Your Excellency:
The accompanying copies of statements taken this day will explain
how the prisoner, the self-so-called Benjamin Bathurst, came into
my custody. I have charged him with causing disorder and being a
suspicious person, to hold him until more can be learned about
him. However, as he represents himself to be a British diplomat,
I am unwilling to assume any further responsibility, and am
having him sent to your excellency, in Berlin.
In the first place, your excellency, I have the strongest doubts
of the man's story. The statement which he made before me, and
signed, is bad enough, with a coach-and-four turning into a farm
wagon, like Cinderella's coach into a pumpkin, and three people
vanishing as though swallowed by the earth. But all this is
perfectly reasonable and credible, beside the things he said to
me, of which no record was made.
Your excellency will have noticed, in his statement, certain
allusions to the Austrian surrender, and to French troops in
Austria. After his statement had been taken down, I noticed these
allusions, and I inquired, what surrender, and what were French
troops doing in Austria. The man looked at me in a pitying
manner, and said:
"News seems to travel slowly, hereabouts; peace was concluded
at Vienna on the 14th of last month. And as for what French
troops are doing in Austria, they're doing the same things
Bonaparte's brigands are doing everywhere in Europe."
"And who is Bonaparte?" I asked.
He stared at me as though I had asked him, "Who is the Lord Jehovah?"
Then, after a moment, a look of comprehension came into his face.
"So, you Prussians concede him the title of Emperor, and refer
to him as Napoleon," he said. "Well, I can assure you that His
Britannic Majesty's government haven't done so, and never will;
not so long as one Englishman has a finger left to pull a trigger.
General Bonaparte is a usurper; His Britannic Majesty's government
do not recognize any sovereignty in France except the House of
Bourbon." This he said very sternly, as though rebuking me.
[Illustration]
It took me a moment or so to digest that, and to appreciate all its
implications. Why, this fellow evidently believed, as a matter of
fact, that the French Monarchy had been overthrown by some military
adventurer named Bonaparte, who was calling himself the Emperor
Napoleon, and who had made war on Austria and forced a surrender. I
made no attempt to argue with him--one wastes time arguing with
madmen--but if this man could believe that, the transformation of a
coach-and-four into a cabbage wagon was a small matter indeed. So,
to humor him, I asked him if he thought General Bonaparte's agents
were responsible for his trouble at the inn.
"Certainly," he replied. "The chances are they didn't know me
to see me, and took Jardine for the minister, and me for the
secretary, so they made off with poor Jardine. I wonder, though,
that they left me my dispatch case. And that reminds me; I'll
want that back. Diplomatic papers, you know."
I told him, very seriously, that we would have to check his
credentials. I promised him I would make every effort to locate
his secretary and his servants and his coach, took a complete
description of all of them, and persuaded him to go into an
upstairs room, where I kept him under guard. I did start
inquiries, calling in all my informers and spies, but, as I
expected, I could learn nothing. I could not find anybody, even,
who had seen him anywhere in Perleburg before he appeared at the
Sword & Scepter, and that rather surprised me, as somebody should
have seen him enter the town, or walk along the street.
In this connection, let me remind your excellency of the
discrepancy in the statements of the servant, Franz Bauer, and of
the two peasants. The former is certain the man entered the inn
yard from the street; the latter are just as positive that he did
not. Your excellency, I do not like such puzzles, for I am sure
that all three were telling the truth to the best of their
knowledge. They are ignorant common folk, I admit, but they
should know what they did or did not see.
After I got the prisoner into safekeeping, I fell to examining his
papers, and I can assure your excellency that they gave me a shock.
I had paid little heed to his ravings about the King of France
being dethroned, or about this General Bonaparte who called himself
the Emperor Napoleon, but I found all these things mentioned in his
papers and dispatches, which had every appearance of being official
documents. There was repeated mention of the taking, by the French,
of Vienna, last May, and of the capitulation of the Austrian
Emperor to this General Bonaparte, and of battles being fought all
over Europe, and I don't know what other fantastic things. Your
excellency, I have heard of all sorts of madmen--one believing
himself to be the Archangel Gabriel, or Mohammed, or a werewolf,
and another convinced that his bones are made of glass, or that he
is pursued and tormented by devils--but so help me God, this is the
first time I have heard of a madman who had documentary proof for
his delusions! Does your excellency wonder, then, that I want no
part of this business?
But the matter of his credentials was even worse. He had papers,
sealed with the seal of the British Foreign Office, and to every
appearance genuine--but they were signed, as Foreign Minister, by
one George Canning, and all the world knows that Lord Castlereagh
has been Foreign Minister these last five years. And to cap it
all, he had a safe-conduct, sealed with the seal of the Prussian
Chancellery--the very seal, for I compared it, under a strong
magnifying glass, with one that I knew to be genuine, and they
were identical!--and yet, this letter was signed, as Chancellor,
not by Count von Berchtenwald, but by Baron Stein, the Minister of
Agriculture, and the signature, as far as I could see, appeared to
be genuine! This is too much for me, your excellency; I must ask
to be excused from dealing with this matter, before I become as
mad as my prisoner!
I made arrangements, accordingly, with Colonel Keitel, of the
Third Uhlans, to furnish an officer to escort this man into
Berlin. The coach in which they come belongs to this police
station, and the driver is one of my men. He should be furnished
expense money to get back to Perleburg. The guard is a corporal
of Uhlans, the orderly of the officer. He will stay with the
_Herr Oberleutnant_, and both of them will return here at their
own convenience and expense.