a huge saloon attached to the hotel, though scarcely part of it, and
certainly less exclusive than the hotel itself. Theodore Racksole knew
nothing of the affair, except that it was an entertainment offered by a
Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi to their friends. Who Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi
were he did not know, nor could anyone tell him anything about them
except that Mr Sampson Levi was a prominent member of that part of the
Stock Exchange familiarly called the Kaffir Circus, and that his wife
was a stout lady with an aquiline nose and many diamonds, and that they
were very rich and very hospitable. Theodore Racksole did not want a
ball in his hotel that evening, and just before dinner he had almost a
mind to issue a decree that the Gold Room was to be closed and the ball
forbidden, and Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi might name the amount of damages
suffered by them. His reasons for such a course were threefold--first,
he felt depressed and uneasy; second, he didn’t like the name of Sampson
Levi; and, third, he had a desire to show these so-called plutocrats
that their wealth was nothing to him, that they could not do what they
chose with Theodore Racksole, and that for two pins Theodore Racksole
would buy them up, and the whole Kaffir Circus to boot. But something
warned him that though such a high-handed proceeding might be tolerated
in America, that land of freedom, it would never be tolerated in
England. He felt instinctively that in England there are things you
can’t do, and that this particular thing was one of them. So the ball
went forward, and neither Mr nor Mrs Sampson Levi had ever the least
suspicion what a narrow escape they had had of looking very foolish in
the eyes of the thousand or so guests invited by them to the Gold Room
of the Grand Babylon that evening.
The Gold Room of the Grand Babylon was built for a ballroom. A balcony,
supported by arches faced with gilt and lapis-lazulo, ran around it, and
from this vantage men and maidens and chaperons who could not or would
not dance might survey the scene. Everyone knew this, and most people
took advantage of it. What everyone did not know--what no one knew--was
that higher up than the balcony there was a little barred window in the
end wall from which the hotel authorities might keep a watchful eye, not
only on the dancers, but on the occupants of the balcony itself.
It may seem incredible to the uninitiated that the guests at any social
gathering held in so gorgeous and renowned an apartment as the Gold Room
of the Grand Babylon should need the observation of a watchful eye. Yet
so it was. Strange matters and unexpected faces had been descried from
the little window, and more than one European detective had kept vigil
there with the most eminently satisfactory results.
At eleven o’clock Theodore Racksole, afflicted by vexation of spirit,
found himself gazing idly through the little barred window. Nella was
with him.
Together they had been wandering about the corridors of the hotel, still
strange to them both, and it was quite by accident that they had lighted
upon the small room which had a surreptitious view of Mr and Mrs Sampson
Levi’s ball. Except for the light of the chandelier of the ball-room the
little cubicle was in darkness. Nella was looking through the window;
her father stood behind.
‘I wonder which is Mrs Sampson Levi?’ Nella said, ‘and whether she
matches her name. Wouldn’t you love to have a name like that, Father--
something that people could take hold of--instead of Racksole?’
The sound of violins and a confused murmur of voices rose gently up to
them.
‘Umphl’ said Theodore. ‘Curse those evening papers!’ he added,
inconsequently but with sincerity.
‘Father, you’re very horrid to-night. What have the evening papers been
doing?’
‘Well, my young madame, they’ve got me in for one, and you for another;
and they’re manufacturing mysteries like fun. It’s young Dimmock’s death
that has started ‘em.’
‘Well, Father, you surely didn’t expect to keep yourself out of the
papers. Besides, as regards newspapers, you ought to be glad you aren’t
in New York. Just fancy what the dear old Herald would have made out of
a little transaction like yours of last night.’
‘That’s true,’ assented Racksole. ‘But it’ll be all over New York to-
morrow morning, all the same. The worst of it is that Babylon has gone
off to Switzerland.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t know. Sudden fancy, I guess, for his native heath.’
‘What difference does it make to you?’
‘None. Only I feel sort of lonesome. I feel I want someone to lean up
against in running this hotel.’
‘Father, if you have that feeling you must be getting ill.’
‘Yes,’ he sighed, ‘I admit it’s unusual with me. But perhaps you haven’t
grasped the fact, Nella, that we’re in the middle of a rather queer
business.’
‘You mean about poor Mr Dimmock?’
‘Partly Dimmock and partly other things. First of all, that Miss
Spencer, or whatever her wretched name is, mysteriously disappears. Then
there was the stone thrown into your bedroom. Then I caught that rascal
Jules conspiring with Dimmock at three o’clock in the morning. Then your
precious Prince Aribert arrives without any suite--which I believe is a
most peculiar and wicked thing for a Prince to do--and moreover I find
my daughter on very intimate terms with the said Prince. Then young
Dimmock goes and dies, and there is to be an inquest; then Prince Eugen
and his suite, who were expected here for dinner, fail to turn up at
all--’
‘Prince Eugen has not come?’
‘He has not; and Uncle Aribert is in a deuce of a stew about him, and
telegraphing all over Europe. Altogether, things are working up pretty
lively.’
‘Do you really think, Dad, there was anything between Jules and poor Mr
Dimmock?’
‘Think! I know! I tell you I saw that scamp give Dimmock a wink last
night at dinner that might have meant--well!’
‘So you caught that wink, did you, Dad?’
‘Why, did you?’
‘Of course, Dad. I was going to tell you about it.’
The millionaire grunted.
‘Look here, Father,’ Nella whispered suddenly, and pointed to the
balcony immediately below them. ‘Who’s that?’ She indicated a man with a
bald patch on the back of his head, who was propping himself up against
the railing of the balcony and gazing immovable into the ball-room.
‘Well, who is it?’
‘Isn’t it Jules?’
‘Gemini! By the beard of the prophet, it is!’
‘Perhaps Mr Jules is a guest of Mrs Sampson Levi.’
‘Guest or no guest, he goes out of this hotel, even if I have to throw
him out myself.’
Theodore Racksole disappeared without another word, and Nella followed
him.
But when the millionaire arrived on the balcony floor he could see
nothing of Jules, neither there nor in the ball-room itself. Saying no
word aloud, but quietly whispering wicked expletives, he searched
everywhere in vain, and then, at last, by tortuous stairways and
corridors returned to his original post of observation, that he might
survey the place anew from the vantage ground. To his surprise he found
a man in the dark little room, watching the scene of the ball as
intently as he himself had been doing a few minutes before. Hearing
footsteps, the man turned with a start.
It was Jules.
The two exchanged glances in the half light for a second.
‘Good evening, Mr Racksole,’ said Jules calmly. ‘I must apologize for
being here.’
‘Force of habit, I suppose,’ said Theodore Racksole drily.
‘Just so, sir.’
‘I fancied I had forbidden you to re-enter this hotel?’
‘I thought your order applied only to my professional capacity. I am
here to-night as the guest of Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi.’
‘In your new rôle of man-about-town, eh?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But I don’t allow men-about-town up here, my friend.’
‘For being up here I have already apologized.’
‘Then, having apologized, you had better depart; that is my
disinterested advice to you.’
‘Good night, sir.’
‘And, I say, Mr Jules, if Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi, or any other Hebrews
or Christians, should again invite you to my hotel you will oblige me by
declining the invitation. You’ll find that will be the safest course for
you.’
‘Good night, sir.’
Before midnight struck Theodore Racksole had ascertained that the
invitation-list of Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi, though a somewhat lengthy
one, contained no reference to any such person as Jules.
He sat up very late. To be precise, he sat up all night. He was a man
who, by dint of training, could comfortably dispense with sleep when he
felt so inclined, or when circumstances made such a course advisable. He
walked to and fro in his room, and cogitated as few people beside
Theodore Racksole could cogitate. At 6 a.m. he took a stroll round the
business part of his premises, and watched the supplies come in from
Covent Garden, from Smithfield, from Billingsgate, and from other
strange places. He found the proceedings of the kitchen department quite
interesting, and made mental notes of things that he would have altered,
of men whose wages he would increase and men whose wages he would
reduce. At 7 a.m. he happened to be standing near the luggage lift, and
witnessed the descent of vast quantities of luggage, and its
disappearance into a Carter Paterson van.
‘Whose luggage is that?’ he inquired peremptorily.
The luggage clerk, with an aggrieved expression, explained to him that
it was the luggage of nobody in particular, that it belonged to various
guests, and was bound for various destinations; that it was, in fact,
‘expressed’ luggage despatched in advance, and that a similar quantity
of it left the hotel every morning about that hour.
Theodore Racksole walked away, and breakfasted upon one cup of tea and
half a slice of toast.
At ten o’clock he was informed that the inspector of police desired to
see him. The inspector had come, he said, to superintend the removal of
the body of Reginald Dimmock to the mortuary adjoining the place of
inquest, and a suitable vehicle waited at the back entrance of the
hotel.
The inspector had also brought subpoenas for himself and Prince Aribert
of Posen and the commissionaire to attend the inquest.
‘I thought Mr Dimmock’s remains were removed last night,’ said Racksole
wearily.
‘No, sir. The fact is the van was engaged on another job.’
The inspector gave the least hint of a professional smile, and Racksole,
disgusted, told him curtly to go and perform his duties.
In a few minutes a message came from the inspector requesting Mr
Racksole to be good enough to come to him on the first floor. Racksole
went. In the ante-room, where the body of Reginald Dimmock had
originally been placed, were the inspector and Prince Aribert, and two
policemen.
‘Well?’ said Racksole, after he and the Prince had exchanged bows. Then
he saw a coffin laid across two chairs. ‘I see a coffin has been
obtained,’ he remarked. ‘Quite right’ He approached it. ‘It’s empty,’ he
observed unthinkingly.
‘Just so,’ said the inspector. ‘The body of the deceased has
disappeared.
And his Serene Highness Prince Aribert informs me that though he has
occupied a room immediately opposite, on the other side of the corridor,
he can throw no light on the affair.’
‘Indeed, I cannot!’ said the Prince, and though he spoke with sufficient
calmness and dignity, you could see that he was deeply pained, even
distressed.
‘Well, I’m--’ murmured Racksole, and stopped.
Chapter Seven NELLA AND THE PRINCE
IT appeared impossible to Theodore Racksole that so cumbrous an article
as a corpse could be removed out of his hotel, with no trace, no hint,
no clue as to the time or the manner of the performance of the deed.
After the first feeling of surprise, Racksole grew coldly and severely
angry. He had a mind to dismiss the entire staff of the hotel. He
personally examined the night-watchman, the chambermaids and all other
persons who by chance might or ought to know something of the affair;
but without avail. The corpse of Reginald Dimmock had vanished utterly--
disappeared like a fleshless spirit.
Of course there were the police. But Theodore Racksole held the police
in sorry esteem. He acquainted them with the facts, answered their
queries with a patient weariness, and expected nothing whatever from
that quarter. He also had several interviews with Prince Aribert of
Posen, but though the Prince was suavity itself and beyond doubt
genuinely concerned about the fate of his dead attendant, yet it seemed
to Racksole that he was keeping something back, that he hesitated to say
all he knew. Racksole, with characteristic insight, decided that the
death of Reginald Dimmock was only a minor event, which had occurred, as
it were, on the fringe of some far more profound mystery. And,
therefore, he decided to wait, with his eyes very wide open, until
something else happened that would throw light on the business. At the
moment he took only one measure--he arranged that the theft of Dimmock’s
body should not appear in the newspapers. It is astonishing how well a
secret can be kept, when the possessors of the secret are handled with
the proper mixture of firmness and persuasion. Racksole managed this
very neatly. It was a complicated job, and his success in it rather
pleased him.
At the same time he was conscious of being temporarily worsted by an
unknown group of schemers, in which he felt convinced that Jules was an
important item. He could scarcely look Nella in the eyes. The girl had
evidently expected him to unmask this conspiracy at once, with a single
stroke of the millionaire’s magic wand. She was thoroughly accustomed,
in the land of her birth, to seeing him achieve impossible feats. Over
there he was a ‘boss’; men trembled before his name; when he wished a
thing to happen--well, it happened; if he desired to know a thing, he
just knew it. But here, in London, Theodore Racksole was not quite the
same Theodore Racksole. He dominated New York; but London, for the most
part, seemed not to take much interest in him; and there were certainly
various persons in London who were capable of snapping their fingers at
him--at Theodore Racksole. Neither he nor his daughter could get used to
that fact.
As for Nella, she concerned herself for a little with the ordinary
business of the bureau, and watched the incomings and outgoings of
Prince Aribert with a kindly interest. She perceived, what her father
had failed to perceive, that His Highness had assumed an attitude of
reserve merely to hide the secret distraction and dismay which consumed
him. She saw that the poor fellow had no settled plan in his head, and
that he was troubled by something which, so far, he had confided to
nobody. It came to her knowledge that each morning he walked to and fro
on the Victoria Embankment, alone, and apparently with no object. On the
third morning she decided that driving exercise on the Embankment would
be good for her health, and thereupon ordered a carriage and issued
forth, arrayed in a miraculous putty-coloured gown. Near Blackfriars
Bridge she met the Prince, and the carriage was drawn up by the
pavement.
‘Good morning, Prince,’ she greeted him. ‘Are you mistaking this for
Hyde Park?’
He bowed and smiled.
‘I usually walk here in the mornings,’ he said.
‘You surprise me,’ she returned. ‘I thought I was the only person in
London who preferred the Embankment, with this view of the river, to the
dustiness of Hyde Park. I can’t imagine how it is that London will never
take exercise anywhere except in that ridiculous Park. Now, if they had
Central Park--’
‘I think the Embankment is the finest spot in all London,’ he said.
She leaned a little out of the landau, bringing her face nearer to his.
‘I do believe we are kindred spirits, you and I,’ she murmured; and
then, ‘Au revoir, Prince!’
‘One moment, Miss Racksole.’ His quick tones had a note of entreaty.
‘I am in a hurry,’ she fibbed; ‘I am not merely taking exercise this
morning. You have no idea how busy we are.’
‘Ah! then I will not trouble you. But I leave the Grand Babylon to-
night.’
‘Do you?’ she said. ‘Then will your Highness do me the honour of
lunching with me today in Father’s room? Father will be out--he is
having a day in the City with some stockbroking persons.’
‘I shall be charmed,’ said the Prince, and his face showed that he meant
it.
Nella drove off.
If the lunch was a success that result was due partly to Rocco, and
partly to Nella. The Prince said little beyond what the ordinary rules
of the conversational game demanded. His hostess talked much and talked
well, but she failed to rouse her guest. When they had had coffee he
took a rather formal leave of her.
‘Good-bye, Prince,’ she said, ‘but I thought--that is, no I didn’t.
Good-bye.’
‘You thought I wished to discuss something with you. I did; but I have
decided that I have no right to burden your mind with my affairs.’
‘But suppose--suppose I wish to be burdened?’
‘That is your good nature.’
‘Sit down,’ she said abruptly, ‘and tell me everything; mind,
everything. I adore secrets.’
Almost before he knew it he was talking to her, rapidly, eagerly.
‘Why should I weary you with my confidences?’ he said. ‘I don’t know, I
cannot tell; but I feel that I must. I feel that you will understand me
better than anyone else in the world. And yet why should you understand
me? Again, I don’t know. Miss Racksole, I will disclose to you the whole
trouble in a word. Prince Eugen, the hereditary Grand Duke of Posen, has
disappeared. Four days ago I was to have met him at Ostend. He had
affairs in London. He wished me to come with him. I sent Dimmock on in
front, and waited for Eugen. He did not arrive. I telegraphed back to
Cologne, his last stopping-place, and I learned that he had left there
in accordance with his programme; I learned also that he had passed
through Brussels. It must have been between Brussels and the railway
station at Ostend Quay that he disappeared. He was travelling with a
single equerry, and the equerry, too, has vanished. I need not explain
to you, Miss Racksole, that when a person of the importance of my nephew
contrives to get lost one must proceed cautiously. One cannot advertise
for him in the London Times. Such a disappearance must be kept secret.
The people at Posen and at Berlin believe that Eugen is in London, here,
at this hotel; or, rather, they did so believe. But this morning I
received a cypher telegram from--from His Majesty the Emperor, a very
peculiar telegram, asking when Eugen might be expected to return to
Posen, and requesting that he should go first to Berlin. That telegram
was addressed to myself. Now, if the Emperor thought that Eugen was
here, why should he have caused the telegram to be addressed to me? I
have hesitated for three days, but I can hesitate no longer. I must
myself go to the Emperor and acquaint him with the facts.’
‘I suppose you’ve just got to keep straight with him?’ Nella was on the
point of saying, but she checked herself and substituted, ‘The Emperor
is your chief, is he not? “First among equals”, you call him.’
‘His Majesty is our over-lord,’ said Aribert quietly.
‘Why do you not take immediate steps to inquire as to the whereabouts of
your Royal nephew?’ she asked simply. The affair seemed to her just then
so plain and straightforward.
‘Because one of two things may have happened. Either Eugen may have
been, in plain language, abducted, or he may have had his own reasons
for changing his programme and keeping in the background--out of reach
of telegraph and post and railways.’
‘What sort of reasons?’
‘Do not ask me. In the history of every family there are passages--’ He
stopped.
‘And what was Prince Eugen’s object in coming to London?’
Aribert hesitated.
‘Money,’ he said at length. ‘As a family we are very poor--poorer than
anyone in Berlin suspects.’
‘Prince Aribert,’ Nella said, ‘shall I tell you what I think?’ She
leaned back in her chair, and looked at him out of half-closed eyes. His
pale, thin, distinguished face held her gaze as if by some fascination.
There could be no mistaking this man for anything else but a Prince.
‘If you will,’ he said.
‘Prince Eugen is the victim of a plot.’
‘You think so?’
‘I am perfectly convinced of it.’
‘But why? What can be the object of a plot against him?’
‘That is a point of which you should know more than me,’ she remarked
drily.
‘Ah! Perhaps, perhaps,’ he said. ‘But, dear Miss Racksole, why are you
so sure?’
‘There are several reasons, and they are connected with Mr Dimmock. Did
you ever suspect, your Highness, that that poor young man was not
entirely loyal to you?’
‘He was absolutely loyal,’ said the Prince, with all the earnestness of
conviction.
‘A thousand pardons, but he was not.’
‘Miss Racksole, if any other than yourself made that assertion, I would-
-I would--’
‘Consign them to the deepest dungeon in Posen?’ she laughed, lightly.
‘Listen.’ And she told him of the incidents which had occurred in the
night preceding his arrival in the hotel.
‘Do you mean, Miss Racksole, that there was an understanding between
poor Dimmock and this fellow Jules?’
‘There was an understanding.’
‘Impossible!’
‘Your Highness, the man who wishes to probe a mystery to its root never
uses the word “impossible”. But I will say this for young Mr Dimmock. I
think he repented, and I think that it was because he repented that he--
er--died so suddenly, and that his body was spirited away.’
‘Why has no one told me these things before?’ Aribert exclaimed.
‘Princes seldom hear the truth,’ she said.
He was astonished at her coolness, her firmness of assertion, her air of
complete acquaintance with the world.
‘Miss Racksole,’ he said, ‘if you will permit me to say it, I have never
in my life met a woman like you. May I rely on your sympathy--your
support?’
‘My support, Prince? But how?’
‘I do not know,’ he replied. ‘But you could help me if you would. A
woman, when she has brain, always has more brain than a man.’
‘Ah!’ she said ruefully, ‘I have no brains, but I do believe I could
help you.’
What prompted her to make that assertion she could not have explained,
even to herself. But she made it, and she had a suspicion--a prescience-
-that it would be justified, though by what means, through what good
fortune, was still a mystery to her.
‘Go to Berlin,’ she said. ‘I see that you must do that; you have no
alternative. As for the rest, we shall see. Something will occur. I
shall be here. My father will be here. You must count us as your
friends.’
He kissed her hand when he left, and afterwards, when she was alone, she
kissed the spot his lips had touched again and again. Now, thinking the
matter out in the calmness of solitude, all seemed strange, unreal,
uncertain to her. Were conspiracies actually possible nowadays? Did
queer things actually happen in Europe? And did they actually happen in
London hotels? She dined with her father that night.
‘I hear Prince Aribert has left,’ said Theodore Racksole.
‘Yes,’ she assented. She said not a word about their interview.
Chapter Eight ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF THE BARONESS
ON the following morning, just before lunch, a lady, accompanied by a
maid and a considerable quantity of luggage, came to the Grand Babylon
Hôtel. She was a plump, little old lady, with white hair and an old-
fashioned bonnet, and she had a quaint, simple smile of surprise at
everything in general.
Nevertheless, she gave the impression of belonging to some aristocracy,
though not the English aristocracy. Her tone to her maid, whom she
addressed in broken English--the girl being apparently English--was
distinctly insolent, with the calm, unconscious insolence peculiar to a
certain type of Continental nobility. The name on the lady’s card ran
thus: ‘Baroness Zerlinski’. She desired rooms on the third floor. It
happened that Nella was in the bureau.
‘On the third floor, madam?’ questioned Nella, in her best clerkly
manner.
‘I did say on de tird floor,’ said the plump little old lady.
‘We have accommodation on the second floor.’
‘I wish to be high up, out of de dust and in de light,’ explained the
Baroness.
‘We have no suites on the third floor, madam.’
‘Never mind, no mattaire! Have you not two rooms that communicate?’
Nella consulted her books, rather awkwardly.
‘Numbers 122 and 123 communicate.’
‘Or is it 121 and 122?’ the little old lady remarked quickly, and then
bit her lip.
‘I beg your pardon. I should have said 121 and 122.’