"Well," laughed a smart young lieutenant of Uhlans, "I could have
understood the delay if it had been a lady!"
An hour went past. The light would soon fade, and we, knowing "Willie's"
utter disregard for his appointments, at last decided to continue the
shoot, leaving one of the foresters to tell His Highness the direction
we had taken.
The Crown-Prince did not, however, join us, and darkness had fallen ere
we returned to the forester's house. Of His Highness there was no sign,
a fact which much surprised us. In the room wherein I had left him his
gun and green Tyrolese hat were lying upon a chair, and the fact that
all the cars were still ranged outside showed that he had not driven
back to the castle.
The Crown-Prince had disappeared!
Knof, His Highness's chauffeur, who had been walking with us, was sent
back post-haste to the schloss to ascertain whether he had been seen
there, for His Highness's movements were often most erratic. We knew
that if the whim took him he would perhaps go off in an opposite
direction, or trudge back to the castle with utter disregard of our
natural anxiety.
Lights were lit, and we enjoyed cigars awaiting Knof's return. In an
hour he was back with the news that nothing had been heard of His
Highness. Soon after we had left that morning, however, a young man in a
grey suit had called and seen the major-domo, who had directed him where
His Highness might be found.
Upon Eckardt--the commissary of police responsible for His Highness's
safety--the onus rested. Yet, had he not been sent out with the party,
as His Highness had expressed to me a wish to be left alone with the
stranger, whose name I alone knew.
While we were discussing the most judicious mode of action--for I
scented much mystery in this visit of Karl Krahl--one of the party
suddenly discovered, lying upon the ledge of the window, a lady's small
and rather elegant handbag of black _moire_ silk.
"Hulloa!" I cried when he held it up for inspection. "This reveals to us
one fact--a woman has been here!"
I opened the bag, and within found a small lawn handkerchief with a
coronet embroidered in its corner, a tiny tortoise-shell mirror, and
four one-hundred-mark notes, but no clue whatever as to its owner.
The mystery was increasing hourly, but the gay party, knowing "Willie's"
susceptibility where the fair sex were concerned, only laughed and
declared that His Highness would assuredly turn up before the evening
was over.
Truth to tell, I did not like the situation. His Highness's
disappearance was now known to fifty or so persons, beaters, and others,
and I feared lest it might get into the Berlin papers. With that object
I called them together and impressed upon them that most complete
silence must be maintained regarding the affair.
Then Knof drove me alone back to the schloss. I wondered if His
Highness, wishing to get away unobserved, returning in secret there,
had left me a written message in his room. He had done that on one
occasion before.
I dashed up to the small, old-world room which by day overlooked the
romantic and picturesque valley, but upon the table whereat I had been
writing early that morning there was nothing.
As I turned to leave I heard a footstep, and next instant saw the little
deformed old Countess facing me.
Her appearance quite startled me. Apparently she had just arrived, for
she was in a dark blue bonnet and warm travelling coat.
"Ah! Count von Heltzendorff!" she cried in that squeaky, high-pitched
voice of hers. "Is His Imperial Highness here? I must see him
immediately."
"No, Countess. His Imperial Highness is not here," was my reply. "This
afternoon he mysteriously disappeared from the forester's lodge at Neue
Schenke, and we are unable to trace him."
"Disappeared!" gasped the old lady, instantly pale and agitated.
"Yes," I said, looking her straight in the face.
"Do you know whether he had a visitor to-day--a young, dark-haired man?"
"He had, Countess. A man called, and saw him. At His Highness's request
I left him alone with his visitor at the forester's house. The man's
name was Karl Krahl."
"How did you know his name?" she asked, staring at me with an expression
of distinct suspicion.
"Because--well, because I happen to have learnt it some time ago," I
said. "And, further, on returning to the house we found this little bag
in the room wherein I had left the Crown-Prince."
"Why!--a lady's bag!" she exclaimed as I held it out for inspection.
"Yes," I said in a somewhat hard tone. "Do you happen to recognize it?"
"Me? Why?" asked the old woman.
"Well, because I think it is your own property," I said with a sarcastic
smile. "I have some recollection of having seen it in your hand!"
She took it, examined it well, and then, with a hollow, artificial
laugh, declared:
"It certainly is not mine. I once had a bag very similar, but mine was
not of such good quality."
"Are you really quite certain, Countess?" I demanded in a low,
persuasive voice.
"Quite," she declared, though I knew that she was lying to me. "But why
trouble about that bag while there is a point much more important--the
safety and whereabouts of His Imperial Highness?" she went on in a great
state of agitation. "Tell me, Count, exactly what occurred--as far as
you know."
I recounted to her the facts just as you have already written them down,
and as I did so I watched her thin, crafty old face, noticing upon it an
expression full of suspicion of myself. She was, I now realized,
undecided as to the exact extent of my knowledge.
"How did you know that the young man's name was Krahl?" she asked
eagerly. "You had perhaps met him before--eh?"
But to this leading question I maintained a sphinx-like silence. That
the little old woman who had so unexpectedly become a lady-in-waiting
was playing some desperate double game I felt sure, but its exact import
was still an enigma.
"In any case," she said, "would it not be as well to return to the Neue
Schenke and make search?"
I smiled. Then, in order to let her know that I was acquainted with
Italian, the language she had spoken on that well-remembered night in
her own conservatory, I exclaimed:
"Ahe! alle volte con gli occhi aperti si far dei sogni." (Sometimes one
can dream with one's eyes open.)
Her thin eyebrows narrowed, and with a shrug of her shoulders the clever
old woman replied:
"Dal false bene viene il vero male." (From an affected good feeling
comes a real evil.)
I realized at that moment that there was more mystery in the affair than
I had yet conceived. His Imperial Highness was certainly missing, though
the female element of the affair had become eliminated by my recognition
of her own handbag. She, too, had been in secret to the forester's
house--but with what object?
Half an hour later we were back at the little house in the forest.
The guests had all returned to the castle, and only Eckardt, the police
commissary, remained, with the forester and his underlings. Already
search had been made in the surrounding woods, but without result. Of
his Imperial Highness there was no trace.
In the long room, with its pitch-pine walls, and lit by oil lamps, the
crafty old Countess closely questioned Eckardt as to the result of his
inquiries. But the police official, who had become full of nervous fear,
declared that he had been sent off by His Highness, and had not since
found any trace of him. He spoke of the little black silk bag, of
course, and attached great importance to it.
Within half an hour we had reorganized the beaters from the
neighbourhood and, with lanterns, set out again to examine some woods to
the east which had not been searched. About ten o'clock we set forth,
the Countess accompanying us and walking well, notwithstanding her age,
though I could see that it was a fearful anxiety that kept her active.
To the men with us every inch of the mountain side was familiar, and for
hours we searched.
Suddenly, not far away, a horn was blown, followed by loud shouts.
Quickly we approached the spot, and Eckardt and myself, as we came up,
looked upon a strange scene. Close to the trunk of a great beech tree
lay the form of the Crown-Prince, hatless, outstretched upon his face.
Instantly I bent, tore open his shooting jacket, and to my great relief
found that his heart was still beating. He was, however, quite
unconscious, though there seemed no sign of a struggle. As he had left
his hat and gun in the house, it seemed that he had gone forth only for
a moment. And yet we were quite a mile from the forester's house!
The Countess had thrown herself upon her knees and stroked his brow
tenderly when I announced that he was still living. By her actions I saw
that she was filled by some bitter self-reproach.
With the lanterns shining around him--surely a weird and remarkable
scene which would, if described by the journalists, have caused a great
sensation in Europe--the Crown-Prince was brought slowly back to
consciousness, until at last he sat up, dazed and wondering.
His first words to me were:
"That fellow! Where is he? That--that glass globe!"
Glass globe! Surely His Highness's mind was wandering.
An hour later he was comfortably in bed in the great old-world room in
the castle, attended by a local doctor--upon whom I set the seal of
official silence--and before dawn he had completely recovered.
Yet, even to me, he declared that he retained absolutely no knowledge of
what had occurred.
"I went out quickly, and I--well, I don't know what happened," he told
me soon after dawn, as he lay in bed. Strangely enough, he made no
mention of the man, Karl Krahl.
Later on he summoned the Countess von Kienitz, and for twenty minutes or
so he had an animated discussion with her. Being outside the room,
however, I was unable to hear distinctly.
Well, I succeeded, by bribes and threats, in hushing up the whole affair
and keeping it out of the papers, while by those who knew of the
incident it was soon forgotten.
I suppose it must have been fully three months later when one evening,
having taken some documents over to the Emperor for signature at the
Berlin Schloss, I returned to the Prince's private room in the Palace,
when, to my great surprise, I found the man Karl Krahl seated there. He
looked very pale and worn, quite unlike the rather athletic figure he
presented at the forester's house.
"If you still refuse to tell me the truth, then I shall take my own
measures to find out--severe measures! So I give you full warning," the
Crown-Prince was declaring angrily, as I entered so unexpectedly.
I did not withdraw, pretending not to notice the presence of a visitor,
therefore His Highness himself beckoned the young man, who followed him
down the corridor to another room.
The whole affair was most puzzling. What had happened on that afternoon
in the Harz Mountains I could not at all imagine. By what means had His
Highness been rendered unconscious, and what part could the little old
Countess have played in the curious affair?
In about half an hour the Crown-Prince returned in a palpably bad
humour, and, flinging himself into his chair, wrote a long letter, which
he addressed to Countess von Kienitz. This he sealed carefully, and
ordered me to take it at once to the Stulerstrasse and deliver it to her
personally.
"The Countess left for Stockholm this morning," I was informed by the
bearded manservant. "She left by the eight o'clock train, and has
already left Sassnitz by now."
"When do you expect her to return?"
The man did not know.
On going back to His Highness and telling him of the Countess's
departure, he bit his lip and then smiled grimly.
"That infernal old woman has left Germany, and will never again put her
foot upon our soil, Heltzendorff," he said. "You may open that letter.
It will explain something which I know must have mystified you."
I did so. And as I read what he had written I held my breath. Truly, it
did explain much.
Imposing the strictest silence upon me, the Crown-Prince then revealed
how utterly he and the Crown-Princess had been misled, and how very
narrowly he had escaped being the victim of a cunning plot to effect his
death.
The little old Countess von Kienitz had, it seemed, sworn to avenge the
degradation and dismissal of her son, who had been in the famous Death's
Head Hussars. She had secretly traced the Crown-Prince as author of a
subtle conspiracy against him, the underlying motive being jealousy.
With that end in view she had slowly wormed her way into His Highness's
confidence, and introduced to him Karl Krahl, a neurotic young Saxon who
lived in London, and who pretended he had unearthed a plot against the
Kaiser himself.
"It was to tell me the truth concerning the conspiracy that Krahl came
to me in secret at Ballenstedt. He remained with me for half an hour,
when, to my great surprise, we were joined by the Countess. The story
they told me of the plot against the Emperor was a very alarming one,
and I intended to return at once to Berlin. The Countess had left to
walk back to the schloss, when presently we heard a woman's scream--her
voice--and we both went forth to discover what was in progress. As I ran
along a little distance behind Krahl, suddenly what seemed like a thin
glass globe struck me in the chest and burst before my face. It had
been thrown by an unknown hand, and, on breaking, must have emitted some
poisonous gas which was intended to kill me, but which happily failed.
Until yesterday the whole affair was a complete mystery, but Krahl has
now confessed that the Countess conceived the plot, and that the hand
that had thrown the glass bomb was that of her son, who had concealed
himself in the bushes for that purpose."
Though, of course, I hastened to congratulate His Highness upon his
fortunate escape, yet I now often wonder whether, if the plot had
succeeded, the present world-conflict would ever have occurred.