Late on the night of November 18th, 1912, I was busily at work in the
Crown-Prince's room--that cosy apartment of which I possessed the
key--at the Marble Palace at Potsdam.
I, as His Imperial Highness's personal-adjutant, had been travelling all
day with him from Cologne to Berlin. We had done a tour of military
inspections in Westphalia, and, as usual, "Willie's" conduct, as became
the heir-apparent of the psalm-singing All-Highest One, had not been
exactly exemplary.
With his slant eyes and sarcastic grin he openly defied the Emperor, and
frequently referred to him to his intimates as "a hoary old
hypocrite"--the truth of which recent events have surely proved.
On the night in question, however, much had happened. The Emperor had, a
month before, returned from a visit to England, where he had been
engaged by speeches and hand-shakes, public and private, blowing a
narcotic dust into the nostrils of your dear but, alas! too confiding
nation.
You British were all dazzled--you dear English drank the Imperial
sleeping-draught, prepared so cunningly for you and your Cabinet
Ministers in what we in Berlin sometimes called "the Downing-Strasse."
You lapped up the cream of German good-fellowship as a cat laps milk,
even while agents of our Imperial War Staff had held Staff-rides in
various parts of your island. All of you were blind, save those whom
your own people denounced as scaremongers when they lifted their voices
in warning.
We at Potsdam smiled daily at what seemed to us to be the slow but sure
decline of your great nation from its military, naval, and commercial
supremacy. The Kaiser had plotted for fourteen years, and now he was
being actively aided by his eldest son, that shrewd, active agnostic
with a criminal kink.
"Heltzendorff!" exclaimed the Crown-Prince, as he suddenly entered the
room where I was busy attending to a pile of papers which had
accumulated during our absence in Westphalia, and which had been sorted
into three heaps by my assistant during our absence. "Do get through all
those letters and things. Burn them all if you can. What do they
matter?"
"Many of them are matters of grave importance. Here, for instance, is a
report from the Chief of Military Intelligence in Washington."
"Oh, old Friesch! Tear it up! He is but an old fossil at best. And yet,
Heltzendorff, he is designed to be of considerable use," he added. "His
Majesty told me to-night that after his visit to England he has
conceived the idea to establish an official movement for the improvement
of better relations between Britain and Germany. The dear British are
always ready to receive such movements with open arms. At Carlton House
Terrace they strongly endorse the Emperor's ideas, and he tells me that
the movement should first arise in commercial and shipping circles. Herr
Ballin will generate the idea in his offices in London and the various
British ports, while His Majesty has Von Gessler, the ex-Ambassador at
Washington, in view as the man to bring forth the suggestion publicly.
Indeed, to-night from the Wilhelmstrasse there has been sent a message
to his schloss on the Mosel commanding him to consult with His Majesty.
Von Bernstorff took his place at Washington a few months ago."
"But Von Gessler is an inveterate enemy of Britain," I exclaimed in
surprise, still seated at my table.
"The world does not know that. The whole scheme is based upon Britain's
ignorance of our intentions. We bring Von Gessler forward as the dear,
good, Anglophile friend with his hand outstretched from the
Wilhelmstrasse. Oh, Heltzendorff!" he laughed. "It is really intensely
amusing, is it not?"
I was silent. I knew that the deeply-laid plot against Great Britain was
proceeding apace, for had I not seen those many secret reports, and did
I not possess inside knowledge of the evil intentions of the Emperor and
his son.
"Get through all that--to-night if you can, Heltzendorff," the
Crown-Prince urged. "The Crown-Princess leaves for Treseburg, in the
Harz, to-morrow, and in the evening we go to Nice."
"To Nice!" I exclaimed, though not at all disinclined to spend a week or
so on the Riviera.
"Yes," he said. "I have a friend there. The Riviera is only pleasant
before the season, or after. One cannot go with the crowd in January or
February. I have already given orders for the saloon to leave at eleven
to-morrow night. That will give us ample time."
A friend there! I reflected. I, knowing his partiality to the eternal
petticoat, could only suppose that the attraction in Nice was of the
feminine gender.
"Then the lady is in Nice!" I remarked, for sometimes I was permitted,
on account of my long service with the Emperor, to speak familiarly.
"Lady, no!" he retorted. "It is a man. And I want to get to Nice at the
earliest moment. So get through those infernal documents. Burn them all.
They are better out of the way," he laughed.
And, taking a cigarette from the golden box--a present to him from
"Tino" of Greece--he lit it, and wishing me good night, strode out.
Just before eleven o'clock on the following night we left the Marmor
Palace. His Imperial Highness travelled incognito as he always did when
visiting France, assuming the name of Count von Gruenau. With us was his
personal valet, Schuler, the military secretary, Major Lentze, and
Eckardt, the Commissioner of Secret Police for His Highness's personal
protection, who travelled with us wherever we went. In addition, there
was an under-valet, and Knof, the Crown-Prince's favourite chauffeur.
When abroad cars were either bought and afterwards re-sold, or else
hired, but Knof, who was a celebrated racing motorist and had driven in
Prince Henry's tour of exploration through England, and who had gained
many prizes on the various circuits, was always taken as "driver."
After a restless night--for there were many stoppages--I spent next day
with the Crown-Prince in long and tiring discussions on military affairs
as we travelled due south in the beautifully-fitted Imperial car,
replete with its smoking saloon with wicker chairs, its four bathrooms,
and other luxuries. I endeavoured to obtain from him some reason why we
were proceeding to Nice, but to all my inquiries he was smilingly dumb.
He noticed my eagerness, and I saw that he was amused by it.
Yet somehow, as we travelled towards the Italian frontier--for our road
lay through Austria down to Milan, and thence by way of Genoa--he seemed
to become unduly thoughtful and anxious.
Only a fortnight before he had had one of those ever-recurring and
unseemly quarrels with his long-suffering wife.
"Cilli is a fool!" he had declared openly to me, after she had left the
room in anger.
We had been busy arranging a programme of official visits in Eastern
Germany, when suddenly the Crown-Princess entered, pale with anger, and
disregarding my presence--for I suppose I was regarded as one who knew
all the happenings of the palace, and whose discretion could be relied
upon--began to demand fiercely an explanation of a certain anonymous
letter which she held in her hand.
"Kindly read that!" she said haughtily, "and explain what it means!"
The Crown-Prince grinned idiotically, that cold, sinister expression
overspreading his countenance, a look which is such a marked
characteristic of his.
Then, almost snatching the letter from his young wife's fingers, he read
it through, and with a sudden movement tore it up and flung it upon the
carpet, saying:
"I refuse to discuss any unsigned letter! Really, if we were to notice
every letter written by the common scum we should, indeed, have
sufficient to do."
His wife's arched brows narrowed. Her pale, delicate face, in which the
lines of care had appeared too prematurely, already betrayed fiercest
anger.
"I happen to have inquired, and I now know that those allegations are
correct!" she cried. "This dark-haired singer-woman, Irene Speroni, has
attained great success on the variety stage in Italy. She is the star of
the Sala Margherita in Rome."
"Well?" he asked in defiance. "And what of it, pray?"
"That letter you have destroyed tells me the truth. I received it a few
days ago, and sent an agent to Italy in order to learn the truth. He has
returned to-night. See!" And suddenly she produced a crannied snapshot
photograph, of postcard size, of the Crown-Prince in his polo-playing
garb, and with him a smartly-dressed young woman, whose features were in
the shadow. I caught sight of that picture, because when he tossed it
from him angrily without glancing at it, I picked it up and handed it
back to the Crown-Princess.
"Yes," she cried bitterly, "You refuse, of course, to look upon this
piece of evidence! I now know why you went to Wiesbaden. The woman was
singing there, and you gave her a pair of emerald and diamond earrings
which you purchased from Vollgold in Unter den Linden. See! Here is the
bill for them!"
And again she produced a slip of paper.
At this the Crown-Prince grew instantly furious, and, pale to the lips,
he roundly abused his long-suffering wife, telling her quite frankly
that, notwithstanding the fact that she might spy upon his movements, he
should act exactly as his impulses dictated.
That scene was, indeed, a disgraceful one, ending in the poor woman, in
a frantic paroxysm of despair, tearing off the splendid necklet of
diamonds at her throat--his present to her on their marriage--and
casting it full into his face.
Then, realizing that the scene had become too tragic, I took her small
hand, and, with a word of sympathy, led her out of the room and along
the corridor.
As I left her she burst into a sudden torrent of tears; yet when I
returned again to the Crown-Prince I found his manner had entirely
changed. He treated his wife's natural resentment and indignation as a
huge joke, and it was then that His Imperial Highness declared to me:
"Cilli is a fool!"
That sunny afternoon the Crown-Prince had sprawled himself on the plush
lounge of the smoking car as the train travelled upon that picturesque
line between Genoa and the French frontier at Ventimiglia, the line
which follows the coast for six hours. With the tideless sapphire
Mediterranean lapping the yellow beach on the one side and high brown
rocks upon the other, we went through Savona, Albenga, the old-world
Porto Maurizio to the glaring modern town of San Remo and palm-embowered
Bordighera, that beautiful Italian Riviera that you and I know so well.
"Listen, Heltzendorff," his Highness exclaimed suddenly between the
whiffs of his cigarette. "In Nice I may disappear for a day or two. I
may be missing. But if I am, please don't raise a fuss about it. I'm
incognito, and nobody will know. I may be absent for seven days. If I am
not back by that time then you may make inquiry."
"But the Commissary of Police Eckardt! He will surely know?" I remarked
in surprise.
"No. He won't know. I shall evade him as I've so often done before,"
replied His Imperial Highness. "I tell you of my intentions so that you
may curb the activities of our most estimable friend. Tell him not to
worry, and he will be paid a thousand marks on the day Count von Gruenau
reappears."