Onthe platform of the Gare de l’Est, with ten minutes to spare before the departure of the Orient Express, Grey and O’Hara, with the fair Minna von Altdorf between them, strolled leisurely up and down beside the long and lugubrious train ofwagons-lit. There was the usual bustle incident to the leaving of the great transcontinental flyer. Passengers were nervously seeking their locations; blue-overalled porters wheeling trucks piled high with trunks and boxes hurried towards the luggage vans, and others with smaller impedimenta in hand crowded on the narrow platforms of the cars and ran into the still smaller passageways upon which the compartments opened. English and American tourists unable to speak the language of the country were besieging the interpreters; friends and kinsfolk with lingering handshakes, effusive embraces, andkisses upon either cheek were bidding departing travellers farewell, and dapper-uniformed guards were at intervals repeating the stereotyped command: “En voiture, messieurs!” There was the distracting hissing of escaping steam, the shrill piping of whistles, the rumble and roar of arriving trains. And over all hung an atmosphere of intolerably humid heat.
O’Hara and the Fraülein were chatting animatedly, but Grey was still depressed and silent. The delay irritated him. He was impatient to be gone. For the hundredth time he was wondering whether he had said too much or too little in his letter to Hope Van Tuyl; wondering how she regarded it; whether she was still obdurate. He had not given her an address and there was no way in which she could communicate with him. He regretted this now. A word from her would be a talisman.
His memory of her as he had seen her yesterday at Versailles was very vivid. It was only a glimpse, but in that instant he had drunk in greedily the marvellous perfection of her beauty; and the picture had dwelt with him since. Sleepingand waking he could see the bronze dusk of her hair, the gentleness of her eyes, the softly flushed curve of her cheek, the tender sympathy of her mouth, the supple grace of her figure. The portrait was not new to him, to be sure—he had many times revelled in fond contemplation of those rare features—but absence had its usual effect, and it had been centuries, it seemed, since his vision had been so blessed. Against the dull, dun, grimy background of the railway station this radiant reflection was projected, clear and sharp. He saw her mentally just as he had seen her physically on the previous afternoon.
And as he gazed a miracle was wrought. For into and out of the image came and grew the reality, and he suddenly realised that she was standing before him, that in one hand he was holding his hat and that his other hand was clasping hers. All the sights and sounds of the platform died away, and he saw only her, more beautiful even than he had dreamed, her eyes alight with love, her lips smiling forgiveness.
O’Hara and the Fräulein had passed on, and he and the one woman in the world had drawn asideout of the hurry and scurry. A few steps away stood Marcelle, the maid, her interest decorously diverted.
“Oh, how good you are!” Grey was saying, his heart in his voice; “how very, very good you are!”
Her hand answered the ardent pressure of his.
“I just couldn’t let you go without seeing you,” she returned. “You cannot imagine what I have suffered. I tried to be brave—I tried so hard, dear; but I’m only a weak woman and my soul longed for you every minute.”
What bliss it was to hear her speak! It set the man’s pulses surging. His face was flushed and young and happy again, as it had not been since his awakening.
“The whole thing has been frightful,” he told her, clenching his teeth at the recollection. “You haven’t an idea what a net of circumstance has been thrown around me.”
“Yes,” she hastened, “I know—they told me you had been ill, irresponsible; that you had had brain fever or something, and—oh, Carey, why did you do that?” and she pointed to his beard.
He smiled grimly.
“I didn’t do it,” he answered, with emphasis. “You surely don’t think I’d be guilty of such a ridiculous transformation, do you?”
“But——”
“I’ll explain some day, dear heart,” he interrupted her, “but there isn’t time now; the train leaves in about five minutes, and I want all of that in which to tell you how very beautiful you are and how very, very much I love you.”
She wore a perfectly fitting gown of white with rich lace, and a large hat of pale blue with a circling ostrich plume of the same delicate tint. Her tall and shapely figure was quite unavoidably a little conspicuous, and a target for admiring glances.
“Leaves in five minutes?” she repeated, dolorously. “But I can’t let you go in five minutes. I have so much to say to you. It has been five months since I spoke to you. You must wait and take the next train—wait until tomorrow.”
“If only I might!” Grey replied, his eyes in hers. “If it could only be we should never partagain, never! Ah, my own, how my arms ache for you!”
“But you can stay,” she urged. He was still holding her hand, and now she placed her other hand over his as she pleaded. “There is no reason why you shouldn’t. What difference will twenty-four hours make? Are you going for the King’s funeral? It is set for Friday, you know. We are thinking of going ourselves. Wait until tomorrow, and you and papa and I can go together.”
“But, my darling,” Grey protested, arguing against his inclination, “don’t you see that that would be quite impossible? Your father could not afford to be seen with me. I am a supposed fugitive from justice. He would be guilty of aiding and abetting a criminal,” and he smiled grimly again.
“What would he care?” the young woman demanded, airily. “He doesn’t believe you guilty. He knows you are not. He has said as much. I can’t let you go, dear; I can’t—I won’t.”
“Please, please don’t make it more difficult for me to part from you than it is already,” he begged.“You know how much I long to have you with me, and yet another day’s delay might ruin everything. I should be in Kürschdorf at this very minute.”
Her eyes glistened and tears hung on her lashes.
“Why?” she asked, simply.
“All my hopes of undoing the wrong that has been done me lie in that direction,” he answered, gravely. “It was a conspiracy, dear, involving men high in the Budavian government. The work of unmasking them will grow more difficult with each hour it is put off.”
She gazed at him in sudden alarm.
“You are going into danger,” she murmured. Her voice trembled. Anxiety was in her tone. She pressed his hands nervously, convulsively. “Tell me the truth. You are, aren’t you?”
Grey laughed to reassure her.
“Not a bit, my darling,” he answered, with an assumption of nonchalance; “the whole affair can, I think, be adjusted most peacefully.”
For a moment she was silent, her eyes reading his thoughts.
“I’m going with you,” she exclaimed, suddenly.
Grey stared at her in surprise.
“I only wish you could,” he said, refusing to take her seriously, “but I don’t see just how——”
“I’m going,” she interrupted, determinedly. “I shan’t be in the least in your way, that I promise. But I’m going. I refuse to be left behind.”
“En voiture, messieurs et mesdames!”
The guard’s command had grown imperative. The second bell had rung.
Grey pulled out his watch. It showed thirty seconds of starting time. O’Hara was standing at the car’s step looking anxiously towards him. Johann was at his side, his hat deferentially raised.
“The train is now to start, Herr Arndt,” he said.
The man turned to the woman he loved.
“I am going with you,” she reiterated before he could speak; and she beckoned to Marcelle.
“En voiture!” shouted the guards.
There was no time for further protest or parley. The four crossed the platform hurriedly. Hope entered the car, her maid following; and then Grey, with O’Hara at his heels and Johann bringingup the rear, stepped from the platform of the station to the platform of thewagon-lit.
The third bell rang; the locomotive whistled its piping treble, gates clashed, doors slammed, and the Orient Express drew slowly and solemnly out of the hot, dingy station into the red glare of the torrid June sunset.
After the presentation of Miss von Altdorf and Lieutenant O’Hara had been accomplished Grey left Hope in their company and went in search of the conductor. As it happened, there were several berths to spare in the sleeping-car, and he arranged for the accommodation of Miss Van Tuyl and her maid. There would be no stop, however, he learned, until they reached Château-Thierry, at 8.15. From there, the conductor told him, a telegram might be sent.
Before returning to the compartment Grey lit a cigarette and stood for a few minutes in the refreshing draft that swept through the narrow passage. To have Hope with him was a joy undreamt, and yet he could not repress a little uneasiness over her action. He feared that in a calmer mood she might regret her impulsivenessas savouring too strongly of a sensational elopement. He wondered how Nicholas Van Tuyl would regard it. He was, Grey knew, the most indulgent of fathers, but his anxiety over her absence would necessarily be poignant, and there was no possible means of getting word to him of her safety until hours after he had missed her. But in spite of these reflections Carey Grey was experiencing a gratified pride in the fact that the girl had acted as she had. She was proving her love for him and her faith in him by a disregard of convention that was undeniably very flattering, particularly grateful after his recent trying experiences, and his affection for her, if possible, waxed warmer under the stimulus of appreciation.
Meanwhile the trio Grey had left to their own devices, with scarcely a word of explanation, were getting into a wellnigh inextricable tangle.
“Fancy my deciding to run off this way on the spur of the moment, without even a handful of luggage,” Miss Van Tuyl had exclaimed, “but Mr. Grey and I have so much to talk about I just couldn’t think of waiting another twenty-fourhours, and he said he couldn’t possibly stop over another day in Paris.”
Minna had recognised her minutes before on the platform, as the beautiful lady she had noticed the previous afternoon at Versailles, and she had been and was still wondering how it came about that her Uncle Max had not seen her and spoken to her there. And now this mention of a Mr. Grey perplexed her. Was he in another car or another compartment? And if she had so much to say to him why had she stood talking to another man until the train was on the point of leaving? and why was she sitting here now instead of being with him?
“American women are such fun,” O’Hara was saying, his cheery, ruddy face one broad smile. “I admire them awfully. They’re so superbly self-reliant.”
“You’re an American, Miss Van Tuyl?” the Fräulein ventured. “Oh, of course. It was in America, I suppose, you met Uncle Max?”
Hope stared questioningly.
“Uncle Max?” she questioned. “I don’t understand you. Who is——”
“Didn’t you know he was my uncle?” the girl asked, a little embarrassed.
“Really, I—” she began again. And then O’Hara came to the rescue:
“Our mutual friend, Miss Van Tuyl. After all, what’s in a name? Miss von Altdorf calls him ‘Uncle Max’ and you—what is your favourite pet name for him? Or is it rude of me to ask?”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Hope implored, addressing the fair-haired girl beside her; “how stupid of me! Yes, of course; I met him in America when we were both very young. You were with him yesterday at Versailles, weren’t you? I remember you distinctly. Mr. Grey wrote me something very nice about you.”
“About me? Mr. Grey?” It was the Fräulein’s turn to be audibly perplexed.
“Yes, certainly, Mr. Grey wrote me about you.”
“But I don’t know any Mr. Grey.”
O’Hara laughed aloud. Should he or should he not, he asked himself, set them right and thus end this game of cross-purposes? It was very amusing, it appealed to his native love of fun andhe enjoyed it, so he concluded to let the play go on.
“Why, my dear Miss von Altdorf,” Hope insisted, “do you mean to tell me that you don’t know your Uncle Max’s name is Grey?”
Minna’s eyes were wide with amazement. Could it be possible that her uncle was known in the United States by another name? The supposition was preposterous.
“My Uncle Max’s name is Arndt,” she said, very decidedly. “He is my mother’s brother, and my mother’s name was Arndt before she married.”
Hope leaned back in the hot, stuffy cushions of the railway carriage, nonplussed. This was altogether beyond her understanding. And the Fräulein, a little nettled, but triumphant, sat looking at her with something of pity in her great long-lashed blue eyes, while O’Hara on the seat opposite was bent double in a convulsion of merriment.
“I don’t really see, Mr. O’Hara,” Minna observed, rebukingly, a moment later, “what there is to laugh over. Would you mind telling me?”
The Irishman, who had more than a passingfondness for the girl, pulled a straight face on the instant.
“I’m sorry, Miss von Altdorf,” he apologised. “It’s too bad of me, isn’t it? And I beg Miss Van Tuyl’s pardon, too. I’d like to explain the whole blessed thing to you both, but to tell the truth, I fancy the gentleman of the mixed nomenclature had better be after doing it himself.”
But when Grey arrived and the situation was laid before him, the explanation was not at the moment forthcoming. He evaded it as deftly as he knew how, which, if the truth be told, was not by any means to the taste of either of the ladies. It would have been an easy matter to clear the mystery for Hope, but he hesitated to confess to Minna, in the presence of the others, that he had been sailing under false colours. She was a sensitive child, and serious, and he had no relish for inflicting the pain that his unmasking would, he knew, entail. So he simply said:
“Ah, that’s a long story and we’ll have it at another time. Just now I want to know what Miss Van Tuyl is going to wire to her doting father.”
O’Hara excused himself and went out, and Missvon Altdorf extracted a novel from her satchel and buried herself in its pages.
“Wire him,” Hope directed, “that I’ve gone on with you unexpectedly to Kürschdorf to secure rooms for the royal obsequies, and that he is to follow tomorrow night with the luggage.”
“But he won’t get it until late tonight, you know; possibly not until tomorrow morning,” Grey told her.
“No, he won’t get it until after two o’clock tomorrow, at the earliest,” she replied, smiling.
“How do you know that?” he asked, surprised.
“Because he went to Trouville last night to see a man,” she laughed. “He does not leave there until nine-one tomorrow morning, and it takes these crawling French railway trains five hours to make the journey.”
“Kürschdorf,” theguide-books will tell you, “is the Capital of the Kingdom of Budavia; 118 miles from Munich and forty-nine miles from Nuremberg. It stands on both banks of the Weisswasser, united by the Charlemagne and Wartberg bridges, 400 yards long. Surrounded by towering mountains its King’s Residenz Schloss, erected 1607–1642, rises like the Acropolis above the dwellings and other buildings of the city. The steep sides of the Wartberg (1,834 feet) rise directly from amid the houses of the town, and it is on one extremity of the elevation that the imposing royal palace is located, with its 365 rooms, frescoes and statues, a ‘Diana’ of Canova, a ‘Perseus’ of Schwanhaler, a ‘Sleeping Ariadne’ of Thorwaldsen,and casts. The palace gardens are two miles long, and consist of a series of terraces overlooking the Wartberg valley on one side and a fertile plain on the other.”
The guide-books, too, will tell you of the Königsbau, a quarter-mile long, containing a coffee house, the Bourse, and the Concert Hall; and of the Museum, where the chief treasures of Kürschdorf are on view daily (10A. M.TO 4P. M.); and of the Hof Theatre, and of the beer gardens. And they will give you a long and detailed description of the cathedral, completed in 1317, with its spire 452 feet high, ascended by 575 steps, its wonderful astronomical clock, and its great west window. They will even tell you that the best shops are in the Schloss Strasse, and that the Grand Hotel Königin Anna is a first-class and well-situated hostelry. But in no one of them will you find any mention of the most ancient dwelling house in all Kürschdorf, a quaint, dark stone building, on the Graf Strasse, only a stone’s throw from the Friedrich Platz and two blocks away from the Wartburg Brücke.
At the moment Carey Grey was sending his telegramfrom the railway station at Château-Thierry to Nicholas Van Tuyl, in Paris, Count Hermann von Ritter, Chancellor of Budavia, was standing at a rear window of this venerable Kürschdorf mansion, gazing out upon a spacious and orderly rose garden. He was very tall and very angular. From a fringe of silver-white hair rose a shining pink crown; from beneath bushy brows of only slightly darker grey appeared small, keen black eyes; and a moustache of the same colour, heavy but close-cropped, accentuated rather than hid a straight, thin-lipped, nervous mouth. His head was bent thoughtfully forward and his hands, long and sinewy, with sharply defined knuckles, were clasped behind his back.
The drawing-room in which he stood was large and square, with high walls hung with many splendid pictures in heavy gilded frames. The furniture was massive and richly carved. Rococo cabinets held a wealth of curios—odd vases and drinking cups of repoussé work in gold and silver; idols from the Orient, peculiar antique knives—bodkins and poniards, and carvings of jade and ivory and ebony. The polished floor was strewnwith Eastern rugs of silken texture, and at the doors and windows were hangings of still softer fabric and less florid colour and ornamentation.
After a little the Count crossed to a table on which stood lighted candelabra, and taking out his watch glanced at it with some show of impatience. Almost at the same moment a bell jangled, and very soon after a portière was raised by a servant wearing the Court mourning livery.
“Herr Captain Lindenwald, your Excellency!” he announced. And the Captain entered, saluting.
He was flushed and somewhat ill at ease, and the Chancellor’s icy manner as he bade him be seated was not altogether reassuring.
“I am very much distressed over the news conveyed by your telegram,” began the older man, when he had taken a chair at a little distance from his visitor. “Any delay at this juncture, you must understand, is only calculated to result in complications. Was His Royal Highness so violent that to bring him with you was impracticable?”
Lindenwald hesitated for just the shade of a second, his fingers playing nervously with the arm of his chair.
“I regarded the risk as too great,” he ventured.
“That is no answer,” the Count returned, irritably. “I asked you if he was violent.”
“Yes, Count, he was,” replied the Captain, with sudden assurance. “He was very violent at intervals. It would have been impossible to get him here without his causing a scene at some stage of the journey and probably revealing his identity. Besides, it was most dangerous. He was liable to evade his watchers and throw himself from the train.”
The annoyance of the Chancellor increased.
“You have never heard, Captain,” he said with a sneer, “that there are such things as handcuffs and strait-jackets.”
“Ah, but Count,” pleaded the other, in a tone of conciliation. “His Royal Highness! Could I put the Crown Prince to such humiliation? You know yourself that I would not be justified. It was better, it seemed to me, to have him safely confined in a private hospital in Paris for the present. In a little while, perhaps, his mind will clear.”
“What is the form of his mania?”
“It is most peculiar,” explained the Herr Captain. “You understand, of course, that until five months ago he had no idea whatever that he was who he is. He was, as you have been told, a valet, but a very superior man of his class. It is most certainly true that blood counts. He had all the inherent dignity of birth. His mind was far above his assumed station. All this you know. You may not have heard, though, that he was employed by an American stock broker named Grey who one day embezzled four hundred thousand marks and ran away.”
“Yes,” put in the Count, “I was informed of that as well.”
“Just so. Well,” continued the Captain, “His Royal Highness now, strangely enough, imagines that he is Grey.”
“Imagines that he is an embezzler?” queried Ritter.
“Precisely. He even cabled to New York giving his Paris address, and the United States Embassy there was for arresting him and having him extradited.”
“And when did this mania develop?”
“After the death of the Herr Doctor Schlippenbach.”
The Chancellor sat thoughtfully rubbing together his long, virile hands.
“But I thought that this man Grey, this embezzler, committed suicide—was drowned or something.”
“He was,” Lindenwald assented, “at least he is supposed to be dead.”
“It will be possible, I presume,” the Count pursued, after another moment of meditation, “to have the present temporary regency continued by simply proving that Prince Maximilian, the heir apparent, is alive and mentally incapacitated, though to have had him here in the flesh would have been far better. And now as to these proofs—I am in possession of copies of the papers, but where are the originals?”
The Captain shifted uneasily in his chair, and his eyes refused to meet those of his interlocutor.
“That is a question, Count,” he replied.
“A question!” cried the other, surprised and annoyed. “Why a question? Surely you are in possession of them!”
“Alas, I am not!”
His Excellency, his face crimson, sprang to his feet.
“My God, Captain!” he exclaimed in a rage, “you exasperate me beyond all bearing.”
“I am deeply sorry, Count von Ritter,” returned Lindenwald, “but if you will hear me for one moment you will know that I am not to blame.”
“Excuses will not avail,” he retorted, glowering. “You are a bungler, sir, a bungler. You have been either criminally careless in this matter or intentionally—yes, Captain, intentionally criminal.”
“Your Excellency!” The Captain arose with a fine assumption of anger. “I permit no man, your Excellency——”
The Chancellor’s lips were close pressed. His beady eyes were two points of fire.
“Tut, tut,” he said, “this is neither the time nor place for that sort of thing. I am pained, distressed, mortified. From first to last your mission has been a series of blunders. Delay has followed delay; excuse has followed excuse; andnow, at the crucial moment, comes the climax of your incapacity. A child could have done better. Knowing the importance of getting the Prince of Kronfeld here while His Majesty still lived you, on one pretext and another, dawdled away week after week in London and Paris; you permitted knowledge of the existence of the Prince to leak out; you could not even hide your stopping place from Hugo’s emissaries—ah, you see I am well posted—and finally you come here not only without the heir but without the documents that are absolutely essential to the continuance of the direct succession.”
Lindenwald listened, cowed and speechless. After a little, however, he spoke falteringly, while the Count, his hands behind him, strode excitedly up and down the large, square drawing-room.
“If you will but hear me,” he protested, sullenly, “I think—I am indeed almost certain, your Excellency, that I can show you I am at least not altogether to blame. The Herr Doctor was ill when he landed in England. He was, moreover, most eccentric and most self-willed. And His Royal Highness was of the Herr Doctor’s mind, always.For me to make a more expeditious journey was, under the circumstances, impossible. It appeared to me that it was the Herr Doctor’s object to delay our arrival until after the death of His Majesty. Then, as you know, Herr Doctor Schlippenbach died, somewhat suddenly, and the madness of the Prince ensued.”
“But the papers, the papers?” cried von Ritter, irritably, halting in his walk. “What of them?”
“The Herr Doctor never so much as showed them to me, Count. They were, I understand, in a strong-box, of which he and Prince Maximilian had duplicate keys. But the strong-box when we reached Paris was not brought to our hotel. Schlippenbach seemed to think it would be safer at the railway station. I argued with him, but to no avail. There was a fire, you remember, at our hotel in London, and that it and its contents were not destroyed was simply miraculous. It was that which frightened the Herr Doctor, and he refused to risk it in another hotel. Well, your Excellency, after his death we could find no trace of the box. The receipt for it had disappeared. I did my utmost to locate and secure it, but as yet I have beenunsuccessful. I have tracers out, however, and it may be discovered any day.”
“Bah!” almost shrieked the Chancellor, irascibly, “and a throne hangs on the slender thread of that ‘may be.’ Unless the box is found, Captain, it will be well for you to—but it is needless for me to suggest. You yourself know that your life, henceforth, would be not only useless, but a burden.”
Lindenwald’s chin dropped and his eyes sought the floor.
“The box shall be found,” he said; but the assurance in his tone was meagre.
“And His Royal Highness,” continued von Ritter, “is in a sanitarium in Paris?”
“Yes, Count; the sanitarium of——”
But a rap on the door cut short his answer, and the name either was not pronounced or was drowned in the Chancellor’s stentorian:
“Herein!”
A footman handed His Excellency a telegram, and with a “Pardon me, Captain!” he opened it.
Years of diplomatic training had given the Count von Ritter a command of his facial musclesthat was perfect. Not by so much even as the quiver of an eyelash did he signify the character of the tidings thus conveyed to him. Having read the message at a glance he refolded the paper with some deliberation, and then turning to Lindenwald again, asked:
“In whose sanitarium did you say?”
“Dr. De Cerveau’s.”
“You saw him there yourself?”
“Yes, Count.”
“And there is no possible chance of his escaping?”
“None whatever, Count.”
His Excellency took another turn to the window overlooking the rose garden, his head bowed meditatively. Lindenwald was still standing, his arm resting on the high back of the chair from which he had risen.
“You are quite sure,” His Excellency pursued, when he was again opposite the Captain, “that we need have no apprehension on that score?”
“Quite sure, Count von Ritter.”
Very slowly, and with a care and precision that emphasised the action, the Chancellor again unfoldedthe telegram he held and extended it towards Lindenwald.
“Then you will, perhaps, explain to me what that means?” he said, with a calmness that was portentous.
The face of the Herr Captain went ashen white. He caught his breath sharply, and his left hand gripped the chair back where a second before his arm had rested.
“Am leaving this evening, Orient Express,” he read. “Have me met on arrival.Arndt.”
“Am leaving this evening, Orient Express,” he read. “Have me met on arrival.Arndt.”
He made as if to speak, but his lips emitted no sound.
“Well? Well?” queried the Count, impatiently. “What is it? Explain it. That is from His Royal Highness, isn’t it?”
“I—I—you see, I—” stammered the Captain, dazed and affrighted, “I—I am not so sure. It may be a hoax—a trap.”
Von Ritter’s eyes poured out upon him their contempt.
“A hoax, a trap,” he sneered. “No, no, unlessit be a trap in which to catch a certain officer of the Army who is not so very far away. I think, Captain, that it is useless to prolong this interview,” and he pressed an electric button in the table under his thumb.
Captain Lindenwald bowed, but said nothing.
At the same moment the footman reappeared and at a signal from the Chancellor lifted the portière, and the Captain went rather shamefacedly from the room.
When the Count heard the street door close he pressed the button in the table again, and to the footman who entered he said:
“Otto, I wish to speak to the Chief of Police. Call him up, and when you have him on the telephone let me know.”
He walked to the window again. The moon had risen, and the rose garden was clad in luminous white with trimmings of purplish grey and black shadows.
Passengersfor Kürschdorf by the Orient Express change cars at Munich, which, if the train is on time, is reached at 12.24 on the day following the departure from Paris. On this particular Monday the express was nearly forty minutes late, and, as the connecting train was timed to start at 1.02, the transfer was of necessity accomplished with somewhat undignified expedition. That it was accomplished at all, however, and that the quartet, of which Carey Grey was one, was so fortunate as to secure a compartment to itself, were subjects for mutual congratulation.
The journey from the French to the Bavarian capital had been rife with explanations. To Hope Van Tuyl, Grey had made the entire situation most clear, though he considerately refrained from revealing any feature or incident that would tend to alarm her. In his interview with Minna von Altdorf he had brought to bear all the tact of whichhe was possessed. It was no easy matter for him, in view of his duplicity that day at Versailles, to make her a completely veracious statement of the facts; and it was especially difficult because of her veneration for her great-uncle, the late Herr Schlippenbach, whom Grey could not but regard as an egregious knave.
She had been startled, surprised, pained, and bewildered by turns as he told her the story, but she never once questioned the truth nor doubted the honesty of the narrator.
“I simply can’t understand it,” she said, with distress in her pathetic eyes. “Why should Great-uncle Schlippenbach do such a thing? Why should he? How could he?”
“And I am just as much in the dark as you are,” Grey answered, soothingly. “I have thought it over continually, and I can’t arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. I don’t remember ever having seen him, and why he should have selected me for this great honour—for, after all, it is an honour to be elevated to the throne, isn’t it?” he laughed—“I can’t imagine.”
“We always knew he was eccentric,” the Fraülein went on. “He had most marvellous ideas on certain subjects, but I won’t believe he was criminal. He must have been just a little bit insane.”
And then Grey asked her how it came that she joined the little party in London.
“You see, Great-uncle Schlippenbach wrote me that he was going to Budavia and asked me if I would like to go with him and see my sister in Kürschdorf,” she explained. “That was reasonable enough—there was nothing insane about that, was there? My school term had just ended, and it was a question whether I should make my home with my sister over here or return to America with him.”
“And he told you I was your uncle?”
“Oh, yes. You know I have an uncle in New York. His name is Max Arndt. That is true. And he told me that you were he.”
Grey shook his head in token of his perplexity.
“What became of your Great-uncle Schlippenbach’s luggage?” he asked, suddenly, after a pause.
“I have it with me,” the girl answered, frankly. “I shall take it to my sister’s.”
“Have you opened it?”
“No. I thought that she and I would open it together.”
“It is possible, you know, that it may contain something that will give us a hint as to his motive in this matter,” Grey said, in explanation of his interest.
“Oh, I do hope so,” the Fräulein returned. “I am so anxious about it.”
Grey was on the point of leaving the compartment, when he felt a hand holding the hem of his coat.
“I have just one question to ask,” said the girl as he turned. She was not looking at him, but she still retained her hold.
“Well?” he queried, laconically; and his voice was kindly inviting.
“Would you mind very much if I—that is to say, may I, still, although you are not really, but—may I go on calling you Uncle Max?” The hesitating embarrassment of the first part of her utterance was followed by a nervous blurting of the question in conclusion.
“I shall feel very much hurt, Minna,” Greyanswered, “if you call me anything else.” And he took the little hand from his coat and pressed it affectionately.
*****
When the train for Kürschdorf arrived at Anslingen, on the Budavian border, there was more than the ordinary delay. There was, moreover, evidence of something unusual in the throng upon the platform and the suppressed excitement of those composing it. Johann, who had sprung out instantly from the third-class carriage in which he and Marcelle were travelling—his object being to secure the passage of the party’s luggage through the Custom House—was at once recognised and besieged by a horde of questioners.
“The Prince!” they cried with one accord. “You are with him, are you not? Where is he? In which carriage? What is he like?” And he had no little difficulty in shaking them off and attending to the business in hand.
By some mysterious means the report had spread, and what was at first mere rumour had later found substantial confirmation in the discovered presence at the station of two distinguishedpersonages: General Roederer, Commander of the Budavian army, and Prince von Eisenthal, conservative leader of the Budavian Assembly; each accompanied by a more or less gorgeously uniformed retinue.
Grey, looking from the carriage window, noted the crowd with some little apprehension. He glanced at O’Hara and saw that he too suspected the cause. To the two ladies of the party nothing had been said of the telegram addressed to the name appended to the Lindenwald despatch, and they consequently saw less of significance in the demonstration, though they noted the gathering as extraordinary.
As Grey peered at the constantly increasing throng he wondered whether his message had been ill-considered. He had, in a way, sent it blindly, not knowing whether Ritter was an ally or a dupe of the conspirators, and he had sent it knowing that, in either event, Lindenwald was on the spot to take whatever ground he chose and to use whatever argument he deemed most fitting. If the Captain so fancied he could have him arrested on the charge of being a pretender to thethrone, and would, armed with that strong-box left by old Schlippenbach, have small difficulty in proving his allegation. For exoneration he himself might appeal to his Government, but as an absconding defaulter he could look for meagre assistance from that quarter. O’Hara had told him it was dangerous business, but he had spurned advice, and now he was face to face with the consequences, whatever they might be. He was a trifle nervous, his heart was beating faster than its wont, and there was a red spot in each cheek; but even while looking on the darkest side of the picture he regretted nothing. This crisis had to be faced in one form or another, and he was glad the moment for facing it had arrived.
There was a movement in the crowd a few yards down the platform. The police were ordering the people back and clearing a lane beside the railway carriages. Grey thrust his head from the window and saw coming down this lane, in company with the train conductor, an army officer in olive green uniform and black helmet. Upon his breast was pinned a rosette of crepe, the insignia of mourning for the dead monarch.
At the door of each first-class compartment the two men halted for a second, asked a question and came on. But before they reached the carriage in which Grey was waiting, Johann, who had discerned their object, overtook them and led the way. Meanwhile, though Grey had not spoken, his companions had, intuitively, or by some other occult means, become aware of what was impending, and sat in breathless expectation.
And then, suddenly, before anticipation had been quite dethroned by realization, the officer was saluting, was being joined by his superiors and the rest of their retinues, and Grey was standing erect and dignified, listening to a little formal speech of welcome from the bearded lips of Prince von Eisenthal.
The crowd cheered lustily, of course, and cried: “God save Prince Max!” And a band played the Budavian national anthem. After which, or rather in the midst of which, the Prince and General Roederer entered the compartment with Grey and his friends, their suites finding places as best they could elsewhere, and the train, with much ringing of bells and blowing of whistles, movedoff into the valley of the Weisswasser, its locomotive now gay with many Budavian flags and streamers of red and white bunting—colours of the royal house of Kronfeld.
Grey’s relief from the tension of uncertainty found expression in an interested animation that impressed Prince von Eisenthal most favourably. He asked many questions concerning the affairs of the little kingdom, both political and commercial, and exhibited a concern over the conservative policy of the late King that was especially pleasing to the leader of the conservative forces. General Roederer, meanwhile, addressed himself to the ladies and Lieutenant O’Hara. He was a bluff but gallant old fellow, with ruddy complexion and iron-grey hair, and he possessed a quaint humour that kept the little company in gay spirits throughout the hour of the trip from the frontier to the capital.
“I am deeply regretful, your Royal Highness,” he said to Grey, as the towers and spires of Kürschdorf came into view, “that we are not at liberty to offer you such a demonstration on your arrival as I should have liked. But His Majesty,the late King, you understand, is still above sod, the Court is in mourning, and the Prince Regent deemed it unfitting to give you more than the most informal of welcomes.”
Grey bowed his acknowledgment.
“I am glad,” he said, tactfully, “though I do not fail to appreciate the expression of good will in your desire. The Prince Regent’s views and mine, in this matter, are in perfect accord.”
But, however well the ideas of the supposed heir and the Prince Regent may have coincided, the populace was by no means of the same mind. It is not every day that a Prince of Kronfeld arrives in Kürschdorf—not every day that a new King comes from across the sea to take his place as ruler of his people—and the loyal townsfolk, despite the brevity of time between announcement and arrival, and the expressed opposition of their temporary ruler to anything in the nature of an ovation, hung gay banners amid the mourning drapery of their house fronts, closed their offices and shops and turned out in gala dress and mood to crowd the streets, the squares and the cafés.
As the train drew slowly into the railway station Grey leaned over and took Hope’s hand.
“I’ll probably have to leave you for a little,” he said, regretfully, “but O’Hara will see that you get to the hotel, and I’ll try to look in this evening.”
Outside the station a landau, its panels decorated with the royal arms and drawn by six cream-white Arabian horses in glittering, gold-mounted harness, stood in waiting, with coachman, footman and postillions in the purple and scarlet livery of the Court; while thirty yards away, in line along the opposite side of the Bahnhof Platz, was a troop of the King’s Cuirassiers, their breastplates and helmets of silver and gold glinting fiery red in the glow of the sunset.
Cheer after cheer rang out as Grey, with the Prince on his right and the General on his left, passed through the station, followed by the welcoming company that had escorted him from Anslingen, and took his place in the waiting carriage. And, as the little procession of which he was the dominating feature wound through the boulevards and streets of the new town and across the beautifulCharlemagne bridge over the turbulent Weisswasser into the more ancient and picturesque quarter of the city, the cheering, it seemed to him, grew louder and more continuous. At one point a group of young girls in white frocks and red ribbons ran out into the roadway to spread flowers in the path of his equipage, and at another a chorus of a hundred students, crowded on the balconies of aBrauerei, greeted his coming with a patriotic glee, sung as only male voices of Teutonic breeding and training can sing choruses.
Grey’s emotions during this drive were novel and complex. There were moments when he almost felt that he was indeed the Prince—not that any marvellous transubstantiation had taken place, but that he had always been so—and that all this homage, this enthusiastic applause and adulation were his by right; and there were moments when his heart grew sick at the fraud, the imposition, the error, and he knit his brows and reproached himself for letting the deception go so far.
The magnitude the affair had suddenly assumed appalled him. Heretofore he had regarded it as a mere personal matter. He had been outraged,his honour sullied, his life threatened, and he was justified, he had told himself, in using every means within his power to bring his enemies to book. But he had not perceived the possibilities of permitting this line of investigation to run on unchecked. In a single moment the adventure had become a matter of national import. He was guilty now of masquerading as heir to the throne of a European monarchy. Hitherto the crime lay at the doors of a few conspirators, who, to serve certain nefarious ends of which he knew nothing, had striven to secure for him the crown. In that plot he had personally had no part. Everything had been done without his cognisance or consent; but now it was not they alone who were forcing the scheme to a consummation. He had, practically, for the time being at least, joined hands with them and was passively allowing their plans to be carried out, though fully aware of the impious character of the whole proceeding.
And the enormity of his thoughtless offence was at each foot of the way made more and more apparent by these cheering masses of people. When they should learn that they had been tricked, whatexplanation would serve to assuage their resentment? Love and homage would be turned to hatred and vengeance, and no excuse that he could offer would have any weight against their sense of outraged loyalty.
Then his thoughts took a new trend, and he asked himself how it was possible that old Schlippenbach and his fellow-plotters had been able thus to fool the conservative leaders of a great nation regarding a matter so vital to the very existence of their most cherished institutions as the legitimate succession to the regal sceptre. What incontrovertible proofs had it been possible to offer in order to bring about this ready acceptance of a man whom the Budavian people had never seen to rule over their nation’s destinies? After all, there was where the blame must lie. The preposterousness of the proposition, it seemed to him, should have been apparent to the most simple-minded.
And, as he thought, the landau, with the flashing cuirassiers galloping ahead and behind and on either side, began the tortuous ascent of the Wartburg by the wide, wooded avenues that wind from the palace gates through the sumptuousroyal gardens up to the imposing Residenz Schloss on the mountain’s apex. Now and then, through rifts in the foliage, Grey got glimpses of the vast, formidable, castle-like pile of sombre stone perched far above him, the outline of its battlemented towers showing sharp and clear against the pink of the sunset-tinted sky; and it seemed to frown forbiddingly, resembling more a great fortress at this distance than the magnificent palace it is.
Twenty minutes later, to a musical fanfare of bugles, a clinking of bit chains and a rattle of steel-shod hoofs on stone paving, the carriage swept in under the great greyporte-cochère; the massive oaken doors of the Schloss swung impressively inward, and Chancellor von Ritter, in his robes of office, with a dozen attendants at his back, stood in token of formal welcome on the threshold.
To Grey’s immense relief, however, the ensuing formalities were of the briefest description, and almost immediately he found himself proceeding under the Chancellor’s guidance and direction toward a suite of rooms in the Flag Tower that had been prepared against his coming.
TheGrand Hotel Königin Anna at Kürschdorf is much like the Schweitzerhof at Lucerne. It stretches its long, yellow front, bordered by a stone terrace, along the wide Schloss Strasse, on the other side of which, shaded by four rows of leafy linden trees, is the Königin Quai, skirting the fast-flowing Weisswasser. At one end of the Quai is the Wartburg Brücke, and at the other the Kursaal.
At about ten o’clock on the morning following his arrival in Kürschdorf, O’Hara appeared on the terrace with a troubled expression on his usually care-free face and a newspaper in his hand. The events of the previous evening had filled him with an apprehension greater even than that which had beset his friend. Being himself a subject of monarchical rule, and appreciating by reason of his breeding and environment the very serious natureof the affair, he viewed these late developments with less leniency than would naturally temper the consideration of a citizen of a republic, whose knowledge of the ethics of dynasties had been gleaned chiefly from books.
Grey, in allowing himself to be invested with royal honours, had cut loose from O’Hara’s counsel. The Crown Prince was no longer travellingincognito. He was now within the very shadow of the throne that awaited him, and was consequently hedged in by all the formalities of the Court. Yesterday they were able to consult as man to man on an equal footing. Today a gulf divided them. It would be possible, of course, for O’Hara to present himself at the Palace and crave an audience, but it was doubtful whether anything approaching a private consultation could be managed. The American now, oddly enough, was not his own master. Otherwise he would have come to the hotel the evening before, as he had planned. He belonged to the state, and, if rumour spoke truly, he was, and had been since his arrival at the Residenz Schloss, under the strictest surveillance.
There was a hint of this in the paper thatO’Hara carried, and the very air was pregnant with more or less detailed gossip, sensational in the extreme. At breakfast the Irishman had overheard a conversation at the next table to the effect that the Crown Prince was quite mad and had been locked in a dungeon under the Palace in the care of a half-dozen burly wardens. Everyone was talking on the same subject. An officer in uniform, connected with the Royal Horse Guards, was reported to have said that Prince Max had attempted suicide on his way from Paris, and O’Hara, knowing this to be untrue, discounted most of the other tales as equally baseless. Nevertheless, he was very considerably disturbed. He longed to act, but realised that his hands were tied. All that was left for him to do was to wait with what patience he could command until something further developed. And so he lighted a cigar and strolled forth across the Schlosse Strasse to the Quai, where, presently, he was joined by Miss Van Tuyl and the Fräulein von Altdorf.
They, too, had heard the rumours with which the very atmosphere was vibrant, and they came to him with long faces seeking reassurance.
“Isn’t it possible to find out something definite?” Hope asked, plaintively. “Surely there must be some authority somewhere. You are his friend and you have a right to know. Why not go to see General Roederer? Let us get a carriage and we will all three go.”
“I should be only too glad, Miss Van Tuyl,” O’Hara replied, “if I thought anything was to be gained by it; but the truth of the matter is, you are unnecessarily alarmed. Carey is all right. Don’t you pay any attention to these cock-and-bull stories. He has done this thing with his eyes open, and if we go interfering we may upset all his plans. We shall hear from him some time during the day, I feel certain. But if we don’t I’ll see that you have the facts before you sleep tonight. By the way, have you heard from your father?”
“Oh, yes. I had a telegram late last night. He is on his way. He will be here this evening.”
“Good. Two heads are better than one, and when he arrives we’ll find out what we want to know if we have to blow up the palace to do it. But I really feel that we shall have tidings fromHis Royal Highness before many hours.” And he laughed in his characteristic rollicking fashion.
“It all seems just like a dream to me,” said Minna, soberly. “I’m completely dazed. So much has happened in the last week that I hardly know what I’m doing. And now I shouldn’t stop here another minute, for I’m sure my sister will be at the hotel and those stupid people will not know where to tell her to find me.”
“We’ll all go over and sit on the terrace,” suggested O’Hara. “The band will be playing before long, and they tell me it is a very good one.”
On the journey from Paris the Irishman and the Fräulein had been much in each other’s company, and the growth of their mutual interest had been more than once remarked by both Grey and Miss Van Tuyl. Now, as he gazed at her fresh young beauty, there was a tenderness in his eyes, the meaning of which there was no mistaking. Hope saw it, and when the terrace was reached she excused herself and went inside, leaving them together.
“You will be going to your sister’s today, then, I suppose,” said the soldier, when they had foundplaces under the shade of an awning not too close to the band stand and well away from the other loungers; in his tone was regret.
“Yes,” Minna answered, and her accent, too, was regretful. “Her house is to be my home after this, you know.”
“And there’ll be somebody that will miss you very much,” O’Hara ventured. His eyes had grown worshipful, and the girl’s colour deepened as she looked into them.
“And I shall miss somebody very much,” she returned, with a tincture of coquetry; adding, after a briefest moment, “Miss Van Tuyl is lovely. I feel as if I had known her always.”
“But I wasn’t speaking of her,” he protested, softly. “She’ll miss you, I dare say; but there’s a man who’ll miss you a whole lot more—miss you as he never thought it would be possible for him to miss anyone.”
The girl’s eyes drooped under the ardour of his gaze, and her cheeks flushed pinker still at his words. Her heart fluttered with an emotion that was new to it, and that she did not quite understand. She had experienced it once or twice before,in lesser degree, on the train when this big, hearty, boyish fellow had—not altogether by chance—touched her hand. It made her mute then, and now her tongue was again for the moment tied.
“But I am not going far,” she replied, when utterance returned; “my sister’s place is only a mile or two out of town, and the man has told me that he is very fond of walking.”
“And may he come?” he pleaded, eagerly, his face suddenly alight with the smile she had grown to regard as not the least of his attractions. “May he?”
“Why not?” she asked, laughing lightly.
“Yes, why not?” he repeated, joyously. “Since he will want to see her very much, and since she has not denied him.”
Frau Fahler, Minna’s sister, was much older than she; a woman of thirty-four at least, short, stout and fair-haired, but with eyes of that deep pansy blue which was a family characteristic. She arrived about eleven o’clock in a rather quaint-looking country wagon, and she carried off the Fräulein almost immediately, in spite of the urging of Hope and O’Hara that she wouldstop for luncheon and delay the parting until afternoon.
Minna was naturally loth to leave until some tidings had been received from the Palace, but her sister had a dozen reasons for her haste, and so it was arranged that when towards evening her luggage was sent for, the messenger should be given whatever news had arrived.
Hope’s anxiety meanwhile had grown with every passing minute. O’Hara’s assurances were well intentioned, but, backed only by surmise, they were by no means satisfying.
“I don’t suppose he can come himself, or he would be here,” she said, in reply to his oft-repeated explanation that a Crown Prince is not wholly his own master, “but he certainly could send Johann or some one with a note.”
But the afternoon wore away without any message. On the other hand, the rumours of the morning grew more ominous. A special session of the Budavian Assembly had been called for that very evening. A question, it was said, had arisen as to the legitimacy of the alleged heir apparent. Certain members of the Royal household were reportedunder arrest, charged with no less a crime than treason. The adherents of Prince Hugo were in the highest feather. Already the more optimistic were speaking of him as His Majesty. In the crowded cafés, theBrauereiand the beer gardens but the one subject was discussed; and the newspapers got out special extras, which hinted guardedly at the mystery, but gave absolutely no facts.
At seven o’clock Hope Van Tuyl drove to the railway station and met her father. She was nervously excited to the verge of hysteria, and Nicholas Van Tuyl had some difficulty in piecing together her somewhat disconnected and, it seemed to him at times, irrational statements. Eventually, however, by dint of careful questioning he became acquainted with the salient points of the situation; and later, at dinner, the Irishman supplied what was lacking in important detail.
“I agree with Lieutenant O’Hara,” said Mr. Van Tuyl, in a tone that smacked of the judicial; “it is a very delicate problem, and one that must be handled with the utmost care. At the same time, my dear child, your anxiety is natural, and,though I think you have exaggerated the seriousness of the affair, I can well understand your impatience for facts. And facts we are going to have.”
He smiled confidently, and his daughter’s face brightened on the instant.
“All the time you have been telling me your story,” he went on, “I have been trying to think of the name of a man I met in Munich a few years ago. He holds some high position here, and would be just the chap to help us now. We were excellent friends, and when we parted he begged me to come to Kürschdorf and visit him. Strange I can’t think of his name.”
“What about the American Minister?” O’Hara suggested.
“I doubt that he would know. Besides, under the circumstances, there’s no use taking chances. If we told him the truth it would be a case of out of the frying-pan into the fire. Grey is extraditable, you know. I wonder if we could learn anything by attending this Parliament meeting?”
“We couldn’t get in. I thought of that at once and made inquiries. It’s an executive session.”
Van Tuyl was silent for a minute or more, evidently deep in thought.
“I don’t suppose you know the names of the high monkey-monks here, do you?” he asked, presently.
“I know a few,” O’Hara answered. “There’s Prince von Eisenthal, and Herr Marscheim, and Count von Ritter, and——”
“Aha!” cried the New York man, gleefully, “now you’ve hit it. Von Ritter—Count von Ritter. He is my Munich friend. What is he? What position does he hold?”
“He is what they call Chancellor, I believe; but in reality he’s a sort of Prime Minister.”
“That’s our man, by all that’s good!” Van Tuyl exclaimed. “We’ll find where he hangs out and call on him. And, girlie,” he added, turning to his daughter, “you’ll know all about it in a few hours.”
“He’ll be at the Assembly session, of course,” said O’Hara.
“Certainly. We’ll go there and send him in a message, and I’ll bet ten dollars to a cent he’ll come a-running. He owes me a debt of gratitude;I put him in the way of placing a government loan at very good figures when the Budavian credit wasn’t the best in all Europe by any means.”
Hope smiled her gratitude. She had great faith in her father. He was of the type of successful Americans that do things.