Mr. Coulson found his two visitors in the lounge of the hotel. He had removed all traces of his journey, and was attired in a Tuxedo dinner coat, a soft-fronted shirt, and a neatly arranged black tie. He wore broad-toed patent boots and double lines of braid down the outsides of his trousers. The page boy, who was on the lookout for him, conducted him to the corner where Miss Penelope Morse and her companion were sitting talking together. The latter rose at his approach, and Mr. Coulson summed him up quickly,—a well-bred, pleasant-mannered, exceedingly athletic young Englishman, who was probably not such a fool as he looked,—that is, from Mr. Coulson’s standpoint, who was not used to the single eyeglass and somewhat drawling enunciation.
“Mr. Coulson, isn’t it?” the young man asked, accepting the other’s outstretched hand. “We are awfully sorry to disturb you, so soon after your arrival, too, but the fact is that this young lady, Miss Penelope Morse,”—Mr. Coulson bowed,—“was exceedingly anxious to make your acquaintance. You Americans are such birds of passage that she was afraid you might have moved on if she didn’t look you up at once.”
Penelope herself intervened.
“I’m afraid you’re going to think me a terrible nuisance, Mr. Coulson!” she exclaimed. Mr. Coulson, although he did not call himself a lady’s man, was nevertheless human enough to appreciate the fact that the young lady’s face was piquant and her smile delightful. She was dressed with quiet but elegant simplicity. The perfume of the violets at her waistband seemed to remind him of his return to civilization.
“Well, I’ll take my risks of that, Miss Morse,” he declared. “If you’ll only let me know what I can do for you—”
“It’s about poor Mr. Hamilton Fynes,” she explained. “I took up the evening paper only half an hour ago, and read your interview with the reporter. I simply couldn’t help stopping to ask whether you could give me any further particulars about that horrible affair. I didn’t dare to come here all alone, so I asked Sir Charles to come along with me.”
Mr. Coulson, being invited to do so, seated himself on the lounge by the young lady’s side. He leaned a little forward with a hand on either knee.
“I don’t exactly know what I can tell you,” he remarked. “I take it, then, that you were well acquainted with Mr. Fynes?”
“I used to know him quite well,” Penelope answered, “and naturally I am very much upset. When I read in the paper an account of your interview with the reporter, I could see at once that you were not telling him everything. Why should you, indeed? A man does not want every detail of his life set out in the newspapers just because he has become connected with a terrible tragedy.”
“You’re a very sensible young lady, Miss Morse, if you will allow me to say so,” Mr. Coulson declared. “You were expecting to see something of Mr. Fynes over here, then?”
“I had an appointment to lunch with him today,” she answered. “He sent me a marconigram before he arrived at Queenstown.”
“Is that so?” Mr. Coulson exclaimed. “Well, well!”
“I actually went to the restaurant,” Penelope continued, “without knowing anything of this. I can’t understand it at all, even now. Mr. Fynes always seemed to me such a harmless sort of person, so unlikely to have enemies, or anything of that sort. Don’t you think so, Mr. Coulson?”
“Well,” that gentleman answered, “to tell you the honest truth, Miss Morse, I’m afraid I am going to disappoint you a little. I wasn’t over well acquainted with Mr. Fynes, although a good many people seemed to fancy that we were kind of bosom friends. That newspaper man, for instance, met me at the station and stuck to me like a leech; drove down here with me, and was willing to stand all the liquor I could drink. Then there was a gentleman from Scotland Yard, who was in such a hurry that he came to see me in my bedroom.Hehad a sort of an idea that I had been brought up from infancy with Hamilton Fynes and could answer a sheaf of questions a yard long. As soon as I got rid of him, up comes that page boy and brings your card.”
“It does seem too bad, Mr. Coulson,” Penelope declared, raising her wonderful eyes to his and smiling sympathetically. “You have really brought it upon yourself, though, to some extent, haven’t you, by answering so many questions for this Comet man?”
“Those newspaper fellows,” Mr. Coulson remarked, “are wonders. Before that youngster had finished with me, I began to feel that poor old Fynes and I had been like brothers all our lives. As a matter of fact, Miss Morse, I expect you knew him at least as well as I did.”
She nodded her head thoughtfully.
“Hamilton Fynes came from the village in Massachusetts where I was brought up. I’ve known him all my life.”
Mr. Coulson seemed a little startled.
“I didn’t understand,” he said thoughtfully, “that Fynes had any very intimate friends over this side.”
Penelope shook her head.
“I don’t mean to imply that we have been intimate lately,” she said. “I came to Europe nine years ago, and since then, of course, I have not seen him often. Perhaps it was the fact that he should have thought of me, and that I was actually expecting to have lunch with him today, which made me feel this thing so acutely.”
“Why, that’s quite natural,” Mr. Coulson declared, leaning back a little and crossing his legs. “Somehow we seem to read about these things in the papers and they don’t amount to such a lot, but when you know the man and were expecting to see him, as you were, why, then it comes right home to you. There’s something about a murder,” Mr. Coulson concluded, “which kind of takes hold of you if you’ve ever even shaken hands with either of the parties concerned in it.”
“Did you see much of the poor fellow during the voyage?” Sir Charles asked.
“No, nor any one else,” Mr. Coulson replied. “I don’t think he was seasick, but he was miserably unsociable, and he seldom left his cabin. I doubt whether there were half a dozen people on board who would have recognized him afterwards as a fellow-passenger.”
“He seems to have been a secretive sort of person,” Sir Charles remarked.
“He was that,” Mr. Coulson admitted. “Never seemed to care to talk about himself or his own business. Not that he had much to talk about,” he added reflectively. “Dull sort of life, his. So many hours of work, so many hours of play; so many dollars a month, and after it’s all over, so many dollars pension. Wouldn’t suit all of us, Sir Charles, eh?”
“I fancy not,” Somerfield admitted. “Perhaps he kicked over the traces a bit when he was over this side. You Americans generally seem to find your way about—in Paris, especially.”
Mr. Coulson shook his head doubtfully.
“There wasn’t much kicking over the traces with poor old Fynes,” he said. “He hadn’t got it in him.”
Somerfield scratched his chin thoughtfully and looked at Penelope.
“Scarcely seems possible, does it,” he remarked, “that a man leading such a quiet sort of life should make enemies.”
“I don’t believe he had any,” Mr. Coulson asserted.
“He didn’t seem nervous on the way over, did he?” Penelope asked,—“as though he were afraid of something happening?”
Mr. Coulson shook his head.
“No more than usual,” he answered. “I guess your police over here aren’t quite so smart as ours, or they’d have been on the track of this thing before now. But you can take it from me that when the truth comes out you’ll find that our poor friend has paid the penalty of going about the world like a crank.”
“A what?” Somerfield asked doubtfully.
“A crank,” Mr. Coulson repeated vigorously. “It wasn’t much I knew of Hamilton Fynes, but I knew that much. He was one of those nervous, stand-off sort of persons who hated to have people talk to him and yet was always doing things to make them talk about him. I was over in Europe with him not so long ago, and he went on in the same way. Took a special train to Dover when there wasn’t any earthly reason for it; travelled with a valet and a courier, when he had no clothes for the valet to look after, and spoke every European language better than his courier. This time the poor fellow’s paid for his bit of vanity. Naturally, any one would think he was a millionaire, travelling like that. I guess they boarded the train somehow, or lay hidden in it when it started, and relieved him of a good bit of his savings.”
“But his money was found upon him,” Somerfield objected.
“Some of it,” Mr. Coulson answered,—“some of it. That’s just about the only thing that I do know of my own. I happened to see him take his pocketbook back from the purser, and I guess he’d got a sight more money there than was found upon him. I told the smooth-spoken gentleman from Scotland Yard so—Mr. Inspector Jacks he called himself—when he came to see me an hour or so ago.”
Penelope sighed gently. She found it hard to make up her mind concerning this quondam acquaintance of her deceased friend.
“Did you see much of Mr. Fynes on the other side, Mr. Coulson?” she asked him.
“Not I,” Mr. Coulson answered. “He wasn’t particularly anxious to make acquaintances over here, but he was even worse at home. The way he went on, you’d think he’d never had any friends and never wanted any. I met him once in the streets of Washington last year, and had a cocktail with him at the Atlantic House. I had to almost drag him in there. I was pretty well a stranger in Washington, but he didn’t do a thing for me. Never asked me to look him up, or introduced me to his club. He just drank his cocktail, mumbled something about being in a hurry, and made off.
“I tell you, sir,” Mr. Coulson continued, turning to Somerfield, “that man hadn’t a thing to say for himself. I guess his work had something to do with it. You must get kind of out of touch with things, shut up in an office from nine o’clock in the morning till five in the afternoon. Just saving up, he was, for his trip to Europe. Then we happened on the same steamer, but, bless you, he scarcely even shook hands when he saw me. He wouldn’t play bridge, didn’t care about chess, hadn’t even a chair on the deck, and never came in to meals.”
Penelope nodded her head thoughtfully.
“You are destroying all my illusions, Mr. Coulson,” she said. “Do you know that I was building up quite a romance about poor Mr. Fynes’ life? It seemed to me that he must have enemies; that there must have been something in his life, or his manner of living, which accounted for such a terrible crime.”
“Why, sure not!” Mr. Coulson declared heartily. “It was a cleverly worked job, but there was no mystery about it. Some chap went for him because he got riding about like a millionaire. A more unromantic figure than Hamilton Fynes never breathed. Call him a crank and you’ve finished with him.”
Penelope sighed once more and looked at the tips of her patent shoes.
“It has been so kind of you,” she murmured, “to talk to us. And yet, do you know, I am a little disappointed. I was hoping that you might have been able to tell us something more about the poor fellow.”
“He was no talker,” Mr. Coulson declared. “It was little enough he had to say to me, and less to any one else.”
“It seems strange,” she remarked innocently, “that he should have been so shy. He didn’t strike me that way when I knew him at home in Massachusetts, you know. He travelled about so much in later years, too, didn’t he?”
Penelope’s eyes were suddenly upraised. For the first time Mr. Coulson’s ready answers failed him. Not a muscle of his face moved under the girl’s scrutiny, but he hesitated for a short time before he answered her.
“Not that I know of,” he said at length. “No, I shouldn’t have called him much of a traveller.”
Penelope rose to her feet and held out her hand.
“It has been very nice indeed of you to see us, Mr. Coulson,” she said, “especially after all these other people have been bothering you. Of course, I am sorry that you haven’t anything more to tell us than we knew already. Still, I felt that I couldn’t rest until we had been.”
“It’s a sad affair, anyhow,” Mr. Coulson declared, walking with them to the door. “Don’t you get worrying your head, young lady, though, with any notion of his having had enemies, or anything of that sort. The poor fellow was no hero of romance. I don’t fancy even your halfpenny papers could drag any out of his life. It was just a commonplace robbery, with a bad ending for poor Fynes. Good evening, miss! Good night, sir! Glad to have met you, Sir Charles.”
Mr. Coulson’s two visitors left and got into a small electric brougham which was waiting for them. Mr. Coulson himself watched them drive off and glanced at the clock. It was already a quarter past six. He went into the cafe and ordered a light dinner, which he consumed with much obvious enjoyment. Then he lit a cigar and went into the smoking room. Selecting a pile of newspapers, he drew up an easy chair to the fire and made himself comfortable.
“Seems to me I may have a longish wait,” he said to himself.
As a matter of fact, he was disappointed. At precisely seven o’clock, Mr. Richard Vanderpole strolled into the room and, after a casual glance around, approached his chair and touched him on the shoulder. In his evening clothes the newcomer was no longer obtrusively American. He was dressed in severely English fashion, from the cut of his white waistcoat to the admirable poise of his white tie. He smiled as he patted Coulson upon the shoulder.
“This is Mr. Coulson, I’m sure,” he declared,—“Mr. James B. Coulson from New York?”
“You’re dead right,” Mr. Coulson admitted, laying down his newspaper and favoring his visitor with a quick upward glance.
“This is great!” the young man continued. “Just off the boat, eh? Well, I am glad to see you,—very glad indeed to make your acquaintance, I should say.”
Mr. Coulson replied in similar terms. A waiter who was passing through the room hesitated, for it was a greeting which generally ended in a summons for him.
“What shall it be?” the newcomer asked.
“I’ve just taken dinner,” Mr. Coulson said. “Coffee and cognac’ll do me all right.”
“And a Martini cocktail for me,” the young man ordered. “I am dining down in the restaurant with some friends later on. Come over to this corner, Mr. Coulson. Why, you’re looking first-rate. Great boat, the Lusitania, isn’t she? What sort of a trip did you have?”
So they talked till the drinks had been brought and paid for, till another little party had quitted the room and they sat in their lonely corner, secure from observation or from any possibility of eavesdropping. Then Mr. Richard Vanderpole leaned forward in his chair and dropped his voice.
“Coulson,” he said, “the chief is anxious. We don’t understand this affair. Do you know anything?”
“Not a d——d thing!” Coulson answered.
“Were you shadowed on the boat?” the young man asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” Coulson answered. “Fynes was in his stateroom six hours before we started. I can’t make head nor tail of it.”
“He had the papers, of course?”
“Sewn in the lining of his coat,” Coulson muttered. “You read about that in tonight’s papers. The lining was torn and the space empty. He had them all right when he left the steamer.”
The young man looked around; the room was still empty.
“I’m fresh in this,” he said. “I got some information this afternoon, and the chief sent me over to see you on account of it. We had better not discuss possibilities, I suppose? The thing’s too big. The chief’s almost off his head. Is there any chance, do you think, Coulson, that this was an ordinary robbery? I am not sure that the special train wasn’t a mistake.”
“None whatever,” Coulson declared.
“How do you know?” his companion asked quickly.
“Well, I’ve lied to those reporters and chaps,” Coulson admitted,—“lied with a purpose, of course, as you people can understand. The money found upon Fynes was every penny he had when he left Liverpool.”
The young man set his teeth.
“It’s something to know this, at any rate,” he declared. “You did right, Coulson, to put up that bluff. Now about the duplicates?”
“They are in my suitcase,” Coulson answered, “and according to the way things are going, I shan’t be over sorry to get rid of them. Will you take them with you?”
“Why, sure!” Vanderpole answered. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“You had better wait right here, then,” Coulson said, “I’ll fetch them.”
He made his way up to his room, undid his dressing bag, which was fastened only with an ordinary lock, and from between two shirts drew out a small folded packet, no bigger than an ordinary letter. It was a curious circumstance that he used only one hand for the search and with the other gripped the butt of a small revolver. There was no one around, however, nor was he disturbed in any way. In a few minutes he returned to the bar smoking room, where the young man was still waiting, and handed him the letter.
“Tell me,” the latter asked, “have you been shadowed at all?”
“Not that I know of,” Coulson answered.
“Men with quick instincts,” Vanderpole continued, “can always tell when they are being watched. Have you felt anything of the sort?”
Coulson hesitated for one moment.
“No,” he said. “I had a caller whose manner I did not quite understand. She seemed to have something at the back of her head about me.”
“She! Was it a woman?” the young man asked quickly.
Coulson nodded.
“A young lady,” he said,—“Miss Penelope Morse, she called herself.”
Mr. Richard Vanderpole stood quite still for a moment.
“Ah!” he said softly. “She might have been interested.”
“Does the chief want me at all?” Coulson asked.
“No!” Vanderpole answered. “Go about your business as usual. Leave here for Paris, say, in ten days. There will probably be a letter for you at the Grand Hotel by that time.”
They walked together toward the main exit. The young man’s face had lost some of its grimness. Once more his features wore that look of pleasant and genial good-fellowship which seems characteristic of his race after business hours.
“Say, Mr. Coulson,” he declared, as they passed across the hall, “you and I must have a night together. This isn’t New York, by any manner of means, or Paris, but there’s some fun to be had here, in a quiet way. I’ll phone you tomorrow or the day after.”
“Sure!” Mr. Coulson declared. “I’d like it above all things.”
“I must find a taxicab,” the young man remarked. “I’ve a busy hour before me. I’ve got to go down and see the chief, who is dining somewhere in Kensington, and get back again to dine here at half past seven in the restaurant.”
“I guess you’ll have to look sharp, then.” Mr. Coulson remarked. “Do you see the time?”
Vanderpole glanced at the clock and whistled softly to himself.
“Tell you what!” he exclaimed, “I’ll write a note to one of the friends I’ve got to meet, and leave it here. Boy,” he added, turning to a page boy, “get me a taxi as quick as you can.”
The boy ran out into the Strand, and Vanderpole, sitting down at the table, wrote a few lines, which he sealed and addressed and handed to one of the reception clerks. Then he shook hands with Coulson and threw himself into a corner of the cab which was waiting.
“Drive down the Brompton Road,” he said to the man. “I’ll direct you later.”
It was a quarter past seven when he left the hotel. At half past a policeman held up his hand and stopped the taxi, to the driver’s great astonishment, as he was driving slowly across Melbourne Square, Kensington.
“What’s the matter?” the man asked. “You can’t say I was exceeding my speed limit.”
The policeman scarcely noticed him. His head was already through the cab window.
“Where did you take your fare up?” he asked quickly.
“Savoy Hotel,” the man answered. “What’s wrong with him?”
The policeman opened the door of the cab and stepped in.
“Never you mind about that,” he said. “Drive to the South Kensington police station as quick as you can.”
Seated upon a roomy lounge in the foyer of the Savoy were three women who attracted more than an average amount of attention from the passers-by. In the middle was the Duchess of Devenham, erect, stately, and with a figure which was still irreproachable notwithstanding her white hair. On one side sat her daughter, Lady Grace Redford, tall, fair, and comely; on the other, Miss Penelope Morse. The two girls were amusing themselves, watching the people; their chaperon had her eye upon the clock.
“To dine at half-past seven,” the Duchess remarked, as she looked around theentresolof the great restaurant through her lorgnettes, “is certainly a little trying for one’s temper and for one’s digestion, but so long as those men accepted, I certainly think they ought to have been here. They know that the play begins at a quarter to nine.”
“It isn’t like Dicky Vanderpole in the least,” Penelope said. “Since he began to tread the devious paths of diplomacy, he has brought exactness in the small things of life down to a fine art.”
“He isn’t half so much fun as he used to be,” Lady Grace declared.
“Fun!” Penelope exclaimed. “Sometimes I think that I never knew a more trying person.”
“I have never known the Prince unpunctual,” the Duchess murmured. “I consider him absolutely the best-mannered young man I know.”
Lady Grace smiled, and glanced at Penelope.
“I don’t think you’ll get Penelope to agree with you, mother,” she said.
“Why not, my dear?” the Duchess asked. “I heard that you were quite rude to him the other evening. We others all find him so charming.”
Penelope’s lip curled slightly.
“He has so many admirers,” she remarked, “that I dare say he will not notice my absence from the ranks. Perhaps I am a little prejudiced. At home, you know, we have rather strong opinions about this fusion of races.”
The Duchess raised her eyebrows.
“But a Prince of Japan, my dear Penelope!” she said. “A cousin of the Emperor, and a member of an aristocracy which was old before we were thought of! Surely you cannot class Prince Maiyo amongst those to whom any of your country people could take exception.”
Penelope shrugged her shoulders slightly.
“Perhaps,” she said, “my feeling is the result of hearing you all praise him so much and so often. Besides, apart from that, you must remember that I am a patriotic daughter of the Stars and Stripes, and there isn’t much friendship lost between Washington and Tokio just now.”
The Duchess turned away to greet a man who had paused before their couch on his way into the restaurant.
“My dear General,” she said, “it seems to me that one meets every one here! Why was not restaurant dining the vogue when I was a girl!”
General Sherrif smiled. He was tall and thin, with grizzled hair and worn features. Notwithstanding his civilian’s clothes, there was no possibility of mistaking him anywhere, or under any circumstances, for anything but a soldier.
“It is a delightful custom,” he admitted. “It keeps one always on thequi vive; one never knows whom one may see. Incidentally, I find it interferes very much with my digestion.”
“Digestion!” the Duchess murmured. “But then, you soldiers lead such irregular lives.”
“Not always from choice,” the General reminded her. “The Russo-Japanese war finished me off. They kept us far enough away from the fighting, when they could, but, by Jove, they did make us move!”
“We are waiting now for Prince Maiyo,” the Duchess remarked. “You know him?”
“Know him!” the General answered. “Duchess, if ever I have to write my memoirs, and particularly my reminiscences of this war, I fancy you would find the name of your friend appear there pretty frequently. There wasn’t a more brilliant feat of arms in the whole campaign than his flanking movement at Mukden. I met most of the Japanese leaders, and I have always said that I consider him the most wonderful of them all.”
The Duchess turned to Penelope.
“Do you hear that?” she asked.
Penelope smiled.
“The Fates are against me,” she declared. “If I may not like, I shall at least be driven to admire.”
“To talk of bravery when one speaks of that war,” the General remarked, “seems invidious, for it is my belief that throughout the whole of the Japanese army such a thing as fear did not exist. They simply did not know what the word meant. But I shall never forget that the only piece of hand-to-hand fighting I saw during the whole time was a cavalry charge led by Prince Maiyo against an immensely superior force of Russians. Duchess,” the General declared, “those Japanese on their queer little horses went through the enemy like wind through a cornfield. That young man must have borne a charmed life. I saw him riding and cheering his men on when he must have had at least half a dozen wounds in his body. You will pardon me, Duchess? I see that my party are waiting.”
The General hurried away. The Duchess shut up her lorgnettes with a snap, and held out her hand to a newcomer who had come from behind the palms.
“My dear Prince,” she exclaimed, “this is charming of you! Some one told me that you were not well,—our wretched climate, of course—and I was so afraid, every moment, that we should receive your excuses.”
The newcomer, who was bowing over her hand, was of medium height or a trifle less, dark, and dressed with the quiet exactness of an English gentleman. Only a slight narrowness of the eyes and a greater alertness of movement seemed to distinguish him in any way, as regards nationality, from the men by whom he was surrounded. His voice, when he spoke, contained no trace of accent. It was soft and singularly pleasant. It had, too, one somewhat rare quality—a delightful ring of truth. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why Prince Maiyo was just then, amongst certain circles, one of the most popular persons in Society.
“My dear Duchess,” he said, “my indisposition was nothing. And as for your climate, I am beginning to delight in it,—one never knows what to expect, or when one may catch a glimpse of the sun. It is only the grayness which is always the same.”
“And even that,” the Duchess remarked, smiling, “has been yellow for the last few days. Prince, you know my daughter Grace, and I am sure that you have met Miss Penelope Morse? We are waiting for two other men, Sir Charles Somerfield and Mr. Vanderpole.”
The Prince bowed, and began to talk to his hostess’ daughter,—a tall, fair girl, as yet only in her second season.
“Here comes Sir Charles, at any rate!” the Duchess exclaimed. “Really, I think we shall have to go in. We can leave a message for Dicky; they all know him at this place. I am afraid he is one of those shocking young men who entertain the theatrical profession here to supper.”
A footman at that moment brought a note to the Duchess, which she tore open.
“This is from Dicky!” she exclaimed, glancing it through quickly,—“Savoy notepaper, too, so I suppose he has been here. He says that he may be a few minutes late and that we are not to wait. He will pick us up either here or at the theatre. Prince, shall we let these young people follow us? I haven’t heard your excuses yet. Do you know that you were a quarter of an hour late?”
He bent towards her with troubled face.
“Dear Duchess,” he said, “believe me, I am conscious of my fault. An unexpected matter, which required my personal attention, presented itself at the last moment. I think I can assure you that nothing of its sort was ever accomplished so quickly. It would only weary you if I tried to explain.”
“Please don’t,” the Duchess begged, “so long as you are here at last. And after all, you see, you are not the worst sinner. Mr. Vanderpole has not yet arrived.”
The Prince walked on, for a few steps, in silence.
“Mr. Vanderpole is a great friend of yours, Duchess?” he asked.
The Duchess shook her head.
“I do not know him very well,” she said. “I asked him for Penelope.”
The Prince looked puzzled.
“But I thought,” he said, “that Miss Morse and Sir Charles—”
The Duchess interrupted him with a smile.
“Sir Charles is very much in earnest,” she whispered, “but very very slow. Dicky is just the sort of man to spur him on. He admires Penelope, and does not mind showing it. She is such a dear girl that I should love to have her comfortably settled over here.”
“She is very intelligent,” the Prince said. “She is a young lady, indeed, for whom I have a great admiration. I am only sorry,” he concluded, “that I do not seem able to interest her.”
“You must not believe that,” the Duchess said. “Penelope is a little brusque sometimes, but it is only her manner.”
They made their way through the foyer to the round table which had been reserved for them in the centre of the restaurant.
“I suppose I ought to apologize for giving you dinner at such an hour,” the Duchess remarked, “but it is our theatrical managers who are to blame. Why they cannot understand that the best play in the world is not worth more than two hours of our undivided attention, and begin everything at nine or a quarter-past, I cannot imagine.”
The Prince smiled.
“Dear Duchess,” he said, “I think that you are a nation of sybarites. Everything in the world must run for you so smoothly or you are not content. For my part, I like to dine at this hour.”
“But then, you take no luncheon, Prince,” Lady Grace reminded him.
“I never lunch out,” the Prince answered, “but I have always what is sufficient for me.”
“Tell me,” the Duchess asked, “is it true that you are thinking of settling down amongst us? Your picture is in the new illustrated paper this week, you know, with a little sketch of your career. We are given to understand that you may possibly make your home in this country.”
The Prince smiled, and in his smile there seemed to be a certain mysticism. One could not tell, indeed, whether it came from some pleasant thought flitting through his brain, or whether it was that the idea itself was so strange to him.
“I have no plans, Duchess,” he said. “Your country is very delightful, and the hospitality of the friends I have made over here is too wonderful a thing to be described; but one never knows.”
Lady Grace bent towards Sir Charles, who was sitting by her side.
“I can never understand the Prince,” she murmured. “Always he seems as though he took life so earnestly. He has a look upon his face which I never see in the faces of any of you other young men.”
“He is a bit on the serious side,” Sir Charles admitted.
“It isn’t only that,” she continued. “He reminds me of that man whom we all used to go and hear preach at the Oratory. He was the same in the pulpit and when one saw him in the street. His eyes seemed to see through one; he seemed to be living in a world of his own.”
“He was a religious Johnny, of course,” Sir Charles remarked. “They do walk about with their heads in the air.”
Lady Grace smiled.
“Perhaps it is religion with the Prince,” she said,—“religion of a sort.”
“I tell you what I do think,” Sir Charles murmured. “I think his pretence at having a good time over here is all a bluff. He doesn’t really cotton to us, you know. Don’t see how he could. He’s never touched a polo stick in his life, knows nothing about cricket, is indifferent to games, and doesn’t even understand the meaning of the word ‘Sportsman.’ There’s no place in this country for a man like that.”
Lady Grace nodded.
“I think,” she said, “that his visit to Europe and his stay amongst us is, after all, in the nature of a pilgrimage. I suppose he wants to carry back some of our civilization to his own people.”
Penelope, who overheard, laughed softly and leaned across the table.
“I fancy,” she murmured, “that the person you are speaking of would not look at it in quite the same light.”
“Has any one seen the evening paper?” the Duchess asked. “It is there any more news about that extraordinary murder?”
“Nothing fresh in the early editions,” Sir Charles answered.
“I think,” the Duchess declared, “that it is perfectly scandalous. Our police system must be in a disgraceful state. Tell me, Prince,—could anything like that happen in your country?”
“Without doubt,” the Prince answered, “life moves very much in the East as with you here. Only with us,” he added a little thoughtfully, “there is a difference, a difference of which one is reminded at a time like this, when one reads your newspapers and hears the conversation of one’s friends.”
“Tell us what you mean?” Penelope asked quickly.
He looked at her as one might have looked at a child,—kindly, even tolerantly. He was scarcely so tall as she was, and Penelope’s attitude towards him was marked all the time with a certain frigidity. Yet he spoke to her with the quiet, courteous confidence of the philosopher who unbends to talk to a child.
“In this country,” he said, “you place so high a value upon the gift of life. Nothing moves you so greatly as the killing of one man by another, or the death of a person whom you know.”
“There is no tragedy in the world so great!” Penelope declared.
The Prince shrugged his shoulders very slightly.
“My dear Miss Morse,” he said, “it is so that you think about life and death here. Yet you call yourselves a Christian country—you have a very beautiful faith. With us, perhaps, there is a little more philosophy and something a little less definite in the trend of our religion. Yet we do not dress Death in black clothes or fly from his outstretched hand. We fear him no more that we do the night. It is a thing that comes—a thing that must be.”
He spoke so softly, and yet with so much conviction, that it seemed hard to answer him. Penelope, however, was conscious of an almost feverish desire either to contradict him or to prolong the conversation by some means or other.
“Your point of view,” she said, “is well enough, Prince, for those who fall in battle, fighting for their country or for a great cause. Don’t you think, though, that the horror of death is a more real thing in a case like this, where a man is killed in cold blood for the sake of robbery, or perhaps revenge?”
“One cannot tell,” the Prince answered thoughtfully. “The battlefields of life are there for every one to cross. This mysterious gentleman who seems to have met with his death so unexpectedly—he, too, may have been the victim of a cause, knowing his dangers, facing them as a man should face them.”
The Duchess sighed.
“I am quite sure, Prince,” she said, “that you are a romanticist. But, apart from the sentimental side of it, do things like this happen in your country?”
“Why not?” the Prince answered. “It is as I have been saying: for a worthy cause, or a cause which he believed to be worthy, there is no man of my country worthy of the name who would not accept death with the same resignation that he lays his head upon the pillow and waits for sleep.”
Sir Charles raised his glass and bowed across the table.
“To our great allies!” he said, smiling.
The Prince drank his glass of water thoughtfully. He drank wine only on very rare occasions, and then under compulsion. He turned to the Duchess.
“A few days ago,” he said, “I heard myself described as being much too serious a person. Tonight I am afraid that I am living up to my reputation. Our conversation seems to have drifted into somewhat gloomy channels. We must ask Miss Morse, I think, to help us to forget. They say,” he continued, “that it is the young ladies of your country who hold open the gates of Paradise for their menkind.”
He was looking into her eyes. His tone was half bantering, half serious. From across the table Penelope knew that Somerfield was watching her closely. Somehow or other, she was irritated and nervous, and she answered vaguely. Sir Charles intervened with a story about some of their acquaintances, and the conversation drifted into more ordinary channels.
“Some day, I suppose,” the Duchess remarked, as the service of dinner drew toward a close, “you will have restaurants like this in Tokio?”
The Prince assented.
“Yes,” he said without enthusiasm, “they will come. Our heritage from the West is a sure thing. Not in my days, perhaps, or in the days of those that follow me, but they will come.”
“I think that it is absolutely wicked of Dicky,” the Duchess declared, as they rose from the table. “I shall never rely upon him again.”
“After all, perhaps, it isn’t his fault,” Penelope said, breathing a little sigh of relief as she rose to her feet. “Mr. Harvey is not always considerate, and I know that several of the staff are away on leave.”
“That’s right, my dear,” the Duchess said, smiling, “stick up for your countrymen. I suppose he’ll find us sometime during the evening. We can all go to the theatre together; the omnibus is outside.”
The little party passed through the foyer and into the hall of the hotel, where they waited while the Duchess’ carriage was called. Mr. Coulson was there in an easy chair, smoking a cigar, and watching the people coming and going. He studied the passers-by with ah air of impersonal but pleased interest. Penelope and Lady Grace were certainly admirable foils. The latter was fair, with beautiful complexion—a trifle sunburnt, blue eyes, good-humored mouth, and features excellent in their way, but a little lacking in expression. Her figure was good; her movements slow but not ungraceful; her dress of white ivory satin a little extravagant for the occasion. She looked exactly what she was,—a well-bred, well-disposed, healthy young Englishwoman, of aristocratic parentage. Penelope, on the other hand, more simply dressed, save for the string of pearls which hung from her neck, had the look of a creature from another world. She had plenty of animation; a certain nervous energy seemed to keep her all the time restless. She talked ceaselessly, sometimes to the Prince, more often to Sir Charles. Her gray-green eyes were bright, her cheeks delicately flushed. She spoke and looked and moved as one on fire with the joy of life. The Prince, noticing that Lady Grace had been left to herself for the last few moments, moved a little towards her and commenced a courteous conversation. Sir Charles took the opportunity to bend over his companion.
“Penelope,” he said, “you are queer tonight. Tell me what it is? You don’t really dislike the Prince, do you?”
“Why, of course not,” she answered, looking back into the restaurant and listening, as though interested in the music. “He is odd, though, isn’t he? He is so serious and, in a way, so convincing. He is like a being transplanted into an absolutely alien soil. One would like to laugh at him, and one can’t.”
“He is rather an anomaly,” Sir Charles said, humming lightly to himself. “I suppose, compared with us matter-of-fact people, he must seem to your sex quite a romantic figure.”
“He makes no particular appeal to me at all,” Penelope declared.
Somerfield was suddenly thoughtful.
“Sometimes, Penelope,” he said, “I don’t quite understand you, especially when we speak about the Prince. I have come to the conclusion that you either like him very much, or you dislike him very much, or you have some thoughts about him which you tell to no one.”
She lifted her skirts. The carriage had been called.
“I like your last suggestion,” she declared. “You may believe that that is true.”
On their way out, the Prince was accosted by some friends and remained talking for several moments. When he entered the omnibus, there seemed to Penelope, who found herself constantly watching him closely, a certain added gravity in his demeanor. The drive to the theatre was a short one, and conversation consisted only of a few disjointed remarks. In the lobby the Prince laid his hand upon Somerfield’s arm.
“Sir Charles,” he said, “if I were you, I would keep that evening paper in your pocket. Don’t let the ladies see it.”
Somerfield looked at him in surprise.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“To me personally it is of no consequence,” the Prince answered, “but your womenfolk feel these things so keenly, and Mr. Vanderpole is of the same nationality, is he not, as Miss Morse? If you take my advice, you will be sure that they do not see the paper until after they get home this evening.”
“Has anything happened to Dicky?” Somerfield asked quickly.
The Prince’s face was impassive; he seemed not to have heard. Penelope had turned to wait for them.
“The Duchess thinks that we had better all go into the box,” she said. “We have two stalls as well, but as Dicky is not here there is really room for five. Will you get some programmes, Sir Charles?”
Somerfield stopped for a minute, under pretence of seeking some change, and tore open his paper. The Prince led Penelope down the carpeted way.
“I heard what you and Sir Charles were saying,” she declared quietly. “Please tell me what it is that has happened to Dicky?”
The Prince’s face was grave.
“I am sorry,” he replied. “I did not know that our voices would travel so far.”
“It was not yours,” she said. “It was Sir Charles’. Tell me quickly what it is that has happened?”
“Mr. Vanderpole,” the Prince answered, “has met with an accident,—a somewhat serious one, I fear. Perhaps,” he added, “it would be as well, after all, to break this to the Duchess. I was forgetting the prejudices of your country. She will doubtless wish that our party should be broken up.”
Penelope was suddenly very white. He whispered in her ear.
“Be brave,” he said. “It is your part.”
She stood still for a moment, and then moved on. His words had had a curious effect upon her. The buzzing in her ears had ceased; there was something to be done—she must do it! She passed into the box, the door of which the attendant was holding open.
“Duchess,” she said, “I am so sorry, but I am afraid that something has happened to Dicky. If you do not mind, I am going to ask Sir Charles to take me home.”
“But my dear child!” the Duchess exclaimed.
“Miss Morse is quite right,” the Prince said quietly. “I think it would be better for her to leave at once. If you will allow me, I will explain to you later.”
She left the box without another word, and took Somerfield’s arm.
“We two are to go,” she murmured. “The Prince will explain to the Duchess.”
The Prince closed the box door behind them. He placed a chair for the Duchess so that she was not in view of the house.
“A very sad thing has happened,” he said quietly. “Mr. Vanderpole met with an accident in a taxicab this evening. From the latest reports, it seems that he is dead!”