Chapter Eleven.Touching the Widow’s Mite.One.The Prince, keen motorist that he was, had—attended by the faithful Garrett, of course—been executing some remarkably quick performances on the Brooklands track.About a month before he had purchased a hundred horse-power racing-car, and now devoted a good deal of his time to the gentle art of record-breaking. Some of his times for “the mile” had been very creditable, and as Mr Richard Drummond, son of a Manchester cotton magnate, his name was constantly appearing in the motor journals. Having for the time being discarded the purple, and with it his cosy chambers off Piccadilly, he had now taken up his quarters at that small hotel so greatly patronised by motorists, the “Hut,” on the Ripley Road.Among the many road-scouts, with their red discs, in that vicinity he had become extremely popular on account of his generosity in tips, while to the police with his ugly grey low-built car with its two seats behind the long bonnet he was a perpetual source of annoyance.Though he never exceeded the speed limit—in sight of the police—yet his open exhaust roared and throbbed, while his siren was the most ear-piercing of any on the road. A little bit of business up in Staffordshire which he had recently brought to a successful issue by the aid of the faithful Charles, the Parson, and Mr Max Mason, had placed them all in funds, and while the worthy Bayswater vicar was taking his ease at the “Majestic” up at Harrogate—where, by the way, he had become extremely popular among his fellow guests—Mason was at the Bath at Bournemouth for a change of air.To the guests at Harrogate the Rev. Thomas Clayton had told the usual tale which seems to be on the lips of every cleric, no matter how snug his living—that of the poor parish, universal suffering, hard work, small stipend, ailing wife and several small children. Indeed, he admitted to one or two of the religious old ladies whose acquaintance he had made, that some of his wealthier parishioners, owing to his nervous breakdown, had subscribed in order to send him there for a month’s holiday.Thus he had become indispensable to the tea-and-tattle circle, and the ladies soon began to refer to him as “that dear Mr Clayton.” With one of them, a certain wealthy widow named Edmondson, he had become a particular favourite, a fact which he had communicated in a letter to the good-looking motorist now living at the pretty wayside inn in front of the lake on the Ripley Road.While the Parson was enjoying a most decorous time with the philanthropic widow, Dick Drummond, as he soon became known, had cultivated popularity in the motor-world. To men in some walks of life, and especially to those on the crooked by-paths, popularity is a very dangerous thing. Indeed, as the Prince had on many occasions pointed out in confidence to me, his popularity greatly troubled him, making it daily more difficult for him to conceal his identity.At that moment, because he had lowered a record at Brooklands, he was living in daily terror of being photographed, and having his picture published in one or other of the illustrated papers. If this did occur, then was it not more than likely that somebody would identify Dick Drummond the motorist, with the handsome Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein?He led a life of ease and comfort in all else, save this constant dread of recognition, and was seriously contemplating a sudden trip across the Channel with a run through France and Germany when he one morning received a registered letter bearing the Harrogate postmark.He read it through half a dozen times. Then he burned it.Afterwards he lit a “Petroff” and went out for a stroll in the sunshine along the road towards Ripley village.“It’s really wonderful how clerical clothes and a drawling voice attract a woman. They become fascinated, just as they do when they meet a Prince. By Jove!” he laughed merrily to himself. “What fools some women—and men, too, for the matter of that—make of themselves! They never trouble to institute inquiry, but accept you just at your own value. Take myself as an instance! In all these four years nobody has ever discovered that I’m not Prince Albert. Nobody has taken the trouble to trace the real prince to his safe abode, the Sanatorium of Wismar. Yet the great difficulty is that I cannot always remain a prince.”Then he strode along for some time in thoughtful silence. In his well-cut blue serge suit and peaked motor-cap he presented the smart devil-may-care figure of a man who would attract most women. Indeed, he was essentially a ladies’ man, but he always managed to turn his amorous adventures to monetary advantage.Only once in his life had he been honestly in love. The tragic story of his romance in Florence I have already explained in a previous chapter. His thoughts were always of his real princess—ever of her. She had been his ideal, and would always remain so. He had defended her good name, but dared not return to her and expose himself as a fraud and a criminal. Better by far for her to remain in ignorance of the truth; better that he should possess only sweet sad memories of her soft lips and tender hands.As he walked, a young man passed in a dirty white racing-car, on his way to Brooklands, and waved to him. It was George Hartwell, the holder of the one-mile record, and an intimate friend of his.The Prince was debating within himself whether he should adopt the Parson’s suggestion, abandon motor-racing for the nonce, and join him up in Yorkshire.“I wonder whether the game’s worth the candle?” he went on, speaking to himself after the cloud of dust has passed. “If what Clayton says is true, then it’s a good thing. The old woman is evidently gone on him. I suppose he’s told her the tale, and she believes he’s a most sanctified person.”He halted at a gate near the entrance to Ripley village, and lighting another cigarette puffed vigorously at it.“My hat!” he ejaculated at last. “A real parson must have an exceedingly soft time of it—snug library, pretty girls in the choir, tea-fights, confidences, and all that kind of thing. In the country no home is complete without its tame curate.” Then, after a long silence, he at length tossed away the end of his cigarette, and declared:“Yes, I’ll go. There’ll be a bit of fun—if nothing else.”And he walked to the village telegraph office and wired one word to his bosom friend and ingenious accomplice. It was a word of their secret code—Formice—which Clayton would interpret as “All right. Shall be with you as soon as possible, and will carry out the suggestions made in your letter.”Then he walked back to the “Hut,” where he found Garrett sitting out in that little front garden against the road, which is usually so crowded by motorists on warm Sunday afternoons.“Better go and pack,” he said sinking into a chair as his supposed servant rose and stood at attention. “We’re going back to town in an hour.”Garrett, without asking questions, returned into the hotel. He saw by the Prince’s sharp decided manner that something new was in the wind.An hour later Dick Drummond motor-maniac, drew the car along the road towards Esher, and as he disappeared around the bend among the trees, he ceased to exist. Prince Albert became himself again.Direct to Dover Street they went—and there found the discreet Charles awaiting them. Fresh kit was packed while Garrett, in a garage over in Westminster where he was unknown, was busily engaged in repainting the ugly racer with its big bonnet a bright yellow.That evening the Prince spent alone in his pretty sitting-room consuming dozens of his pet Russian cigarettes, and thinking hard. For an hour he was busy upon some accounts written in German—accounts from a Jew dealer in precious stones in Amsterdam. The gentleman in question was a good customer of the Prince’s, gave fair prices, and asked no questions. His Highness seemed troubled about one item, for as he rested his brow upon his hand, still seated at his desk, he murmured in a low voice to himself:“I’m sure the old Hebrew has done me out of four hundred and fifty! Eighteen hundred was the price agreed for that carroty-headed woman’s pendant. That’s what comes of leaving business matters to Max.” And sighing, he added: “I shall really have to attend to the sales myself, for no doubt we’re swindled every time. The old Jew doesn’t believe in honour among thieves, it seems!”Some letters which had arrived during his absence were put before him by the valet, Charles. Among them were several invitations to the houses of people struggling to get into society—by the back door, and who wanted to include the name of Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein in the list of their guests.“Are we likely to be away for long?” asked the valet, at the same time helping himself to a cigarette from his master’s silver box.“I haven’t the slightest idea,” laughed the good-looking young adventurer. “You’ll go down to the ‘Majestic’ at Harrogate by the first train in the morning and take the best suite for me. Garrett and I will arrive in the car. Of course you’ll tell the usual story to the servants of my wealth, and all that.”“The Parson’s down there, isn’t he?”“Yes, but you’ll take no notice of him. Understand?”So the smart young crook who posed as valet, having received his master’s instructions, retired to pack his own clothes.At ten next morning Garrett brought round the hundred “racer,” now covered in yellow enamel and bearing a different identification-plate from that it had borne the previous day, and with the Prince up beside him wearing a light dust-coat and his peaked cap turned the wrong way, so as not to catch the wind, drew out into Piccadilly, and turned up Shaftesbury Avenue due northward.Throughout that warm summer’s day they tore along the Great North Road as far as Doncaster, wary always of the police-traps which abound there. Then, after a light meal, they pushed on to Ferrybridge, taking the right-hand road through Micklefield to the cross-roads beyond Aberford, and then on the well-kept old Roman way which runs through Wetherby to Plampton Corner, and ascends the hill into Harrogate.The last forty miles they did at tearing speed, the great powerful engine running like a clock, leaving a perfect wall of white dust behind. The car was a “flyer” in every sense of the word. The Prince had won the Heath Stakes at Brooklands, therefore, on an open road, without traffic or police-traps, they covered the last forty miles within the hour.The sun had already sunk, and the crimson afterglow had spread before they reached the Stray, but as the car drew up before the great hotel, Charles, bareheaded and urbane, came forth to receive his master, while behind him stood the assistant manager and a couple of attendants also in bareheaded servitude.Charles, who always acted as advance-agent had already created great excitement in the hotel by the announcement that his Highness was on his way. Quite a small crowd of visitors had concluded their dinner early, and assembled in the hall to catch first sight of the German princeling who preferred residence in England to that in his native principality.As he passed across the great hall and entered the lift, dusty after his journey, his quick eyes caught sight of the sedate modest-looking parson seated away from the others, chatting with a rather buxom, florid-looking, red-necked woman of about fifty.The Parson had his face purposely averted. At present he did not wish to claim acquaintance with the new-comer, whom he allowed to ascend to the fine suite of rooms reserved for him.Next morning, as the Prince crossed the hall to go out for a stroll about the town he created quite a flutter in the hotel, especially among the female guests. The place was filled by summer holiday-makers from London, each of whom was eager to rub elbows with a real live Prince. Indeed many were the flattering words whispered by pretty lips regarding his Highness’s good looks and general bearing.The worthy Bayswater vicar was chatting with Mrs Edmondson in his usual clerical drawl, when the Prince’s sudden appearance caused him to look up. Then turning to her again, he exclaimed:“Oh, here’s Prince Albert! I knew him quite well when I was British chaplain in Hanover,” and crossing to his Highness he shook hands heartily, adding in the next breath: “I wonder if your Highness would allow me to present to you my friend here, Mrs Edmondson?”“Delighted, I’m sure,” replied the younger man bowing before the rather stout, dark-haired lady, whose blatant pomposity crumpled up instantly, and who became red and white in turns.The introduction had been effected so suddenly that the relict of Thomas Edmondson, Esquire, J.P., D.L., of Milnthorpe Hall, near Whitby, had been taken completely off her feet—or “off her perch,” as the merry cleric afterwards jocosely put it. She knew Mr Clayton to be a most superior person, but had no idea of his intimate acquaintance with princes of the blood-royal.She succeeded in stammering some conventional expressions of pleasure at being presented, and then lapsed into ignominious silence.“Mrs Edmondson has kindly expressed herself very interested in my poor parish,” explained the Parson, “just as your Highness has been interested. I wrote to you a month ago to Aix-les-Bains, thanking you for your generous donation towards our Children’s Holiday Fund. It was really extremely kind of you.”“Oh, don’t mention it, Mr Clayton,” replied his Highness. “I’ve been in your parish twice, remember, and I know well how very hard you work, and what a number of the deserving poor you have. I’m just going down in the town for a stroll. Perhaps I’ll see you after lunch? Come to my room for a smoke.”And then, bowing to the obese widow, he replaced his grey felt hat and strode out.“What a very charming man!” declared the widow when she recovered herself sufficiently to speak. “So he has been to your parish!”“Oh, yes. He gives me most liberal donations,” answered Clayton in a low tone of confidence. “But he always prefers to remain anonymous, of course. He has been my best friend for years. I had no idea he was in England. He wrote me last from Aix.”But the widow’s brain was already active. Though possessing a deep religious feeling, and subscribing liberally to all sorts of charities just as her late husband had done, she was nevertheless a snob, and was already wondering whether, with the assistance of the pleasant-faced cleric, she could not induce the Prince to be her guest at Milnthorpe. She knew that his presence there would give to her house acachetwhich had always been lacking, and would raise her social position in the select county of Yorks a hundred per cent.“Most delightful man!” she repeated as they went forth into the grounds. “I hope I shall have the pleasure of a long chat with him.”“Oh, that won’t be very difficult, my dear Mrs Edmondson,” her companion replied. “Any one introduced by me will, I feel assured, be received most cordially by him. He does me the honour of reposing the most implicit trust in myself.”“A trust which certainly is not misplaced,” declared the stout widow in her self-satisfied way, as she strutted along in a new grey cotton gown of latestmode, a large hat to match, a big golden chatelaine at her side, and a blue silk sunshade.“You are very flattering,” replied Clayton. “I—I fear I do not deserve such kind words, I only do my duty to my bishop and my parish, and prosecute the line of life which Providence has laid out for me.”“There are clergymen—and clergymen,” the woman said with affected wisdom. “I have known more than one who has been utterly worthless. It is, therefore, very gratifying to meet a man with such a high mind, and such a keen sense of responsibility towards his poor backsliding fellow creatures as yourself.”He was silent, for he was biting his nether lip. What would this estimable widow think if she knew the truth that he had no parish, no wife, no little children, and that he had no right to the sombre garb of religion in which he stood before her?A moment later he succeeded in changing the subject.The Prince lunched alone in his private room, as he always did in hotels in order to impress both management and guests. It was another habit of his, in order to cause servants to talk, to have a big bottle of eau de Cologne placed in his bath each morning. The chatter of servants as to his generosity, and his careless extravagance, was often most useful to him. While the Parson was always parsimonious—which, by the way, was rather belied by his rubicund complexion—the Prince was ever open-handed.The good-looking, well-dressed young man’s slight foreign accent entirely disappeared whenever he became Tremlett or Lord Nassington, or Drummond, or any other imaginary person whose identity he from time to time assumed. At present, however, he spoke with just sufficient error of grammar and speech to betray his foreign birth, and as he rose, and stood looking out of the window he presented, in his cool, grey flannels, the ideal young foreign prince of English tastes and English education.Already in the reading-room below, the “Almanach de Gotha” had been handled a dozen times by inquisitive half-pay colonels, and mothers with marriageable daughters. And what had been found printed there had caused a flutter in many hearts.The Prince’s audacity was superb. The suspicion of any littlecouphe made as prince he always managed to wriggle out of. Even though some evil-disposed persons had made ugly allegations against him at times, yet they were not believed. He was a prince and wealthy, therefore what motive had he to descend to the level of a thief? The Parson, too, always managed to evade suspicion. His voice, his manner, and his general get-up were perfect.Those who had visited his house in Bayswater, not far from Queen’s Road station, had found it to be the ideal and complete clergyman’s home, with study and half-written sermons on the writing-table.Their victims, indeed, were as puzzled as were the police. The Prince’s magnificent impertinence and amazing boldness carried him through it all. He was a fatalist. If he and his friends Clayton, Garrett, and Mason were ever caught—well it would be just Fate. Till they actually fell into the hands of the police they would have a good time, and act fearlessly.As he stood at the window, with the eternal Russian cigarette between his lips, gazing thoughtfully out upon the garden below, the door opened and the Parson entered.“Well, Tommy, old chap!” exclaimed his Highness, when in a few moments the two men were lounging in easy-chairs opposite each other. “Now, tell me all about the old girl,” he said laughing. “She walks like a pea-hen.”“There’s not much more to tell than what you already know,” responded the Parson, “except that she’s all in a flutter at meeting you, and wants to chat with you again.”“Have you made any inquiries concerning her?”“Of course. A week ago I ran over in secret to Milnthorpe Hall. Fine place, big park, large staff of servants, butler an Italian. Husband was partner in a firm of shipbuilders at Barrow, and left nearly a million to his wife. One son recently passed into the Army, and just now stationed in Cawnpore. Rather rackety, his mother says. The old woman dotes on parsons.”“And quite gone on you—eh?” Clayton laughed.“She gave me a cheque for fifty pounds for my Children’s Holiday Fund last week,” he said. “She’s promised to come down and go round my parish one day, soon.” His Highness smiled knowingly.“Is her place far from Whitby?” he inquired, between whiffs of his cigarette.“About four miles, on the high road just past a place called Swarthoe Cross. Grosmount station, on the Pickering line is nearest.”“The old girl, as far as I’ve been able to observe, is a purse-proud old crow,” his Highness remarked.“Rather. Likes her name to figure in subscription lists. The old man built and endowed some almshouses in Whitby, and offered twenty thousand to his Party for a knighthood, but was refused. It’s a sore point, for she badly wanted to be Lady Edmondson.”“How long since the dear one departed?”“Two years.”“And she’s looking for a second, I suppose?”“That’s my belief.”“I wonder if she’d be attracted by the title of princess?” he laughed.“Why, the very suggestion would take the silly old woman’s breath away,” declared the Reverend Thomas.“Well, if she’s so confoundedly generous, what is to prevent us from benefiting a bit? We sadly need it, Tommy,” the Prince declared. “I had a letter from Max the day before yesterday. He wants fifty wired without fail to the Poste Restante at Copenhagen. He’s lying low there, just now.”“And one of the best places in Europe,” the Parson exclaimed. “It’s most snug at the ‘Angleterre,’ or at the ‘Bristol.’ I put in six months there once. Stockholm is another good spot. I was all one summer at that little hotel out at Salsjobaden, and had quite a good time. I passed as an American and nobody recognised me, though my description had been circulated all over Europe. The Swedish and Danish police are a muddle-headed lot—fortunately for fellows like ourselves who want to lie undisturbed. Have you sent Max the money?”“I wired twenty-five this morning, and promised the balance in seven days,” responded his Highness, lighting a fresh cigarette with his half-consumed one. He always smoked in the Russian style, flinging away the end when only half finished.Of the proceeds of the variouscoupsmade, his Highness took one-third, with one-third to Clayton, who was a schemer almost as ingenious as the Prince himself, and the remaining third was divided between Max Mason, Charles, and Garrett, the chauffeur.The pair of conspirators spent the greater part of the afternoon together in exchanging confidences and arranging plans. Then his Highness rang for Garrett, and ordered him to bring round the car at five o’clock.The Parson descended to the hall below, being followed ten minutes later by his Highness. The latter found his friend lounging picturesquely with the fascinated widow, and joined them at tea, greatly to the gratification of the “pompous old crow,” as Prince Albert had designated her half an hour before.As they finished the tea and muffins, the big yellow racing-car drew slowly up to the door, and on seeing it the widow began to discuss motors and motoring.“I have a car at home—a sixty-Mercédès—and I’m awfully fond of a run in it,” she told the Prince. “One gets about so quickly, and sees so much of the country. My poor husband hated them, so I never rode in one until after his death.”“The car I have with me is a racer, as you see,” remarked his Highness. “It’s a hundred horse-power, and made a record on the Brooklands track just before I bought her. If you were not of the feminine sex, Mrs Edmondson, I’d invite you to go for a run with me,” he laughed. “It’s rather unsociable, for it’s only a two-seater, with Garrett on the step.”“I’d love to go for a run,” she declared. “It—well it really wouldn’t be too great a breach of the convenances for a woman to go out on a racing-car, would it?”“I don’t think so, Mrs Edmondson,” remarked the Reverend Thomas, in his most cultivated clerical drawl. “But I would wrap up well, for the Prince travels very fast on a clear road.”So “the old crow” decided to accept his Highness’s invitation, and ascended to put on her brown motor-cap and veil and a thick coat against the chill, evening winds.Two.A quarter of an hour later, with Garrett—in his grey and red livery—seated on the step, and the widow up beside him, the Prince drew the great ugly yellow car out of the hotel entrance, while the Parson, standing amid the crowd of jealous onlookers, waved his hand in merry farewell.In a few moments the siren screamed, and the open exhaust roared and spluttered as they crossed the Stray, taking the road through Starbeck to Knaresborough, thence south by Little Ribston to Wetherby.Having turned off to the left through the town, they came upon a straight open road where, for the first time his Highness, accustomed as he was to all the vagaries of his powerful car, put on a “move” over the ten miles into York, a run at such a pace that the widow clung to her seat with both hands, almost breathless.She had never travelled half so fast before in all her life.In York they ran round by the station past the old grey minster, then out again through Clifton, as far as Shipton Moor, turning up to Beningborough station, and thence into the by-roads to Newton-upon-Ouse, in the direction of Knaresborough.Once or twice while they tore along regardless of speed-limits or of police-traps, the powerful engine throbbing before them, she turned to his Highness and tried to make some remarks. But it was only a sorry attempt. Travelling at fifty miles an hour over those white roads, without a glass screen, or even body to the car, was very exhilarating, and after the first few minutes of fright, at the tearing pace, she seemed to delight in it. Curious though it is, yet it is nevertheless a fact that women delight in a faster pace in a car than men, when once the first sensation of danger has passed.When they were safely back again in the hall of the hotel she turned to him to express her great delight at the run.“Your car is, indeed, a magnificent one, your Highness. I’ve never been on a racer before,” she said, “but it was truly delightful. I never had a moment’s anxiety, for you are such a sure and clever driver.”Her eye had been from time to time upon the speedometer, and she had noted the terrific rate at which they had now and then travelled, especially upon any downward incline.The Prince, on his part, was playing the exquisite courtier. Had she been a girl of twenty he could not have paid “old crow” more attention.As he was dressing for dinner with the aid of the faithful Charles, the Parson entered, and to him he gave an accurate description of the run, and of the rather amorous attitude the obese widow had assumed towards him.“Good, my dear boy,” exclaimed the urbane cleric, “I told you that she’s the most perfect specimen of the snob we’ve ever met.”A week went by—a pleasant week, during which Mrs Edmondson, her nose now an inch higher in the air than formerly, went out daily with the Prince and his chauffeur for runs around the West Riding.One afternoon they ran over to Ripon, and thence across to the fine old ruins of Fountains Abbey. Like many women of her class and character, the buxom lady delighted in monastic ruins, and as the pair strolled about in the great, roofless transept of the Abbey she commenced an enthusiastic admiration of its architecture and dimensions. Though living at Whitby she had, curiously enough, never before visited the place.“Crowland, in Lincolnshire is very fine,” she remarked, “but this is far finer. Yet we have nothing in England to compare with Pavia, near Milan. Have you ever been there, Prince?”“Only through the station,” his Highness replied. Truth to tell he was not enthusiastic over ruins. He was a very modern up-to-date young man.They idled through the ruins, where the sunshine slanted through the gaunt broken windows, and the cawing rooks flapped lazily in and out. One or two other visitors were there besides themselves, and among them a lonely pale-faced man in grey, wearing gold pince-nez who, with hands behind his back, was studying the architecture and the various outbuildings.The Prince and his companion brushed close by him in the old refectory, when he glanced up suddenly at a window.His face was familiar enough to his Highness, who, however, passed him by as a stranger.It was Max Mason, only yesterday returned from Copenhagen.That afternoon the widow grew confidential with her princely cavalier in motor clothes, while he, on his part, encouraged her.“Ah!” he sighed presently as they were walking slowly together in a distant part of the great ruined fabric. “You have no idea how very lonely a man can really be, even though he may be born a prince. More often than not I’m compelled to liveincognito, for I have ever upon me the fierce glare of publicity. Every movement, every acquaintance I make, even my most private affairs are pried into and chronicled by those confounded press fellows. And for that reason I’m often compelled to hold aloof from people with whom I could otherwise be on terms of intimate friendship. Half my time and ingenuity is spent upon the adoption of subterfuges to prevent people from discovering who I really am. And then those infernal illustrated papers, both here and on the Continent, are eternally republishing my photograph.”“It really must be most annoying, Prince,” remarked the widow sympathetically.“I often adopt the name of Burchell-Laing,” he said, “and sometimes—well,” and he paused, looking her straight in the face. “I wonder, Mrs Edmondson, whether I might confide in you—I mean whether you would keep my secret?”“I hope I may be permitted to call myself your Highness’s friend,” she said in a calm, impressive tone. “Whatever you may tell me will not, I assure you, pass my lips.”“I am delighted to have such a friend as yourself,” he declared enthusiastically. “Somehow, though our acquaintanceship has been of such brief duration, yet I feel that your friendship is sincere, Mrs Edmondson.”By this speech the widow was intensely flattered. Her companion saw it in her countenance.He did not allow her time to make any remark, but added: “My secret is—well a rather curious one, perhaps—but the fact is that I have a dual personality. While being Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein, I am also known as Dick Drummond, holder of two records on the Brooklands motor-track. In the motor-world I’m believed to be a young man of means, who devotes his time to motor-racing—a motor-maniac in fact.”The widow stared at him in blank astonishment.“Are you really the Mr Drummond of whose wonderful feat I read of only the other day in the papers?”“I won the race at Brooklands the other day,” he said carelessly, “I won it with the car I have here now.”“And nobody suspects that this Mr Drummond is a prince!” she exclaimed.“Nobody. I could never afford to go racing in my own name. The Kaiser would not allow it, you know. I have to be so very careful.”“I quite understand that,” remarked the widow. “But what an excellent motor-driver you must be! What a fine performance your record was! Why, there was half a column in theMorning Postabout it!”“It was not any more difficult, or more dangerous, than some of the long quick runs I’ve made on the Continent. From Rome up to Berlin, for instance, or from Warsaw to Ostend, I’m racing again at Brooklands next week.”“And may I come and see you?” she asked. “Do let me. I will, of course, keep your secret, and not tell a soul.”He hesitated.“You see nobody knows but yourself and Garrett, my chauffeur—not even Clayton. He’s a good fellow, but parsons,” he laughed, “are bad hands at keeping secrets. Too much tea and gossip spoils them, I suppose.”“But I’ll swear to remain secret. Only let me know the day and hour, and I’ll go south and see you. I should love to see a motor-race. I’ve never seen one in my life.”So at last, with seeming reluctance, his Highness, having taken the flattered widow into his confidence, promised on condition that she said nothing to anybody, she should know the day and hour when to be at Brooklands.As the warm summer days slipped by, it became more and more apparent to the Parson that his friend, the widow, had become entirely fascinated by the lighthearted easy-going prince. She, on her part, recognised how, because of her intimate acquaintance with his Highness, and the fact that he honoured her table with his presence sometimes at dinner, every one in the hotel courted her friendship in the hope that they might be introduced to the cousin of the Kaiser.Prince and Parson were, truth to tell, playing a very big bluff. Max had taken up his quarters at the Spa Hydro, and though meeting his two accomplices frequently in the streets, passed them by as strangers.Now and then the Parson went up to smoke with the Prince after the wealthy widow had retired, and on such occasions the conversation was of such a character that, if she had overheard it, she would have been considerably surprised.One evening, when they were together, the valet, Charles, entered, closing the door carefully after him.“Well,” asked his master, “what’s the news?”“I’ve just left Max down in the town,” replied the clean-shaven servant. “He got back from Milnthorpe Hall this morning. He went there as an electrical engineer, sent by Cameron Brothers, of London, at the old woman’s request, and examined the whole place with a view to a lighting installation. He reports that, beyond a few good paintings—mostly family portraits of the original owners—and a littlebric-à-brac, there’s nothing worth having. The old woman keeps her jewels in the bank at York, as well as greater part of the plate. What’s in general use is all electro. Besides, there are burglar-alarms all over the place.”“Then the old woman’s a four-flush!” declared the Parson tossing away his cigarette angrily. “I thought she’d got some good stuff there. That was my impression from the outside.”“Afraid of thieves, evidently,” remarked the Prince. “She’s a lone woman, and according to what you say, the only men in the house are the Italian butler, and a young footman.”“If there’s nothing there, what’s the use troubling over her further?”His Highness puffed thoughtfully at his “Petroff.” He was reflecting deeply, bitterly repenting that he had been such a fool as to tell her the truth regarding his motor-racingnomade-guerre. He could not afford to allow her to become his enemy. To abandon her at once would surely be a most injudicious action.“At present let’s postpone our decision, Tommy,” he exclaimed at last. “There may be a way to success yet. You, Charles, see Max to-morrow, and tell him to go to London and lie low there. I’ll wire him when I want him. You have some money. Give him a tenner.”And the man addressed soon afterwards withdrew.The events of the next two days showed plainly that the original plans formulated by the Rev. Thomas Clayton had been abandoned.The widow, with some trepidation, invited the Prince and his clerical friend to be her guests at Milnthorpe, but they made excuses, much to her chagrin. The exemplary vicar was compelled to return to his Bayswater parish, while the Prince was also recalled to London to race at Brooklands, making the journey, of course, on the car.Thus Mrs Edmondson found herself left alone in the “Majestic,” with her fellow guests full of wonder at what had really occurred.The widow, however, had been buoyed up by a few whispered words of the Prince at the moment of his departure.“Preserve my secret as you promised, Mrs Edmondson, and come to London one day next week. You always go to the Langham—you say. I’ll call on you there next Friday.Au revoir!”And he lifted his cap, shook her hand, and mounted at the wheel of the big mustard-coloured “racer.”On the day appointed he called at the Langham and found her installed in one of the best suites, prepared to receive him.He told her that, on the morrow at noon, he was to race at Brooklands against Carlier, the well-known Frenchman, both cars being of the same horse-power. The distance was one hundred miles.She was delighted, and promised to observe every secrecy, and come down to witness the struggle. He remained to tea, chatting with her pleasantly. When he rose and bade her adieu, she sat alone for a long time thinking.Was she dreaming? Or was it really a fact that he, Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein, had, for a few moments, held her hand tenderly? The difference of their ages was not so much, she argued—about twelve years. She was twelve years older. What did that matter, after all?If she, plain Mrs Edmondson, of Milnthorpe, became Princess Albert of Hesse-Holstein! Phew! The very thought of it took her breath away.She was a clever scheming woman, and had always been, ever since her school-girl days. She flattered herself that she could read the innermost secrets of a man’s heart.Yes. She was now convinced. This man, who had reposed confidence in her and told her of his dual personality, was actually in love with her. If he did not marry her, it certainly should not be her fault.With that decision she called Marie, her French maid, and passed into her room to dress for dinner with her sister-in-law and her husband—a barrister—with the theatre and Savoy to follow.Next day at noon she was down at Brooklands, where a number of motor enthusiasts and men “in the trade” had assembled. She saw a tall, slim figure in grey overalls and an ugly helmet-shaped cap with dark glasses in the eye-holes, mount upon a long grey car, while a mechanic in blue cotton and a short jacket buttoned tightly, gave a last look round to see that all was working properly. The man mounted the step, the signal was given by the starters, and the two cars, pitted against each other, both grey, with huge numbers painted on the front of their bonnets, came past her like a flash, while the mechanics swung themselves half out, in order to balance the cars as they went round the bend.After the first two or three laps the pace became terrific, and as the widow sat watching, she saw the Princeincognito, his head bent to the wind, a slim, crouched figure at the wheel driving the long car at a pace which no express train could travel.At first he slowly forged ahead, but presently, after twenty minutes, the Frenchman gradually crept up, inch by inch. It was the test of the two cars—a comparatively new English make against a French firm.Dick Drummond had many friends on the course. He was popular everywhere, and at regular intervals as he passed the stand where the widow was seated, a crowd of young, smart, clean-shaven men shouted to his encouragement.Each time, with slight dust flying behind, he went round the bend, Garrett, in his dirty blue clothes, swung himself out to balance the car, while to the Prince himself all has become a blur. Travelling at that terrific pace, the slightest swerve would mean a terrible accident, therefore, he had no eyes save for the track before him. Garrett was busy every moment with the lubrication, and at the same time both feared tyre-troubles, the bugbear of the racing motorist. Such speed sets up tremendous friction and consequent heat, therefore tyre-bursts are likely, and if a tyre does “go off” while a car is travelling at that pace, the consequences may be very serious.Many a bad accident had occurred on that track, and more than one good man had lost his life. Yet the Prince, sportsman that he was, knowing that the widow’s eyes were upon him, set his teeth hard and drove until once again he gradually drew away from his opponent, the renowned Carlier.There were present representatives of the daily and the motor press. The race would be chronicled everywhere on the morrow. If the Frenchman won, it would be an advertisement worth many thousands of pounds to the firm for whom he was driving.To-day every maker of motor-cars vies with his competitors, and strives strenuously to obtain the greatest advertisement. Like so many other things about us, alas! it is not the quality of the car, or of the materials used, but a car’s excellence seems to be judged by its popularity. And that popularity is a mere matter of advertisement.The best car ever turned out by the hand of man would never be looked at if not advertised and “boomed.”The French driver, a man who had won a dozen races, including the Circuit of the Ardennes, and the Florio Cup, was trying to get an advertisement for the particular company for whom he was the professional racer, while Dick Drummond was merely trying his English car against the Paris-built variety.The whirr-r was constant, now approaching and now receding, as the two cars went round and round the track with monotonous regularity. Experts, men interested in various makes, stood leaning over the rails making comment.It was agreed on every hand that Drummond was a marvel of cool level-headedness. His driving was magnificent, and yet he had apparently nothing to gain, even if he won the race. He was not financially interested, as far as was known, in the make of car he drove. He was merely a man of means, who had taken up motor-car racing as a hobby.The Frenchman drove well, and the race, after the first three-quarters of an hour, was a keenly contested one. First Drummond would lead, and then Carlier. Once Drummond spurted and got half a lap ahead, then with the Frenchman putting on speed, he fell behind again till they were once more neck and neck.Time after time they shot past the widow, who had eyes only for her champion. Her blue sunshade was up, and as she stood there alone she hoped against hope that the Prince—the man who had told her his secret—would prove the victor.When he was in front, loud shouts rent the air from the men interested in the make of car he was driving, while, on the other hand, if the Frenchman gained the vantage the applause from his partisans was vociferous.Over all was a cloud of light dust, while the wind created by the cars as they rushed past fanned the cheeks of the woman watching her champion with such deep interest.A group of men near her were discussing him.“Drummond is a magnificent driver,” one remarked in admiration. “Look at him coming up now. Cagno never drove like that, even in his very best race.”“I wonder what interest he has in the Company? He surely wouldn’t race for the mere excitement,” remarked another.“Interest!” cried a third man—and, truth to tell, he was Max Mason—“Why he has the option to buy up the whole of the concern, lock, stock, and barrel. I heard so yesterday. The company gave it to him a fortnight ago. Lawrence, the secretary, told me so. Why, by Jove! if he wins, the fortune of that make of car is secured. I suppose he has capital behind him, and will buy up the whole concern. I only wish I were in it. A tenth share would be a fortune.”“You’re right,” remarked the first man. “Dick Drummond is a shrewd chap. If he wins he’ll make a pot of money on the deal—you see. It’ll be the biggest advertisement that a car has ever had in all the whole annals of motoring.”Mrs Edmondson listened to all this in silence. She quite understood. The Prince, in his character of Dick Drummond, had entered into the affair with a view to a big financial deal—the purchase of the important company who were responsible for the car he was driving.The car in question, be it said, was the actual mustard-coloured one in which she had careered about the West Riding, although she did not recognise it in its garb of dirty slate-grey.She found it quite fascinating, standing there watching those two cars with their powerful roaring engines striving for the mastery, as mile after mile was covered at that frightful break-neck speed. Her heart was with the man bent over his wheel, whom every one believed to be a commoner, and whom she alone knew to be a prince.And he, the cousin of the Kaiser, had actually squeezed her hand!As the end of the race approached the excitement increased. The onlookers grouped themselves in little knots, watching critically for any sign of weakness in one or the other. But there was none. Carlier was as dogged as his opponent, and kept steadily on until at the eightieth mile he gradually overhauled the Englishman.There were still twenty miles to cover. But Dick Drummond was behind, quite an eighth of a lap. Carlier had apparently been husbanding all his strength and power. The car he was driving was certainly a splendid one, and was behaving magnificently. Would it beat the English make?As the last few laps were negotiated at a frightful speed the knots of onlookers became more and more enthusiastic. Some cheered Dick until they were hoarse, while others, with an interest in the car Carlier was driving, cried “Bravo! Bravo!”The blood ran quickly in the widow’s veins. Ninety-five miles had been covered, and still Drummond was behind more than half a lap. She watched his crouching figure, with head set forward, his position never altering, his chin upon his breast, his eyes fixed upon the track before him. Garrett seemed ever at work, touching this and that at the order of his master, whose face was wholly protected from the cutting wind by the ugly mask, save mouth and chin.As the board showed ninety-seven miles he came at a fearful pace past the spot where Mrs Edmondson had again risen from her seat in her excitement. He was spurting, and so valiantly did he struggle, getting every ounce out of the hundred horse-power of his car, that he slowly, very slowly, crept towards the flying Frenchman.“Keep on, Drummond!” shrieked the men, taking off their caps and waving them. “Don’t be beaten, old man!”But he could not hear them above the terrible roar of his exhaust. No express train ever designed had run so quickly as he was now travelling. Official timekeepers were standing, chronometers in hand, calmly watching, and judges were making ready to declare the winner.Every spectator stood breathless. It was really marvellous that one hundred miles could have been covered in that brief space of time while they had been watching.Again, and yet again, the two cars flashed by, yet still Dick lagged behind.Suddenly, however, they came round for the last lap, and as they passed the watchful widow, the Englishman like a shot from a gun, passed his opponent and won by twenty yards.When he pulled up, after having run again round the course to slacken speed, he almost fell into the arms of the crowd of men who came up to congratulate him.Mrs Edmondson had left her post of vantage and stood near by. She overheard one of them—it was Mason—say:“By Jove, Dick! This is a wonderful run. You’ve broken the five, ten, and hundred mile records! The fortune of your car is made?”Then the victor turned to his opponent and shook his hand, saying in French:“Thank you, my dear Carlier, for a very excellent race.”The widow, after a brief chat, returned to town by rail, while Garrett drove his master back to Dover Street.That night his Highness dined with the widow at the Langham, and she bestowed upon him fulsome praise regarding his prowess.“What make of car is yours?” she asked while they were lingering over their dessert in the widow’s private sitting-room.“It’s the St. Christopher,” he answered.“St. Christopher!” she echoed. “What a funny name to give a car!”“It may appear so at first sight, but St. Christopher has been taken by motorists on the Continent as their patron saint—the saint who for ages has guarded the believer against the perils of the way. So it’s really appropriate, after all.”“I heard them say that you’ve made the fortune of the car by your success to-day,” she remarked.“Yes,” he answered carelessly. “Anybody who cared to put in a few thousands now would receive a magnificent return for their money—twenty-five per cent, within a year.”“You think so?” she asked interestedly. “Think, Mrs Edmondson?” he echoed. “I’m sure of it! Why, the St. Christopher now holds the world’s record, and you know what that means. The makers will begin to receive far more orders than they can ever execute. Look at the Napier, the Itala, the Fiat, and others. The same thing has happened. The St. Christopher, however, is in the hands of two men only, and they, unfortunately, lack capital.”“You should help them, if it’s such a good thing.”“I’m doing so. Now I’ve won the race I shall put in fifteen thousand—perhaps twenty. They are seeing me to-morrow. As a matter of fact,” he added, lowering his tone, “I mean to hold controlling interest in the concern. It’s far too good a thing to miss.”The fat widow, with her black bodice cut low, and the circle of diamonds sparkling upon her red neck, sipped her wine slowly, but said nothing.His Highness did not refer to this matter again. He was a past-master of craft and cunning.Later on, the Rev. Thomas Clayton was announced, and the trio spent quite a pleasant evening, which concluded by the lady inviting them both to Milnthorpe the following week.At first the Prince again hesitated. The widow sat in breathless expectancy. At all hazards she must get his Highness to visit her. It would be known all over the county. She would pay a guinea each to the fashionable papers to announce the fact, for it would be worth so very much to her in the county.“I fear, Mrs Edmondson, that I must go to Berlin next week,” replied the Prince. “I’m sure it’s very good of you, but the Emperor has summoned me regarding some affairs of my brother Karl.”“Oh! why can’t you postpone your visit, and come and see me first?” she urged in her most persuasive style. “Mr Clayton, do urge the Prince to come to me,” she added.“You can surely go to Germany a week later, Prince,” exclaimed the cleric. “Where’s the Kaiser just now?”“At Kiel, yachting.”“Then he may not be in Berlin next week?”“He has appointed to meet me at Potsdam. His Majesty never breaks an engagement.”“Then you will break yours, Prince, and go with me to Milnthorpe,” declared the Parson.“Yes,” cried Mrs Edmondson; “and we will have no further excuses, will we, Mr Clayton?”So his Highness was forced to accept, and next day the wily widow returned to Yorkshire to make preparations for the visit which was to shed such social lustre upon her house.Three.The Prince and the Parson held several long interviews in the two days that followed, and it was apparent from one meeting which took place, and at which both Mason and Garrett were present, that some clever manoeuvre was intended. The quartette held solemn councils in the Prince’s chambers, and there was much discussion, and considerable laughter.The latter, it appeared, was in consequence of Max’s recollection of the wonderful record of his Highness at Brooklands.On the day appointed both Prince and parson, attended by the faithful Charles, left King’s Cross by train for Whitby, Garrett having started alone on the “forty,” with orders to travel by way of Doncaster and York, and arrive at Milnthorpe by noon next day.The fine old place was, the Prince found, quite a comfortable residence. The widow did the honours gracefully, welcoming her guests warmly.When the two friends found themselves alone in the Prince’s room, his Highness whispered to the exemplary vicar:“I don’t like the look of that Italian butler, Tommy. Do you know I’ve a very strange fancy?”“Of what?”“That I’ve met that fellow before, somewhere or other.”“I sincerely hope not,” was the clergyman’s response.“Where I’ve met him I can’t remember. By Jove! It’ll be awkward for us if he recollects me.”“Then we’ll have to watch him. I wonder if—”And the Parson crossed noiselessly to the bedroom door and opened it suddenly.As he did so there was the distinct sound of some one scuffling round the corner in the corridor. Both men detected it.There had been an eavesdropper! They were suspected!At dinner that night the pair cast furtive glances at the thin, clean-shaven face of the middle-aged Italian butler, whose head was prematurely bald, but whose manners as a servant were perfect. Ferrini was the name by which his mistress addressed him, and it was apparent that he was very devoted to her. The young footman was English—a Cockney, by his twang.In the old panelled room, with its long family portraits and its old carved buffet laden with well-kept silver—or rather electro-plate, as the pair already knew—a well-cooked dinner was served amid flowers and cunningly-concealed lights. The table was a round one, and the only other guest was a tall, fair-haired young girl, a Miss Maud Mortimer, the daughter of a neighbouring squire. She was a loosely built, slobbering miss, with a face like a wax doll, and a slight impediment in her speech.At first she seemed shy in the presence of the Kaiser’s cousin, but presently, when her awkwardness wore off, she grew quite merry.To the two visitors the meal was a perfect success. Those dark watchful eyes of the Italian, however, marred their pleasure considerably. Even the Parson was now convinced that the man knew something.What was it? Where had the fellow met the Prince before? Was it under suspicious circumstances—or otherwise?Next day Garrett arrived with the car, while to the White House Hotel at Whitby came a quietly dressed and eminently respectable golfer, who gave his name as Harvey, but with whom we are already familiar under the name of Mason.The afternoon was a hot, breathless one, but towards five o’clock the Prince invited his hostess to go for a run on the “forty”—repainted, since its recent return from the Continent, dark blue with a coronet and cipher upon its panels.Garrett who had had a look round the widow’s “sixty” Mercédès, in confidence told his master that it was all in order, and that the chauffeur was an experienced man.With the widow and her two guests seated together behind, Garrett drove the car next day along the pretty road by Pickering down to Malton, returning by way of Castle Howard. The pace they travelled was a fast one, and the widow, turning to his Highness, said:“Really, Prince, to motor with you is quite a new experience. My man would never dare to go at such a rate as this for fear of police-traps.”“I’m pretty lucky in escaping them,” responded the good-looking adventurer, glancing meaningly at the man in black clerical overcoat and cap.“The Prince once ran from Boulogne to Nice in twenty-eight hours on his St. Christopher,” remarked the Rev. Thomas. “And in winter, too.”“Marvellous!” declared the widow, adjusting her pale-blue motor-veil, new for the occasion. “There’s no doubt a great future before that car—especially after the record at Brooklands.”“Rather!” exclaimed the rubicund vicar. “I’m only a poor parson, but if I had a little capital I should certainly put it in. I have inside knowledge, as they say in the City, I believe, Mrs Edmondson,” he laughed.“From the Prince?”“Of course. He intends having the largest interest in the concern. They’ve had eight orders for racers in the last six days. A record at Brooklands means a fortune to a manufacturer.”His Highness was silent, while the self-satisfied widow discussed the future of the eight-cylinder St. Christopher.Returning to the Hall, Ferrini came forth bowing to his mistress, and casting a distinctly suspicious glance at the two visitors. Both men noticed it, and were not a little apprehensive. They had played some clever games, but knew not from one moment to the other when some witness might not point a finger at them in open denunciation.While the Prince was dressing for dinner Charles said:“That butler fellow is far too inquisitive for my liking. I found him in here an hour ago, and I’m positive he had been trying to unlock your crocodile suit-case. He made an excuse that he had come to see whether you had a siphon of soda. But I actually caught him bending over your bag.”The Prince remained grave and silent.“Where have we met that fellow before? I can’t remember.”“Neither can I. His face is somehow familiar. I’m sure we’ve seen him somewhere!”“That’s what the Parson says. Write to Max at Whitby, and tell him to come over on some pretext or other and get a glance at the man. Post the letter yourself to-night.”“Perhaps the fellow is afraid of his plate,” the valet exclaimed in an undertone, laughing.“He needn’t be. It’s all ‘B’ electro—not worth taking away in a dung-cart. The only thing I’ve seen is the old woman’s necklet, and that she keeps in her room, I fancy. If the sparklers are real they’re worth a couple of thousand to the Dutchman.”“They are certainly real. She’s got them out of the bank in your honour. Her maid told me so to-day. And she means, I believe, to give a big dinner-party for some of the county people to meet you.”“Are you sure of this?” asked his master quickly.“The cook told the footman, who told me. The housekeeper to-day ordered a lot of things from London, and to-morrow the invitations are to be sent out.”“Are people coming here to dine and sleep?”“Yes. Eight bedrooms are to be prepared.”“Then keep an eye on that confounded Italian. Send that letter to Max, and tell him to reply to you in cipher. His letter might fall into somebody else’s hands. Max might also inquire into what the police arrangements are about here—where the village constable lives, and where is the nearest police-station.”“Couldn’t you send me in to Whitby, and I’d give him all instructions, and tell him the state of affairs?”“Yes. Go in the morning. Garrett will take you in on the car. Say you’re going to buy me a book I want.”And with that his Highness finished tying his cravat with care, and descended into the pretty drawing-room, where the widow, lounging picturesquely beneath the yellow-shaded lamp, awaited him.That evening the Parson, who complained of headache on account of the sun during a walk in the morning, retired to his room early, and until past eleven the Prince sat alone with his fat and flattered hostess.As she lolled back in the big silk-covered easy-chair, slowly fanning herself and trying to look her best, he, calm, calculating person that he was, had his eyes fixed upon her sparkling necklet, wondering how much the old Jew in Amsterdam would give for it.“What a splendid ornament!” he remarked, as though he had noticed it for the first time.“Do you like it?” she asked with a smile. “It belonged to my husband’s family.”“Beautiful!” remarked his Highness, bending closer to examine it, for he had the eye of a connoisseur, and saw that it was probably French work of the eighteenth century.“Many people have admired it,” she went on. “My husband was very fond of jewellery, and gave me quite a quantity. I never keep it here, however, for a year ago an attempt was made to break into the place.”“So you keep them in a safe deposit?” he exclaimed; “and quite right, too. Diamonds are always a sore temptation to burglars.”“I’m asking a few people to dinner next Wednesday, and am sending to the bank in York for some of my ornaments,” remarked the widow. “I hope they’ll be safe here. Since the attempt by thieves, I confess I’ve been awfully nervous.”“Oh, they’ll be safe enough,” declared the audacious adventurer, taking a fresh Russian cigarette from his case.“I hope so. I have invited a few people—the best in the county—to meet your Highness. I hope you won’t object.”“Not at all,” he replied affably. “Only, as you know, I much prefer to remainincognito.”“You’re one of the most modest men I’ve ever met,” she declared, in a soft voice, intended to be seductive.“I find life as a commoner much more agreeable than as a prince,” he responded. “Inincognito, I always enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of action, which, as a royalty, it is impossible to obtain.”The widow’s mind was ever active. She was straining her utmost to fascinate her guest. The difference in their ages was really not so very great. Her secret hope was that she could induce him to make a declaration of love. Fancy her, plain Mrs Edmondson, ridiculed by the county and only tolerated by a certain section of it, suddenly becoming a princess!Milnthorpe was a beautiful old place, but to her it was but a sepulchre. She hated it because, while in residence there, she was buried alive. She preferred Monte Carlo, Paris, or even Cairo.“Then the dinner-party will be a very smart one?” he remarked for want of something better to say. “And my hostess herself will surely be the smartest of them all,” he added with a bow and an intent to flatter.“Ah! I fear not,” replied the widow with a slight sigh. “I dare say the diamonds which poor Tubby gave me are as good as any worn by the other women, but as for smartness—well, Prince, a woman’s mirror does not lie,” and she sighed again. “Youth is but fleeting, and a woman’s life is, alas! a long old age.”“Oh, come!” he laughed, lounging back in his chair. “You haven’t yet arrived at the regretful age. Life is surely still full of youth for you!”She was much gratified at that little speech of his, and showed it.He continued to flatter her, and with that cunning innate within him he slowly drew from her the fact that she would not be averse to a second marriage. He was fooling her, yet with such cleverness that she, shrewd woman that she was, never dreamed that he was laughing at her in his sleeve.So earnest, so sensible, so perfectly frank and straightforward was he, that when after half an hour’stête-à-têteshe found him holding her hand and asking her to become Princess, she became utterly bewildered. What she replied she hardly knew, until suddenly, with an old-fashioned courtliness, he raised her fat, bejewelled hand gallantly to his lips and said:“Very well. Let it be so, Mrs Edmondson. We are kindred spirits, and our souls have affinity. You shall be my princess.”“And then the old crow started blubbering,” as he forcibly described the scene afterwards to the Parson.For a few moments he held her in his embrace, fearful every moment that the ferret-eyed Italian should enter. Indeed, his every movement seemed to be watched suspiciously by that grave, silent servant.They mutually promised, for the present, to keep their secret. He kissed her upon the lips, which, as he declared to the Parson, were “sticky with some confounded face-cream or other.” Then Ferrini suddenly appeared, and his mistress dismissed him for the night. The Prince, however, knew that he would not retire, but lurk somewhere in the corridor outside.He stood before the old Jacobean fireplace, with its high overmantel of carved stone and emblazoned arms, a handsome man who would prove attractive to any woman. Was it therefore any wonder that the ambitious widow of the shipbuilder should have angled after him?He had entirely eclipsed the Parson.First their conversation was all of affection; then it turned upon something akin, money. Upon the latter point the Prince was utter careless. He had sufficient, he declared. But the widow was persistent in telling him the state of her own finances. Besides the estate of Milnthorpe, which produced quite a comfortable income, she enjoyed half the revenue from the great firm her husband had founded, and at that moment, besides other securities, she had a matter of seventy thousand pounds lying idle at her bank, over which she had complete control.She expected this would interest him, but, on the contrary, he merely lit a fresh cigarette, and having done so, said:“My dear Mrs Edmondson, this marriage of ours is not for monetary interest. My own estates are more than sufficient for me. I do not desire to touch one single penny of your money. I wish you to enjoy your separate estate, and remain just as independent as you are to-day.”And so they chatted on until the chimes of the stable clock warned them it was two in the morning. Then having given him a slobbery good-night kiss, they separated.Before his Highness turned in, he took from his steel despatch-box a small black-covered book, and with its aid he constructed two cipher telegrams, which he put aside to be despatched by Charles from the Whitby post office in the morning.The calm, warm summer days went slowly by. Each afternoon the widow—now perfectly satisfied with herself—accompanied her two guests on runs on the Prince’s “forty”—one day to Scarborough, the next over the Cleveland Hills to Guisborough, to Helmsley on to the ruins of Rievaulx, and to other places.One afternoon the Parson made an excuse to remain at home, and the widow took the Prince in to York in her own Mercédès. Arrived there, they took tea in the coffee-room of the Station Hotel, then, calling at a solicitor’s office in Coney Street, appended their joint names to a document which, at the widow’s instigation, had already been prepared.A quarter of an hour later they pulled up before the West Riding Bank in Stonegate, and though the offices were already closed, a clerk on duty handed to the widow a box about eighteen inches square, tied with string, and sealed with four imposing red seals. For this she scribbled her name to a receipt, and placing it in the car between them, drove back by way of Malton, Pickering, and Levisham.“This is the first time I’ve had my tiara out, my dear Albert, since the burglars tried to get in,” she remarked when they had gone some distance, and the Mercédès was tearing along that level open stretch towards Malton.“Well, of course, be careful,” answered her companion. Then after a pause he lowered his voice so the chauffeur could not overhear, and said: “I wonder, Gertrude, if you’ll permit me to make a remark—without any offence?”“Why, certainly. What is it?”“Well, to tell the truth, I don’t half like the look of that foreign servant of yours. He’s not straight. I’m sure of it by the look in his eyes.”“How curious! Do you know that the same thought has occurred to me these last few days,” she said. “And yet he’s such a trusty servant. He’s been with me nearly two years.”“Don’t trust him further, Gertrude, that’s my advice,” said his Highness pointedly. “I’m suspicious of the fellow—distinctly suspicious. Do you know much of him?”“Nothing, except that he’s a most exemplary servant.”“Where was he before he entered your service?”“With Lady Llangoven, in Hertford Street. She gave him a most excellent character.”“Well, take my warning,” he said. “I’m sure there’s something underhand about him.”“You quite alarm me,” declared the widow. “Especially as I have these,” and she indicated the sealed parcel at her side.“Oh, don’t be alarmed. While I’m at Milnthorpe I’ll keep my eyes upon the fellow, never fear. I suppose you have a safe in which to keep your jewels?”“Yes. But some of the plate is kept there, and he often has the key.”His Highness grunted suspiciously, thereby increasing the widow’s alarm.“Now you cause me to reflect,” she said, “there were several curious features about this recent attempt of thieves. The police from York asked me if I thought that any one in the house could have been in league with them. They apparently suspected one or other of the servants.”“Oh!” exclaimed the Prince. “And the Italian was at that time in your service?”“Yes.”“Then does not that confirm our suspicions? Is he not a dangerous person to have in a house so full of valuable objects as Milnthorpe?”“I certainly agree. After the dinner-party on Wednesday, I’ll give him notice.”“Rather pay the fellow his month’s money, and send him away,” her companion suggested. Then in the same breath he added: “Of course it is not for me to interfere with your household arrangements. I know this is great presumption. But my eyes are open, and I have noted that the man is not all he pretends to be. Therefore I thought it only my duty to broach the subject.”“My interests are yours,” cooed the widow at his side. “Most decidedly Ferrini shall go. Or else one morning we may wake up and find that thieves have paid us a second visit.”Then, the chauffeur having put on a “move,” their conversation became interrupted, and the subject was not resumed, for very soon they found themselves swinging through the lodge-gates of Milnthorpe.Wednesday night came. Milnthorpe Hall was aglow with light, the rooms beautifully decorated by a well-known florist, the dinner cooked by acheffrom London, the music played by a well-known orchestra stationed on the lawn outside the long, oak-panelled dining-room; and as one guest after another arrived in carriages and cars they declared that the widow had certainly eclipsed herself by this entertainment in honour of his Highness Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein.Not a word of their approaching marriage was allowed to leak out. For the present, it was their own secret. Any premature announcement might, he had told her, bring upon him the Kaiser’s displeasure.Four.In the long drawing-room, receiving her guests, stood the widow, handsome in black and silver, wearing her splendid tiara and necklet of diamonds, as well as a rope of fine, well-matched pearls, all of which both the Parson and his Highness duly noted. She certainly looked a brilliant figure, while, beside her, stood the Prince himself, with the miniature crosses of half a dozen of his decorations strung upon a tiny gold chain across the lappel of his dress-coat.Several guests had arrived earlier in the day to dine and sleep, while the remainder, from the immediate neighbourhood, included several persons of title and social distinction who had accepted the invitation out of mere curiosity. Half the guests went because they were to meet a real live prince, and the other half in order to afterwards poke fun at the obese tuft-hunter.The dinner, however, was an unqualified success, the thanks being in a great measure due to his Highness, who was full of vivacity and brilliant conversation. Everybody was charmed with him, while of course later on, in the corner of the drawing-room, the Bayswater parson sang his friend’s praises in unmeasured terms.The several unmarried women set their caps pointedly at the hero of the evening, and at last, when the guests had left and the visitors had retired, he, with the Parson and two other male visitors, Sir Henry Hutton, and a certain Lionel Meyer, went to the billiard-room.It was two o’clock when they went upstairs. The Bayswater vicar had to pass the Prince’s room, in order to get to his own, but he did not enter further than the threshold. Both men looked eagerly across at the dressing-table, upon which Charles had left two candles burning.That was a secret sign. Both men recognised it, and the Prince instantly raised his finger with a gesture indicative of silence. Then he exclaimed aloud: “Well, good-night, Clayton. We’ll go for a run in the morning,” and closed his door noisily, while the Parson went along to his own room.The Prince, always an early riser, was up at eight o’clock, and was already dressed when Charles entered his room.“Well?” he inquired, as was his habit.“There’s a rare to-do below,” exclaimed the valet. “The whole house has been ransacked in the night, and a clean sweep made of all the jewellery. The old woman is asking to see you at once.”Without ado, his Highness descended, sending Charles along to alarm the Parson.In the morning-room he found the widow, with the two male guests and two ladies, assembled in excited conclave. As he entered, his hostess rushed towards him, saying:“Oh, Prince! A most terrible thing has happened! Every scrap of jewellery, including my tiara and necklet, has been stolen!”“Stolen!” he gasped, pretending not to have heard the news.“Yes. I placed them myself in the safe in the butler’s pantry, together with several cases the maids brought me from my guests. I locked them up just after one o’clock and took the key. Here it is. It has never left my possession. I—”She was at that moment interrupted by the entrance of the Parson, who, having heard of the robbery from the servants, began:“My de-ah Mrs Edmondson. This is really a most untoward circumstance—most—”“Listen,” the widow went on excitedly. “Hear me, and then advise me what to do. I took this key,”—and she held it up for their inspection—“and hid it beneath the corner of the carpet in my room. This morning, to my amazement, my maid came to say that the safe-door had been found ajar, and that though the plate had been left, all the jewellery had disappeared. Only the empty cases remain!”“How has the safe been opened?” asked the Prince, standing amazed.Was it possible that some ingenious adventurer had got ahead of him? It certainly seemed so.“It’s been opened by another key, that’s evident,” replied the widow.“And where’s Ferrini?” inquired his Highness quickly.“He’s missing. Nobody has seen him this morning,” answered the distressed woman. “Ah, Prince, you were right—quite right in your surmise. I believed in him, but you summed him up very quickly. I intended to discharge him to-morrow, but I never dreamed he possessed a second key.”“He has the jewels, evidently,” remarked Sir Henry Hutton, himself a county magistrate. “I’ll run into Whitby, and inform the police, Mrs Edmondson. We have no idea which direction the fellow has taken.”At that moment the door opened, and Garrett, cap in hand, stood on the threshold.“Well, what’s the matter?” asked his master.“Please, your Highness, our car’s gone. It’s been stolen from the garage in the night!”The announcement caused an electrical effect upon the assembly.“Then this man could also drive a car, as well as wait at table!” exclaimed Sir Henry. “Myself, I always distrust foreign servants.”“Ferrini had one or two lessons in driving from my chauffeur, I believe,” remarked the widow, now in a state of utter collapse.“Never mind, Mrs Edmondson,” said his Highness cheerily. “Allow Sir Henry and myself to do our best. The fellow is bound to be caught. I’ll give the police the number of my car, and its description. And what’s more, we have something very valuable here.” And he drew out his pocket-book. “You recollect the suspicions of Ferrini which I entertained, and which I explained in confidence to you? Well, my valet has a pocket camera, and with it three days ago I took a snap-shot of your exemplary servant. Here it is!”“By Jove. Excellent!” cried Sir Henry. “This will be of the greatest assistance to the police.”And so it was arranged that the police of Whitby should be at once informed.At breakfast—a hurried, scrappy meal that morning—every one condoled with the Prince upon the loss of his car. Surely the whole affair had been most cleverly contrived by Ferrini, who had got clear away.Just as the meal had concluded and the Parson had promised to accompany Sir Henry over to Whitby to see the police, he received a telegram calling him to his brother, who had just landed in Liverpool from America, and who wished to see him at the Adelphi Hotel that evening.To his hostess he explained that he was bound to keep the appointment, for his brother had come from San Francisco on some important family affairs, and was returning to New York by the next boat.Therefore he bade adieu to Mrs Edmondson—“de-ah Mrs Edmondson,” he always called her—and was driven in the dog-cart to Grosmont station, while a few minutes later, the Prince and Sir Henry set out in the widow’s Mercédès for Whitby.The pair returned about one o’clock, and at luncheon explained what they had done.In the afternoon, the widow met his Highness out in the tent upon the lawn, and they sat together for some time, he enjoying his eternal “Petroff.” Indeed, he induced her to smoke one, in order to soothe her nerves.“Don’t upset yourself too much, my dear Gertrude,” he urged, placing his hand upon hers. “We shall catch the fellow, never fear. Do you know, I’ve been wondering whether, if I went up to town and saw them at Scotland Yard, it would not be the wisest course. I know one of the superintendents. I met him when my life was threatened by anarchists, and the police put me under their protection. The Whitby police seem very slow. Besides, by this time Ferrini is far afield.”“I really think, Albert, that it would be quite a good plan,” exclaimed the widow enthusiastically. “If you went to Scotland Yard they would, no doubt, move heaven and earth to find the thief.”“That’s just what I think,” declared his Highness. “I’ll go by the six-twenty.”“But you’ll return here to-morrow, won’t you?” urged the widow. “The people I have here will be so disappointed if you don’t—and—and as for myself,” she added, her fat face flushing slightly—“well, you know that I am only happy when you are near me.”“Trust me, Gertrude. I’ll return at once—as soon as ever I’ve set the machinery of Scotland Yard in motion. I have the negative of the photo I took, and I’ll hand it to them.”And so that evening, without much explanation to his fellow guests, he ran up to town, leaving Charles and most of his baggage behind.Next day, Mrs Edmondson received a long and reassuring telegram from him in London.Two days passed, but nothing further was heard. Garrett, without a car, and therefore without occupation, decided to go up to London. The theft of the car had utterly puzzled him. Whatevercouphis master and his friends had intended had evidently been effected by the man Ferrini. All their clever scheming had been in vain.They had been forestalled.
The Prince, keen motorist that he was, had—attended by the faithful Garrett, of course—been executing some remarkably quick performances on the Brooklands track.
About a month before he had purchased a hundred horse-power racing-car, and now devoted a good deal of his time to the gentle art of record-breaking. Some of his times for “the mile” had been very creditable, and as Mr Richard Drummond, son of a Manchester cotton magnate, his name was constantly appearing in the motor journals. Having for the time being discarded the purple, and with it his cosy chambers off Piccadilly, he had now taken up his quarters at that small hotel so greatly patronised by motorists, the “Hut,” on the Ripley Road.
Among the many road-scouts, with their red discs, in that vicinity he had become extremely popular on account of his generosity in tips, while to the police with his ugly grey low-built car with its two seats behind the long bonnet he was a perpetual source of annoyance.
Though he never exceeded the speed limit—in sight of the police—yet his open exhaust roared and throbbed, while his siren was the most ear-piercing of any on the road. A little bit of business up in Staffordshire which he had recently brought to a successful issue by the aid of the faithful Charles, the Parson, and Mr Max Mason, had placed them all in funds, and while the worthy Bayswater vicar was taking his ease at the “Majestic” up at Harrogate—where, by the way, he had become extremely popular among his fellow guests—Mason was at the Bath at Bournemouth for a change of air.
To the guests at Harrogate the Rev. Thomas Clayton had told the usual tale which seems to be on the lips of every cleric, no matter how snug his living—that of the poor parish, universal suffering, hard work, small stipend, ailing wife and several small children. Indeed, he admitted to one or two of the religious old ladies whose acquaintance he had made, that some of his wealthier parishioners, owing to his nervous breakdown, had subscribed in order to send him there for a month’s holiday.
Thus he had become indispensable to the tea-and-tattle circle, and the ladies soon began to refer to him as “that dear Mr Clayton.” With one of them, a certain wealthy widow named Edmondson, he had become a particular favourite, a fact which he had communicated in a letter to the good-looking motorist now living at the pretty wayside inn in front of the lake on the Ripley Road.
While the Parson was enjoying a most decorous time with the philanthropic widow, Dick Drummond, as he soon became known, had cultivated popularity in the motor-world. To men in some walks of life, and especially to those on the crooked by-paths, popularity is a very dangerous thing. Indeed, as the Prince had on many occasions pointed out in confidence to me, his popularity greatly troubled him, making it daily more difficult for him to conceal his identity.
At that moment, because he had lowered a record at Brooklands, he was living in daily terror of being photographed, and having his picture published in one or other of the illustrated papers. If this did occur, then was it not more than likely that somebody would identify Dick Drummond the motorist, with the handsome Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein?
He led a life of ease and comfort in all else, save this constant dread of recognition, and was seriously contemplating a sudden trip across the Channel with a run through France and Germany when he one morning received a registered letter bearing the Harrogate postmark.
He read it through half a dozen times. Then he burned it.
Afterwards he lit a “Petroff” and went out for a stroll in the sunshine along the road towards Ripley village.
“It’s really wonderful how clerical clothes and a drawling voice attract a woman. They become fascinated, just as they do when they meet a Prince. By Jove!” he laughed merrily to himself. “What fools some women—and men, too, for the matter of that—make of themselves! They never trouble to institute inquiry, but accept you just at your own value. Take myself as an instance! In all these four years nobody has ever discovered that I’m not Prince Albert. Nobody has taken the trouble to trace the real prince to his safe abode, the Sanatorium of Wismar. Yet the great difficulty is that I cannot always remain a prince.”
Then he strode along for some time in thoughtful silence. In his well-cut blue serge suit and peaked motor-cap he presented the smart devil-may-care figure of a man who would attract most women. Indeed, he was essentially a ladies’ man, but he always managed to turn his amorous adventures to monetary advantage.
Only once in his life had he been honestly in love. The tragic story of his romance in Florence I have already explained in a previous chapter. His thoughts were always of his real princess—ever of her. She had been his ideal, and would always remain so. He had defended her good name, but dared not return to her and expose himself as a fraud and a criminal. Better by far for her to remain in ignorance of the truth; better that he should possess only sweet sad memories of her soft lips and tender hands.
As he walked, a young man passed in a dirty white racing-car, on his way to Brooklands, and waved to him. It was George Hartwell, the holder of the one-mile record, and an intimate friend of his.
The Prince was debating within himself whether he should adopt the Parson’s suggestion, abandon motor-racing for the nonce, and join him up in Yorkshire.
“I wonder whether the game’s worth the candle?” he went on, speaking to himself after the cloud of dust has passed. “If what Clayton says is true, then it’s a good thing. The old woman is evidently gone on him. I suppose he’s told her the tale, and she believes he’s a most sanctified person.”
He halted at a gate near the entrance to Ripley village, and lighting another cigarette puffed vigorously at it.
“My hat!” he ejaculated at last. “A real parson must have an exceedingly soft time of it—snug library, pretty girls in the choir, tea-fights, confidences, and all that kind of thing. In the country no home is complete without its tame curate.” Then, after a long silence, he at length tossed away the end of his cigarette, and declared:
“Yes, I’ll go. There’ll be a bit of fun—if nothing else.”
And he walked to the village telegraph office and wired one word to his bosom friend and ingenious accomplice. It was a word of their secret code—Formice—which Clayton would interpret as “All right. Shall be with you as soon as possible, and will carry out the suggestions made in your letter.”
Then he walked back to the “Hut,” where he found Garrett sitting out in that little front garden against the road, which is usually so crowded by motorists on warm Sunday afternoons.
“Better go and pack,” he said sinking into a chair as his supposed servant rose and stood at attention. “We’re going back to town in an hour.”
Garrett, without asking questions, returned into the hotel. He saw by the Prince’s sharp decided manner that something new was in the wind.
An hour later Dick Drummond motor-maniac, drew the car along the road towards Esher, and as he disappeared around the bend among the trees, he ceased to exist. Prince Albert became himself again.
Direct to Dover Street they went—and there found the discreet Charles awaiting them. Fresh kit was packed while Garrett, in a garage over in Westminster where he was unknown, was busily engaged in repainting the ugly racer with its big bonnet a bright yellow.
That evening the Prince spent alone in his pretty sitting-room consuming dozens of his pet Russian cigarettes, and thinking hard. For an hour he was busy upon some accounts written in German—accounts from a Jew dealer in precious stones in Amsterdam. The gentleman in question was a good customer of the Prince’s, gave fair prices, and asked no questions. His Highness seemed troubled about one item, for as he rested his brow upon his hand, still seated at his desk, he murmured in a low voice to himself:
“I’m sure the old Hebrew has done me out of four hundred and fifty! Eighteen hundred was the price agreed for that carroty-headed woman’s pendant. That’s what comes of leaving business matters to Max.” And sighing, he added: “I shall really have to attend to the sales myself, for no doubt we’re swindled every time. The old Jew doesn’t believe in honour among thieves, it seems!”
Some letters which had arrived during his absence were put before him by the valet, Charles. Among them were several invitations to the houses of people struggling to get into society—by the back door, and who wanted to include the name of Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein in the list of their guests.
“Are we likely to be away for long?” asked the valet, at the same time helping himself to a cigarette from his master’s silver box.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” laughed the good-looking young adventurer. “You’ll go down to the ‘Majestic’ at Harrogate by the first train in the morning and take the best suite for me. Garrett and I will arrive in the car. Of course you’ll tell the usual story to the servants of my wealth, and all that.”
“The Parson’s down there, isn’t he?”
“Yes, but you’ll take no notice of him. Understand?”
So the smart young crook who posed as valet, having received his master’s instructions, retired to pack his own clothes.
At ten next morning Garrett brought round the hundred “racer,” now covered in yellow enamel and bearing a different identification-plate from that it had borne the previous day, and with the Prince up beside him wearing a light dust-coat and his peaked cap turned the wrong way, so as not to catch the wind, drew out into Piccadilly, and turned up Shaftesbury Avenue due northward.
Throughout that warm summer’s day they tore along the Great North Road as far as Doncaster, wary always of the police-traps which abound there. Then, after a light meal, they pushed on to Ferrybridge, taking the right-hand road through Micklefield to the cross-roads beyond Aberford, and then on the well-kept old Roman way which runs through Wetherby to Plampton Corner, and ascends the hill into Harrogate.
The last forty miles they did at tearing speed, the great powerful engine running like a clock, leaving a perfect wall of white dust behind. The car was a “flyer” in every sense of the word. The Prince had won the Heath Stakes at Brooklands, therefore, on an open road, without traffic or police-traps, they covered the last forty miles within the hour.
The sun had already sunk, and the crimson afterglow had spread before they reached the Stray, but as the car drew up before the great hotel, Charles, bareheaded and urbane, came forth to receive his master, while behind him stood the assistant manager and a couple of attendants also in bareheaded servitude.
Charles, who always acted as advance-agent had already created great excitement in the hotel by the announcement that his Highness was on his way. Quite a small crowd of visitors had concluded their dinner early, and assembled in the hall to catch first sight of the German princeling who preferred residence in England to that in his native principality.
As he passed across the great hall and entered the lift, dusty after his journey, his quick eyes caught sight of the sedate modest-looking parson seated away from the others, chatting with a rather buxom, florid-looking, red-necked woman of about fifty.
The Parson had his face purposely averted. At present he did not wish to claim acquaintance with the new-comer, whom he allowed to ascend to the fine suite of rooms reserved for him.
Next morning, as the Prince crossed the hall to go out for a stroll about the town he created quite a flutter in the hotel, especially among the female guests. The place was filled by summer holiday-makers from London, each of whom was eager to rub elbows with a real live Prince. Indeed many were the flattering words whispered by pretty lips regarding his Highness’s good looks and general bearing.
The worthy Bayswater vicar was chatting with Mrs Edmondson in his usual clerical drawl, when the Prince’s sudden appearance caused him to look up. Then turning to her again, he exclaimed:
“Oh, here’s Prince Albert! I knew him quite well when I was British chaplain in Hanover,” and crossing to his Highness he shook hands heartily, adding in the next breath: “I wonder if your Highness would allow me to present to you my friend here, Mrs Edmondson?”
“Delighted, I’m sure,” replied the younger man bowing before the rather stout, dark-haired lady, whose blatant pomposity crumpled up instantly, and who became red and white in turns.
The introduction had been effected so suddenly that the relict of Thomas Edmondson, Esquire, J.P., D.L., of Milnthorpe Hall, near Whitby, had been taken completely off her feet—or “off her perch,” as the merry cleric afterwards jocosely put it. She knew Mr Clayton to be a most superior person, but had no idea of his intimate acquaintance with princes of the blood-royal.
She succeeded in stammering some conventional expressions of pleasure at being presented, and then lapsed into ignominious silence.
“Mrs Edmondson has kindly expressed herself very interested in my poor parish,” explained the Parson, “just as your Highness has been interested. I wrote to you a month ago to Aix-les-Bains, thanking you for your generous donation towards our Children’s Holiday Fund. It was really extremely kind of you.”
“Oh, don’t mention it, Mr Clayton,” replied his Highness. “I’ve been in your parish twice, remember, and I know well how very hard you work, and what a number of the deserving poor you have. I’m just going down in the town for a stroll. Perhaps I’ll see you after lunch? Come to my room for a smoke.”
And then, bowing to the obese widow, he replaced his grey felt hat and strode out.
“What a very charming man!” declared the widow when she recovered herself sufficiently to speak. “So he has been to your parish!”
“Oh, yes. He gives me most liberal donations,” answered Clayton in a low tone of confidence. “But he always prefers to remain anonymous, of course. He has been my best friend for years. I had no idea he was in England. He wrote me last from Aix.”
But the widow’s brain was already active. Though possessing a deep religious feeling, and subscribing liberally to all sorts of charities just as her late husband had done, she was nevertheless a snob, and was already wondering whether, with the assistance of the pleasant-faced cleric, she could not induce the Prince to be her guest at Milnthorpe. She knew that his presence there would give to her house acachetwhich had always been lacking, and would raise her social position in the select county of Yorks a hundred per cent.
“Most delightful man!” she repeated as they went forth into the grounds. “I hope I shall have the pleasure of a long chat with him.”
“Oh, that won’t be very difficult, my dear Mrs Edmondson,” her companion replied. “Any one introduced by me will, I feel assured, be received most cordially by him. He does me the honour of reposing the most implicit trust in myself.”
“A trust which certainly is not misplaced,” declared the stout widow in her self-satisfied way, as she strutted along in a new grey cotton gown of latestmode, a large hat to match, a big golden chatelaine at her side, and a blue silk sunshade.
“You are very flattering,” replied Clayton. “I—I fear I do not deserve such kind words, I only do my duty to my bishop and my parish, and prosecute the line of life which Providence has laid out for me.”
“There are clergymen—and clergymen,” the woman said with affected wisdom. “I have known more than one who has been utterly worthless. It is, therefore, very gratifying to meet a man with such a high mind, and such a keen sense of responsibility towards his poor backsliding fellow creatures as yourself.”
He was silent, for he was biting his nether lip. What would this estimable widow think if she knew the truth that he had no parish, no wife, no little children, and that he had no right to the sombre garb of religion in which he stood before her?
A moment later he succeeded in changing the subject.
The Prince lunched alone in his private room, as he always did in hotels in order to impress both management and guests. It was another habit of his, in order to cause servants to talk, to have a big bottle of eau de Cologne placed in his bath each morning. The chatter of servants as to his generosity, and his careless extravagance, was often most useful to him. While the Parson was always parsimonious—which, by the way, was rather belied by his rubicund complexion—the Prince was ever open-handed.
The good-looking, well-dressed young man’s slight foreign accent entirely disappeared whenever he became Tremlett or Lord Nassington, or Drummond, or any other imaginary person whose identity he from time to time assumed. At present, however, he spoke with just sufficient error of grammar and speech to betray his foreign birth, and as he rose, and stood looking out of the window he presented, in his cool, grey flannels, the ideal young foreign prince of English tastes and English education.
Already in the reading-room below, the “Almanach de Gotha” had been handled a dozen times by inquisitive half-pay colonels, and mothers with marriageable daughters. And what had been found printed there had caused a flutter in many hearts.
The Prince’s audacity was superb. The suspicion of any littlecouphe made as prince he always managed to wriggle out of. Even though some evil-disposed persons had made ugly allegations against him at times, yet they were not believed. He was a prince and wealthy, therefore what motive had he to descend to the level of a thief? The Parson, too, always managed to evade suspicion. His voice, his manner, and his general get-up were perfect.
Those who had visited his house in Bayswater, not far from Queen’s Road station, had found it to be the ideal and complete clergyman’s home, with study and half-written sermons on the writing-table.
Their victims, indeed, were as puzzled as were the police. The Prince’s magnificent impertinence and amazing boldness carried him through it all. He was a fatalist. If he and his friends Clayton, Garrett, and Mason were ever caught—well it would be just Fate. Till they actually fell into the hands of the police they would have a good time, and act fearlessly.
As he stood at the window, with the eternal Russian cigarette between his lips, gazing thoughtfully out upon the garden below, the door opened and the Parson entered.
“Well, Tommy, old chap!” exclaimed his Highness, when in a few moments the two men were lounging in easy-chairs opposite each other. “Now, tell me all about the old girl,” he said laughing. “She walks like a pea-hen.”
“There’s not much more to tell than what you already know,” responded the Parson, “except that she’s all in a flutter at meeting you, and wants to chat with you again.”
“Have you made any inquiries concerning her?”
“Of course. A week ago I ran over in secret to Milnthorpe Hall. Fine place, big park, large staff of servants, butler an Italian. Husband was partner in a firm of shipbuilders at Barrow, and left nearly a million to his wife. One son recently passed into the Army, and just now stationed in Cawnpore. Rather rackety, his mother says. The old woman dotes on parsons.”
“And quite gone on you—eh?” Clayton laughed.
“She gave me a cheque for fifty pounds for my Children’s Holiday Fund last week,” he said. “She’s promised to come down and go round my parish one day, soon.” His Highness smiled knowingly.
“Is her place far from Whitby?” he inquired, between whiffs of his cigarette.
“About four miles, on the high road just past a place called Swarthoe Cross. Grosmount station, on the Pickering line is nearest.”
“The old girl, as far as I’ve been able to observe, is a purse-proud old crow,” his Highness remarked.
“Rather. Likes her name to figure in subscription lists. The old man built and endowed some almshouses in Whitby, and offered twenty thousand to his Party for a knighthood, but was refused. It’s a sore point, for she badly wanted to be Lady Edmondson.”
“How long since the dear one departed?”
“Two years.”
“And she’s looking for a second, I suppose?”
“That’s my belief.”
“I wonder if she’d be attracted by the title of princess?” he laughed.
“Why, the very suggestion would take the silly old woman’s breath away,” declared the Reverend Thomas.
“Well, if she’s so confoundedly generous, what is to prevent us from benefiting a bit? We sadly need it, Tommy,” the Prince declared. “I had a letter from Max the day before yesterday. He wants fifty wired without fail to the Poste Restante at Copenhagen. He’s lying low there, just now.”
“And one of the best places in Europe,” the Parson exclaimed. “It’s most snug at the ‘Angleterre,’ or at the ‘Bristol.’ I put in six months there once. Stockholm is another good spot. I was all one summer at that little hotel out at Salsjobaden, and had quite a good time. I passed as an American and nobody recognised me, though my description had been circulated all over Europe. The Swedish and Danish police are a muddle-headed lot—fortunately for fellows like ourselves who want to lie undisturbed. Have you sent Max the money?”
“I wired twenty-five this morning, and promised the balance in seven days,” responded his Highness, lighting a fresh cigarette with his half-consumed one. He always smoked in the Russian style, flinging away the end when only half finished.
Of the proceeds of the variouscoupsmade, his Highness took one-third, with one-third to Clayton, who was a schemer almost as ingenious as the Prince himself, and the remaining third was divided between Max Mason, Charles, and Garrett, the chauffeur.
The pair of conspirators spent the greater part of the afternoon together in exchanging confidences and arranging plans. Then his Highness rang for Garrett, and ordered him to bring round the car at five o’clock.
The Parson descended to the hall below, being followed ten minutes later by his Highness. The latter found his friend lounging picturesquely with the fascinated widow, and joined them at tea, greatly to the gratification of the “pompous old crow,” as Prince Albert had designated her half an hour before.
As they finished the tea and muffins, the big yellow racing-car drew slowly up to the door, and on seeing it the widow began to discuss motors and motoring.
“I have a car at home—a sixty-Mercédès—and I’m awfully fond of a run in it,” she told the Prince. “One gets about so quickly, and sees so much of the country. My poor husband hated them, so I never rode in one until after his death.”
“The car I have with me is a racer, as you see,” remarked his Highness. “It’s a hundred horse-power, and made a record on the Brooklands track just before I bought her. If you were not of the feminine sex, Mrs Edmondson, I’d invite you to go for a run with me,” he laughed. “It’s rather unsociable, for it’s only a two-seater, with Garrett on the step.”
“I’d love to go for a run,” she declared. “It—well it really wouldn’t be too great a breach of the convenances for a woman to go out on a racing-car, would it?”
“I don’t think so, Mrs Edmondson,” remarked the Reverend Thomas, in his most cultivated clerical drawl. “But I would wrap up well, for the Prince travels very fast on a clear road.”
So “the old crow” decided to accept his Highness’s invitation, and ascended to put on her brown motor-cap and veil and a thick coat against the chill, evening winds.
A quarter of an hour later, with Garrett—in his grey and red livery—seated on the step, and the widow up beside him, the Prince drew the great ugly yellow car out of the hotel entrance, while the Parson, standing amid the crowd of jealous onlookers, waved his hand in merry farewell.
In a few moments the siren screamed, and the open exhaust roared and spluttered as they crossed the Stray, taking the road through Starbeck to Knaresborough, thence south by Little Ribston to Wetherby.
Having turned off to the left through the town, they came upon a straight open road where, for the first time his Highness, accustomed as he was to all the vagaries of his powerful car, put on a “move” over the ten miles into York, a run at such a pace that the widow clung to her seat with both hands, almost breathless.
She had never travelled half so fast before in all her life.
In York they ran round by the station past the old grey minster, then out again through Clifton, as far as Shipton Moor, turning up to Beningborough station, and thence into the by-roads to Newton-upon-Ouse, in the direction of Knaresborough.
Once or twice while they tore along regardless of speed-limits or of police-traps, the powerful engine throbbing before them, she turned to his Highness and tried to make some remarks. But it was only a sorry attempt. Travelling at fifty miles an hour over those white roads, without a glass screen, or even body to the car, was very exhilarating, and after the first few minutes of fright, at the tearing pace, she seemed to delight in it. Curious though it is, yet it is nevertheless a fact that women delight in a faster pace in a car than men, when once the first sensation of danger has passed.
When they were safely back again in the hall of the hotel she turned to him to express her great delight at the run.
“Your car is, indeed, a magnificent one, your Highness. I’ve never been on a racer before,” she said, “but it was truly delightful. I never had a moment’s anxiety, for you are such a sure and clever driver.”
Her eye had been from time to time upon the speedometer, and she had noted the terrific rate at which they had now and then travelled, especially upon any downward incline.
The Prince, on his part, was playing the exquisite courtier. Had she been a girl of twenty he could not have paid “old crow” more attention.
As he was dressing for dinner with the aid of the faithful Charles, the Parson entered, and to him he gave an accurate description of the run, and of the rather amorous attitude the obese widow had assumed towards him.
“Good, my dear boy,” exclaimed the urbane cleric, “I told you that she’s the most perfect specimen of the snob we’ve ever met.”
A week went by—a pleasant week, during which Mrs Edmondson, her nose now an inch higher in the air than formerly, went out daily with the Prince and his chauffeur for runs around the West Riding.
One afternoon they ran over to Ripon, and thence across to the fine old ruins of Fountains Abbey. Like many women of her class and character, the buxom lady delighted in monastic ruins, and as the pair strolled about in the great, roofless transept of the Abbey she commenced an enthusiastic admiration of its architecture and dimensions. Though living at Whitby she had, curiously enough, never before visited the place.
“Crowland, in Lincolnshire is very fine,” she remarked, “but this is far finer. Yet we have nothing in England to compare with Pavia, near Milan. Have you ever been there, Prince?”
“Only through the station,” his Highness replied. Truth to tell he was not enthusiastic over ruins. He was a very modern up-to-date young man.
They idled through the ruins, where the sunshine slanted through the gaunt broken windows, and the cawing rooks flapped lazily in and out. One or two other visitors were there besides themselves, and among them a lonely pale-faced man in grey, wearing gold pince-nez who, with hands behind his back, was studying the architecture and the various outbuildings.
The Prince and his companion brushed close by him in the old refectory, when he glanced up suddenly at a window.
His face was familiar enough to his Highness, who, however, passed him by as a stranger.
It was Max Mason, only yesterday returned from Copenhagen.
That afternoon the widow grew confidential with her princely cavalier in motor clothes, while he, on his part, encouraged her.
“Ah!” he sighed presently as they were walking slowly together in a distant part of the great ruined fabric. “You have no idea how very lonely a man can really be, even though he may be born a prince. More often than not I’m compelled to liveincognito, for I have ever upon me the fierce glare of publicity. Every movement, every acquaintance I make, even my most private affairs are pried into and chronicled by those confounded press fellows. And for that reason I’m often compelled to hold aloof from people with whom I could otherwise be on terms of intimate friendship. Half my time and ingenuity is spent upon the adoption of subterfuges to prevent people from discovering who I really am. And then those infernal illustrated papers, both here and on the Continent, are eternally republishing my photograph.”
“It really must be most annoying, Prince,” remarked the widow sympathetically.
“I often adopt the name of Burchell-Laing,” he said, “and sometimes—well,” and he paused, looking her straight in the face. “I wonder, Mrs Edmondson, whether I might confide in you—I mean whether you would keep my secret?”
“I hope I may be permitted to call myself your Highness’s friend,” she said in a calm, impressive tone. “Whatever you may tell me will not, I assure you, pass my lips.”
“I am delighted to have such a friend as yourself,” he declared enthusiastically. “Somehow, though our acquaintanceship has been of such brief duration, yet I feel that your friendship is sincere, Mrs Edmondson.”
By this speech the widow was intensely flattered. Her companion saw it in her countenance.
He did not allow her time to make any remark, but added: “My secret is—well a rather curious one, perhaps—but the fact is that I have a dual personality. While being Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein, I am also known as Dick Drummond, holder of two records on the Brooklands motor-track. In the motor-world I’m believed to be a young man of means, who devotes his time to motor-racing—a motor-maniac in fact.”
The widow stared at him in blank astonishment.
“Are you really the Mr Drummond of whose wonderful feat I read of only the other day in the papers?”
“I won the race at Brooklands the other day,” he said carelessly, “I won it with the car I have here now.”
“And nobody suspects that this Mr Drummond is a prince!” she exclaimed.
“Nobody. I could never afford to go racing in my own name. The Kaiser would not allow it, you know. I have to be so very careful.”
“I quite understand that,” remarked the widow. “But what an excellent motor-driver you must be! What a fine performance your record was! Why, there was half a column in theMorning Postabout it!”
“It was not any more difficult, or more dangerous, than some of the long quick runs I’ve made on the Continent. From Rome up to Berlin, for instance, or from Warsaw to Ostend, I’m racing again at Brooklands next week.”
“And may I come and see you?” she asked. “Do let me. I will, of course, keep your secret, and not tell a soul.”
He hesitated.
“You see nobody knows but yourself and Garrett, my chauffeur—not even Clayton. He’s a good fellow, but parsons,” he laughed, “are bad hands at keeping secrets. Too much tea and gossip spoils them, I suppose.”
“But I’ll swear to remain secret. Only let me know the day and hour, and I’ll go south and see you. I should love to see a motor-race. I’ve never seen one in my life.”
So at last, with seeming reluctance, his Highness, having taken the flattered widow into his confidence, promised on condition that she said nothing to anybody, she should know the day and hour when to be at Brooklands.
As the warm summer days slipped by, it became more and more apparent to the Parson that his friend, the widow, had become entirely fascinated by the lighthearted easy-going prince. She, on her part, recognised how, because of her intimate acquaintance with his Highness, and the fact that he honoured her table with his presence sometimes at dinner, every one in the hotel courted her friendship in the hope that they might be introduced to the cousin of the Kaiser.
Prince and Parson were, truth to tell, playing a very big bluff. Max had taken up his quarters at the Spa Hydro, and though meeting his two accomplices frequently in the streets, passed them by as strangers.
Now and then the Parson went up to smoke with the Prince after the wealthy widow had retired, and on such occasions the conversation was of such a character that, if she had overheard it, she would have been considerably surprised.
One evening, when they were together, the valet, Charles, entered, closing the door carefully after him.
“Well,” asked his master, “what’s the news?”
“I’ve just left Max down in the town,” replied the clean-shaven servant. “He got back from Milnthorpe Hall this morning. He went there as an electrical engineer, sent by Cameron Brothers, of London, at the old woman’s request, and examined the whole place with a view to a lighting installation. He reports that, beyond a few good paintings—mostly family portraits of the original owners—and a littlebric-à-brac, there’s nothing worth having. The old woman keeps her jewels in the bank at York, as well as greater part of the plate. What’s in general use is all electro. Besides, there are burglar-alarms all over the place.”
“Then the old woman’s a four-flush!” declared the Parson tossing away his cigarette angrily. “I thought she’d got some good stuff there. That was my impression from the outside.”
“Afraid of thieves, evidently,” remarked the Prince. “She’s a lone woman, and according to what you say, the only men in the house are the Italian butler, and a young footman.”
“If there’s nothing there, what’s the use troubling over her further?”
His Highness puffed thoughtfully at his “Petroff.” He was reflecting deeply, bitterly repenting that he had been such a fool as to tell her the truth regarding his motor-racingnomade-guerre. He could not afford to allow her to become his enemy. To abandon her at once would surely be a most injudicious action.
“At present let’s postpone our decision, Tommy,” he exclaimed at last. “There may be a way to success yet. You, Charles, see Max to-morrow, and tell him to go to London and lie low there. I’ll wire him when I want him. You have some money. Give him a tenner.”
And the man addressed soon afterwards withdrew.
The events of the next two days showed plainly that the original plans formulated by the Rev. Thomas Clayton had been abandoned.
The widow, with some trepidation, invited the Prince and his clerical friend to be her guests at Milnthorpe, but they made excuses, much to her chagrin. The exemplary vicar was compelled to return to his Bayswater parish, while the Prince was also recalled to London to race at Brooklands, making the journey, of course, on the car.
Thus Mrs Edmondson found herself left alone in the “Majestic,” with her fellow guests full of wonder at what had really occurred.
The widow, however, had been buoyed up by a few whispered words of the Prince at the moment of his departure.
“Preserve my secret as you promised, Mrs Edmondson, and come to London one day next week. You always go to the Langham—you say. I’ll call on you there next Friday.Au revoir!”
And he lifted his cap, shook her hand, and mounted at the wheel of the big mustard-coloured “racer.”
On the day appointed he called at the Langham and found her installed in one of the best suites, prepared to receive him.
He told her that, on the morrow at noon, he was to race at Brooklands against Carlier, the well-known Frenchman, both cars being of the same horse-power. The distance was one hundred miles.
She was delighted, and promised to observe every secrecy, and come down to witness the struggle. He remained to tea, chatting with her pleasantly. When he rose and bade her adieu, she sat alone for a long time thinking.
Was she dreaming? Or was it really a fact that he, Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein, had, for a few moments, held her hand tenderly? The difference of their ages was not so much, she argued—about twelve years. She was twelve years older. What did that matter, after all?
If she, plain Mrs Edmondson, of Milnthorpe, became Princess Albert of Hesse-Holstein! Phew! The very thought of it took her breath away.
She was a clever scheming woman, and had always been, ever since her school-girl days. She flattered herself that she could read the innermost secrets of a man’s heart.
Yes. She was now convinced. This man, who had reposed confidence in her and told her of his dual personality, was actually in love with her. If he did not marry her, it certainly should not be her fault.
With that decision she called Marie, her French maid, and passed into her room to dress for dinner with her sister-in-law and her husband—a barrister—with the theatre and Savoy to follow.
Next day at noon she was down at Brooklands, where a number of motor enthusiasts and men “in the trade” had assembled. She saw a tall, slim figure in grey overalls and an ugly helmet-shaped cap with dark glasses in the eye-holes, mount upon a long grey car, while a mechanic in blue cotton and a short jacket buttoned tightly, gave a last look round to see that all was working properly. The man mounted the step, the signal was given by the starters, and the two cars, pitted against each other, both grey, with huge numbers painted on the front of their bonnets, came past her like a flash, while the mechanics swung themselves half out, in order to balance the cars as they went round the bend.
After the first two or three laps the pace became terrific, and as the widow sat watching, she saw the Princeincognito, his head bent to the wind, a slim, crouched figure at the wheel driving the long car at a pace which no express train could travel.
At first he slowly forged ahead, but presently, after twenty minutes, the Frenchman gradually crept up, inch by inch. It was the test of the two cars—a comparatively new English make against a French firm.
Dick Drummond had many friends on the course. He was popular everywhere, and at regular intervals as he passed the stand where the widow was seated, a crowd of young, smart, clean-shaven men shouted to his encouragement.
Each time, with slight dust flying behind, he went round the bend, Garrett, in his dirty blue clothes, swung himself out to balance the car, while to the Prince himself all has become a blur. Travelling at that terrific pace, the slightest swerve would mean a terrible accident, therefore, he had no eyes save for the track before him. Garrett was busy every moment with the lubrication, and at the same time both feared tyre-troubles, the bugbear of the racing motorist. Such speed sets up tremendous friction and consequent heat, therefore tyre-bursts are likely, and if a tyre does “go off” while a car is travelling at that pace, the consequences may be very serious.
Many a bad accident had occurred on that track, and more than one good man had lost his life. Yet the Prince, sportsman that he was, knowing that the widow’s eyes were upon him, set his teeth hard and drove until once again he gradually drew away from his opponent, the renowned Carlier.
There were present representatives of the daily and the motor press. The race would be chronicled everywhere on the morrow. If the Frenchman won, it would be an advertisement worth many thousands of pounds to the firm for whom he was driving.
To-day every maker of motor-cars vies with his competitors, and strives strenuously to obtain the greatest advertisement. Like so many other things about us, alas! it is not the quality of the car, or of the materials used, but a car’s excellence seems to be judged by its popularity. And that popularity is a mere matter of advertisement.
The best car ever turned out by the hand of man would never be looked at if not advertised and “boomed.”
The French driver, a man who had won a dozen races, including the Circuit of the Ardennes, and the Florio Cup, was trying to get an advertisement for the particular company for whom he was the professional racer, while Dick Drummond was merely trying his English car against the Paris-built variety.
The whirr-r was constant, now approaching and now receding, as the two cars went round and round the track with monotonous regularity. Experts, men interested in various makes, stood leaning over the rails making comment.
It was agreed on every hand that Drummond was a marvel of cool level-headedness. His driving was magnificent, and yet he had apparently nothing to gain, even if he won the race. He was not financially interested, as far as was known, in the make of car he drove. He was merely a man of means, who had taken up motor-car racing as a hobby.
The Frenchman drove well, and the race, after the first three-quarters of an hour, was a keenly contested one. First Drummond would lead, and then Carlier. Once Drummond spurted and got half a lap ahead, then with the Frenchman putting on speed, he fell behind again till they were once more neck and neck.
Time after time they shot past the widow, who had eyes only for her champion. Her blue sunshade was up, and as she stood there alone she hoped against hope that the Prince—the man who had told her his secret—would prove the victor.
When he was in front, loud shouts rent the air from the men interested in the make of car he was driving, while, on the other hand, if the Frenchman gained the vantage the applause from his partisans was vociferous.
Over all was a cloud of light dust, while the wind created by the cars as they rushed past fanned the cheeks of the woman watching her champion with such deep interest.
A group of men near her were discussing him.
“Drummond is a magnificent driver,” one remarked in admiration. “Look at him coming up now. Cagno never drove like that, even in his very best race.”
“I wonder what interest he has in the Company? He surely wouldn’t race for the mere excitement,” remarked another.
“Interest!” cried a third man—and, truth to tell, he was Max Mason—“Why he has the option to buy up the whole of the concern, lock, stock, and barrel. I heard so yesterday. The company gave it to him a fortnight ago. Lawrence, the secretary, told me so. Why, by Jove! if he wins, the fortune of that make of car is secured. I suppose he has capital behind him, and will buy up the whole concern. I only wish I were in it. A tenth share would be a fortune.”
“You’re right,” remarked the first man. “Dick Drummond is a shrewd chap. If he wins he’ll make a pot of money on the deal—you see. It’ll be the biggest advertisement that a car has ever had in all the whole annals of motoring.”
Mrs Edmondson listened to all this in silence. She quite understood. The Prince, in his character of Dick Drummond, had entered into the affair with a view to a big financial deal—the purchase of the important company who were responsible for the car he was driving.
The car in question, be it said, was the actual mustard-coloured one in which she had careered about the West Riding, although she did not recognise it in its garb of dirty slate-grey.
She found it quite fascinating, standing there watching those two cars with their powerful roaring engines striving for the mastery, as mile after mile was covered at that frightful break-neck speed. Her heart was with the man bent over his wheel, whom every one believed to be a commoner, and whom she alone knew to be a prince.
And he, the cousin of the Kaiser, had actually squeezed her hand!
As the end of the race approached the excitement increased. The onlookers grouped themselves in little knots, watching critically for any sign of weakness in one or the other. But there was none. Carlier was as dogged as his opponent, and kept steadily on until at the eightieth mile he gradually overhauled the Englishman.
There were still twenty miles to cover. But Dick Drummond was behind, quite an eighth of a lap. Carlier had apparently been husbanding all his strength and power. The car he was driving was certainly a splendid one, and was behaving magnificently. Would it beat the English make?
As the last few laps were negotiated at a frightful speed the knots of onlookers became more and more enthusiastic. Some cheered Dick until they were hoarse, while others, with an interest in the car Carlier was driving, cried “Bravo! Bravo!”
The blood ran quickly in the widow’s veins. Ninety-five miles had been covered, and still Drummond was behind more than half a lap. She watched his crouching figure, with head set forward, his position never altering, his chin upon his breast, his eyes fixed upon the track before him. Garrett seemed ever at work, touching this and that at the order of his master, whose face was wholly protected from the cutting wind by the ugly mask, save mouth and chin.
As the board showed ninety-seven miles he came at a fearful pace past the spot where Mrs Edmondson had again risen from her seat in her excitement. He was spurting, and so valiantly did he struggle, getting every ounce out of the hundred horse-power of his car, that he slowly, very slowly, crept towards the flying Frenchman.
“Keep on, Drummond!” shrieked the men, taking off their caps and waving them. “Don’t be beaten, old man!”
But he could not hear them above the terrible roar of his exhaust. No express train ever designed had run so quickly as he was now travelling. Official timekeepers were standing, chronometers in hand, calmly watching, and judges were making ready to declare the winner.
Every spectator stood breathless. It was really marvellous that one hundred miles could have been covered in that brief space of time while they had been watching.
Again, and yet again, the two cars flashed by, yet still Dick lagged behind.
Suddenly, however, they came round for the last lap, and as they passed the watchful widow, the Englishman like a shot from a gun, passed his opponent and won by twenty yards.
When he pulled up, after having run again round the course to slacken speed, he almost fell into the arms of the crowd of men who came up to congratulate him.
Mrs Edmondson had left her post of vantage and stood near by. She overheard one of them—it was Mason—say:
“By Jove, Dick! This is a wonderful run. You’ve broken the five, ten, and hundred mile records! The fortune of your car is made?”
Then the victor turned to his opponent and shook his hand, saying in French:
“Thank you, my dear Carlier, for a very excellent race.”
The widow, after a brief chat, returned to town by rail, while Garrett drove his master back to Dover Street.
That night his Highness dined with the widow at the Langham, and she bestowed upon him fulsome praise regarding his prowess.
“What make of car is yours?” she asked while they were lingering over their dessert in the widow’s private sitting-room.
“It’s the St. Christopher,” he answered.
“St. Christopher!” she echoed. “What a funny name to give a car!”
“It may appear so at first sight, but St. Christopher has been taken by motorists on the Continent as their patron saint—the saint who for ages has guarded the believer against the perils of the way. So it’s really appropriate, after all.”
“I heard them say that you’ve made the fortune of the car by your success to-day,” she remarked.
“Yes,” he answered carelessly. “Anybody who cared to put in a few thousands now would receive a magnificent return for their money—twenty-five per cent, within a year.”
“You think so?” she asked interestedly. “Think, Mrs Edmondson?” he echoed. “I’m sure of it! Why, the St. Christopher now holds the world’s record, and you know what that means. The makers will begin to receive far more orders than they can ever execute. Look at the Napier, the Itala, the Fiat, and others. The same thing has happened. The St. Christopher, however, is in the hands of two men only, and they, unfortunately, lack capital.”
“You should help them, if it’s such a good thing.”
“I’m doing so. Now I’ve won the race I shall put in fifteen thousand—perhaps twenty. They are seeing me to-morrow. As a matter of fact,” he added, lowering his tone, “I mean to hold controlling interest in the concern. It’s far too good a thing to miss.”
The fat widow, with her black bodice cut low, and the circle of diamonds sparkling upon her red neck, sipped her wine slowly, but said nothing.
His Highness did not refer to this matter again. He was a past-master of craft and cunning.
Later on, the Rev. Thomas Clayton was announced, and the trio spent quite a pleasant evening, which concluded by the lady inviting them both to Milnthorpe the following week.
At first the Prince again hesitated. The widow sat in breathless expectancy. At all hazards she must get his Highness to visit her. It would be known all over the county. She would pay a guinea each to the fashionable papers to announce the fact, for it would be worth so very much to her in the county.
“I fear, Mrs Edmondson, that I must go to Berlin next week,” replied the Prince. “I’m sure it’s very good of you, but the Emperor has summoned me regarding some affairs of my brother Karl.”
“Oh! why can’t you postpone your visit, and come and see me first?” she urged in her most persuasive style. “Mr Clayton, do urge the Prince to come to me,” she added.
“You can surely go to Germany a week later, Prince,” exclaimed the cleric. “Where’s the Kaiser just now?”
“At Kiel, yachting.”
“Then he may not be in Berlin next week?”
“He has appointed to meet me at Potsdam. His Majesty never breaks an engagement.”
“Then you will break yours, Prince, and go with me to Milnthorpe,” declared the Parson.
“Yes,” cried Mrs Edmondson; “and we will have no further excuses, will we, Mr Clayton?”
So his Highness was forced to accept, and next day the wily widow returned to Yorkshire to make preparations for the visit which was to shed such social lustre upon her house.
The Prince and the Parson held several long interviews in the two days that followed, and it was apparent from one meeting which took place, and at which both Mason and Garrett were present, that some clever manoeuvre was intended. The quartette held solemn councils in the Prince’s chambers, and there was much discussion, and considerable laughter.
The latter, it appeared, was in consequence of Max’s recollection of the wonderful record of his Highness at Brooklands.
On the day appointed both Prince and parson, attended by the faithful Charles, left King’s Cross by train for Whitby, Garrett having started alone on the “forty,” with orders to travel by way of Doncaster and York, and arrive at Milnthorpe by noon next day.
The fine old place was, the Prince found, quite a comfortable residence. The widow did the honours gracefully, welcoming her guests warmly.
When the two friends found themselves alone in the Prince’s room, his Highness whispered to the exemplary vicar:
“I don’t like the look of that Italian butler, Tommy. Do you know I’ve a very strange fancy?”
“Of what?”
“That I’ve met that fellow before, somewhere or other.”
“I sincerely hope not,” was the clergyman’s response.
“Where I’ve met him I can’t remember. By Jove! It’ll be awkward for us if he recollects me.”
“Then we’ll have to watch him. I wonder if—”
And the Parson crossed noiselessly to the bedroom door and opened it suddenly.
As he did so there was the distinct sound of some one scuffling round the corner in the corridor. Both men detected it.
There had been an eavesdropper! They were suspected!
At dinner that night the pair cast furtive glances at the thin, clean-shaven face of the middle-aged Italian butler, whose head was prematurely bald, but whose manners as a servant were perfect. Ferrini was the name by which his mistress addressed him, and it was apparent that he was very devoted to her. The young footman was English—a Cockney, by his twang.
In the old panelled room, with its long family portraits and its old carved buffet laden with well-kept silver—or rather electro-plate, as the pair already knew—a well-cooked dinner was served amid flowers and cunningly-concealed lights. The table was a round one, and the only other guest was a tall, fair-haired young girl, a Miss Maud Mortimer, the daughter of a neighbouring squire. She was a loosely built, slobbering miss, with a face like a wax doll, and a slight impediment in her speech.
At first she seemed shy in the presence of the Kaiser’s cousin, but presently, when her awkwardness wore off, she grew quite merry.
To the two visitors the meal was a perfect success. Those dark watchful eyes of the Italian, however, marred their pleasure considerably. Even the Parson was now convinced that the man knew something.
What was it? Where had the fellow met the Prince before? Was it under suspicious circumstances—or otherwise?
Next day Garrett arrived with the car, while to the White House Hotel at Whitby came a quietly dressed and eminently respectable golfer, who gave his name as Harvey, but with whom we are already familiar under the name of Mason.
The afternoon was a hot, breathless one, but towards five o’clock the Prince invited his hostess to go for a run on the “forty”—repainted, since its recent return from the Continent, dark blue with a coronet and cipher upon its panels.
Garrett who had had a look round the widow’s “sixty” Mercédès, in confidence told his master that it was all in order, and that the chauffeur was an experienced man.
With the widow and her two guests seated together behind, Garrett drove the car next day along the pretty road by Pickering down to Malton, returning by way of Castle Howard. The pace they travelled was a fast one, and the widow, turning to his Highness, said:
“Really, Prince, to motor with you is quite a new experience. My man would never dare to go at such a rate as this for fear of police-traps.”
“I’m pretty lucky in escaping them,” responded the good-looking adventurer, glancing meaningly at the man in black clerical overcoat and cap.
“The Prince once ran from Boulogne to Nice in twenty-eight hours on his St. Christopher,” remarked the Rev. Thomas. “And in winter, too.”
“Marvellous!” declared the widow, adjusting her pale-blue motor-veil, new for the occasion. “There’s no doubt a great future before that car—especially after the record at Brooklands.”
“Rather!” exclaimed the rubicund vicar. “I’m only a poor parson, but if I had a little capital I should certainly put it in. I have inside knowledge, as they say in the City, I believe, Mrs Edmondson,” he laughed.
“From the Prince?”
“Of course. He intends having the largest interest in the concern. They’ve had eight orders for racers in the last six days. A record at Brooklands means a fortune to a manufacturer.”
His Highness was silent, while the self-satisfied widow discussed the future of the eight-cylinder St. Christopher.
Returning to the Hall, Ferrini came forth bowing to his mistress, and casting a distinctly suspicious glance at the two visitors. Both men noticed it, and were not a little apprehensive. They had played some clever games, but knew not from one moment to the other when some witness might not point a finger at them in open denunciation.
While the Prince was dressing for dinner Charles said:
“That butler fellow is far too inquisitive for my liking. I found him in here an hour ago, and I’m positive he had been trying to unlock your crocodile suit-case. He made an excuse that he had come to see whether you had a siphon of soda. But I actually caught him bending over your bag.”
The Prince remained grave and silent.
“Where have we met that fellow before? I can’t remember.”
“Neither can I. His face is somehow familiar. I’m sure we’ve seen him somewhere!”
“That’s what the Parson says. Write to Max at Whitby, and tell him to come over on some pretext or other and get a glance at the man. Post the letter yourself to-night.”
“Perhaps the fellow is afraid of his plate,” the valet exclaimed in an undertone, laughing.
“He needn’t be. It’s all ‘B’ electro—not worth taking away in a dung-cart. The only thing I’ve seen is the old woman’s necklet, and that she keeps in her room, I fancy. If the sparklers are real they’re worth a couple of thousand to the Dutchman.”
“They are certainly real. She’s got them out of the bank in your honour. Her maid told me so to-day. And she means, I believe, to give a big dinner-party for some of the county people to meet you.”
“Are you sure of this?” asked his master quickly.
“The cook told the footman, who told me. The housekeeper to-day ordered a lot of things from London, and to-morrow the invitations are to be sent out.”
“Are people coming here to dine and sleep?”
“Yes. Eight bedrooms are to be prepared.”
“Then keep an eye on that confounded Italian. Send that letter to Max, and tell him to reply to you in cipher. His letter might fall into somebody else’s hands. Max might also inquire into what the police arrangements are about here—where the village constable lives, and where is the nearest police-station.”
“Couldn’t you send me in to Whitby, and I’d give him all instructions, and tell him the state of affairs?”
“Yes. Go in the morning. Garrett will take you in on the car. Say you’re going to buy me a book I want.”
And with that his Highness finished tying his cravat with care, and descended into the pretty drawing-room, where the widow, lounging picturesquely beneath the yellow-shaded lamp, awaited him.
That evening the Parson, who complained of headache on account of the sun during a walk in the morning, retired to his room early, and until past eleven the Prince sat alone with his fat and flattered hostess.
As she lolled back in the big silk-covered easy-chair, slowly fanning herself and trying to look her best, he, calm, calculating person that he was, had his eyes fixed upon her sparkling necklet, wondering how much the old Jew in Amsterdam would give for it.
“What a splendid ornament!” he remarked, as though he had noticed it for the first time.
“Do you like it?” she asked with a smile. “It belonged to my husband’s family.”
“Beautiful!” remarked his Highness, bending closer to examine it, for he had the eye of a connoisseur, and saw that it was probably French work of the eighteenth century.
“Many people have admired it,” she went on. “My husband was very fond of jewellery, and gave me quite a quantity. I never keep it here, however, for a year ago an attempt was made to break into the place.”
“So you keep them in a safe deposit?” he exclaimed; “and quite right, too. Diamonds are always a sore temptation to burglars.”
“I’m asking a few people to dinner next Wednesday, and am sending to the bank in York for some of my ornaments,” remarked the widow. “I hope they’ll be safe here. Since the attempt by thieves, I confess I’ve been awfully nervous.”
“Oh, they’ll be safe enough,” declared the audacious adventurer, taking a fresh Russian cigarette from his case.
“I hope so. I have invited a few people—the best in the county—to meet your Highness. I hope you won’t object.”
“Not at all,” he replied affably. “Only, as you know, I much prefer to remainincognito.”
“You’re one of the most modest men I’ve ever met,” she declared, in a soft voice, intended to be seductive.
“I find life as a commoner much more agreeable than as a prince,” he responded. “Inincognito, I always enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of action, which, as a royalty, it is impossible to obtain.”
The widow’s mind was ever active. She was straining her utmost to fascinate her guest. The difference in their ages was really not so very great. Her secret hope was that she could induce him to make a declaration of love. Fancy her, plain Mrs Edmondson, ridiculed by the county and only tolerated by a certain section of it, suddenly becoming a princess!
Milnthorpe was a beautiful old place, but to her it was but a sepulchre. She hated it because, while in residence there, she was buried alive. She preferred Monte Carlo, Paris, or even Cairo.
“Then the dinner-party will be a very smart one?” he remarked for want of something better to say. “And my hostess herself will surely be the smartest of them all,” he added with a bow and an intent to flatter.
“Ah! I fear not,” replied the widow with a slight sigh. “I dare say the diamonds which poor Tubby gave me are as good as any worn by the other women, but as for smartness—well, Prince, a woman’s mirror does not lie,” and she sighed again. “Youth is but fleeting, and a woman’s life is, alas! a long old age.”
“Oh, come!” he laughed, lounging back in his chair. “You haven’t yet arrived at the regretful age. Life is surely still full of youth for you!”
She was much gratified at that little speech of his, and showed it.
He continued to flatter her, and with that cunning innate within him he slowly drew from her the fact that she would not be averse to a second marriage. He was fooling her, yet with such cleverness that she, shrewd woman that she was, never dreamed that he was laughing at her in his sleeve.
So earnest, so sensible, so perfectly frank and straightforward was he, that when after half an hour’stête-à-têteshe found him holding her hand and asking her to become Princess, she became utterly bewildered. What she replied she hardly knew, until suddenly, with an old-fashioned courtliness, he raised her fat, bejewelled hand gallantly to his lips and said:
“Very well. Let it be so, Mrs Edmondson. We are kindred spirits, and our souls have affinity. You shall be my princess.”
“And then the old crow started blubbering,” as he forcibly described the scene afterwards to the Parson.
For a few moments he held her in his embrace, fearful every moment that the ferret-eyed Italian should enter. Indeed, his every movement seemed to be watched suspiciously by that grave, silent servant.
They mutually promised, for the present, to keep their secret. He kissed her upon the lips, which, as he declared to the Parson, were “sticky with some confounded face-cream or other.” Then Ferrini suddenly appeared, and his mistress dismissed him for the night. The Prince, however, knew that he would not retire, but lurk somewhere in the corridor outside.
He stood before the old Jacobean fireplace, with its high overmantel of carved stone and emblazoned arms, a handsome man who would prove attractive to any woman. Was it therefore any wonder that the ambitious widow of the shipbuilder should have angled after him?
He had entirely eclipsed the Parson.
First their conversation was all of affection; then it turned upon something akin, money. Upon the latter point the Prince was utter careless. He had sufficient, he declared. But the widow was persistent in telling him the state of her own finances. Besides the estate of Milnthorpe, which produced quite a comfortable income, she enjoyed half the revenue from the great firm her husband had founded, and at that moment, besides other securities, she had a matter of seventy thousand pounds lying idle at her bank, over which she had complete control.
She expected this would interest him, but, on the contrary, he merely lit a fresh cigarette, and having done so, said:
“My dear Mrs Edmondson, this marriage of ours is not for monetary interest. My own estates are more than sufficient for me. I do not desire to touch one single penny of your money. I wish you to enjoy your separate estate, and remain just as independent as you are to-day.”
And so they chatted on until the chimes of the stable clock warned them it was two in the morning. Then having given him a slobbery good-night kiss, they separated.
Before his Highness turned in, he took from his steel despatch-box a small black-covered book, and with its aid he constructed two cipher telegrams, which he put aside to be despatched by Charles from the Whitby post office in the morning.
The calm, warm summer days went slowly by. Each afternoon the widow—now perfectly satisfied with herself—accompanied her two guests on runs on the Prince’s “forty”—one day to Scarborough, the next over the Cleveland Hills to Guisborough, to Helmsley on to the ruins of Rievaulx, and to other places.
One afternoon the Parson made an excuse to remain at home, and the widow took the Prince in to York in her own Mercédès. Arrived there, they took tea in the coffee-room of the Station Hotel, then, calling at a solicitor’s office in Coney Street, appended their joint names to a document which, at the widow’s instigation, had already been prepared.
A quarter of an hour later they pulled up before the West Riding Bank in Stonegate, and though the offices were already closed, a clerk on duty handed to the widow a box about eighteen inches square, tied with string, and sealed with four imposing red seals. For this she scribbled her name to a receipt, and placing it in the car between them, drove back by way of Malton, Pickering, and Levisham.
“This is the first time I’ve had my tiara out, my dear Albert, since the burglars tried to get in,” she remarked when they had gone some distance, and the Mercédès was tearing along that level open stretch towards Malton.
“Well, of course, be careful,” answered her companion. Then after a pause he lowered his voice so the chauffeur could not overhear, and said: “I wonder, Gertrude, if you’ll permit me to make a remark—without any offence?”
“Why, certainly. What is it?”
“Well, to tell the truth, I don’t half like the look of that foreign servant of yours. He’s not straight. I’m sure of it by the look in his eyes.”
“How curious! Do you know that the same thought has occurred to me these last few days,” she said. “And yet he’s such a trusty servant. He’s been with me nearly two years.”
“Don’t trust him further, Gertrude, that’s my advice,” said his Highness pointedly. “I’m suspicious of the fellow—distinctly suspicious. Do you know much of him?”
“Nothing, except that he’s a most exemplary servant.”
“Where was he before he entered your service?”
“With Lady Llangoven, in Hertford Street. She gave him a most excellent character.”
“Well, take my warning,” he said. “I’m sure there’s something underhand about him.”
“You quite alarm me,” declared the widow. “Especially as I have these,” and she indicated the sealed parcel at her side.
“Oh, don’t be alarmed. While I’m at Milnthorpe I’ll keep my eyes upon the fellow, never fear. I suppose you have a safe in which to keep your jewels?”
“Yes. But some of the plate is kept there, and he often has the key.”
His Highness grunted suspiciously, thereby increasing the widow’s alarm.
“Now you cause me to reflect,” she said, “there were several curious features about this recent attempt of thieves. The police from York asked me if I thought that any one in the house could have been in league with them. They apparently suspected one or other of the servants.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the Prince. “And the Italian was at that time in your service?”
“Yes.”
“Then does not that confirm our suspicions? Is he not a dangerous person to have in a house so full of valuable objects as Milnthorpe?”
“I certainly agree. After the dinner-party on Wednesday, I’ll give him notice.”
“Rather pay the fellow his month’s money, and send him away,” her companion suggested. Then in the same breath he added: “Of course it is not for me to interfere with your household arrangements. I know this is great presumption. But my eyes are open, and I have noted that the man is not all he pretends to be. Therefore I thought it only my duty to broach the subject.”
“My interests are yours,” cooed the widow at his side. “Most decidedly Ferrini shall go. Or else one morning we may wake up and find that thieves have paid us a second visit.”
Then, the chauffeur having put on a “move,” their conversation became interrupted, and the subject was not resumed, for very soon they found themselves swinging through the lodge-gates of Milnthorpe.
Wednesday night came. Milnthorpe Hall was aglow with light, the rooms beautifully decorated by a well-known florist, the dinner cooked by acheffrom London, the music played by a well-known orchestra stationed on the lawn outside the long, oak-panelled dining-room; and as one guest after another arrived in carriages and cars they declared that the widow had certainly eclipsed herself by this entertainment in honour of his Highness Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein.
Not a word of their approaching marriage was allowed to leak out. For the present, it was their own secret. Any premature announcement might, he had told her, bring upon him the Kaiser’s displeasure.
In the long drawing-room, receiving her guests, stood the widow, handsome in black and silver, wearing her splendid tiara and necklet of diamonds, as well as a rope of fine, well-matched pearls, all of which both the Parson and his Highness duly noted. She certainly looked a brilliant figure, while, beside her, stood the Prince himself, with the miniature crosses of half a dozen of his decorations strung upon a tiny gold chain across the lappel of his dress-coat.
Several guests had arrived earlier in the day to dine and sleep, while the remainder, from the immediate neighbourhood, included several persons of title and social distinction who had accepted the invitation out of mere curiosity. Half the guests went because they were to meet a real live prince, and the other half in order to afterwards poke fun at the obese tuft-hunter.
The dinner, however, was an unqualified success, the thanks being in a great measure due to his Highness, who was full of vivacity and brilliant conversation. Everybody was charmed with him, while of course later on, in the corner of the drawing-room, the Bayswater parson sang his friend’s praises in unmeasured terms.
The several unmarried women set their caps pointedly at the hero of the evening, and at last, when the guests had left and the visitors had retired, he, with the Parson and two other male visitors, Sir Henry Hutton, and a certain Lionel Meyer, went to the billiard-room.
It was two o’clock when they went upstairs. The Bayswater vicar had to pass the Prince’s room, in order to get to his own, but he did not enter further than the threshold. Both men looked eagerly across at the dressing-table, upon which Charles had left two candles burning.
That was a secret sign. Both men recognised it, and the Prince instantly raised his finger with a gesture indicative of silence. Then he exclaimed aloud: “Well, good-night, Clayton. We’ll go for a run in the morning,” and closed his door noisily, while the Parson went along to his own room.
The Prince, always an early riser, was up at eight o’clock, and was already dressed when Charles entered his room.
“Well?” he inquired, as was his habit.
“There’s a rare to-do below,” exclaimed the valet. “The whole house has been ransacked in the night, and a clean sweep made of all the jewellery. The old woman is asking to see you at once.”
Without ado, his Highness descended, sending Charles along to alarm the Parson.
In the morning-room he found the widow, with the two male guests and two ladies, assembled in excited conclave. As he entered, his hostess rushed towards him, saying:
“Oh, Prince! A most terrible thing has happened! Every scrap of jewellery, including my tiara and necklet, has been stolen!”
“Stolen!” he gasped, pretending not to have heard the news.
“Yes. I placed them myself in the safe in the butler’s pantry, together with several cases the maids brought me from my guests. I locked them up just after one o’clock and took the key. Here it is. It has never left my possession. I—”
She was at that moment interrupted by the entrance of the Parson, who, having heard of the robbery from the servants, began:
“My de-ah Mrs Edmondson. This is really a most untoward circumstance—most—”
“Listen,” the widow went on excitedly. “Hear me, and then advise me what to do. I took this key,”—and she held it up for their inspection—“and hid it beneath the corner of the carpet in my room. This morning, to my amazement, my maid came to say that the safe-door had been found ajar, and that though the plate had been left, all the jewellery had disappeared. Only the empty cases remain!”
“How has the safe been opened?” asked the Prince, standing amazed.
Was it possible that some ingenious adventurer had got ahead of him? It certainly seemed so.
“It’s been opened by another key, that’s evident,” replied the widow.
“And where’s Ferrini?” inquired his Highness quickly.
“He’s missing. Nobody has seen him this morning,” answered the distressed woman. “Ah, Prince, you were right—quite right in your surmise. I believed in him, but you summed him up very quickly. I intended to discharge him to-morrow, but I never dreamed he possessed a second key.”
“He has the jewels, evidently,” remarked Sir Henry Hutton, himself a county magistrate. “I’ll run into Whitby, and inform the police, Mrs Edmondson. We have no idea which direction the fellow has taken.”
At that moment the door opened, and Garrett, cap in hand, stood on the threshold.
“Well, what’s the matter?” asked his master.
“Please, your Highness, our car’s gone. It’s been stolen from the garage in the night!”
The announcement caused an electrical effect upon the assembly.
“Then this man could also drive a car, as well as wait at table!” exclaimed Sir Henry. “Myself, I always distrust foreign servants.”
“Ferrini had one or two lessons in driving from my chauffeur, I believe,” remarked the widow, now in a state of utter collapse.
“Never mind, Mrs Edmondson,” said his Highness cheerily. “Allow Sir Henry and myself to do our best. The fellow is bound to be caught. I’ll give the police the number of my car, and its description. And what’s more, we have something very valuable here.” And he drew out his pocket-book. “You recollect the suspicions of Ferrini which I entertained, and which I explained in confidence to you? Well, my valet has a pocket camera, and with it three days ago I took a snap-shot of your exemplary servant. Here it is!”
“By Jove. Excellent!” cried Sir Henry. “This will be of the greatest assistance to the police.”
And so it was arranged that the police of Whitby should be at once informed.
At breakfast—a hurried, scrappy meal that morning—every one condoled with the Prince upon the loss of his car. Surely the whole affair had been most cleverly contrived by Ferrini, who had got clear away.
Just as the meal had concluded and the Parson had promised to accompany Sir Henry over to Whitby to see the police, he received a telegram calling him to his brother, who had just landed in Liverpool from America, and who wished to see him at the Adelphi Hotel that evening.
To his hostess he explained that he was bound to keep the appointment, for his brother had come from San Francisco on some important family affairs, and was returning to New York by the next boat.
Therefore he bade adieu to Mrs Edmondson—“de-ah Mrs Edmondson,” he always called her—and was driven in the dog-cart to Grosmont station, while a few minutes later, the Prince and Sir Henry set out in the widow’s Mercédès for Whitby.
The pair returned about one o’clock, and at luncheon explained what they had done.
In the afternoon, the widow met his Highness out in the tent upon the lawn, and they sat together for some time, he enjoying his eternal “Petroff.” Indeed, he induced her to smoke one, in order to soothe her nerves.
“Don’t upset yourself too much, my dear Gertrude,” he urged, placing his hand upon hers. “We shall catch the fellow, never fear. Do you know, I’ve been wondering whether, if I went up to town and saw them at Scotland Yard, it would not be the wisest course. I know one of the superintendents. I met him when my life was threatened by anarchists, and the police put me under their protection. The Whitby police seem very slow. Besides, by this time Ferrini is far afield.”
“I really think, Albert, that it would be quite a good plan,” exclaimed the widow enthusiastically. “If you went to Scotland Yard they would, no doubt, move heaven and earth to find the thief.”
“That’s just what I think,” declared his Highness. “I’ll go by the six-twenty.”
“But you’ll return here to-morrow, won’t you?” urged the widow. “The people I have here will be so disappointed if you don’t—and—and as for myself,” she added, her fat face flushing slightly—“well, you know that I am only happy when you are near me.”
“Trust me, Gertrude. I’ll return at once—as soon as ever I’ve set the machinery of Scotland Yard in motion. I have the negative of the photo I took, and I’ll hand it to them.”
And so that evening, without much explanation to his fellow guests, he ran up to town, leaving Charles and most of his baggage behind.
Next day, Mrs Edmondson received a long and reassuring telegram from him in London.
Two days passed, but nothing further was heard. Garrett, without a car, and therefore without occupation, decided to go up to London. The theft of the car had utterly puzzled him. Whatevercouphis master and his friends had intended had evidently been effected by the man Ferrini. All their clever scheming had been in vain.
They had been forestalled.