing at the door behind him that night, though he didn't know it, and I can take my oath that what he says is gospel truth." My unlooked-for champion was Mr. John Van Blarcom.
Then I recalled that in the extra I had read as we left harbor there had been some account of the man's activities in Mexico. "What I wanted to say was this," Van Blarcom continued in his usual manner the manner that I now recognized to be a subtler form of the policeman's, respectful to those he held for law-abiding, alert and watchful to detect gentry of any other kind.
I could not rid myself of the sense of something ominous hanging over me. The gray car ramped through my dreams; so did Van Blarcom; and between sleeping and waking, I pictured my coming interview with the girl, her probable terror, the force and menaces I should have to use, our hurried flight.
This was a Christian country where the formalities of life prevailed; I could not unless escorted and countenanced by gendarmes seize upon a club and batter down that grille. I was resentful, wrathful, in the very deuce of a humor. Black gloom settled over me. I admitted that Van Blarcom had been right.
And now I think I'll be claiming my winnings if you please." I straightened in my chair, recognizing a crisis. With his last phrase he had shed the bearing of Mr. John Van Blarcom, and from the disguise all in an instant there emerged the Prussian, insolent, overbearing, fixing us with a look of challenge, and addressing us with crisp command.
John Van Blarcom face to face. Officers fresh from the trenches have told me that one can lose through sheer accustomedness all horror at the grim sights of warfare, all consciousness of ear-splitting noises, all interest in gas and shrapnel and bursting shells. In the same way one can lose all capacity for astonishment, I suppose.
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