"No, Heltzendorff. You are quite mistaken," he said, reading my
thoughts, and putting down his cigarette end. "There is no lady in this
case. I am out here for secret purposes of my own. For that reason I
take you into my confidence rather than that unnecessary inquiry should
be made and some of those infernal journalists get hold of the fact that
the Count von Gruenau and the Crown-Prince are one and the same person. I
was a fool to take this saloon. I ought to have travelled as an ordinary
passenger, I know, but," he laughed, "this is really comfortable and,
after all, what do we care what the world thinks--eh? Surely we can
afford to laugh at it when all the honours of the game are already in
our hands."
And at that moment we ran into the pretty, flower-decked station of San
Remo, the place freshly painted for the attraction of the winter
visitors who annually went south for sunshine.
His words mystified me, but I became even more mystified by his actions
a few days later.
I was in ignorance that a fortnight before Hermann Hardt, one of His
Highness's couriers, had left Potsdam and on arrival at Nice had rented
for three months the fine Villa Lilas--the winter residence of the
American millionaire leather merchant, James G. Jamieson, of Boston, who
had gone yachting to Japan.
You know Nice, my dear Le Queux--you know it as well as I do, therefore
you know the Villa Lilas, that big white mansion which faces the sea on
Montboron, the hill road between the port of Nice and Villefranche. Half
hidden among the mimosa, the palms, and grey-green olives, it is after
the style of Mr. Gordon Bennett's villa at Beaulieu, with a big glass
front and pretty verandas, with climbing geraniums flowering upon the
terraces.
We soon settled there, for the household staff had arrived three days
before, and on the evening of our arrival I accompanied the Crown-Prince
down into the town to the Jetee promenade, the pier-pavilion where the
gay cosmopolitan world disports itself to chatter, drink and gamble.
It was a glorious moonlit night, and "Willie," after strolling through
the great gilded saloons, in one of which was a second-rate variety
entertainment--the season not having yet commenced--went outside. We sat
at the end of the pier smoking.
"Nice is dull as yet, is it not?" he remarked, for each year he always
spent a month there incognito, the German newspapers announcing that he
was away shooting. But "Willie," leading the gay life of the Imperial
butterfly, much preferred the lively existence of the Cote d'Azur to the
remote schloss in Thuringia or elsewhere.
I agreed with him that Nice had not yet put on the tinsel and pasteboard
of her Carnival attractions. As you know, Carnival in Nice is gay
enough, but, after all, it is a forced gaiety got up for the profit of
the shops and hotels, combined with the "Cercle des Bains" of
Monaco--the polite title of the Prince's gilded gambling hell.
We smoked together and chatted, as we often did when His Imperial
Highness became bored. I was still mystified why we had come to the
Riviera so early in the season, because the white and pale green paint
of the hotels was not yet dry, and half of them not yet open.
Yet our coming had, no doubt, been privately signalled, because within
half an hour of our arrival at the Villa Lilas a short, stout old
Frenchman, with white, bristly hair--whom I afterwards found out was
Monsieur Paul Bavouzet, the newly-appointed Prefect of the Department of
Alpes-Maritimes--called to leave his card upon the Count von Gruenau.
The Imperial incognito only means that the public are to be deluded.
Officialdom never is. They know the ruse, and support it all the world
over. His Highness the Crown-Prince was paying his annual visit to Nice,
and the President had sent his compliments through his representative,
the bristly-haired little Prefect.
Soon after eleven that night the Crown-Prince, after chatting affably
with me, strolled back to the Promenade des Anglais, where Knof, the
chauffeur, awaited us with a big open car, in which we were whizzed
around the port and up to Montboron in a few minutes.
As I parted from the Crown-Prince, who yawned and declared that he was
tired, he said:
"Ah! Heltzendorff. How good it is to get a breath of soft air from the
Mediterranean! We shall have a port on this pleasant sea one day--if we
live as long--eh?"
That remark showed the trend of events. It showed how, hand in hand with
the Emperor, he was urging preparations for war--a war that had for its
primary object the destruction of the Powers which, when the volcano
erupted, united as allies.
The bright autumn days passed quite uneventfully, and frequently I went
pleasant motor runs into the mountains with His Highness, up to the
frontier at the Col di Tenda, to La Vesubie, Puget-Theniers, and other
places. Yet I was still mystified at the reason of our sojourn there.
After we had been at the Villa Lilas about ten days I was one afternoon
seated outside the popular Cafe de l'Opera, in the Place Massena, when a
lady, dressed in deep mourning and wearing the heavy veil in French
style, passed along the pavement, glanced at me, and then, hesitating,
she turned, and, coming back, advanced to the little table in the corner
whereat I was sitting.
"May I be permitted to have a word with you, Monsieur?" she asked in
French, in a low, refined voice.
"Certainly," was my reply, and, not without some surprise, I rose and
drew a chair for her.
She glanced round quickly, as though to satisfy herself that she would
not be overheard, but, as a matter of fact, at that hour the chairs on
the terraces of the cafe were practically deserted. At the same moment,
viewing her closely, I saw that she was about twenty-four, handsome,
dark-haired, with well-cut features.
"I know, Monsieur, that I am a complete stranger to you," she exclaimed
with a smile, "but to me you are quite familiar by sight. I have passed
you many times in Berlin and in Potsdam, and I know that you are Count
von Heltzendorff, personal-adjutant to His Highness the
Crown-Prince--or Count von Gruenau, as he is known here in France."
"You know that!" I exclaimed.
She smiled mysteriously, replying:
"Yes. I--well, I happen to be a friend of His Highness."
I held my breath. So this pretty young Frenchwoman was one of my young
Imperial master's friends!
"The fact is, Count," she went on, "I have travelled a considerable
distance to see you. I said that I was one of the Crown-Prince's
friends. Please do not misunderstand me. I know that he has a good many
lady friends, but, as far as I am concerned, I have never been
introduced to him, and he does not know me. I am his friend because of a
certain friendliness towards him."
"Really, Madame, I don't quite understand," I said.
"Of course not," she answered, and then, glancing round, she added:
"This place is a little too public. Cannot we go across to the garden
yonder?"
At her suggestion I rose and walked with her to a quiet spot in the
gardens, where we sat down, and I listened with interest to her.
She told me that her name was Julie de Rouville, but she would give no
account of where she lived, though I took it that she was a young widow.
"I have ventured to approach you, Count, because I cannot approach the
Crown-Prince," she said presently. "You probably do not know the true
reason of his visit here to Nice?"
"No," I said. "I admit that I do not. Why is he here?"
"It is a secret of his own. But, curiously enough, I am aware of the
reason, and that is why I have sought you. Would it surprise you if I
told you that in a certain quarter in France it will, in a few days, be
known that the German Emperor is establishing a movement for an
_entente_ between Germany and Britain, and that the whole affair is
based upon a fraud? The Emperor wants no _entente_, but only war with
France and with Britain. The whole plot will be exposed in a few days!"
"From what source have you derived this knowledge?" I asked, looking at
her in amazement that she should know one of the greatest State secrets
of Germany.
But she again smiled mysteriously, and said:
"I merely tell you this in order to prove to you that I am in possession
of certain facts known to but few people."
"You evidently are," I said. "But who intends to betray the truth to
France?"
"I regret, Count, that I cannot answer your question."
"If you are, as you say, the Crown-Prince's friend, it would surely be a
friendly act to let us know the truth, so that steps may be taken,
perhaps, to avoid the secret of Germany's diplomacy from leaking out to
her enemies."
"All I can tell you, Count, is that the matter is one of gravest
importance."
"But will you not speak openly, and give us the actual facts?"
"I will--but to His Imperial Highness alone," was her answer.
"You wish to meet him, then?" I asked, rather suspicious that it might
after all be only a woman's ruse. And yet what she had said showed that
she knew the Emperor's secret, for she had actually mentioned Von
Gessler's name in connection with the pretended Anglo-German _entente_.
"If His Highness will honour me with an interview, then I will reveal
all I know, and, further, will suggest a means of preventing the truth
from leaking out."
"But you are French," I said.
"I have told you so," she laughed. "But probably His Highness will
refuse to see Julie de Rouville, therefore I think it best if you show
him this."
From her little gold chain-purse she produced a small, unmounted
photograph of herself, and handed it to me.
"When he recognizes who wishes to see him he will fully understand," she
said, in a quiet, refined voice. "A letter addressed to Julie de
Rouville at the Post Restante at Marseilles will quickly find me."
"At Marseilles?" I echoed.
"Yes. I do not wish the letter to be sent to me here. From Marseilles I
shall duly receive it."