“Apparently not.” Heinrik watched the ticket master’s emphatic and repeated denial.
“Hmm.” Eva glanced at Heinrik. “Could she have met up with your friend, and could he have bribed the ticket master to deny they’d passed this way?”
Heinrik considered it, but eventually shook his head. “Cynster could have done so, but I doubt he would have bothered. The ticket master can’t guarantee the silence of all the station staff, especially if it was me or another Austrian agent asking, and Cynster would know that.”
Eva frowned. “But Cynster is as foreign as the Prussians, and currently, it’s them he’s endeavoring to avoid.”
Heinrik continued to watch as, frustrated, the Prussians widened the scope of their inquiries to departures in other directions, all to no avail.
“Two points,” Heinrik murmured. “Cynster will expect me to be sent after him. Regardless of whether he knew I was here and available, he will operate on the assumption that I will be duly dispatched. Also, and do bear this in mind, you wouldn’t pick him as foreign. He speaks idiomatically perfect Austrian and is fluent in several other languages. In addition, he’s a master at blending into a population.”
“Really?” She cast him a wide-eyed glance.
“Yes, really.” Heinrik looked at her. “The Prussian pair are leaving. We should follow and see where they go.”
He offered his arm, and with a smile, Eva took it, and appearing to be just another strolling couple, they followed the Prussians out of the main entrance.
Apparently arguing, the black-coated pair paused on the pavement only a few paces from the doors, under the overhang of the station’s steel roof.
Heinrik calmly strolled past, then with Eva beside him, halted a little way beyond the two men.
It was a risk, but he and Eva stood against the station’s wall as if conferring while waiting to meet others, yet they were near enough to overhear the Prussians’ exchanges. Luckily, neither of the Prussians seemed to notice them, cloaked in the shadows of the overhang.
Porters passed back and forth, ferrying luggage along with would-be passengers. Other people paced past, clearly intent on meeting arrivals.
“If she didn’t take the train,” Jager declared, “she must have gone by carriage.”
Koch nodded. “She would surely be fleeing and wanting to waste no time.”
Jager huffed. “The train is the fastest way, but it’s possible she feared being followed and thought that, by leaving by carriage, she would throw off pursuit.”
From his tone, Jager liked that rationalization. He nodded decisively. “This is good. We will get a fast carriage and drive after her, sparing nothing. She is a female. She will stop overnight, and we will catch up with her.” Jager jerked his head toward the row of waiting hackneys. “Come. We will get our things, hire a good carriage, and be off.”
Heinrik and Eva pretended to be discussing something while they surreptitiously watched the Prussian pair hail a hackney, climb aboard, and drive off toward the center of the city.
“So!” Eva blew out a breath. “Do we follow?”
Eyes narrowed on the vanishing hackney, Heinrik slowly shook his head. “I’m not convinced their reasoning is sound. Or rather, it might be, provided Cynster isn’t involved.”
“It didn’t sound as if they’re aware he’s here. Perhaps he isn’t.”
“But what if he is?” Heinrik considered that possibility. “If Cynster is here, if he made contact with Fraulein Locke, then he’ll know about the searching of the Kleeblattgasse house, and he’ll recognize the Prussians’ signature. He’ll know they’re hunting for the dispatches, and if, as seems likely, Fraulein Locke had them, then Cynster will take the dispatches and her and run for England. But he’ll know who will be on his trail—namely the Prussians, most likely me as well, and who knows what others—so he won’t go via the obvious route, meaning the fastest route by train that goes through so many German stations, nor yet the road through Germany, which is the second most obvious way, especially not if the lady is with him.” That felt right. Heinrik met Eva’s rather fine blue eyes. “Cynster is devious, as devious as me. He’ll take a roundabout route.”
Eva arched a doubtful brow. “Even if it’s slower?”
“He’ll make the calculation that slow and safe is better than fast and caught. Worse, caught in enemy territory.” Heinrik nodded at the row of hackneys. “And as we just saw, most pursuers will overlook the slower routes.”
He focused on the hackneys. “I suggest we take a cab to the riverboat docks and see if anyone has spotted a likely-looking couple there.”
Eva brightened. “Given the hour, they might even still be there, waiting on a boat.”
“I seriously doubt we’ll be that lucky,” Heinrik said, “but the docks are the next place we should check.”
* * *
Heinrikand Eva went to booking office after booking office along the docks, inquiring at them all, even those that normally took only cargo upriver. Regardless, no clerk had booked passage for any lady resembling Fraulein Locke, with or without a gentleman of Cynster’s description.
When Heinrik and Eva finally quit the docks and walked onto the street, Eva mused, “Could they be in hiding?” She met Heinrik’s eyes. “I mean hiding and waiting for all potential pursuers to rush off in various directions. Ourselves included.”
