“I never knew much of my Uncle Schlippenbach,” he ventured, after a little; “tell me about him.”
“You should know more than I,” the Fraülein returned. “You were in New York with him while I was in England.”
“Yes, I know,” her companion went on, as he took a cigarette from his case and struck a match, “but I don’t mean intimately, personally. Tell me a little of his history.”
“Everybody knew he was eccentric.”
“Of course.”
“Otherwise he would never have left Budavia. Just think of what he gave up!”
“That’s just it,” Grey interposed, eagerly. “What did he give up? I’ve heard stories, to be sure, but I don’t know that I ever had the truth of it.”
“Oh, I’ve heard it a hundred times,” Minna responded, digging the point of her parasol into the gravel. “You see, he was tutor to the Court. He had taught King Frederic about all there was to teach, and when His Majesty outgrew school books—of course he wasn’t His Majesty then,but His Royal Highness the Crown Prince—Great-uncle Schlippenbach accompanied him on the grand tour. They visited every court in Europe and then went over to Africa and Turkey in Asia, and I don’t know where else. Then when Frederic succeeded to the throne, Great-uncle Schlippenbach was still retained, and after a while, when a little prince was born to Queen Anna, he was constituted a sort of kindergarten-professor to the royal infant.”
“In other words, a mental wet-nurse,” suggested Grey.
“Yes, exactly. I think he taught him to say ‘bah’ and ‘boo’ and ‘gee-gee’ and ‘moo-cow’—or rather their German equivalents—and led him gloriously on to the alphabet. Then, just as he was beginning to spell nicely in words of three letters, something happened. Nobody ever knew just exactly what it was, but Great-uncle Schlippenbach took offence. Her Majesty, Queen Anna, it seems, was to blame. He brooded over the matter for weeks and months, growing more and more incensed, more and more bitter. In vain King Frederic tried to mollify him. He was veryfond of Great-uncle Schlippenbach, and he wanted to smooth matters over, but the royal tutor was not to be pacified. He broke out in a torrent of rage, recounting his fancied wrongs and declaring that he had wasted the best years of his life in a hopeless effort to grow flowers of intellect from barren soil. The German Emperor would have had him behind the bars forlèse-majesté, but King Frederic only laughed and offered him a baronetcy. But Great-uncle Schlippenbach scorned the offer. Having spoken his mind, he packed his boxes and left the Court, left Kürschdorf, left Budavia, left Europe and went to America to begin life anew. That was twenty-five years ago, and he was forty years old.”
“And the poor little Crown Prince had to learn his words of four letters from someone less gifted, eh?”
“Dear only knows from whom he ever did learn them,” Miss von Altdorf continued. “He disappeared the very next week after Great-uncle Schlippenbach.”
“Disappeared?” repeated Grey.
“Oh, yes, you remember that, surely. He wasabducted, you know. Why, that’s a part of the history of your own country. That’s why there’s so much excitement now over rumours of his turning up at this late day. Oh, dear, Uncle Max, why will you tease me so? You made me tell you that whole story, and I’m sure you knew it quite as well as I.”
Grey laughed joyously.
“I love to hear you talk,” he told her, his gaze lingering fondly on her blushing face. “And so,” he added, “they are looking for the kidnapped baby to reappear a man and claim his own? Is that it?”
But she was silent, her eyes downcast.
“Won’t you answer me?” he pleaded.
“I won’t again tell you what you already know,” she answered, a little petulantly.
“But I don’t know about this ring, really,” Grey urged. “Tell me about it. What has it got to do with the stolen Crown Prince?”
Minna looked up, regarding him searchingly.
“Where did you get it?” she asked.
“I found it,” he answered, quite truthfully.
“In a jewel casket, within a great iron chest,inside an ordinary travelling box?” she cross-questioned.
The significance of the description was not lost on her hearer.
“No,” he returned, frankly, “not in anything at all. On the floor of my room.”
Her eyes were round with surprise.
“And how did it come there?”
“I cannot imagine. That is why I’d like you to tell me what you know of it.”
“And before you found it on the floor of your room you had never seen it?”
“Never. I swear it by the sun-god yonder.”
“My great-uncle never showed it to you—never told you of it?”
“Never,” Grey repeated.
“He showed it to me in London,” she confessed, reaching out for the finger it adorned, “and told me all about it. It seems that when he left Budavia it had in some way got in with his effects. He did not find it until a year or more afterward. It had belonged to the King before his coronation, and to his father before him, and to his grandfather before that. The arms are those of thePrince of Kronfeld. The Crown Prince is always, you know, the Prince of Kronfeld.”
“And as the little Prince of Kronfeld had been kidnapped and Uncle Schlippenbach did not know where to find him, he simply put the ring away for safe-keeping, eh?” asked Grey, quizzically.
“He was taking it back to Kürschdorf when he died,” Minna answered, with rebuke in her tone. “As soon as he heard that the Crown Prince had been found he started. He wished, he said, to put it on his finger with his own hand. ‘His Royal Highness will probably travelincognito,’ he said to me, ‘but I shall know him; and when we meet I shall give him the ring. When you see it worn you will know that the wearer is the Crown Prince.’”
“And when you saw it on my finger you thought—just for a moment—that I was he, didn’t you, Minna? But then, as I am your uncle I cannot be the Prince of Kronfeld, so we will take it off and wear it no more,” Grey concluded, slipping the golden circlet from his finger and stowing it away in a pocket of his waistcoat.
“But what I should like to know,” continuedthe Fraülein, “is how it came on the floor of your room?”
“And so should I,” her companion echoed; “how it got out of the casket, and the iron chest, and the travelling box.”
Presently the sound of many shuffling feet was borne to their ears, accompanied by the discordant piping of high-pitched voices, and turning their heads they saw approaching an army of tourists with a gesticulating, haranguing guide in the lead.
“It’s a case of ‘follow the man from Cook’s,’” Grey observed, annoyed at having their privacy invaded. “We had better stroll on.”
They walked rapidly for a while, keeping always to the right, until they were out of sight and sound of the disturbing company, and then they dawdled from terrace to terrace; leaned over lichen-stained marble balustrades to see their reflections in the dark, silent pools; loitered on banks of mossy turf beneath the shade of towering trees; stopped to admire, to criticise, and not infrequently to laugh over the sculptures that dotted the way, and came out at length upon anavenue, long and straight and level and gleaming white in the afternoon sunshine.
“You want to see the Trianons, of course,” Grey suggested to the girl. “I know you are familiar with many of the events that took place there.”
And so, turning to the left, they sauntered on until they came to the one-story horse-shoe shaped villa that Louis XIV built for Madame de Maintenon. But Minna was tired of sight-seeing, and the porcelains and the pictures proved alike uninteresting. The Petit Trianon pleased her much better because of its associations with Marie Antoinette, who had been one of her school-girl heroines, and over its delightful English-looking garden she grew enthusiastic.
They strolled along the winding paths, dallied on the shore of the funny little artificial lake, and rested for a while in the “Temple de l’Amour.” The number of visitors, however, was to both of them a disturbing influence. They would have liked the place to themselves, but they were at every turn running into couples and parties whose presence, as Grey put it, “spoiled the picture.”
They had just emerged from that group of homely, quaint cottages in a far corner of the garden where the fair ladies of Louis’s Court were wont to play at peasant life, when the rippling laughter of women and the more hearty if less musical merriment of men broke jarringly upon their hearing.
“Can’t we have some milk at thevacherie Suisse?” Grey heard a woman’s voice ask in the English of the well-bred.
And then a man rejoined:
“Milk! What for? There’s still an unopened case of champagne in the coach.”
Again the laughter echoed, but nearer. The little company were coming towards them, hidden by the shrubbery. A second later and they came into view—a tall, large woman with brilliant auburn hair, in gown and hat of pale lavender; a middle-aged man, red-faced and well-groomed; a dainty little dark woman, all in red, with a tall, dark man in grey, and then—Grey went white as the whitest cloud overhead, for Hope Van Tuyl was approaching, and with her was the young man from the Embassy whom he had seen yesterdayat the hotel. And there was Frothingham, too, whom he had not recognised at first glance; and it was Nicholas Van Tuyl, he saw now, who was with the red-haired woman in the lead.
For a second he halted, undecided, a powerful impulse urging him to speak to the woman he loved, at all hazards. His lips were framing words, his eyes were beaming, his hand was half way to his hat, before his judgment came to the rescue—and held him; told him that it would be folly, that now as never before it was his duty to maintain his disguise and thereby eventually establish his innocence. His eyes cooled, his teeth closed on his embryo utterance, his hand dropped to his side.
“Carey Grey!”
Hope’s voice rang out suddenly above the babble of the party. She had seen him and recognised him. The others had passed on. Only she and Edson were there beside him. With an effort that cost him the most poignant torture he ever suffered he turned to Minna, murmuring words that had no meaning and walked heedlessly by.
Edson caught Miss Van Tuyl’s trembling arm.
“Sh!” he warned, a little excitedly; “you’ve made a mistake. That isn’t Grey.”
“But”—and the colour came and went in her face and she breathed quickly—“but I know it is. I know him, I’m sure; oh, quite, quite sure. I cannot be mistaken. His hair is changed; yes, and he has a beard, but his eyes—I should always know his eyes; and”—as she stood gazing after him—“his shoulders. There isn’t another man in the world who has shoulders just like Carey Grey’s.”
“No other man, possibly,” added Edson, “except the Crown Prince of Budavia.”
Onthe way back to Paris Grey’s thoughtful silence contrasted so markedly with his cheery loquacity of the morning that Fraülein von Altdorf was led to observe:
“I do believe you’re tired, Uncle Max.”
“Tired?” he repeated, forcing a smile. “No, my child, not a bit. The day has been a joy. I’ve revelled in it. Tired! The idea! Am I a septuagenarian or am I an invalid?”
“But you haven’t spoken for fifteen whole minutes.”
“Haven’t I, really? I suppose I was thinking.”
“Of what?” she asked, mischievously.
Grey hesitated a little moment.
“Of fortune and misfortune,” he answered, gravely; “of Fate and the pranks she plays; of life and its inconsistencies; of right and wrong and rewards and punishments; of love and hatredand jealousy; of fair women and brutal, selfish men; of a hundred and one things more or less interesting and absorbing.”
“Oh, youwerebusy!” the girl exclaimed. “I don’t wonder you didn’t hear my question. Altogether I have asked it three times.”
“I beg your pardon,” he pleaded contritely; “that was very rude of me. Won’t you ask it once more?”
They had a compartment to themselves and were seated opposite each other. The train had just left Asnières and was crossing the Seine.
“I was wondering whether you noticed the lady we passed in the garden of the Petit Trianon. I don’t believe you did.”
“We passed many ladies,” Grey temporised; “I can’t say that I noticed them all.”
“Oh, but this one was very beautiful,” she insisted. “She had such colouring and such lovely brown eyes, and I think she thought she recognised you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me at the time?” he asked, striving to appear unconscious.
“Why didn’t I? That’s a nice question. Inudged you and I tried to catch your eye; and, after we had gone on a few steps I begged you to look back, but you wouldn’t heed me. Oh, you were thinking very hard just then. Was it about fair ladies and brutal, selfish men, do you imagine?”
“Probably,” Grey answered. “I’m sorry I was so rude.” And once more he relapsed into meditative silence.
Very bitter indeed was his self-condemnation. If he could have had a second more in which to make his decision he would have decided differently. Of that he was sure. It may have been that he took the course of wisdom, but wisdom and love have been enemies since time began, and where his allegiance was due there he had proved traitor. He contrasted his selfishness with her loyalty, and his ready willingness to conclude that she believed ill of him with her now proved steadfastness, even to the disregard of place and circumstance. He had metaphorically given her a curse for a caress, and he mentally and emotionally scourged himself for his brutality. The suggestion that desperate ills require desperate remedies—thatit was necessary to be cruel that he might be kind—presented itself, but he refused to admit that it had any application. He was consumed by a desire to make reparation, to wipe out this blot of cowardice with some recklessly bold bit of bravery. He would go to her hotel—the Van Tuyls always stopped at the Ritz—and regardless of consequences he would present himself, explain all, and, in abject abasement, beseech her pardon. This, he argued, was the very least he could do. But when he reached this conclusion doubts assailed him and robbed him of what little peace he had garnered. Would she receive him? What right had he to expect that she could permit him to speak to her, now that he had repulsed her—cut her in the presence of her friends and further insulted and humiliated her by appearing more than interested in another woman—and a very young and very pretty woman, too? He most assuredly could have no just cause for complaint should she adopt such an attitude. She had indicated clearly enough that as long as only newspaper reports were his accusers she was willing to await his side of the story, but when she hadgiven him an opportunity to defend himself, and he had chosen to ignore it and herself as well, was it in reason to hope for any further forbearance?
It was in this mood that Grey’s return from Versailles was accomplished; in this ill-temper with himself and this doubt of being able to undo what he looked on as a more dire menace to his happiness than all the charges of defalcation and embezzlement and all the dangers of extradition.
When at length he and Miss von Altdorf reached the Hôtel Grammont they found O’Hara awaiting them. He came running out to thefiacreand gave a hand to the young woman, assisting her to alight.
“Where on earth have you been?” he asked, smiling; but Grey caught a note of concern in his voice.
“To Versailles, for the day,” the Fraülein answered, gaily. “And oh, such a lovely day, too! I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”
“Didn’t they tell you?” Grey asked. “Lindenwald knew.”
“I haven’t seen him.”
“Johann knew.”
“I haven’t seen Johann either.”
It was not until the two men were together in Grey’s room that O’Hara broke his news.
“They’ve cleared out,” he said, bluntly. “What do you think of that for a rum go?”
Grey, who had been drawing off his gloves, stopped midway in the process.
“Cleared out!” he repeated, in astonishment. “Who have cleared out? What do you mean?”
“The whole crew,” declared O’Hara, “Lindenwald and Lutz and Johann. I understood at first that you and the Fraülein had gone with them, but theportiertold me that you and she had started earlier and that your traps were still here.”
“But they?” Grey pursued, eagerly. “Where have they gone? Did they leave no word?”
“Devil a word,” returned the Irishman. “They paid their bill—that is, the Captain did—and departed, kit and all.”
“What does it mean?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
Grey drew off his other glove.
“They’re frightened,” he decided; “they have grown suspicious. They never knew at what minutethey would be pounced on. Their plot was clear enough. What they wanted to do was to palm me off as the Crown Prince of Budavia and put me on the throne when the King dies, as he is going to, if he has not already.”
“What rot!” exclaimed O’Hara. “Have you gone clean daft? What would be their object? How could they hope to do it?”
“I don’t know anything about their object,” Grey continued, calmly; “that’s still a puzzle to me; but they might hope for a lot with me in the condition I was in a few days ago. I apparently did their bidding to their utmost satisfaction.”
“It’s very improbable,” the Irishman insisted; “you’ll never be able to make any one believe it.”
“Won’t I?” the American demanded. “Well, then, wait and see. I’ve learned a lot since I saw you last. As much as I’ve told you is very plain. I have witnesses to prove it. And the other proofs—my God! What do you suppose has become of that box at the Gare du Nord? I sent Lutz for the check or receipt last night, and he never brought it. And this ring!” he went on,talking more to himself than to his companion, “it was in that box. Of course it was. And—” He ceased speaking—his thoughts were coming now too rapidly for words—and stood with lips pressed and eyelids drawn, gazing through his lashes into space.
He was satisfied that someone—he suspected it was Lutz—had got the box from the railway station, had rifled it, had abstracted the ring, had made so bold as to wear it. Yes, when Lutz had come in answer to his summons of the previous evening, he was wearing it even then. It must have been too large for him. He had been nervous, his hands had been twitching, and it had dropped from his finger, and—but no; could it be possible? Was it—wasit Lutz who had returned in the early morning with intent to smother him? Was it he with whom he had wrestled? Was it from his hand that he had stripped this heirloom of the Budavian Court? And Lindenwald’s assurance that it bore the von Einhard arms? What could that mean, other than that Lindenwald was in league with Lutz and striving to shield him? And now their flight....
“Will you kindly tell me whether you are subject to these attacks?” asked O’Hara, interrupting his train of thought. “If I’m to be your lieutenant and serve in your campaign, it strikes me that I should have your full and entire confidence, and yet you are keeping something from me.”
“I’ll tell you everything after dinner,” Grey consented. “We’ll have a council of war and we’ll map out a plan of action.”
When O’Hara had run away to dress, promising to meet Grey and the Fraülein in a private room of the Café Riche at seven-thirty and dine with them, the American’s thoughts reverted to his resolution to see Hope Van Tuyl at all hazards. The disappearance of Lindenwald and the others, however, had again somewhat altered the situation. It was now more than ever necessary that he retain his freedom in order to track and run down the fugitives, and he recognised the risk he took in going to a hotel patronised largely by Americans and sending up a card bearing his real name. Once more his judgment was in the ascendency—wisdom had gained a slight advantage over the little blind god.
Sitting down at his table Grey took up a pen and wrote:
My Darling: For the last two hours I have been in purgatory. What must you think of me? I would come to you at once if I could, but it is impossible. Tomorrow morning, though, I must see you. At the end of the Tuileries gardens, near the Place de la Concorde, there is, you may remember, a grove of trees. Arrange to be there with your maid at eleven o’clock. There will be few there at that hour.
My Darling: For the last two hours I have been in purgatory. What must you think of me? I would come to you at once if I could, but it is impossible. Tomorrow morning, though, I must see you. At the end of the Tuileries gardens, near the Place de la Concorde, there is, you may remember, a grove of trees. Arrange to be there with your maid at eleven o’clock. There will be few there at that hour.
This he despatched to the Ritz by messenger.
“Fancy Captain Lindenwald going off!” cried Minna, as, promptly at twenty minutes past seven, she joined Grey in the drawing-room. “Where has he gone, do you suppose? And Lutz, too, and even Johann.”
“They’ve gone to the seaside over Sunday,” was Grey’s jesting reply. “Paris was getting too warm for them.”
“But,” she protested, at fault, “I understood we were all to start for Kürschdorf tomorrow night.”
“Were we? Who said so?”
“Captain Lindenwald, last evening.”
“Well, Captain Lindenwald has changed his plans.”
“It is certainly very mysterious,” she concluded, perplexedly. “I couldn’t believe it when the chambermaid told me.” And the great solemn eyes were graver than usual.
When, after dinner, they returned to the hotel, Grey’s glance detected a telegram in the rack addressed to the decamping Captain and he made haste to appropriate it. A little later, in his room, he handed it to O’Hara.
“It may be of service,” he said, significantly. “I don’t much like prying into another man’s affairs, but in this case his and mine are, in a way, identical.”
The Irishman nodded.
“We’ll keep it until you’ve told me all you know without it,” he suggested, taking out a briarwood pipe and filling it, “so drive ahead, lad, and don’t omit any details.”
And then Grey told his story, beginning with the glimpse of von Einhard, on the Boulevard St. Martin; following with the visit of Edson and the overheard announcement that he, Grey, was the Crown Prince Maximilian; the reappearance of the Baron; Lutz’s suspicious demeanour; the attempton his life; the finding of the ring; the ring’s history; and, finally, his own deductions.
O’Hara listened attentively, blowing great clouds of smoke from under his red moustache. Occasionally he interrupted with a question. When the recital was concluded he got up and extended his hand.
“Well done, man,” he exclaimed; “you have been making hay in sun and rain alike. I wonder if we could lay our hands on this Baron von Einhard. It seems to me that he is just the chap we want to make friends with.”
“I dare say he is still hanging about,” the American replied; “he probably has not lost sight of me. I’d know him if I saw him again. We’ll have a look in at the cafés a little later. And now about Lindenwald and the others. Didn’t theportierknow which way they went?”
“No, they hailed a couple of passingfiacres, and he didn’t hear what directions were given.”
Grey tore open the telegram which O’Hara had tossed onto the table. It was dated Kürschdorf. “The King is dead,” it read; “wire when you will be here,” and it was signed, “Ritter.”
He pushed it across to the Irishman, remarking:
“He probably had that news from some other source before he left.”
“You think it hastened him?”
“In a way, yes. At least it directed him,” Grey said, with conviction.
O’Hara looked at him inquiringly.
“You surely don’t imagine the three of them have gone to Kürschdorf?” he blurted, in a tone of surprise.
“I do mean that exactly.”
“But why there, of all places? If Lindenwald is expected to bring the Crown Prince with him he surely wouldn’t go there empty-handed. What excuses could he make?”
“I don’t pretend to conjecture his excuses,” Grey replied, smiling, “but it seems very clear to me that Kürschdorf is his only sanctuary. There he will be with friends. Whatever he says is likely to be believed. If he fled elsewhere he would be in constant danger of arrest. His very flight would be evidence of his guilt.”
O’Hara nodded.
“You’re probably right,” he acquiesced; “anyway he turned he had to take chances, and Kürschdorf must have looked to him the least dangerous. What do you propose to do?”
“Follow him,” Grey answered, promptly. “Take the Orient Express tomorrow night.”
“And once we are there; what then?”
“The Crown Prince claims the throne.”
O’Hara put down his pipe and sat staring in amazement.
“Claims the throne?” he repeated, “the Crown Prince?”
“The Crown Prince claims the throne.” Grey reiterated it with calm decision.
“You mean thatyouwill claim the throne?” the Irishman persisted, still perplexed.
“Precisely.”
The dragoon guard got up and walked the length of the room, smoking very hard.
“That’s a dangerous business,” he said, as he came back and stood with the tips of his fingers resting on the table, “a very dangerous business.”
“There’s no other way in God’s world to find out who are in the plot,” Grey returned, grimly.
“I don’t quite see—” O’Hara began, but the American interrupted him.
“I haven’t mastered all the details myself,” he said, “but that’s the kernel of the nut we’re cracking. Perhaps von Einhard can aid us. He must know the conspirators, and he can give us the names of the men into whose hands we are supposed to play. I have a suspicion that the Budavian Minister here in Paris is one of the lot. But it won’t do to take that for granted. Otherwise I’d see him before leaving.”
“I have been thinking over the idea of consulting the Baron,” O’Hara ventured, after a pause. “Suppose he won’t believe you?”
“Oh, but he will,” the other insisted; “I’ll make it quite clear to him that I am an American and that I’m a victim and not an aspirant for kingly honours, except in so far as goes to set matters right and bring the guilty to justice.”
“It’s a risk that you take there, lad,” the Irishman argued; “the more I think of it the bigger it looks. He’s just as likely to fancy it’s only a game of yours to throw him off the scent and secure your own ends. I don’t believe Lindenwaldexaggerated his shrewdness. I’ve heard of him myself.”
Grey rose, leaned over the table and took a cigarette from a tray.
“Come,” he said, as he struck a match, “we’re liable to find him about this time.”
During the past twenty-four hours he had experienced a gradual reawakening of faculties that had previously lain dull or dormant. His five months of lost memory had had an after-effect in what he could only describe as a mental thickness. His thoughts had run slowly and sluggishly; he had lacked keenness of perception and the ability to draw deductions; he had been all the while conscious of a timidity, an indecision, a hesitation, a tendency to rely upon others, against which he strove with but little effect. His actions were dictated by outside suggestion rather than by his own judgment. And with this, too, was a contrasting dignity of demeanour unnatural to him, and all the more annoying in that it was, he knew, superficial and at discord with his temperament.
The clearing of his brain, the reassertion of his naturally alert mentality, the recovery of his self-reliance, were now becoming evident; but that unwonted, and to him unwelcome, exaggeration of dignity in his carriage and demeanour gave no sign of deserting him.
O’Hara observed the change and delighted in it. The soldier in him could find only admiration for the manner in which Grey had risen mentally in one day from a subaltern to a commanding officer; and the dignified, distinguished air which had seemed, he once thought, a little incongruous appeared now as most fitting and admirable.
Together they went in search of the Budavian Baron. Into one café after another they wandered, but always without success. They encountered acquaintances by the dozen—men and women whom Grey and O’Hara had met since their arrival in Paris, and whom Grey had no recollection of ever having seen before—but the little, wiry, sallow-faced Italian-looking nobleman was nowhere in evidence.
It is never safe, however, to assume that a visitor to the French capital is abed and asleep simply because he cannot be found in any of the boulevard cafés around the hour of midnight.
Atthe door of the Hôtel Grammont, Grey and O’Hara stood for some little time in conversation. As they were about to part, O’Hara asked: “You haven’t a revolver, have you?”
“No,” Grey answered, carelessly. “Shall I need one, do you think?”
“After your experience of last night it seems to me it would be just as well to sleep with one under your pillow.”
Grey laughed.
“I don’t fancy I shall be disturbed again,” he said.
“I’ll run over to my place and get you one,” O’Hara insisted. “I shall be back in ten minutes.”
As he went off at a brisk walk Grey turned into the wide passage that gave entrance to the court. Theportierwas not visible, but at the foot of the narrow stairway to the right a man who in thedim light had the appearance of one of the hotel valets, addressed him.
“Captain Lindenwald has returned, Monsieur Arndt,” he said, quietly, respectfully; “he met with an accident and has come back. He begs that Monsieur Arndt will see him before retiring.”
For a moment Grey stood silent in surprise.
“An accident?” he queried, recovering himself.
“Yes, monsieur. His train ran into an open switch at Villieurs. His leg is broken in two places, and he is injured internally. I will show monsieur to his room.”
As he led the way to the floor above and along a passage towards the back of the house where Herr Schlippenbach’s room had been, Grey marvelled over this new twist in the thread of fate. That the Captain had returned to this hotel and had sent for him argued, he thought, that there must have been some mistake or misunderstanding as to his departure. If he had meant to desert his charge he would not under any circumstances have acted in this fashion. Perhaps—indeed it was quite possible—he had left a letter which some stupid French servant had failed to deliver,or it might simply have been his intention to spend Sunday out of Paris, giving Lutz and Johann permission to take a brief holiday as well. O’Hara had said something about their luggage being gone, but that might have been an error, too.
At a turn in the passage Grey’s guide halted before a door and rapped, playing, as it were, a sort of brief tattoo on the panel with his knuckles; and at the same time a waiter passed on his way to the rear stairway.
An instant later the door was opened by someone who shielded himself behind it. The man who had led the way and done the rapping stepped back, and the American, his eyes a little dazzled by the light, put a foot across the threshold. Just what followed Grey never exactly knew. A myriad brilliant, sparkling, rapidly darting specks of fire filled his vision. In his ears was a thunderous rushing sound like a storm sweeping through a forest—a swollen river churning through rocky narrows. His body seemed dropping through interminable space, gaining momentum with every foot of its fall, but shooting straight, straight downward without a swerve; the lights flashingby him, the winds roaring past him as he sped. An agony of apprehension seized him. He was going to be crushed to atoms; mangled, broken, distorted. He tried to raise his arms, to clutch at the impalpable, but they were held down as if by leaden weights. To bend a knee, to lift a foot, to cry out, were alike impossible of achievement. And then, with a crash that split his ears, that tore every joint asunder, that racked every nerve, muscle, sinew and tendon, the end came. The myriad sparks, like the countless flashing facets of countless diamonds, were drowned in blackest night and the terrifying rush of furious winds and frantic waves was hushed in a silence profound and awful—the blackness and the silence of unconsciousness.
Very gradually, but in much shorter time than he fancied, or than his assailants expected, he recovered command of his faculties and became aware that he was lying upon a couch, an improvised gag in his mouth, his arms pinioned in a most uncomfortable way at his sides, and his feet bound together with cords that cut cruelly into the flesh of his ankles. He realised then that he hadbeen led into a trap and had been sandbagged or otherwise assaulted as he entered it. His mind was still busy with Lindenwald and his motives, he fancied at first that he was responsible for this outrage, and warily, between his lashes, with his eyes scarcely opened, he glanced about the room in search of this gallant member of the Budavian royal household.
There were, however, but two persons present, and Lindenwald was not one of them. One was the little man whom he had mistaken for a hotel valet and who had lured him to his downfall; and the other was a tall, burly, bearded fellow, with a low forehead and sinister, bloodshot eyes. The two were standing near an open window and the larger man had in his hands a thick hempen rope, one end of which Grey observed was knotted about the heavy post of an old-fashioned mahogany bedstead which stood against the opposite wall. On more careful inspection he saw that the man was deliberately making a slip knot of the pattern known as a hangman’s noose. The only light in the room was that given by a single candle, but it sufficed for Grey to gather these details.
The smaller man leaned out of the window for a moment, and on drawing in his head he turned to the other with the remark:
“The carriage is there. Make haste with your knot. I’m not in love with this business.”
He spoke in German and his partner replied in the same tongue.
“Have patience,” he said, calmly; “it’s a heavy body we’ve got to lower and the knot must be strong. There’s plenty of time. He won’t come to himself for hours, and there’s no fear of anyone interrupting us now.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” was the reply, in a tone of nervous apprehension; “we have been here too long as it is. If we should fail at the last minute, the Baron would——”
“S—sh!” warned the other, “no names is safer. Just another wrapping now and she’ll hold all right. Some wrap it seven times and some only five, but I’m giving it nine, to be sure.”
He had scarcely finished the sentence when a blow, aggressive and imperious, sounded on the door. The younger man started nervously, butthe other just phlegmatically lowered his work and raised his head.
“What’s that mean?” he whispered.
“God knows!” the other replied, agitatedly. “What’s to be done?”
“Done? Nothing. Keep still, that’s all. Blow out that candle,” he commanded. Though he spoke very low his voice penetrated and Grey caught every word.
Again a heavy blow struck the door, repeated blows, accompanied by a demand:
“Ouvrez la porte!”
The voice was O’Hara’s. Grey recognised it with a thrill. He had returned with the revolver, and not finding him in his room had set out in search of him. But how, he wondered, could he have traced him here? And then he thought of the waiter he had seen in the passage, who had evidently recognised him. Yes, the waiter must have told.
Now Grey heard other voices outside. There was the shuffling, too, of many feet. Still, the men within made no sound. The candle had been extinguished and the darkness was intense.
The knocking became clamorous. There was a general ominous murmur like low growling thunder from the other side of the door.
Bang! bang! bang! resounded the blows.
“Open the door! Open at once or I’ll break it down,” O’Hara roared.
Grey’s enforced silence and inertia were maddening. He bit at his gag, contorted his mouth, tugged at his arms, but could accomplish nothing, beyond a wriggling change of position.
“Perhaps they have gone,” he heard someone say, whose voice was sonorous, “perhaps they have gone. Escaped by the window. There is no light there; and no sound.”
“Stop!” It was O’Hara speaking. “Listen!”
With an effort Grey squirmed to the edge of the couch and dropped his bound body to the floor with a thud that echoed through the silent room.
“Damn him!” he heard the bigger of his two companions hiss through his teeth.
From outside there came a yell of triumph; and then a heavy, crashing, catapultian mass fell upon the fragile portal. There was a crackling, splintering sound of wood rent apart, and through theaperture thus made, in the dim light of the single gas-jet in the passage, O’Hara came plunging with half a dozen of the hotel employés at his heels.
At the same instant a head disappeared below the sill of the window, and the rope from the bedpost was stretched taut and creaking with the weight of two descending bodies.
The Irishman, crossing the room in a flash, missed the form of his prostrate friend by a hair’s-breadth and dived headlong for the open casement. But quick as he was the fleeing scapegraces, realising their danger, were even more speedy. As his head shot out into the night the strain on the rope relaxed and there came up from the darkness below a patter of feet on the stone flagging of the alley. His pistol was in his hand and he fired once—twice—three times—blindly into the blackness beneath, guided only by the echo of those retreating footsteps.
Meanwhile, one of the Frenchmen—Baptiste, the waiter, by the way, who had told O’Hara that he saw Monsieur Arndt enter this room—was removing the gag from Grey’s mouth, while otherswere cutting the cords that bound his limbs. For a moment the American’s view of the Irishman’s broad back was cut off by those surrounding him, but the next minute he was on his feet and—but in that instant O’Hara had disappeared. Clutching the dangling rope, he had swung himself out of the window and had slid down nimbly in pursuit.
Grey’s impulse was to follow, but at the first step he reeled dizzily and would have fallen had not Baptiste thrown an arm about him and aided him to a chair. His head was aching splittingly and his legs and arms were numb. For a little while he was lost to everything save the racking torture of physical pain. Then the voluble, excited clatter of the men about him recalled him to a sense of what had happened.
“What are you standing here for?” he cried, vexedly. “Get down to the street, every one of you. Monsieur O’Hara may need you. Off, I say. Be quick!”
“But, monsieur,” urged Baptiste, hanging back as the other five made a hasty exit, “is it not that monsieur would like a surgeon?”
“Surgeon be damned!” yelled Grey, excitedly. “Out with you!”
But in five minutes they were back again in augmented numbers, with O’Hara accompanied by asergent de villeat their head.
“They got clean away, the beggars,” the Irishman announced; and then seeing Grey very white, he exclaimed: “Are you hurt, lad? What in God’s name did they do to you, the scalawags?”
“I’m only a little knocked up,” the American answered, with a forced smile; “it was a pretty hard rap on the head they gave me, though.”
The police officer had taken out a notebook, and now he began to ask questions. There was very little, however, that anyone could tell him. Grey described his assailants as accurately as he knew how, and gave him the benefit of his suspicions.
“By whom was the room engaged?” asked thesergent, addressing Baptiste; but Baptiste did not know. Then a messenger was sent to arouse theportier, who had been abed for an hour or more, and when at length he came in, still rubbing his eyes, the information that he gave conveyed nothing.
The room, he said, was taken that evening by a man of ordinary appearance who gave the name of Schmidt. His brother and a friend would occupy it, he told theportier, and he paid one day’s rent in advance.
“Was the man tall or short?” asked the officer.
Theportiershrugged his stalwart shoulders.
“I do not know,” he replied.
“Was he dark or fair?”
“I cannot tell you, monsieur,” he repeated; “I did not notice.”
“Of what age?”
“It is impossible that I should conjecture, monsieur,” with another shrug.
Grey laughed, sneeringly. “He evidently paid more than room rent,” he said to O’Hara. “The Baron von Einhard is very clever.”
And when, a little while after, he thought of looking through his pockets he had reason to reiterate and emphasise this opinion. Not a penny of his money had been touched; his watch and chain were still in his possession, as were indeed all of his belongings save one. The ring of the Prince of Kronfeld alone was missing.
Resentment—fierce, vengeful, absorbing—took possession of Carey Grey. That he should have been disgraced, dishonoured, robbed for a time of his reason and his memory, his friends made to suffer, his life put in jeopardy, and all without the slightest provocation, was an outrage so heinous that he considered no punishment too great for its perpetrators. The fact that the one who was apparently mainly responsible for the inspiration and the execution had been summoned to a spiritual tribunal to answer for his misdeeds tempered not a whit the victim’s bitter animosity. Indeed, he felt that death had cheated him of what he craved as a meagre compensation for his wrongs—the opportunity to visit personally upon the arch-offender his own retribution. But if Herr Schlippenbach had been snatched from his hands by a too kindly Providence therewere others remaining who should feel the weight of his relentless vengeance.
In this mood, wakeful and dreamful by turns, a cold compress on his bruised head, Grey worried through the early hours of the morning. With the first sign of the blue dawn, however, he became more composed. His meditations took on a more gentle guise; his brow, which had been wrinkled with frowns, smoothed; into his eyes came a tenderness that routed spleen, and his mouth softened its tensity of line. The day held for him a joy the anticipation of which was a benison.
After all, heaven was not wholly unkind. He had been made to suffer cruelly and undeservedly, but there was at least one compensation—the woman he loved was here, near him, in the same city; in a few hours he would meet her, talk with her, feel the warmth of her hand in his, experience the benignant sympathy of her eyes and the caressing graciousness of her voice. With the dawn had come confidence, and he smiled as he recalled his doubts of the previous afternoon. Her love was steadfast, enduring, immutable. Of this he felt assured. And her faith and loyalty werelike her love. He lay for hours in blissful contemplation of the character, disposition, mind, manner and person of the woman he adored.
He recalled their first meeting at a barn dance at Newport, when she was in her débutante year; and then, an event of the following day came back to him vividly as in a picture. The scene was the polo field at Point Judith. He had just made a goal by dint of hard riding and unerring strokes, and a hurricane of applause had followed, led, it seemed to him, by a tall young woman in white, with great, shining brown eyes and flushed cheeks, who was standing up in her place atop a coach, clapping her hands in frantic delight. And this picture was followed by others—a panorama in which the same girl figured again and again—always beautiful, always smart, always gracious.
He attired himself, this fine Sunday morning, with more than usual care, despite the absence of his valet, and set forth early for the rendezvous he had chosen. Already the boulevards were alive. Many of the chairs in front of the cafés were occupied by sippers of absinthe and drinkers of blackbitters. From the gratings in the sidewalks arose the appetising aroma of the Parisiandéjeuner à la fourchette. He crossed the Avenue de l’Opéra and, turning into the rue de la Paix, was presently passing the entrance of the hotel that sheltered her who filled his thoughts—her whom he had come out to meet. Afiacrewas at the curb, and, fancying that it might be awaiting her, he hastened his steps so that he should not encounter her in so public a place. From the summit of the Vendôme Column the imperial-robed Napoleon cast an abbreviated shadow across his path as he cut across theplaceinto the rue de Castiglione. A man he did not remember bowed graciously as he passed him at the corner of the rue de Rivoli, and a little further on a somewhat showily gowned woman in an enormous picture hat, probably on her way to the Madeleine, leaned from her carriage to smile upon him. And she, likewise, was without his recollection.
At the corner of the rue Cambon he made a diagonal cut to the garden side of the street, and a minute later reached the broad and imposing Place de la Concorde in all its bravery of bronzediron and granite fountains, sculptured stone figures, rostral columns and majestic Obelisk.
As he turned into the gardens of the Tuileries, Grey glanced at his watch to discover that the time still lacked five minutes of eleven. He looked back in expectation of seeing a cab approaching, but, though there were many crossing the place at various angles, there was none headed in his direction. He strolled off between the flower-beds into the little grove at his right. Just ahead of him he descried a figure in pink, and his heart bounded; but he overtook it only to meet disappointment. He lighted a cigarette, sat down on a bench, and dug in the gravel with his walking-stick; his eyes, though, ever on the alert, looking now one way, now another. He took out his watch again. The minute hand was still a single space short of twelve. He got up and retraced his steps towards the entrance with the object of meeting her as she came in. Again he gazed across the wide, sun-washed area of the place, but without reward, and then a dour melancholy threatened him. He was assailed by forebodings. She would not come. He had offended her beyondreparation. The day suddenly grew dull. A cloud hid the sun. The gaiety of those who passed him became offensive. The sight of a youth with his sweetheart hanging on his arm filled him with rancour. He walked back and forth irritably. He was depressed, heavy-hearted, apprehensive.
Another five minutes dragged by, with a corresponding increase in the young man’s dejection. His imagination was now active. It was quite possible she had left Paris. His messenger, perhaps, had failed to deliver his note. He wondered if by any chance she might be ill.
He was standing, pensive, by the fountain, undecided whether to wait longer or to go on to the Ritz in search of her, when the rustle of skirts behind him caused him to turn.
“Ah—h!” exclaimed a laughing voice, “it is then you after all. I was not sure. I looked and I looked, but you are so changed, Mr. Grey!”
It was Marcelle, Miss Van Tuyl’s maid, and at the sound of her peculiar accent Grey recognised her instantly. He realised, too, that it was she whom he had seen on the moment of his coming—the figure in the pink frock.
“Miss Van Tuyl sent this note, Mr. Grey,” she went on, handing him an envelope which he noticed was unaddressed.
His spirits rose a trifle. She had not left Paris, then, and she had received his message.
“Miss Van Tuyl is not ill, I hope?” he questioned, anxiously.
“Oh, no, Mr. Grey,” and Marcelle shrugged her plump shoulders and raised her black eyebrows, “but—” and she hesitated just the shade of a second “she is—oh, I fear she is most unhappy.”
“Thank you very much, Marcelle,” he said, ignoring her comment, though the words were as a sword-thrust, and handing her a louis. “Is there an answer?”
“I do not know, monsieur; but I think not.”
Grey tore open the envelope and glanced over the inclosure.
“No,” he announced, his face very set and suddenly pale. “Give my compliments to Miss Van Tuyl,” he added, “that is all.”
When the girl had gone he turned again into the little grove and once more found the seat underthe trees where a few minutes before he had impatiently dug the gravel with his walking-stick. He sat now with his forearms resting on his thighs, the note crushed in his hand, his eyes bent, thoughtful but unseeing, on the grass across the walk.
She had refused to come to him. It was probably better, she had written, that they should not meet again. She could imagine nothing in the way of explanation that would form an adequate excuse for his action of the afternoon before. And that was all. Only five lines in a large hand.
The self-chastisement of the man was pitiless; his contrition pathetic. He was willing now to make any sacrifice, to suffer any abasement, to risk any punishment, to sustain any loss if by so doing he could gain forgiveness, achieve reinstatement in favour—aye, even attain the privilege of pleading his cause. He had been so sure of her; it had not seemed possible that she could ever be other than love and devotion and loyalty personified. Her smile was the one sun he thought would never set and never be clouded. And now she had taken this light from his life forever. With that gone,he asked himself, what else in all the world mattered? What were honour, position, credit, fortune, if she were not to share them?
He smoothed out the crumpled sheet and read it again, slowly, carefully, weighing each word, measuring each phrase, considering each sentence. And then the utter hopelessness of his expression changed. “It is probably better,” he repeated, quoting from the note, and the “probably” seemed larger and more prominent than any other eight letters on the page. There was nothing absolutely final about that. It was an assertion, to be sure, but there was a lot of qualification in that “probably.” And further on, she had not said: “There is nothing in the way of explanation you can offer,” but “I can imaginenothing.” He thanked God for that “I can imagine.” Oh, yes, indeed, there was a very large loophole there; and so he took heart of grace, and even smiled, and got up swinging his stick jauntily. All he wanted was a fighting chance. He had won her a year ago from a score of rivals, and he would win her now from herself. And not from herself, either, for with the return of hope he felt that hewould have no more stanch ally than she. It was with her sense of what was fit and becoming that he must battle—her pride and her self-esteem which he had outraged. He would go to her, bravely, as he should have done before, instead of asking her to meet him in this clandestine fashion. He had been a fool, but he would make amends and she would forgive him. Yes, he was quite sanguine now that he could win her pardon.
He retraced his steps briskly to the Place Vendôme and turned in at the Ritz with head erect and chin thrust forward. He had no cards, of course, but he scribbled “Carey Grey” upon a slip of paper and asked that it be sent to Miss Van Tuyl at once. And then he waited, nervously, smoking one cigarette after another, walking back and forth, sitting down, only to get up again, agitatedly, and to resume his pacing to and fro.
“Miss Van Tuyl is not at home, monsieur.”
It was theportierwho delivered the message. Grey stood for a full half-minute, staring stupidly. He had not counted upon this. He had been all confidence. That she was in the hotel he felt very certain; but she would not see him. He mighthave foreseen that consistency demanded this attitude of her. To send him a note one moment refusing to permit him to explain and at the next to grant him an audience was not to be expected of a young woman of Hope Van Tuyl’s sterling character. There was, therefore, but one course open to him. What he had to say he must put in writing.
“I’ll leave a note,” he said to theportier; and he went into the writing-room and sat down at a table. But when he came to write he was embarrassed by the flood of matter that craved expression. There was so much to tell, so much to make clear, so much to plead that he was staggered by the contemplation. Again and again he began, and again and again he tore the sheet of paper into tiny bits. He dipped his pen into the ink and held it poised while he made effort to frame an opening sentence; and the ink dried on the nib as one thought after another was evolved only to be rejected.
For the fifth time he wrote: “My Very Dearest,” and then, nettled over his laggard powers, he dove straight and determinedly into the midst ofthe subject that engrossed him, writing rapidly and without pause until he had finished:
“I cannot find it in my heart to question the justice of your decision,” he began. “Viewed in the light of your meagre knowledge, or rather ignorance, of facts, I must look indeed very black. But I am guiltless; that I swear. Under the circumstances you must know how anxious I am to prove this, and how, in justice to you and myself, I must let no opportunity pass to discover and convict the real culprits. To have recognised you at Versailles yesterday before the man you were with would have been to ruin every chance of accomplishing what I have set out to do. Imagine, my dear, the alternative from which I had to choose. Had it been simply a question of my personal liberty, you cannot doubt which course I should have taken. I was burning to speak to you—to look into the eyes I love, to hear the voice I adore—and yet for both our sakes I had to deny myself. The child who was with me is sweet and charming, and in no way implicated in the plot against me. When you know her, as I hope you will one day, you will be very fond of her. But Ican understand how the situation must have appeared to you. I would give all I have and all I hope for if I could but be with you and tell you everything. All I ask now is that you trust me. I am leaving Paris this afternoon for Kürschdorf by the Orient Express. I cannot say when I shall return. But when I do it will be to search for you, and with honour vindicated and no further need of secrecy. My heart is with you always, my darling.’Au revoir.”
The letter dulled, in a measure, the keenness of Grey’s disappointment and reinspired him to the accomplishment of the task that lay before him. After luncheon he had up his trunks from the hotel storeroom and with Baptiste’s assistance accomplished his packing. Already O’Hara had engaged places for three on the train, for Miss von Altdorf’s destination was the same as theirs. She had a married sister living in Kürschdorf, and she was most anxious to join her at the earliest possible moment.
By half-past five everything was in readiness for their departure; Baptiste had retired with a liberal tip, and Grey and O’Hara were makingthemselves ready for the journey. Just at this juncture there was a knock at the door, and in answer to Grey’s command to enter, it swung open to reveal, bowing on the threshold, the sturdy little figure, pale face, and close-cropped yellow head of Johann.
The two occupants of the room stood astonished, their eyes wide with surprise.
“Johann!” they exclaimed together.
“Yes, Herr Arndt,” said the lad, bowing again; “it is as you see—I have come back.”
“Back from where, Johann?” Grey asked.
“I started for Kürschdorf with the Herr Captain Lindenwald; but I am come back from Strasburg.”
“And why?” queried the American, very much puzzled.
“Because, Herr Arndt, I knew it was not right for me to be going with the Herr Captain. I was in your service, and perhaps if you were seized with madness you have all the more need of me.”
“Madness!” repeated Grey, frowning. “What is this? Who said I was mad?”
“The Herr Captain and Lutz,” confessed Johann,stolidly, with scarce a change of expression.
O’Hara laughed. “Oh, ho!” he shouted, dropping into a chair, “now we have it. You are mad, and so you cannot go to Budavia to claim your own.”
Johann nodded; and Grey, leaning against the edge of the table, was lost for a moment in thought.
“But the Fraülein?” O’Hara questioned. “What did they say of her? Was she to be left with the madman?”
“No, Herr O’Hara; only for a little. The Herr Captain Lindenwald had arranged, Lutz told me, to have Herr Arndt taken to an asylum by the doctors and then the Fraülein was to be brought to Kürschdorf.”
Grey smiled, grimly. “The doctors were the gentlemen you chased out of the window last night, Jack,” he said. And then he asked of Johann: “Did they say anything of Baron von Einhard?”
“No, Herr Arndt.”
“You are quite sure?”
“I have not heard of his name, Herr Arndt.”
Then Johann was told of the plan of departure and was sent off to telephone for another place on the Orient Express for himself. When he returned the American said to him:
“It was very good of you, Johann, to come back.”
“Ah, Herr Arndt,” he returned, in a tone of appreciation, “I could not do less. Can I ever, do you think, forget that it was you who saved my life?”
Grey’s surprise must have shown in his eyes, but he asked no questions. Later, however, just as they were about to start for the Gare de Strasbourg, he found himself alone with O’Hara for a moment and put the query to him:
“What is this about my having saved Johann’s life?”
“You don’t remember it? Oh, of course not,” the Irishman answered. “Well, you had your pluck with you, lad, if you didn’t have your memory. We were in that fire at the Folsonham, in Piccadilly. It happened in the early morning when the whole house was asleep, and that the death listwas not larger was little short of a miracle. The front stairs were burning as Schlippenbach, the Fraülein and you and I reached them. When I got to the bottom I missed you, and looking back saw you through the smoke still standing at the top. ‘For God’s sake, make haste, man!’ I called, ‘the stairs may fall at any minute.’ But you had seen a figure staggering down, half suffocated, from the floor above. Well, instead of saving yourself you went back to help that figure, which proved to be Johann. And even at that moment the staircase fell with a crash. But you caught the stumbling, dazed Budavian from out a hurricane of sparks, rushed him through a room filled with blinding smoke and climbed with him hanging limp over your shoulder out of a window onto an already burning ten-inch cornice. And there you held him, against the wall, God only knows how, until a ladder was run up and the pair of you brought safely to the street just as the cornice crumbled and went down. And, good Lord, but didn’t the crowd cheer! Only fancy your not remembering anything of it!”
“I’m glad I managed it,” said Grey, simply.But the story depressed him. What else had he done in those five months of somnambulism? The thought of that period and its possibilities had grown distressful to him. He had committed a great crime and he had performed a brave deed. They were the opposite poles of that world of sleep. But what other acts lay between? What other incidents of right and wrong filled the intermediate zones? He shrank from asking general questions on the subject, and speculation was as distasteful as it was futile. When, as in this instance, accident had revealed something, the result was a sort of emotional nausea.