"Mrs Slade is still in her room, sir, but she's not alone; her maid
arrived from London last night," answered the chambermaid at the
_North-Eastern Hotel_ at Hull, when on the following morning, I made
inquiry.
I had been accompanied from King's Cross by Mabel and the police-agent,
Hickman, and we stood together in the hotel corridor prior to entering
the woman's room. Hickman, whom I had all along believed to be deeply
implicated in the plot, if not the actual murderer, was, I found, a
clever detective of English birth, who had for some years been an
officer of the Prefecture of Police in Vienna, but who had latterly been
attached to the Austro-Hungarian Embassy in Belgrave Square, and
entrusted with the personal safety of the Emperor's daughter. The
revelations I had made utterly amazed him. By the last post on the
previous night Mabel had received the letter written from Hull which
merely asked for an interview, and we had all three set forth,
determined to secure the arrest of the writer.
With that object we entered her sitting-room without a word of warning.
She was sitting at the table writing, but in an instant sprang to her
feet, with a cry of profound alarm. When her eyes wandered from Mabel
to Hickman and myself, her cheeks blanched. She apparently guessed our
purpose.
"You have expressed a desire to meet me," Mabel said determinedly. "So
I have come to you."
"And--and these gentlemen?" Edna inquired, glancing at us, puzzled.
"They are present to hear what you have to say to me."
She was taken aback.
"I--I have nothing to say to your Highness," the woman faltered. "I
merely wished to know whether, when in London, I might call."
"Then listen," exclaimed Mabel. "The truth is known, and it is useless
for you to further conceal it. If you have nothing to say, Mr Hickman
will at once call in the police, and I shall charge you with the murder
of the Prince."
"The murder of the Prince!" she gasped, white to the lips. "I--did not
commit the crime. I can prove that I didn't!"
Her hands were trembling, and she stood beside the table, steadying
herself by it. There was a haunted look in those cold grey eyes. Our
sudden descent upon her had taken her utterly by surprise.
"Then let us hear your statement," my love said in a hard voice quite
unusual to her. "Let it be the truth, or I shall charge you now, at
once, with the capital offence. The Prince was murdered in my house,
and with your knowledge. Do you deny that?"
"No," she cried hoarsely, "I do not deny it."
A long silence ensued. The woman Grainger--or Slade, as she was known
there--hung her head.
Hickman spoke authoritatively, demanding full explanation, but she
maintained a dogged silence. A sudden fire flashed in her eyes--the
fire of defiance and hatred.
"Then, as you refuse to speak," said Mabel at length, "you will have no
further opportunity until you stand in the criminal dock."
"No, no!" cried the wretched woman quickly. "Hear me! I will tell you
all--everything. Listen," she implored. "Do not call the police ere I
have explained my exact position, and how the tragedy occurred."
"Proceed," Mabel said harshly. "We are all attention."
"You will remember that three days before the tragedy your Highness left
London suddenly because of the illness of the Emperor, and I remained in
charge of the household. It was on a Sunday you left, and you had
invited the young Prince to dine on the following Wednesday evening. On
the afternoon following your departure a visitor was announced. His
name was Petrovitch Gechkuloff, a Bulgarian gentleman whom I knew
slightly, he having been a visitor at the house in Vienna where I had
previously been in service as English governess. He asked me whether I
wished to earn a thousand pounds, and then, under promise of strictest
secrecy, unfolded to me an ingenious and extraordinary scheme. He was
acting, he said, together with Danilo Roesch, the Bulgarian Minister of
Finance, whom he would later introduce to me, in the interests of the
People's Party in the Sobranje, and they desired the young Prince
Alexander to sign a certain deed. He told me nothing of the contents of
the document, but asked me to assist them. I was to send no notice of
your Highness's departure to the Prince, but, on the contrary, when he
arrived on the Wednesday evening I was to entertain him, make some
excuse for your Highness's absence, and afterwards introduce the
Minister Roesch and his friend. There was nothing risky about the
proceedings, he declared most emphatically. The pair merely wished to
obtain the young Prince's signature."
"But did not this request strike you as extraordinary?" asked Mabel.
"You knew the Prince quite well."
"It was the money which tempted me," the wretched woman cried. "I
hesitated for some time, and at last yielded. The Prince arrived, and
although greatly surprised and disappointed to find your Highness
absent, remained and dined with myself and the man Gechkuloff, of whom
he, of course, knew nothing save that he was one of his father's
subjects. Near the conclusion of dinner we witnessed a cab accident
opposite the window, a blind gentleman--Mr Heaton--being run over, and
I ordered the people to carry him into the drawing-room. Dr Slater was
fetched, and having bandaged his head, told us to let him remain quiet
for an hour or so, then left. In the meantime the Bulgarian Minister,
Roesch, arrived, apparently in a great hurry, was introduced, and had a
long interview with the Prince in private. Afterwards we adjourned into
the library. Some champagne was drunk, and the three men smoked,
speaking often in their own language, so that I might not understand all
that was said. Subsequently the deed was produced, and after a
considerable amount of hesitation and many promises on the part of the
Minister of Finance, his Highness signed it. Then a witness was
required. Gechkuloff whispered to me the suggestion that the signature
of Mr Heaton, who was lying in the adjoining room half conscious,
should be obtained, and having made him believe that he was signing a
birthday book I got from him the desired signature. Shortly afterwards,
while sitting at the piano playing I felt a heavy blow, which for a few
moments stunned me. Then gazing through into the adjoining room I saw
two figures struggling--the Prince and a woman. For a few seconds he
held her tightly, but with a furious twist she freed herself and struck
him full in the chest with the small dagger in her hand. He staggered
and fell backward upon the couch dying. The scene struck terror into
the hearts of all of us, the two men standing near me rigid in
amazement. The woman closed and locked the door communicating between
the two rooms, and left the house, while a few minutes later we also
followed."
"You saw the woman's face?" inquired Hickman.
"Most certainly," she answered. Then, continuing, said, "The tragic
_denouement_ was so unexpected and startling that at first neither man
appeared to know how to act. Quickly, however, they saw that suspicion
of the murder must fall upon them, owing, I suppose, to the part they
had played in Bulgarian politics, and they at once made it imperative
that I should join in and carry out their scheme. As together we
hurried along Gilston Road, they confessed to me how they had
contemplated the assassination of the young Prince after he had signed
the document, in order to remove the heir to the throne, and thus
strengthen the hands of the People's Party. They explained how they had
discovered a cellar beside the Thames, close to the Turpentine Factory
at Battersea Bridge, and had intended that on the Prince emerging from
the house at The Boltons he should be accosted by a man in police
uniform, and asked to walk to the police-station, only to find himself
entrapped. Now they pointed out that the witness to the crime was the
blind gentleman who had met with the accident, and as his signature was
upon the document executed, it was necessary that he should be
silenced."
"They intended to kill me!" I cried.
"Most assuredly," she responded, turning towards me. "When you emerged
from the house you were met by the man who acted the part of
police-constable, a London ruffian, and being blind, at once fell into
the trap. I saved you, for I saw that by securing your silence in
exchange for your life I should also secure you as an agent who might be
useful to the two men into whose clutches I had so suddenly and
hopelessly fallen. This proved correct, for ere long your assistance
became of greatest use. On the morning when we parted, accompanied by
Gechkuloff, I visited your chambers, and made a search there to
ascertain who and what you were. Having once embarked on the conspiracy
with these two men, whom I found were powerful factors in Bulgarian
politics, I was compelled to assist them in disposing of the body--which
was placed in the cellar beside the Thames, and allowed to float out
with the tide. Then, having sent the servants on holiday, I removed the
blood-stains, and worked the crochet cover for the couch."
"You told me that those stains were of coffee that you had spilled
there," Mabel said.
"True," she answered. "But I was compelled to deceive you. I left you
soon afterwards, for by Roesch's influence I became appointed English
governess to the two youngest children of Prince Ferdinand, and it was
while at Sofia that I suggested to the Minister of Finance the scheme
for placing the concessions in the hands of Mr Heaton, whom I had heard
was now suffering from an unaccountable loss of memory, and recollected
nothing of the past. The subject was mooted to Prince Ferdinand, who in
all good faith empowered me to treat with Mr Heaton, and before long
several formidable concessions were floated in the City. The most
remarkable thing was Mr Heaton's absolute ignorance of all the past.
He was as wax in the hands of the two men who had become my masters.
Only at the last coup, when they desired to raise a loan of half a
million sterling, intending to appropriate it to their own uses, did he
refuse to render us further assistance. It was as though his memory had
suddenly returned to him, and he suspected."
"My memory had then returned," I said briefly, marvelling at her
remarkable narrative. "But what reason had the men in making those
elaborate preparations for the assassination of the Prince?"
"There were two reasons. One was that by the execution of the deed they
were empowered to raise upon post-obits large sums, repayable when the
young Prince came to the accession, and, secondly, they had found out
that he had, by some means, discovered the huge defalcations which had
been made in the Ministry of Finance at Sofia, and feared that he might
expose them."
"But you say that, although they had intention of assassinating him,
they did not actually do so?" Hickman observed.
"No. They were not the actual assassins."
"Then who was?" demanded Mabel.
The woman stood in silence, her lips hard-set, her face drawn.
"The truth must be told," she said at last. "It is, I suppose, useless
to try and conceal it now."
And with a sudden movement she flung open the door leading to a small
ante-chamber, crying in a hoarse, desperate voice--
"Enter! The guilty one is there?"
We pressed forward, and there saw a thin grey-haired woman who had guilt
written plainly upon her drawn white face. She had overheard all our
conversation, and had been compelled to remain in that chamber, there
being no outlet.
"Joliot!" gasped Mabel, amazed. "My maid!" Then, addressing the
cowering, trembling woman, she demanded the truth.
We stood there astonished. There was a silence, long and painful. The
contortions of the guilty woman's features were horrible; in her black
eyes burned a fierce light, and she trembled in every limb.
"Yes," she cried hoarsely, after the question had been repeated, "I
killed him! I killed him because I was jealous! I thought that instead
of coming to visit your Highness he, in reality, came to visit Miss
Grainger. Therefore without knowing why I did it, I dashed into the
room where Miss Grainger was at the piano and attacked her. The Prince
rose quickly and stretched out his arm to save her. Then rushing upon
him I stabbed him to the heart! Since that day," she added, in her low
voice, scarcely audible, "since that day I have lived upon the meagre
charity of Roesch, and yesterday came here to take up a position as Miss
Grainger's maid."
"Your interests were mutual in the preservation of your secret,
therefore you resolved to adjust your differences and live together,
eh?" remarked Hickman.
She gave vent to a shrill peal of hideous laughter, as though there were
something humorous in that grim and terrible tragedy. It jarred upon
our nerves, but it also explained to us the ghastly truth.
The woman Natalie Joliot was hopelessly insane.
"Your Highness recognises the state of the wretched woman's mind,"
observed Edna Grainger, with a pitying look. "She has been so ever
since the homicidal frenzy which seized her on that fatal night, and I
have now taken her beneath my charge, for with me she is as docile as a
child."
The truth was a startling one. We all three stood by in wondering
silence. The crime had been committed in a sudden access of madness by
that miserable creature who could not be held responsible for her
actions.
"Roesch and Gechkuloff, with their elaborate preparations for the
assassination of the heir to the Bulgarian throne, were murderers at
heart, but, by that strange combination of circumstances which so often
render truth stranger than fiction, their work was accomplished by
another hand," I remarked.
"There seems no doubt," said Edna, "that large sums were raised in
London and in Paris upon the deed executed by the young Prince, who
evidently had no knowledge of its true nature, and during the first six
months before the hue-and-cry as to his disappearance all was plain
sailing. When, however, suspicion arose that the heir had met with foul
play they feared to continue using the deed, and hit upon the expedient
of the concessions which I induced you to negotiate."
"And these two men, Roesch and Gechkuloff, where are they?" inquired
Hickman.
"They were in England yesterday. The mystery surrounding the
whereabouts of Prince Alexander has been used for political purposes in
Bulgaria, with the result that the Ministry has been forced to resign.
The defalcations of the head of the Treasury and his assistant being
discovered, they were both forced to fly. They are, I believe, on their
way to Australia."
"We must arrest them," said Hickman briefly. "Such a pair of villains
must, not be allowed to go scot free."
"And to you," exclaimed Mabel, turning to me with the bright light of
unshed tears in her fine eyes, "to your patience and careful
watchfulness is due the unravelling of this extraordinary mystery, which
might otherwise have remained an enigma always."
She took my hand. I saw in her beautiful countenance that love-look as
of old. But I bent over her bejewelled fingers as a courtier would over
those of a princess of an Imperial House, my heart too full for words.
The madwoman railed at us, shrieking and hurling imprecations
interspersed with all sorts of rambling sentences, while Edna held her
tightly by the wrist and strove to calm her.
The scene was a hideous one. Neither of us could bear it longer,
therefore we withdrew, leaving Hickman with Edna and her charge.
The chronicle of this strange chapter of my life's history is finished.
There is no more to tell, save perhaps to explain--as Sir Henry
Blundell, the specialist on mental diseases, explained to me in his
consulting-room in Harley Street--the cause of my six lost years. Such
an experience, it seemed, was not unknown in medical science, and he
made it clear to me that the blow I had accidentally dealt myself in
Hickman's rooms had so altered the balance of my brain--already affected
by the cab accident during my blindness--that my intellect stopped like
a watch. I lost all knowledge of the past, and from the moment of
recovering consciousness commenced an entirely new life. This extended
through the long period, nearly six years, until I had struck my head
against the marble statue in the drawing-room at Denbury, when my brain,
restored again to its normal capacity, lost all impression of events
which had occurred during its abnormal state. This, of course,
accounted for my extraordinary unconscious life, my inverted tastes, and
my parting with the woman I loved so fondly.
And what of her, you ask?
She had, during that period of my unconsciousness, become satiated by
the gaiety of the brilliant Court at Vienna, and the tragic death of her
devoted mother, the Empress, at the hand of Luccheni, the anarchist,
caused her to prefer a life quiet, free, and untrammelled. Knowing her
royal birth, however, I dared not ask her hand in marriage, and it was
not until many weeks later, after the woman Natalie Joliot had been
confined as a homicidal patient in Woking Asylum, Edna Grainger had,
owing to Mabel's clemency, escaped to the continent, the ex-Minister
Roesch and his companion Gechkuloff had been extradited from Bow Street
to Sofia to take their trial for their gigantic defalcations upon the
State Treasury, and I had sold Denbury and made an end of the financial
business which stood in my name, that she complained to me of her
loneliness.
With eager, trembling heart I took her white hand in mine and put to her
the question. I knew it was presumptuous, almost unheard of. But,
reader, you may readily imagine what overwhelming joy arose within me
when she threw her arms passionately about my neck, and as answer raised
her face and gave me a warm fond kiss.
Our life to-day is very even, very uneventful, idyllically happy. Under
her second title of Countess of Klagenfurt we were soon afterwards
married. We spent part of our time at Heaton, with which she is charmed
now that it is swept and garnished, and the remainder at her own
mediaeval Castle of Mohaes, one of the great ancestral estates of the
Hapsbourg-Lorraines in the Tyrol, not far from Innsbruck, which was
presented to her as a marriage gift by the Emperor.
Her Imperial Highness the Archduchess Marie-Elizabeth-Mabel no longer
exists. At the outset I made it quite plain that I had not written here
my true name. I did so at my wife's suggestion, for although my real
name is probably known to most of those who read this record of my
strange adventures, yet the world is still in ignorance of Mabel's
actual social position. She said that she had no desire to be pointed
at as a Princess who married a commoner, and I have, of course,
respected her wish.
She sacrificed all for my sake, and peace and joy are ours at last.
With a fond and devoted love she gave up everything in order to become
my wife, and as such has renounced for ever that world in which she was
born--the world of Purple and Fine Linen.
The End.