belonged to the highest aristocracy of pleasure craft. As she reclined
in the deck-chair (it did not occur to her at that moment to speculate
as to the identity of the person who had led her therein) she examined
all visible details of the vessel. The deck was as white and smooth as
her own hand, and the seams ran along its length like blue veins. All
the brass-work, from the band round the slender funnel to the concave
surface of the binnacle, shone like gold.
The tapered masts stretched upwards at a rakish angle, and the rigging
seemed like spun silk. No sails were set; the yacht was under steam, and
doing about seven or eight knots. She judged that it was a boat of a
hundred tons or so, probably Clyde-built, and not more than two or three
years old.
No one was to be seen on deck except the man at the wheel: this man wore
a blue jersey; but there was neither name nor initial on the jersey, nor
was there a name on the white life-buoys lashed to the main rigging, nor
on the polished dinghy which hung on the starboard davits. She called to
the man, and called again, in a feeble voice, but the steerer took no
notice of her, and continued his quiet song as though nothing else
existed in the universe save the yacht, the sea, the sun, and himself.
Then her eyes swept the outline of the land from which they were
hastening, and she could just distinguish a lighthouse and a great white
irregular dome, which she recognized as the Kursaal at Ostend, that
gorgeous rival of the gaming palace at Monte Carlo. So she was leaving
Ostend. The rays of the sun fell on her caressingly, like a restorative.
All around the water was changing from wonderful greys and dark blues to
still more wonderful pinks and translucent unearthly greens; the magic
kaleidoscope of dawn was going forward in its accustomed way, regardless
of the vicissitudes of mortals.
Here and there in the distance she descried a sail--the brown sail of
some Ostend fishing-boat returning home after a night’s trawling. Then
the beat of paddles caught her ear, and a steamer blundered past,
wallowing clumsily among the waves like a tortoise. It was the Swallow
from London. She could see some of its passengers leaning curiously over
the aft-rail. A girl in a mackintosh signalled to her, and mechanically
she answered the salute with her arm. The officer of the bridge of the
Swallow hailed the yacht, but the man at the wheel offered no reply. In
another minute the Swallow was nothing but a blot in the distance.
Nella tried to sit straight in the deck-chair, but she found herself
unable to do so. Throwing off the rug which covered her, she discovered
that she had been tied to the chair by means of a piece of broad
webbing. Instantly she was alert, awake, angry; she knew that her perils
were not over; she felt that possibly they had scarcely yet begun. Her
lazy contentment, her dreamy sense of peace and repose, vanished
utterly, and she steeled herself to meet the dangers of a grave and
difficult situation.
Just at that moment a man came up from below. He was a man of forty or
so, clad in irreproachable blue, with a peaked yachting cap. He raised
the cap politely.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Beautiful sunrise, isn’t it?’ The clever and
calculated insolence of his tone cut her like a lash as she lay bound in
the chair. Like all people who have lived easy and joyous lives in those
fair regions where gold smoothes every crease and law keeps a tight hand
on disorder, she found it hard to realize that there were other regions
where gold was useless and law without power. Twenty-four hours ago she
would have declared it impossible that such an experience as she had
suffered could happen to anyone; she would have talked airily about
civilization and the nineteenth century, and progress and the police.
But her experience was teaching her that human nature remains always the
same, and that beneath the thin crust of security on which we good
citizens exist the dark and secret forces of crime continue to move,
just as they did in the days when you couldn’t go from Cheapside to
Chelsea without being set upon by thieves. Her experience was in a fair
way to teach her this lesson better than she could have learnt it even
in the bureaux of the detective police of Paris, London, and St
Petersburg.
‘Good morning,’ the man repeated, and she glanced at him with a sullen,
angry gaze.
‘You!’ she exclaimed, ‘You, Mr Thomas Jackson, if that is your name!
Loose me from this chair, and I will talk to you.’ Her eyes flashed as
she spoke, and the contempt in them added mightily to her beauty. Mr
Thomas Jackson, otherwise Jules, erstwhile head waiter at the Grand
Babylon, considered himself a connoisseur in feminine loveliness, and
the vision of Nella Racksole smote him like an exquisite blow.
‘With pleasure,’ he replied. ‘I had forgotten that to prevent you from
falling I had secured you to the chair’; and with a quick movement he
unfastened the band. Nella stood up, quivering with fiery annoyance and
scorn.
‘Now,’ she said, fronting him, ‘what is the meaning of this?’
‘You fainted,’ he replied imperturbably. ‘Perhaps you don’t remember.’
The man offered her a deck-chair with a characteristic gesture. Nella
was obliged to acknowledge, in spite of herself, that the fellow had
distinction, an air of breeding. No one would have guessed that for
twenty years he had been an hotel waiter. His long, lithe figure, and
easy, careless carriage seemed to be the figure and carriage of an
aristocrat, and his voice was quiet, restrained, and authoritative.
‘That has nothing to do with my being carried off in this yacht of
yours.’
‘It is not my yacht,’ he said, ‘but that is a minor detail. As to the
more important matter, forgive me that I remind you that only a few
hours ago you were threatening a lady in my house with a revolver.’
‘Then it was your house?’
‘Why not? May I not possess a house?’ He smiled.
‘I must request you to put the yacht about at once, instantly, and take
me back.’ She tried to speak firmly.
‘Ah!’ he said, ‘I am afraid that’s impossible. I didn’t put out to sea
with the intention of returning at once, instantly.’ In the last words
he gave a faint imitation of her tone.
‘When I do get back,’ she said, ‘when my father gets to know of this
affair, it will be an exceedingly bad day for you, Mr Jackson.’
‘But supposing your father doesn’t hear of it--’
‘What?’
‘Supposing you never get back?’
‘Do you mean, then, to have my murder on your conscience?’
‘Talking of murder,’ he said, ‘you came very near to murdering my
friend, Miss Spencer. At least, so she tells me.’
‘Is Miss Spencer on board?’ Nella asked, seeing perhaps a faint ray of
hope in the possible presence of a woman.
‘Miss Spencer is not on board. There is no one on board except you and
myself and a small crew--a very discreet crew, I may add.’
‘I will have nothing more to say to you. You must take your own course.’
‘Thanks for the permission,’ he said. ‘I will send you up some
breakfast.’
He went to the saloon stairs and whistled, and a Negro boy appeared with
a tray of chocolate. Nella took it, and, without the slightest
hesitation, threw it overboard. Mr Jackson walked away a few steps and
then returned.
‘You have spirit,’ he said, ‘and I admire spirit. It is a rare quality.’
She made no reply. ‘Why did you mix yourself up in my affairs at all?’
he went on. Again she made no reply, but the question set her thinking:
why had she mixed herself up in this mysterious business? It was quite
at variance with the usual methods of her gay and butterfly existence to
meddle at all with serious things. Had she acted merely from a desire to
see justice done and wickedness punished? Or was it the desire of
adventure? Or was it, perhaps, the desire to be of service to His Serene
Highness Prince Aribert? ‘It is no fault of mine that you are in this
fix,’ Jules continued. ‘I didn’t bring you into it. You brought yourself
into it. You and your father--you have been moving along at a pace which
is rather too rapid.’
‘That remains to be seen,’ she put in coldly.
‘It does,’ he admitted. ‘And I repeat that I can’t help admiring you--
that is, when you aren’t interfering with my private affairs. That is a
proceeding which I have never tolerated from anyone--not even from a
millionaire, nor even from a beautiful woman.’ He bowed. ‘I will tell
you what I propose to do. I propose to escort you to a place of safety,
and to keep you there till my operations are concluded, and the
possibility of interference entirely removed. You spoke just now of
murder. What a crude notion that was of yours! It is only the amateur
who practises murder--’
‘What about Reginald Dimmock?’ she interjected quickly.
He paused gravely.
‘Reginald Dimmock,’ he repeated. ‘I had imagined his was a case of heart
disease. Let me send you up some more chocolate. I’m sure you’re
hungry.’
‘I will starve before I touch your food,’ she said.
‘Gallant creature!’ he murmured, and his eyes roved over her face. Her
superb, supercilious beauty overcame him. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘what a wife
you would make!’ He approached nearer to her. ‘You and I, Miss Racksole,
your beauty and wealth and my brains--we could conquer the world. Few
men are worthy of you, but I am one of the few. Listen! You might do
worse. Marry me. I am a great man; I shall be greater. I adore you.
Marry me, and I will save your life. All shall be well. I will begin
again. The past shall be as though there had been no past.’
‘This is somewhat sudden--Jules,’ she said with biting contempt.
‘Did you expect me to be conventional?’ he retorted. ‘I love you.’
‘Granted,’ she said, for the sake of the argument. ‘Then what will occur
to your present wife?’
‘My present wife?’
‘Yes, Miss Spencer, as she is called.’
‘She told you I was her husband?’
‘Incidentally she did.’
‘She isn’t.’
‘Perhaps she isn’t. But, nevertheless, I think I won’t marry you.’ Nella
stood like a statue of scorn before him.
He went still nearer to her. ‘Give me a kiss, then; one kiss--I won’t
ask for more; one kiss from those lips, and you shall go free. Men have
ruined themselves for a kiss. I will.’
‘Coward!’ she ejaculated.
‘Coward!’ he repeated. ‘Coward, am I? Then I’ll be a coward, and you
shall kiss me whether you will or not.’
He put a hand on her shoulder. As she shrank back from his lustrous
eyes, with an involuntary scream, a figure sprang out of the dinghy a
few feet away. With a single blow, neatly directed to Mr Jackson’s ear,
Mr Jackson was stretched senseless on the deck. Prince Aribert of Posen
stood over him with a revolver. It was probably the greatest surprise of
Mr Jackson’s whole life.
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said the Prince to Nella, ‘my being here is the
simplest thing in the world, and I will explain it as soon as I have
finished with this fellow.’
Nella could think of nothing to say, but she noticed the revolver in the
Prince’s hand.
‘Why,’ she remarked, ‘that’s my revolver.’
‘It is,’ he said, ‘and I will explain that, too.’
The man at the wheel gave no heed whatever to the scene.
Chapter Eleven THE COURT PAWNBROKER
‘MR SAMPSON LEVI wishes to see you, sir.’
These words, spoken by a servant to Theodore Racksole, aroused the
millionaire from a reverie which had been the reverse of pleasant. The
fact was, and it is necessary to insist on it, that Mr Racksole, owner
of the Grand Babylon Hôtel, was by no means in a state of self-
satisfaction. A mystery had attached itself to his hotel, and with all
his acumen and knowledge of things in general he was unable to solve
that mystery. He laughed at the fruitless efforts of the police, but he
could not honestly say that his own efforts had been less barren. The
public was talking, for, after all, the disappearance of poor Dimmock’s
body had got noised abroad in an indirect sort of way, and Theodore
Racksole did not like the idea of his impeccable hotel being the subject
of sinister rumours. He wondered, grimly, what the public and the Sunday
newspapers would say if they were aware of all the other phenomena, not
yet common property: of Miss Spencer’s disappearance, of Jules’ strange
visits, and of the non-arrival of Prince Eugen of Posen. Theodore
Racksole had worried his brain without result. He had conducted an
elaborate private investigation without result, and he had spent a
certain amount of money without result. The police said that they had a
clue; but Racksole remarked that it was always the business of the
police to have a clue, that they seldom had more than a clue, and that a
clue without some sequel to it was a pretty stupid business. The only
sure thing in the whole affair was that a cloud rested over his hotel,
his beautiful new toy, the finest of its kind. The cloud was not
interfering with business, but, nevertheless, it was a cloud, and he
fiercely resented its presence; perhaps it would be more correct to say
that he fiercely resented his inability to dissipate it.
‘Mr Sampson Levi wishes to see you, sir,’ the servant repeated, having
received no sign that his master had heard him.
‘So I hear,’ said Racksole. ‘Does he want to see me, personally?’
‘He asked for you, sir.’
‘Perhaps it is Rocco he wants to see, about a menu or something of that
kind?’
‘I will inquire, sir,’ and the servant made a move to withdraw.
‘Stop,’ Racksole commanded suddenly. ‘Desire Mr Sampson Levi to step
this way.’
The great stockbroker of the ‘Kaffir Circus’ entered with a simple
unassuming air. He was a rather short, florid man, dressed like a
typical Hebraic financier, with too much watch-chain and too little
waistcoat. In his fat hand he held a gold-headed cane, and an absolutely
new silk hat--for it was Friday, and Mr Levi purchased a new hat every
Friday of his life, holiday times only excepted. He breathed heavily and
sniffed through his nose a good deal, as though he had just performed
some Herculean physical labour. He glanced at the American millionaire
with an expression in which a slight embarrassment might have been
detected, but at the same time his round, red face disclosed a certain
frank admiration and good nature.
‘Mr Racksole, I believe--Mr Theodore Racksole. Proud to meet you, sir.’
Such were the first words of Mr Sampson Levi. In form they were the
greeting of a third-rate chimney-sweep, but, strangely enough, Theodore
Racksole liked their tone. He said to himself that here, precisely where
no one would have expected to find one, was an honest man.
‘Good day,’ said Racksole briefly. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure--’
‘I expect your time is limited,’ answered Sampson Levi. ‘Anyhow, mine
is, and so I’ll come straight to the point, Mr Racksole. I’m a plain
man. I don’t pretend to be a gentleman or any nonsense of that kind. I’m
a stockbroker, that’s what I am, and I don’t care who knows it. The
other night I had a ball in this hotel. It cost me a couple of thousand
and odd pounds, and, by the way, I wrote out a cheque for your bill this
morning. I don’t like balls, but they’re useful to me, and my little
wife likes ‘em, and so we give ‘em. Now, I’ve nothing to say against the
hotel management as regards that ball: it was very decently done, very
decently, but what I want to know is this--Why did you have a private
detective among my guests?’
‘A private detective?’ exclaimed Racksole, somewhat surprised at this
charge.
‘Yes,’ Mr Sampson Levi said firmly, fanning himself in his chair, and
gazing at Theodore Racksole with the direct earnest expression of a man
having a grievance. ‘Yes; a private detective. It’s a small matter, I
know, and I dare say you think you’ve got a right, as proprietor of the
show, to do what you like in that line; but I’ve just called to tell you
that I object. I’ve called as a matter of principle. I’m not angry; it’s
the principle of the thing.’
‘My dear Mr Levi,’ said Racksole, ‘I assure you that, having let the
Gold Room to a private individual for a private entertainment, I should
never dream of doing what you suggest.’
‘Straight?’ asked Mr Sampson Levi, using his own picturesque language.
‘Straight,’ said Racksole smiling.
‘There was a gent present at my ball that I didn’t ask. I’ve got a
wonderful memory for faces, and I know. Several fellows asked me
afterwards what he was doing there. I was told by someone that he was
one of your waiters, but I didn’t believe that. I know nothing of the
Grand Babylon; it’s not quite my style of tavern, but I don’t think
you’d send one of your own waiters to watch my guests--unless, of
course, you sent him as a waiter; and this chap didn’t do any waiting,
though he did his share of drinking.’
‘Perhaps I can throw some light on this mystery,’ said Racksole. ‘I may
tell you that I was already aware that man had attended your ball
uninvited.’
‘How did you get to know?’
‘By pure chance, Mr Levi, and not by inquiry. That man was a former
waiter at this hotel--the head waiter, in fact--Jules. No doubt you have
heard of him.’
‘Not I,’ said Mr Levi positively.
‘Ah!’ said Racksole, ‘I was informed that everyone knew Jules, but it
appears not. Well, be that as it may, previously to the night of your
ball, I had dismissed Jules. I had ordered him never to enter the
Babylon again.
But on that evening I encountered him here--not in the Gold Room, but in
the hotel itself. I asked him to explain his presence, and he stated he
was your guest. That is all I know of the matter, Mr Levi, and I am
extremely sorry that you should have thought me capable of the enormity
of placing a private detective among your guests.’
‘This is perfectly satisfactory to me,’ Mr Sampson Levi said, after a
pause.
‘I only wanted an explanation, and I’ve got it. I was told by some pals
of mine in the City I might rely on Mr Theodore Racksole going straight
to the point, and I’m glad they were right. Now as to that feller Jules,
I shall make my own inquiries as to him. Might I ask you why you
dismissed him?’
‘I don’t know why I dismissed him.’
‘You don’t know? Oh! come now! I’m only asking because I thought you
might be able to give me a hint why he turned up uninvited at my ball.
Sorry if I’m too inquisitive.’
‘Not at all, Mr Levi; but I really don’t know. I only sort of felt that
he was a suspicious character. I dismissed him on instinct, as it were.
See?’
Without answering this question Mr Levi asked another. ‘If this Jules is
such a well-known person,’ he said, ‘how could the feller hope to come
to my ball without being recognized?’
‘Give it up,’ said Racksole promptly.
‘Well, I’ll be moving on,’ was Mr Sampson Levi’s next remark. ‘Good day,
and thank ye. I suppose you aren’t doing anything in Kaffirs?’
Mr Racksole smiled a negative.
‘I thought not,’ said Levi. ‘Well, I never touch American rails myself,
and so I reckon we sha’n’t come across each other. Good day.’
‘Good day,’ said Racksole politely, following Mr Sampson Levi to the
door.
With his hand on the handle of the door, Mr Levi stopped, and, gazing at
Theodore Racksole with a shrewd, quizzical expression, remarked:
‘Strange things been going on here lately, eh?’
The two men looked very hard at each other for several seconds.
‘Yes,’ Racksole assented. ‘Know anything about them?’
‘Well--no, not exactly,’ said Mr Levi. ‘But I had a fancy you and I
might be useful to each other; I had a kind of fancy to that effect.’
‘Come back and sit down again, Mr Levi,’ Racksole said, attracted by the
evident straightforwardness of the man’s tone. ‘Now, how can we be of
service to each other? I flatter myself I’m something of a judge of
character, especially financial character, and I tell you--if you’ll put
your cards on the table, I’ll do ditto with mine.’
‘Agreed,’ said Mr Sampson Levi. ‘I’ll begin by explaining my interest in
your hotel. I have been expecting to receive a summons from a certain
Prince Eugen of Posen to attend him here, and that summons hasn’t
arrived. It appears that Prince Eugen hasn’t come to London at all. Now,
I could have taken my dying davy that he would have been here yesterday
at the latest.’
‘Why were you so sure?’
‘Question for question,’ said Levi. ‘Let’s clear the ground first, Mr
Racksole. Why did you buy this hotel? That’s a conundrum that’s been
puzzling a lot of our fellows in the City for some days past. Why did
you buy the Grand Babylon? And what is the next move to be?’
‘There is no next move,’ answered Racksole candidly, ‘and I will tell
you why I bought the hotel; there need be no secret about it. I bought
it because of a whim.’ And then Theodore Racksole gave this little Jew,
whom he had begun to respect, a faithful account of the transaction with
Mr Felix Babylon. ‘I suppose,’ he added, ‘you find a difficulty in
appreciating my state of mind when I did the deal.’
‘Not a bit,’ said Mr Levi. ‘I once bought an electric launch on the
Thames in a very similar way, and it turned out to be one of the most
satisfactory purchases I ever made. Then it’s a simple accident that you
own this hotel at the present moment?’
‘A simple accident--all because of a beefsteak and a bottle of Bass.’
‘Um!’ grunted Mr Sampson Levi, stroking his triple chin.
‘To return to Prince Eugen,’ Racksole resumed. ‘I was expecting His
Highness here. The State apartments had been prepared for him. He was
due on the very afternoon that young Dimmock died. But he never came,
and I have not heard why he has failed to arrive; nor have I seen his
name in the papers. What his business was in London, I don’t know.’
‘I will tell you,’ said Mr Sampson Levi, ‘he was coming to arrange a
loan.’
‘A State loan?’
‘No--a private loan.’
‘Whom from?’
‘From me, Sampson Levi. You look surprised. If you’d lived in London a
little longer, you’d know that I was just the person the Prince would
come to. Perhaps you aren’t aware that down Throgmorton Street way I’m
called “The Court Pawnbroker”, because I arrange loans for the minor,
second-class Princes of Europe. I’m a stockbroker, but my real business
is financing some of the little Courts of Europe. Now, I may tell you
that the Hereditary Prince of Posen particularly wanted a million, and
he wanted it by a certain date, and he knew that if the affair wasn’t
fixed up by a certain time here he wouldn’t be able to get it by that
certain date. That’s why I’m surprised he isn’t in London.’
‘What did he need a million for?’
‘Debts,’ answered Sampson Levi laconically.
‘His own?’
‘Certainly.’
‘But he isn’t thirty years of age?’
‘What of that? He isn’t the only European Prince who has run up a
million of debts in a dozen years. To a Prince the thing is as easy as
eating a sandwich.’
‘And why has he taken this sudden resolution to liquidate them?’
‘Because the Emperor and the lady’s parents won’t let him marry till he
has done so! And quite right, too! He’s got to show a clean sheet, or
the Princess Anna of Eckstein-Schwartzburg will never be Princess of
Posen. Even now the Emperor has no idea how much Prince Eugen’s debts
amount to. If he had--!’
‘But would not the Emperor know of this proposed loan?’
‘Not necessarily at once. It could be so managed. Twig?’ Mr Sampson Levi
laughed. ‘I’ve carried these little affairs through before. After
marriage it might be allowed to leak out. And you know the Princess
Anna’s fortune is pretty big! Now, Mr Racksole,’ he added, abruptly
changing his tone, ‘where do you suppose Prince Eugen has disappeared
to? Because if he doesn’t turn up to-day he can’t have that million. To-
day is the last day. To-morrow the money will be appropriated,
elsewhere. Of course, I’m not alone in this business, and my friends
have something to say.’
‘You ask me where I think Prince Eugen has disappeared to?’
‘I do.’
‘Then you think it’s a disappearance?’
Sampson Levi nodded. ‘Putting two and two together,’ he said, ‘I do. The
Dimmock business is very peculiar--very peculiar, indeed. Dimmock was a
left-handed relation of the Posen family. Twig? Scarcely anyone knows
that.
He was made secretary and companion to Prince Aribert, just to keep him
in the domestic circle. His mother was an Irishwoman, whose misfortune
was that she was too beautiful. Twig?’ (Mr Sampson Levi always used this
extraordinary word when he was in a communicative mood.) ‘My belief is
that Dimmock’s death has something to do with the disappearance of
Prince Eugen.
The only thing that passes me is this: Why should anyone want to make
Prince Eugen disappear? The poor little Prince hasn’t an enemy in the
world. If he’s been “copped”, as they say, why has he been “copped”? It
won’t do anyone any good.’
‘Won’t it?’ repeated Racksole, with a sudden flash.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Mr Levi.