was thinking of his own situation in the lift.
‘Do you not think we might investigate a little further,’ said the
Prince judiciously, as he cracked a walnut, ‘just a little further--and
then, if we fail to accomplish anything, there would still be ample
opportunity to consult the police?’
‘How do you suggest we should begin?’ asked Racksole.
‘Well, there is the house which Miss Racksole so intrepidly entered last
evening’--he gave her the homage of an admiring glance; ‘you and I, Mr
Racksole, might examine that abode in detail.’
‘To-night?’
‘Certainly. We might do something.’
‘We might do too much.’
‘For example?’
‘We might shoot someone, or get ourselves mistaken for burglars. If we
outstepped the law, it would be no excuse for us that we had been acting
in a good cause.’
‘True,’ said the Prince. ‘Nevertheless--’ He stopped.
‘Nevertheless you have a distaste for bringing the police into the
business.
You want the hunt all to yourself. You are on fire with the ardour of
the chase. Is not that it? Accept the advice of an older man, Prince,
and sleep on this affair. I have little fancy for nocturnal escapades
two nights together. As for you, Nella, off with you to bed. The Prince
and I will have a yarn over such fluids as can be obtained in this
hole.’
‘Papa,’ she said, ‘you are perfectly horrid to-night.’
‘Perhaps I am,’ he said. ‘Decidedly I am very cross with you for coming
over here all alone. It was monstrous. If I didn’t happen to be the most
foolish of parents--There! Good-night. It’s nine o’clock. The Prince, I
am sure, will excuse you.’
If Nella had not really been very tired Prince Aribert might have been
the witness of a good-natured but stubborn conflict between the
millionaire and his spirited offspring. As it was, Nella departed with
surprising docility, and the two men were left alone.
‘Now,’ said Racksole suddenly, changing his tone, ‘I fancy that after
all I’m your man for a little amateur investigation to-night. And, if I
must speak the exact truth, I think that to sleep on this affair would
be about the very worst thing we could do. But I was anxious to keep
Nella out of harm’s way at any rate till to-morrow. She is a very
difficult creature to manage, Prince, and I may warn you,’ he laughed
grimly, ‘that if we do succeed in doing anything to-night we shall catch
it from her ladyship in the morning. Are you ready to take that risk?’
‘I am,’ the Prince smiled. ‘But Miss Racksole is a young lady of quite
remarkable nerve.’
‘She is,’ said Racksole drily. ‘I wish sometimes she had less.’
‘I have the highest admiration for Miss Racksole,’ said the Prince, and
he looked Miss Racksole’s father full in the face.
‘You honour us, Prince,’ Racksole observed. ‘Let us come to business. Am
I right in assuming that you have a reason for keeping the police out of
this business, if it can possibly be done?’
‘Yes,’ said the Prince, and his brow clouded. ‘I am very much afraid
that my poor nephew has involved himself in some scrape that he would
wish not to be divulged.’
‘Then you do not believe that he is the victim of foul play?’
‘I do not.’
‘And the reason, if I may ask it?’
‘Mr Racksole, we speak in confidence--is it not so? Some years ago my
foolish nephew had an affair--an affair with a feminine star of the
Berlin stage. For anything I know, the lady may have been the very
pattern of her sex, but where a reigning Prince is concerned scandal
cannot be avoided in such a matter. I had thought that the affair was
quite at an end, since my nephew’s betrothal to Princess Anna of
Eckstein-Schwartzburg is shortly to be announced. But yesterday I saw
the lady to whom I have referred driving on the Digue. The coincidence
of her presence here with my nephew’s disappearance is too extraordinary
to be disregarded.’
‘But how does this theory square with the murder of Reginald Dimmock?’
‘It does not square with it. My idea is that the murder of poor Dimmock
and the disappearance of my nephew are entirely unconnected--unless,
indeed, this Berlin actress is playing into the hands of the murderers.
I had not thought of that.’
‘Then what do you propose to do to-night?’
‘I propose to enter the house which Miss Racksole entered last night and
to find out something definite.’
‘I concur,’ said Racksole. ‘I shall heartily enjoy it. But let me tell
you, Prince, and pardon me for speaking bluntly, your surmise is
incorrect. I would wager a hundred thousand dollars that Prince Eugen
has been kidnapped.’
‘What grounds have you for being so sure?’
‘Ah! said Racksole, ‘that is a long story. Let me begin by asking you
this.
Are you aware that your nephew, Prince Eugen, owes a million of money?’
‘A million of money!’ cried Prince Aribert astonished. ‘It is
impossible!’
‘Nevertheless, he does,’ said Racksole calmly. Then he told him all he
had learnt from Mr Sampson Levi.
‘What have you to say to that?’ Racksole ended. Prince Aribert made no
reply.
‘What have you to say to that?’ Racksole insisted.
‘Merely that Eugen is ruined, even if he is alive.’
‘Not at all,’ Racksole returned with cheerfulness. ‘Not at all. We shall
see about that. The special thing that I want to know just now from you
is this:
Has any previous application ever been made for the hand of the Princess
Anna?’
‘Yes. Last year. The King of Bosnia sued for it, but his proposal was
declined.’
‘Why?’
‘Because my nephew was considered to be a more suitable match for her.’
‘Not because the personal character of his Majesty of Bosnia is scarcely
of the brightest?’
‘No. Unfortunately it is usually impossible to consider questions of
personal character when a royal match is concerned.’
‘Then, if for any reason the marriage of Princess Anna with your nephew
was frustrated, the King of Bosnia would have a fair chance in that
quarter?’
‘He would. The political aspect of things would be perfectly
satisfactory.’
‘Thanks!’ said Racksole. ‘I will wager another hundred thousand dollars
that someone in Bosnia--I don’t accuse the King himself--is at the
bottom of this business. The methods of Balkan politicians have always
been half-Oriental. Let us go.’
‘Where?’
‘To this precious house of Nella’s adventure.’
‘But surely it is too early?’
‘So it is,’ said Racksole, ‘and we shall want a few things, too. For
instance, a dark lantern. I think I will go out and forage for a
lantern.’
‘And a revolver?’ suggested Prince Aribert.
‘Does it mean revolvers?’ The millionaire laughed. ‘It may come to
that.’ ‘Here you are, then, my friend,’ said Racksole, and he pulled one
out of his hip pocket. ‘And yours?’
‘I,’ said the Prince, ‘I have your daughter’s.’
‘The deuce you have!’ murmured Racksole to himself.
It was then half past nine. They decided that it would be impolitic to
begin their operations till after midnight. There were three hours to
spare.
‘Let us go and see the gambling,’ Racksole suggested. ‘We might
encounter the Berlin lady.’
The suggestion, in the first instance, was not made seriously, but it
appeared to both men that they might do worse than spend the intervening
time in the gorgeous saloon of the Kursaal, where, in the season, as
much money is won and lost as at Monte Carlo. It was striking ten
o’clock as they entered the rooms. There was a large company present--a
company which included some of the most notorious persons in Europe. In
that multifarious assemblage all were equal. The electric light shone
coldly and impartially on the just and on the unjust, on the fool and
the knave, on the European and the Asiatic. As usual, women monopolized
the best places at the tables.
The scene was familiar enough to Prince Aribert, who had witnessed it
frequently at Monaco, but Theodore Racksole had never before entered any
European gaming palace; he had only the haziest idea of the rules of
play, and he was at once interested. For some time they watched the play
at the table which happened to be nearest to them. Racksole never moved
his lips.
With his eyes glued on the table, and ears open for every remark, of the
players and the croupier, he took his first lesson in roulette. He saw a
mere youth win fifteen thousand francs, which were stolen in the most
barefaced manner by a rouged girl scarcely older than the youth; he saw
two old gamesters stake their coins, and lose, and walk quietly out of
the place; he saw the bank win fifty thousand francs at a single turn.
‘This is rather good fun,’ he said at length, ‘but the stakes are too
small to make it really exciting. I’ll try my luck, just for the
experience. I’m bound to win.’
‘Why?’ asked the Prince.
‘Because I always do, in games of chance,’ Racksole answered with gay
confidence. ‘It is my fate. Then to-night, you must remember, I shall be
a beginner, and you know the tyro’s luck.’
In ten minutes the croupier of that table was obliged to suspend
operations pending the arrival of a further supply of coin.
‘What did I tell you?’ said Racksole, leading the way to another table
further up the room. A hundred curious glances went after him. One old
woman, whose gay attire suggested a false youthfulness, begged him in
French to stake a five-franc piece for her. She offered him the coin. He
took it, and gave her a hundred-franc note in exchange. She clutched the
crisp rustling paper, and with hysterical haste scuttled back to her own
table.
At the second table there was a considerable air of excitement. In the
forefront of the players was a woman in a low-cut evening dress of black
silk and a large red picture hat. Her age appeared to be about twenty-
eight; she had dark eyes, full lips, and a distinctly Jewish nose. She
was handsome, but her beauty was of that forbidding, sinister order
which is often called Junoesque. This woman was the centre of
attraction. People said to each other that she had won a hundred and
sixty thousand francs that day at the table.
‘You were right,’ Prince Aribert whispered to Theodore Racksole; ‘that
is the Berlin lady.’
‘The deuce she is! Has she seen you? Will she know you?’
‘She would probably know me, but she hasn’t looked up yet.’
‘Keep behind her, then. I propose to find her a little occupation.’ By
dint of a carefully-exercised diplomacy, Racksole manoeuvred himself
into a seat opposite to the lady in the red hat. The fame of his success
at the other table had followed him, and people regarded him as a
serious and formidable player. In the first turn the lady put a thousand
francs on double zero; Racksole put a hundred on number nineteen and a
thousand on the odd numbers.
Nineteen won. Racksole received four thousand four hundred francs. Nine
times in succession Racksole backed number nineteen and the odd numbers;
nine times the lady backed double zero. Nine times Racksole won and the
lady lost. The other players, perceiving that the affair had resolved
itself into a duel, stood back for the most part and watched those two.
Prince Aribert never stirred from his position behind the great red hat.
The game continued. Racksole lost trifles from time to time, but ninety-
nine hundredths of the luck was with him. As an English spectator at the
table remarked, ‘he couldn’t do wrong.’ When midnight struck the lady in
the red hat was reduced to a thousand francs. Then she fell into a
winning vein for half an hour, but at one o’clock her resources were
exhausted. Of the hundred and sixty thousand francs which she was
reputed to have had early in the evening, Racksole held about ninety
thousand, and the bank had the rest.
It was a calamity for the Juno of the red hat. She jumped up, stamped
her foot, and hurried from the room. At a discreet distance Racksole and
the Prince pursued her.
‘It might be well to ascertain her movements,’ said Racksole.
Outside, in the glare of the great arc lights, and within sound of the
surf which beats always at the very foot of the Kursaal, the Juno of the
red hat summoned a fiacre and drove rapidly away. Racksole and the
Prince took an open carriage and started in pursuit. They had not,
however, travelled more than half a mile when Prince Aribert stopped the
carriage, and, bidding Racksole get out, paid the driver and dismissed
him.
‘I feel sure I know where she is going,’ he explained, ‘and it will be
better for us to follow on foot.’
‘You mean she is making for the scene of last night’s affair?’ said
Racksole.
‘Exactly. We shall--what you call, kill two birds with one stone.’
Prince Aribert’s guess was correct. The lady’s carriage stopped in front
of the house where Nella Racksole and Miss Spencer had had their
interview on the previous evening, and the lady vanished into the
building just as the two men appeared at the end of the street. Instead
of proceeding along that street, the Prince led Racksole to the lane
which gave on to the backs of the houses, and he counted the houses as
they went up the lane. In a few minutes they had burglariously climbed
over a wall, and crept, with infinite caution, up a long, narrow piece
of ground--half garden, half paved yard, till they crouched under a
window--a window which was shielded by curtains, but which had been left
open a little.
‘Listen,’ said the Prince in his lightest whisper, ‘they are talking.’
‘Who?’
‘The Berlin lady and Miss Spencer. I’m sure it’s Miss Spencer’s voice.’
Racksole boldly pushed the french window a little wider open, and put
his ear to the aperture, through which came a beam of yellow light.
‘Take my place,’ he whispered to the Prince, ‘they’re talking German.
You’ll understand better.’
Silently they exchanged places under the window, and the Prince listened
intently.
‘Then you refuse?’ Miss Spencer’s visitor was saying.
There was no answer from Miss Spencer.
‘Not even a thousand francs? I tell you I’ve lost the whole twenty-five
thousand.’
Again no answer.
‘Then I’ll tell the whole story,’ the lady went on, in an angry rush of
words. ‘I did what I promised to do. I enticed him here, and you’ve got
him safe in your vile cellar, poor little man, and you won’t give me a
paltry thousand francs.’
‘You have already had your price.’ The words were Miss Spencer’s. They
fell cold and calm on the night air.
‘I want another thousand.’
‘I haven’t it.’
‘Then we’ll see.’
Prince Aribert heard a rustle of flying skirts; then another movement--a
door banged, and the beam of light through the aperture of the window
suddenly disappeared. He pushed the window wide open. The room was in
darkness, and apparently empty.
‘Now for that lantern of yours,’ he said eagerly to Theodore Racksole,
after he had translated to him the conversation of the two women,
Racksole produced the dark lantern from the capacious pocket of his dust
coat, and lighted it. The ray flashed about the ground.
‘What is it?’ exclaimed Prince Aribert with a swift cry, pointing to the
ground. The lantern threw its light on a perpendicular grating at their
feet, through which could be discerned a cellar. They both knelt down,
and peered into the subterranean chamber. On a broken chair a young man
sat listlessly with closed eyes, his head leaning heavily forward on his
chest.
In the feeble light of the lantern he had the livid and ghastly
appearance of a corpse.
‘Who can it be?’ said Racksole.
‘It is Eugen,’ was the Prince’s low answer.
Chapter Seventeen THE RELEASE OF PRINCE EUGEN
‘EUGEN,’ Prince Aribert called softly. At the sound of his own name the
young man in the cellar feebly raised his head and stared up at the
grating which separated him from his two rescuers. But his features
showed no recognition. He gazed in an aimless, vague, silly manner for a
few seconds, his eyes blinking under the glare of the lantern, and then
his head slowly drooped again on to his chest. He was dressed in a dark
tweed travelling suit, and Racksole observed that one sleeve--the left--
was torn across the upper part of the cuff, and that there were stains
of dirt on the left shoulder. A soiled linen collar, which had lost all
its starch and was half unbuttoned, partially encircled the captive’s
neck; his brown boots were unlaced; a cap, a handkerchief, a portion of
a watch-chain, and a few gold coins lay on the floor. Racksole flashed
the lantern into the corners of the cellar, but he could discover no
other furniture except the chair on which the Hereditary Prince of Posen
sat and a small deal table on which were a plate and a cup.
‘Eugen,’ cried Prince Aribert once more, but this time his forlorn
nephew made no response whatever, and then Aribert added in a low voice
to Racksole: ‘Perhaps he cannot see us clearly.’
‘But he must surely recognize your voice,’ said Racksole, in a hard,
gloomy tone. There was a pause, and the two men above ground looked at
each other hesitatingly. Each knew that they must enter that cellar and
get Prince Eugen out of it, and each was somehow afraid to take the next
step.
‘Thank God he is not dead!’ said Aribert.
‘He may be worse than dead!’ Racksole replied.
‘Worse than--What do you mean?’
‘I mean--he may be mad.’
‘Come,’ Aribert almost shouted, with a sudden access of energy--a wild
impulse for action. And, snatching the lantern from Racksole, he rushed
into the dark room where they had heard the conversation of Miss Spencer
and the lady in the red hat. For a moment Racksole did not stir from the
threshold of the window. ‘Come,’ Prince Aribert repeated, and there was
an imperious command in his utterance. ‘What are you afraid of?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Racksole, feeling stupid and queer; ‘I don’t know.’
Then he marched heavily after Prince Aribert into the room. On the
mantelpiece were a couple of candles which had been blown out, and in a
mechanical, unthinking way, Racksole lighted them, and the two men
glanced round the room. It presented no peculiar features: it was just
an ordinary room, rather small, rather mean, rather shabby, with an ugly
wallpaper and ugly pictures in ugly frames. Thrown over a chair was a
man’s evening-dress jacket. The door was closed. Prince Aribert turned
the knob, but he could not open it.
‘It’s locked,’ he said. ‘Evidently they know we’re here.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Racksole brusquely; ‘how can they know?’ And, taking
hold of the knob, he violently shook the door, and it opened. ‘I told
you it wasn’t locked,’ he added, and this small success of opening the
door seemed to steady the man. It was a curious psychological effect,
this terrorizing (for it amounted to that) of two courageous full-grown
men by the mere apparition of a helpless creature in a cellar. Gradually
they both recovered from it. The next moment they were out in the
passage which led to the front door of the house. The front door stood
open. They looked into the street, up and down, but there was not a soul
in sight. The street, lighted by three gas-lamps only, seemed strangely
sinister and mysterious.
‘She has gone, that’s clear,’ said Racksole, meaning the woman with the
red hat.
‘And Miss Spencer after her, do you think?’ questioned Aribert.
‘No. She would stay. She would never dare to leave. Let us find the
cellar steps.’
The cellar steps were happily not difficult to discover, for in moving a
pace backwards Prince Aribert had a narrow escape of precipitating
himself to the bottom of them. The lantern showed that they were built
on a curve.
Silently Racksole resumed possession of the lantern and went first, the
Prince close behind him. At the foot was a short passage, and in this
passage crouched the figure of a woman. Her eyes threw back the rays of
the lantern, shining like a cat’s at midnight. Then, as the men went
nearer, they saw that it was Miss Spencer who barred their way. She
seemed half to kneel on the stone floor, and in one hand she held what
at first appeared to be a dagger, but which proved to be nothing more
romantic than a rather long bread-knife.
‘I heard you, I heard you,’ she exclaimed. ‘Get back; you mustn’t come
here.’
There was a desperate and dangerous look on her face, and her form shook
with scarcely controlled passionate energy.
‘Now see here, Miss Spencer,’ Racksole said calmly, ‘I guess we’ve had
enough of this fandango. You’d better get up and clear out, or we’ll
just have to drag you off.’
He went calmly up to her, the lantern in his hand. Without another word
she struck the knife into his arm, and the lantern fell extinguished.
Racksole gave a cry, rather of angry surprise than of pain, and
retreated a few steps. In the darkness they could still perceive the
glint of her eyes.
‘I told you you mustn’t come here,’ the woman said. ‘Now get back.’
Racksole positively laughed. It was a queer laugh, but he laughed, and
he could not help it. The idea of this woman, this bureau clerk,
stopping his progress and that of Prince Aribert by means of a bread-
knife aroused his sense of humour. He struck a match, relighted the
candle, and faced Miss Spencer once more.
‘I’ll do it again,’ she said, with a note of hard resolve.
‘Oh, no, you won’t, my girl,’ said Racksole; and he pulled out his
revolver, cocked it, raised his hand.
‘Put down that plaything of yours,’ he said firmly.
‘No,’ she answered.
‘I shall shoot.’
She pressed her lips together.
‘I shall shoot,’ he repeated. ‘One--two--three.’
Bang, bang! He had fired twice, purposely missing her. Miss Spencer
never blenched. Racksole was tremendously surprised--and he would have
been a thousandfold more surprised could he have contrasted her
behaviour now with her abject terror on the previous evening when Nella
had threatened her.
‘You’ve got a bit of pluck,’ he said, ‘but it won’t help you. Why won’t
you let us pass?’
As a matter of fact, pluck was just what she had not, really; she had
merely subordinated one terror to another. She was desperately afraid of
Racksole’s revolver, but she was much more afraid of something else.
‘Why won’t you let us pass?’
‘I daren’t,’ she said, with a plaintive tremor; ‘Tom put me in charge.’
That was all. The men could see tears running down her poor wrinkled
face.
Theodore Racksole began to take off his light overcoat.
‘I see I must take my coat off to you,’ he said, and he almost smiled.
Then, with a quick movement, he threw the coat over Miss Spencer’s head
and flew at her, seizing both her arms, while Prince Aribert assisted.
Her struggles ceased--she was beaten.
‘That’s all right,’ said Racksole: ‘I could never have used that
revolver--to mean business with it, of course.’
They carried her, unresisting, upstairs and on to the upper floor, where
they locked her in a bedroom. She lay in the bed as if exhausted.
‘Now for my poor Eugen,’ said Prince Aribert.
‘Don’t you think we’d better search the house first?’ Racksole
suggested; ‘it will be safer to know just how we stand. We can’t afford
any ambushes or things of that kind, you know.’
The Prince agreed, and they searched the house from top to bottom, but
found no one. Then, having locked the front door and the french window
of the sitting-room, they proceeded again to the cellar.
Here a new obstacle confronted them. The cellar door was, of course,
locked; there was no sign of a key, and it appeared to be a heavy door.
They were compelled to return to the bedroom where Miss Spencer was
incarcerated, in order to demand the key of the cellar from her. She
still lay without movement on the bed.
‘Tom’s got it,’ she replied, faintly, to their question: ‘Tom’s got it,
I swear to you. He took it for safety.’
‘Then how do you feed your prisoner?’ Racksole asked sharply.
‘Through the grating,’ she answered.
Both men shuddered. They felt she was speaking the truth. For the third
time they went to the cellar door. In vain Racksole thrust himself
against it; he could do no more than shake it.
‘Let’s try both together,’ said Prince Aribert. ‘Now!’ There was a
crack.
‘Again,’ said Prince Aribert. There was another crack, and then the
upper hinge gave way. The rest was easy. Over the wreck of the door they
entered Prince Eugen’s prison.
The captive still sat on his chair. The terrific noise and bustle of
breaking down the door seemed not to have aroused him from his lethargy,
but when Prince Aribert spoke to him in German he looked at his uncle.
‘Will you not come with us, Eugen?’ said Prince Aribert; ‘you needn’t
stay here any longer, you know.’
‘Leave me alone,’ was the strange reply; ‘leave me alone. What do you
want?’
‘We are here to get you out of this scrape,’ said Aribert gently.
Racksole stood aside.
‘Who is that fellow?’ said Eugen sharply.