"For that sum, and not a sou less, I am prepared to sign a statement
that I have lied, and that there is no truth in the allegation."
"Of what? Tell me the facts, as you know them, and I will then repeat
them to His Imperial Highness."
For a few seconds he was silent, then in a cold, hard voice he revealed
to me what was evidently the truth of the Crown-Prince's secret visit to
Rome. I listened to his statement utterly dumbfounded.
The allegations were terrible. It seemed that a popular Spanish variety
actress, whom the populace of Rome knew as "La Bella," but whose real
name was Claudia Ferrona, lived in a pretty apartment on the Lungtevere
Mellini, facing the Tiber. His Highness had met her in Coblenz, where
she had been singing. "La Bella" had as her particular friend a certain
high official in the Italian Ministry of War, and through him she was
enabled to furnish the Crown-Prince with certain important information.
The General Staff in the Wilhelmstrasse were eager to obtain some very
definite facts regarding Italy's new armaments, and His Highness had
taken upon himself the task of obtaining it.
As Herr Nebelthau he went in secret to Rome as guest of the vivacious
Claudia, whose maid was none other than the thief-girl of the
Montmartre, Lizette Sabin. This girl, whose intellect had become
weakened, was entirely under the influence of the clever adventurer
Aranda. On the second night after the arrival of the Crown-Prince in
Rome, he and the actress had taken supper together in her apartment,
after which a fierce quarrel had arisen between them.
Seized by a fit of remorse, the variety singer blankly refused to
further betray the man to whom her advancement in her profession was
due, whereupon His Highness grew furious at being thwarted at the last
moment. After listening to his insults, "La Bella" openly declared that
she intended to reveal the whole truth to the Italian official in
question. Then the Crown-Prince became seized by one of those mad,
frenzied fits of uncontrollable anger to which he is at times, like all
the Hohenzollerns, subject, and with his innate brutality he took up a
bottle from the table and struck the poor girl heavily upon the skull,
felling her like a log. Afterwards with an imprecation on his lips, he
walked out. So terribly injured was the girl that she expired just
before noon next day. Not, however, before she had related the whole
circumstances to the maid, Lizette, and to the man Aranda, who, truth to
tell, had placed the maid in the actress's service with a view of
robbing her of her jewels. He saw, however, that, with the death of
Claudia Ferrona, blackmail would be much more profitable.
Having heard this amazing story, I was careful to lock the Spaniard in
the room, and then returned to where the Crown-Prince was so anxiously
awaiting me.
Half an hour later the adventurer left the Palace, bearing in his pocket
a draft upon the private banking house of Mendelsohn, in the
Jaegerstrasse in Berlin, for two hundred and fifty thousand marks.
In return for that draft the wily Spaniard signed a declaration that he
had invented the whole story, and that there was not a word of truth in
it.
It was only, however, when I placed that document into the hands of the
Crown-Prince that His Imperial Highness breathed freely again.