you’d had any sense you wouldn’t have meddled; you’d have left
everything to the police. They’d have muddled about for a year or two,
and then done nothing. Who’s going to tell the police now? Are you? Are
you going to give me up to ‘em, and say, “Here, I’ve caught him for
you”. If you do they’ll ask you to explain several things, and then
you’ll look foolish. One crime doesn’t excuse another, and you’ll find
that out.’
With unerring insight, Jules had perceived exactly the difficulty of
Racksole’s position, and it was certainly a difficulty which Racksole
did not attempt to minimize to himself. He knew well that it would have
to be faced. He did not, however, allow Jules to guess his thoughts.
‘Meanwhile,’ he said calmly to the other, ‘you’re here and my prisoner.
You’ve committed a variegated assortment of crimes, and among them is
murder. You are due to be hung. You know that. There is no reason why I
should call in the police at all. It will be perfectly easy for me to
finish you off, as you deserve, myself. I shall only be carrying out
justice, and robbing the hangman of his fee. Precisely as I brought you
into the hotel, I can take you out again. A few days ago you borrowed or
stole a steam yacht at Ostend. What you have done with it I don’t know,
nor do I care. But I strongly suspect that my daughter had a narrow
escape of being murdered on your steam yacht. Now I have a steam yacht
of my own. Suppose I use it as you used yours! Suppose I smuggle you on
to it, steam out to sea, and then ask you to step off it into the ocean
one night. Such things have been done.
Such things will be done again. If I acted so, I should at least, have
the satisfaction of knowing that I had relieved society from the incubus
of a scoundrel.’
‘But you won’t,’ Jules murmured.
‘No,’ said Racksole steadily, ‘I won’t--if you behave yourself this
morning. But I swear to you that if you don’t I will never rest till you
are dead, police or no police. You don’t know Theodore Racksole.’
‘I believe you mean it,’ Jules exclaimed, with an air of surprised
interest, as though he had discovered something of importance.
‘I believe I do,’ Racksole resumed. ‘Now listen. At the best, you will
be given up to the police. At the worst, I shall deal with you myself.
With the police you may have a chance--you may get off with twenty
years’ penal servitude, because, though it is absolutely certain that
you murdered Reginald Dimmock, it would be a little difficult to prove
the case against you. But with me you would have no chance whatever. I
have a few questions to put to you, and it will depend on how you answer
them whether I give you up to the police or take the law into my own
hands. And let me tell you that the latter course would be much simpler
for me. And I would take it, too, did I not feel that you were a very
clever and exceptional man; did I not have a sort of sneaking admiration
for your detestable skill and ingenuity.’
‘You think, then, that I am clever?’ said Jules. ‘You are right. I am. I
should have been much too clever for you if luck had not been against
me.
You owe your victory, not to skill, but to luck.’
‘That is what the vanquished always say. Waterloo was a bit of pure luck
for the English, no doubt, but it was Waterloo all the same.’
Jules yawned elaborately. ‘What do you want to know?’ he inquired, with
politeness.
‘First and foremost, I want to know the names of your accomplices inside
this hotel.’
‘I have no more,’ said Jules. ‘Rocco was the last.’
‘Don’t begin by lying to me. If you had no accomplice, how did you
contrive that one particular bottle of Romanée-Conti should be served to
his Highness Prince Eugen?’
‘Then you discovered that in time, did you?’ said Jules. ‘I was afraid
so.
Let me explain that that needed no accomplice. The bottle was topmost in
the bin, and naturally it would be taken. Moreover, I left it sticking
out a little further than the rest.’
‘You did not arrange, then, that Hubbard should be taken ill the night
before last?’
‘I had no idea,’ said Jules, ‘that the excellent Hubbard was not
enjoying his accustomed health.’
‘Tell me,’ said Racksole, ‘who or what is the origin of your vendetta
against the life of Prince Eugen?’
‘I had no vendetta against the life of Prince Eugen,’ said Jules, ‘at
least, not to begin with. I merely undertook, for a consideration, to
see that Prince Eugen did not have an interview with a certain Mr
Sampson Levi in London before a certain date, that was all. It seemed
simple enough. I had been engaged in far more complicated transactions
before. I was convinced that I could manage it, with the help of Rocco
and Em--and Miss Spencer.’
‘Is that woman your wife?’
‘She would like to be,’ he sneered. ‘Please don’t interrupt. I had
completed my arrangements, when you so inconsiderately bought the hotel.
I don’t mind admitting now that from the very moment when you came
across me that night in the corridor I was secretly afraid of you,
though I scarcely admitted the fact even to myself then. I thought it
safer to shift the scene of our operations to Ostend. I had meant to
deal with Prince Eugen in this hotel, but I decided, then, to intercept
him on the Continent, and I despatched Miss Spencer with some
instructions. Troubles never come singly, and it happened that just then
that fool Dimmock, who had been in the swim with us, chose to prove
refractory. The slightest hitch would have upset everything, and I was
obliged to--to clear him off the scene. He wanted to back out--he had a
bad attack of conscience, and violent measures were essential. I regret
his untimely decease, but he brought it on himself. Well, everything was
going serenely when you and your brilliant daughter, apparently
determined to meddle, turned up again among us at Ostend. Only twenty-
four hours, however, had to elapse before the date which had been
mentioned to me by my employers. I kept poor little Eugen for the
allotted time, and then you managed to get hold of him. I do not deny
that you scored there, though, according to my original instructions,
you scored too late. The time had passed, and so, so far as I knew, it
didn’t matter a pin whether Prince Eugen saw Mr Sampson Levi or not. But
my employers were still uneasy. They were uneasy even after little Eugen
had lain ill in Ostend for several weeks. It appears that they feared
that even at that date an interview between Prince Eugen and Mr Sampson
Levi might work harm to them. So they applied to me again. This time
they wanted Prince Eugen to be--em--finished off entirely. They offered
high terms.’
‘What terms?’
‘I had received fifty thousand pounds for the first job, of which Rocco
had half. Rocco was also to be made a member of a certain famous
European order, if things went right. That was what he coveted far more
than the money--the vain fellow! For the second job I was offered a
hundred thousand. A tolerably large sum. I regret that I have not been
able to earn it.’
‘Do you mean to tell me,’ asked Racksole, horror-struck by this calm
confession, in spite of his previous knowledge, ‘that you were offered a
hundred thousand pounds to poison Prince Eugen?’
‘You put it rather crudely,’ said Jules in reply. ‘I prefer to say that
I was offered a hundred thousand pounds if Prince Eugen should die
within a reasonable time.’
‘And who were your damnable employers?’
‘That, honestly, I do not know.’
‘You know, I suppose, who paid you the first fifty thousand pounds, and
who promised you the hundred thousand.’
‘Well,’ said Jules, ‘I know vaguely. I know that he came via Vienna
from--em--Bosnia. My impression was that the affair had some bearing,
direct or indirect, on the projected marriage of the King of Bosnia. He
is a young monarch, scarcely out of political leading-strings, as it
were, and doubtless his Ministers thought that they had better arrange
his marriage for him. They tried last year, and failed because the
Princess whom they had in mind had cast her sparkling eyes on another
Prince. That Prince happened to be Prince Eugen of Posen. The Ministers
of the King of Bosnia knew exactly the circumstances of Prince Eugen.
They knew that he could not marry without liquidating his debts, and
they knew that he could only liquidate his debts through this Jew,
Sampson Levi. Unfortunately for me, they ultimately wanted to make too
sure of Prince Eugen. They were afraid he might after all arrange his
marriage without the aid of Mr Sampson Levi, and so--well, you know the
rest.... It is a pity that the poor little innocent King of Bosnia can’t
have the Princess of his Ministers’ choice.’
‘Then you think that the King himself had no part in this abominable
crime?’
‘I think decidedly not.’
‘I am glad of that,’ said Racksole simply. ‘And now, the name of your
immediate employer.’
‘He was merely an agent. He called himself Sleszak--S-l-e-s-z-a-k. But I
imagine that that wasn’t his real name. I don’t know his real name. An
old man, he often used to be found at the Hôtel Ritz, Paris.’
‘Mr Sleszak and I will meet,’ said Racksole.
‘Not in this world,’ said Jules quickly. ‘He is dead. I heard only last
night--just before our little tussle.’
There was a silence.
‘It is well,’ said Racksole at length. ‘Prince Eugen lives, despite all
plots. After all, justice is done.’
‘Mr Racksole is here, but he can see no one, Miss.’ The words came from
behind the door, and the voice was the commissionaire’s. Racksole
started up, and went towards the door.
‘Nonsense,’ was the curt reply, in feminine tones. ‘Move aside
instantly.’
The door opened, and Nella entered. There were tears in her eyes.
‘Oh! Dad,’ she exclaimed, ‘I’ve only just heard you were in the hotel.
We looked for you everywhere. Come at once, Prince Eugen is dying--’
Then she saw the man sitting on the bed, and stopped.
Later, when Jules was alone again, he remarked to himself, ‘I may get
that hundred thousand.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight THE STATE BEDROOM ONCE MORE
WHEN, immediately after the episode of the bottle of Romanée-Conti in
the State dining-room, Prince Aribert and old Hans found that Prince
Eugen had sunk in an unconscious heap over his chair, both the former
thought, at the first instant, that Eugen must have already tasted the
poisoned wine. But a moment’s reflection showed that this was not
possible. If the Hereditary Prince of Posen was dying or dead, his
condition was due to some other agency than the Romanée-Conti. Aribert
bent over him, and a powerful odour from the man’s lips at once
disclosed the cause of the disaster: it was the odour of laudanum.
Indeed, the smell of that sinister drug seemed now to float heavily over
the whole table. Across Aribert’s mind there flashed then the true
explanation. Prince Eugen, taking advantage of Aribert’s attention being
momentarily diverted; and yielding to a sudden impulse of despair, had
decided to poison himself, and had carried out his intention on the
spot.
The laudanum must have been already in his pocket, and this fact went to
prove that the unfortunate Prince had previously contemplated such a
proceeding, even after his definite promise. Aribert remembered now with
painful vividness his nephew’s words: ‘I withdraw my promise. Observe
that--I withdraw it.’ It must have been instantly after the utterance of
that formal withdrawal that Eugen attempted to destroy himself.
‘It’s laudanum, Hans,’ Aribert exclaimed, rather helplessly.
‘Surely his Highness has not taken poison?’ said Hans. ‘It is
impossible!’
‘I fear it is only too possible,’ said the other. ‘It’s laudanum. What
are we to do? Quick, man!’
‘His Highness must be roused, Prince. He must have an emetic. We had
better carry him to the bedroom.’
They did, and laid him on the great bed; and then Aribert mixed an
emetic of mustard and water, and administered it, but without any
effect. The sufferer lay motionless, with every muscle relaxed. His skin
was ice-cold to the touch, and the eyelids, half-drawn, showed that the
pupils were painfully contracted.
‘Go out, and send for a doctor, Hans. Say that Prince Eugen has been
suddenly taken ill, but that it isn’t serious. The truth must never be
known.’
‘He must be roused, sire,’ Hans said again, as he hurried from the room.
Aribert lifted his nephew from the bed, shook him, pinched him, flicked
him cruelly, shouted at him, dragged him about, but to no avail. At
length he desisted, from mere physical fatigue, and laid the Prince back
again on the bed. Every minute that elapsed seemed an hour. Alone with
the unconscious organism in the silence of the great stately chamber,
under the cold yellow glare of the electric lights, Aribert became a
prey to the most despairing thoughts. The tragedy of his nephew’s career
forced itself upon him, and it occurred to him that an early and
shameful death had all along been inevitable for this good-natured,
weak-purposed, unhappy child of a historic throne. A little good
fortune, and his character, so evenly balanced between right and wrong,
might have followed the proper path, and Eugen might have figured at any
rate with dignity on the European stage. But now it appeared that all
was over, the last stroke played. And in this disaster Aribert saw the
ruin of his own hopes. For Aribert would have to occupy his nephew’s
throne, and he felt instinctively that nature had not cut him out for a
throne. By a natural impulse he inwardly rebelled against the prospect
of monarchy. Monarchy meant so much for which he knew himself to be
entirely unfitted. It meant a political marriage, which means a forced
marriage, a union against inclination. And then what of Nella--Nella!
Hans returned. ‘I have sent for the nearest doctor, and also for a
specialist,’ he said.
‘Good,’ said Aribert. ‘I hope they will hurry.’ Then he sat down and
wrote a card. ‘Take this yourself to Miss Racksole. If she is out of the
hotel, ascertain where she is and follow her. Understand, it is of the
first importance.’
Hans bowed, and departed for the second time, and Aribert was alone
again.
He gazed at Eugen, and made another frantic attempt to rouse him from
the deadly stupor, but it was useless. He walked away to the window:
through the opened casement he could hear the tinkle of passing hansoms
on the Embankment below, whistles of door-keepers, and the hoot of steam
tugs on the river. The world went on as usual, it appeared. It was an
absurd world.
He desired nothing better than to abandon his princely title, and live
as a plain man, the husband of the finest woman on earth.... But now!...
Pah! How selfish he was, to be thinking of himself when Eugen lay dying.
Yet--Nella!
The door opened, and a man entered, who was obviously the doctor. A few
curt questions, and he had grasped the essentials of the case. ‘Oblige
me by ringing the bell, Prince. I shall want some hot water, and an
able-bodied man and a nurse.’
‘Who wants a nurse?’ said a voice, and Nella came quietly in. ‘I am a
nurse,’ she added to the doctor, ‘and at your orders.’
The next two hours were a struggle between life and death. The first
doctor, a specialist who followed him, Nella, Prince Aribert, and old
Hans formed, as it were, a league to save the dying man. None else in
the hotel knew the real seriousness of the case. When a Prince falls
ill, and especially by his own act, the precise truth is not issued
broadcast to the universe.
According to official intelligence, a Prince is never seriously ill
until he is dead. Such is statecraft.
The worst feature of Prince Eugen’s case was that emetics proved futile.
Neither of the doctors could explain their failure, but it was only too
apparent. The league was reduced to helplessness. At last the great
specialist from Manchester Square gave it out that there was no chance
for Prince Eugen unless the natural vigour of his constitution should
prove capable of throwing off the poison unaided by scientific
assistance, as a drunkard can sleep off his potion. Everything had been
tried, even to artificial respiration and the injection of hot coffee.
Having emitted this pronouncement, the great specialist from Manchester
Square left. It was one o’clock in the morning. By one of those strange
and futile coincidences which sometimes startle us by their subtle
significance, the specialist met Theodore Racksole and his captive as
they were entering the hotel. Neither had the least suspicion of the
other’s business.
In the State bedroom the small group of watchers surrounded the bed. The
slow minutes filed away in dreary procession. Another hour passed. Then
the figure on the bed, hitherto so motionless, twitched and moved; the
lips parted.
‘There is hope,’ said the doctor, and administered a stimulant which was
handed to him by Nella.
In a quarter of an hour the patient had regained consciousness. For the
ten thousandth time in the history of medicine a sound constitution had
accomplished a miracle impossible to the accumulated medical skill of
centuries.
In due course the doctor left, saying that Prince Eugen was ‘on the high
road to recovery,’ and promising to come again within a few hours.
Morning had dawned. Nella drew the great curtains, and let in a flood of
sunlight.
Old Hans, overcome by fatigue, dozed in a chair in a far corner of the
room.
The reaction had been too much for him. Nella and Prince Aribert looked
at each other. They had not exchanged a word about themselves, yet each
knew what the other had been thinking. They clasped hands with a perfect
understanding. Their brief love-making had been of the silent kind, and
it was silent now. No word was uttered. A shadow had passed from over
them, but only their eyes expressed relief and joy.
‘Aribert!’ The faint call came from the bed. Aribert went to the
bedside, while Nella remained near the window.
‘What is it, Eugen?’ he said. ‘You are better now.’
‘You think so?’ murmured the other. ‘I want you to forgive me for all
this, Aribert. I must have caused you an intolerable trouble. I did it
so clumsily; that is what annoys me. Laudanum was a feeble expedient;
but I could think of nothing else, and I daren’t ask anyone for advice.
I was obliged to go out and buy the stuff for myself. It was all very
awkward.
But, thank goodness, it has not been ineffectual.’
‘What do you mean, Eugen? You are better. In a day or so you will be
perfectly recovered.’
‘I am dying,’ said Eugen quietly. ‘Do not be deceived. I die because I
wish to die. It is bound to be so. I know by the feel of my heart. In a
few hours it will be over. The throne of Posen will be yours, Aribert.
You will fill it more worthily than I have done. Don’t let them know
over there that I poisoned myself. Swear Hans to secrecy; swear the
doctors to secrecy; and breathe no word yourself. I have been a fool,
but I do not wish it to be known that I was also a coward. Perhaps it is
not cowardice; perhaps it is courage, after all--courage to cut the
knot. I could not have survived the disgrace of any revelations,
Aribert, and revelations would have been sure to come. I have made a
fool of myself, but I am ready to pay for it. We of Posen--we always
pay--everything except our debts. Ah! those debts! Had it not been for
those I could have faced her who was to have been my wife, to have
shared my throne. I could have hidden my past, and begun again. With her
help I really could have begun again. But Fate has been against me--
always! always! By the way, what was that plot against me, Aribert? I
forget, I forget.’
His eyes closed. There was a sudden noise. Old Hans had slipped from his
chair to the floor. He picked himself up, dazed, and crept shamefacedly
out of the room.
Aribert took his nephew’s hand.
‘Nonsense, Eugen! You are dreaming. You will be all right soon. Pull
yourself together.’
‘All because of a million,’ the sick man moaned. ‘One miserable million
English pounds. The national debt of Posen is fifty millions, and I, the
Prince of Posen, couldn’t borrow one. If I could have got it, I might
have held my head up again. Good-bye, Aribert.... Who is that girl?’
Aribert looked up. Nella was standing silent at the foot of the bed, her
eyes moist. She came round to the bedside, and put her hand on the
patient’s heart. Scarcely could she feel its pulsation, and to Aribert
her eyes expressed a sudden despair.
At that moment Hans re-entered the room and beckoned to her.
‘I have heard that Herr Racksole has returned to the hotel,’ he
whispered, ‘and that he has captured that man Jules, who they say is
such a villain.’
Several times during the night Nella inquired for her father, but could
gain no knowledge of his whereabouts. Now, at half-past six in the
morning, a rumour had mysteriously spread among the servants of the
hotel about the happenings of the night before. How it had originated no
one could have determined, but it had originated.
‘Where is my father?’ Nella asked of Hans.
He shrugged his shoulders, and pointed upwards. ‘Somewhere at the top,
they say.’
Nella almost ran out of the room. Her interruption of the interview
between Jules and Theodore Racksole has already been described. As she
came downstairs with her father she said again, ‘Prince Eugen is dying--
but I think you can save him.’
‘I?’ exclaimed Theodore.
‘Yes,’ she repeated positively. ‘I will tell you what I want you to do,
and you must do it.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine THEODORE IS CALLED TO THE RESCUE
AS Nella passed downstairs from the top storey with her father--the
lifts had not yet begun to work--she drew him into her own room, and
closed the door.
‘What’s this all about?’ he asked, somewhat mystified, and even alarmed
by the extreme seriousness of her face.
‘Dad,’ the girl began, ‘you are very rich, aren’t you? very, very rich?’
She smiled anxiously, timidly. He did not remember to have seen that
expression on her face before. He wanted to make a facetious reply, but
checked himself.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am. You ought to know that by this time.’
‘How soon could you realize a million pounds?’
‘A million--what?’ he cried. Even he was staggered by her calm reference
to this gigantic sum. ‘What on earth are you driving at?’
‘A million pounds, I said. That is to say, five million dollars. How
soon could you realize as much as that?’
‘Oh!’ he answered, ‘in about a month, if I went about it neatly enough.
I could unload as much as that in a month without scaring Wall Street
and other places. But it would want some arrangement.’
‘Useless!’ she exclaimed. ‘Couldn’t you do it quicker, if you really had
to?’
‘If I really had to, I could fix it in a week, but it would make things
lively, and I should lose on the job.’
‘Couldn’t you,’ she persisted, ‘couldn’t you go down this morning and
raise a million, somehow, if it was a matter of life and death?’
He hesitated. ‘Look here, Nella,’ he said, ‘what is it you’ve got up
your sleeve?’
‘Just answer my question, Dad, and try not to think that I’m a stark,
staring lunatic.’
‘I rather expect I could get a million this morning, even in London. But
it would cost pretty dear. It might cost me fifty thousand pounds, and
there would be the dickens of an upset in New York--a sort of grand
universal slump in my holdings.’
‘Why should New York know anything about it?’
‘Why should New York know anything about it!’ he repeated. ‘My girl,
when anyone borrows a million sovereigns the whole world knows about it.
Do you reckon that I can go up to the Governors of the Bank of England
and say, “Look here, lend Theodore Racksole a million for a few weeks,
and he’ll give you an IOU and a covering note on stocks”?’
‘But you could get it?’ she asked again.
‘If there’s a million in London I guess I could handle it,’ he replied.
‘Well, Dad,’ and she put her arms round his neck, ‘you’ve just got to go
out and fix it. See? It’s for me. I’ve never asked you for anything
really big before. But I do now. And I want it so badly.’
He stared at her. ‘I award you the prize,’ he said, at length. ‘You
deserve it for colossal and immense coolness. Now you can tell me the
true inward meaning of all this rigmarole. What is it?’
‘I want it for Prince Eugen,’ she began, at first hesitatingly, with
pauses.
‘He’s ruined unless he can get a million to pay off his debts. He’s
dreadfully in love with a Princess, and he can’t marry her because of
this.
Her parents wouldn’t allow it. He was to have got it from Sampson Levi,
but he arrived too late--owing to Jules.’
‘I know all about that--perhaps more than you do. But I don’t see how it
affects you or me.’