A SCORE AGAINST ROLLMAR
Countess Minna von Croy was a young lady of resource, of a ready wit
and, when she was put to it, of considerable courage. But there was one
person in the Court, perhaps the one person in the world, of whom she
was horribly afraid. That was the Chancellor.
For the Duke--by himself, that is minus his wily old Minister--she
did not care a straw. She could laugh at him as a weak, pompous
figurehead, the mere stalking horse of the Chancellor, from whom he
derived what terrors he possessed; a very marionette, which Rollmar’s
skilful fingers made to strut and posture and frown as suited the
purpose of the moment. She was never tired of reflecting, when in the
royal presence, what a wonderful character the late Duchess must have
possessed, since the Princess was so unlike and so vastly superior to
her father. Yes, the Duke she could look on with a certain careless
tolerant contempt. But the Chancellor? Ah, that was another matter.
Countess Minna hated and despised herself for fearing him--for she
was, under the laziness bred of court life, a girl of spirit--but,
fight against it as she might, she could not get over the uncomfortable
feeling of trepidation and nervousness with which the presence of
that astute, inscrutable old schemer always inspired her. He seemed
to carry with him an environment and an atmosphere of disquietude; a
quiet terrorism radiated from him; he was power incarnate, the power
of a mighty will and a resourceful brain, a quick tongue that would
sting like a snake’s, and a trick of speech that always seemed to carry
something behind its actual words. No wonder Minna was afraid of him;
her sprightly sallies, when she nerved herself to stand up to him, fell
blunted against the old man’s cynical condescension. He made her feel
small, and that was why she so hated him and herself for her fear of
him.
Just at this juncture, too, she might well have reason to regard him
with an especial apprehension; consequently it was with a good deal
of trepidation which defied her powers of self-command that she found
herself invited to a private interview with the Chancellor, in what she
was always pleased to call, the leopard’s den.
He received her with stern politeness which did not allay her tremors.
She was not kept in suspense as to the object of the interview; the
Chancellor was notably a man to come to the point, when there was no
object in delaying the arrival.
“I am sorry, Countess, to have to charge you with a breach of
confidence,” he began severely.
The challenge steadied Minna. “A breach of confidence, your
Excellency?” she echoed in well-simulated surprise.
“An exceedingly serious one,” he rejoined, “an abuse of your position
as maid of honour to the Princess.”
“Excellency!” she exclaimed in open-eyed astonishment. He held up his
hand to check her till she should have heard him out.
“Your position as close companion to the Princess is pre-eminently a
responsible one. It has come to my knowledge, Countess, that you have
grossly abused it.”
“Tell me how, Excellency,” Minna said with compressed lips, fearing
lest an unruly inflection should betray her.
“I am about to give you that superfluous information,” he replied with
cutting emphasis, “although it is mere waste of time to do so. The
Princess has lately formed an improper acquaintance; improper, that is,
certainly so far as the nature of the acquaintanceship goes. You have
abetted her in certain clandestine interviews. That is, precisely, what
I mean by your abuse of the trust reposed in you.”
He spoke sharply, insistently, as giving a definite explanation which
could admit of no quibbling. So, somehow or other, the meeting in the
chapel had been discovered. Clearly, Minna thought, denial was useless.
Her half paralysed wits must be set to work to make the best of the
position.
“I am not aware,” she said cautiously, “that the Princess has done
anything wrong or improper.”
“Indeed?” Rollmar’s face expressed contempt for a mental vision that
could not see a thing so obvious. “You think, then, there is nothing
wrong at any time, but especially now, on the eve of her betrothal
to Prince Ludwig of Drax-Beroldstein, in the Princess indulging in a
nocturnal interview with a man in the chapel?”
“The Princess,” Minna demurred, evading a direct answer and summoning
her courage, “hates the idea of marrying Prince Ludwig.”
“That,” returned Rollmar coldly, “is a matter which I cannot discuss
with you. It is entirely beside the question. What I have to say now
merely touches the part you have played in this scandalous affair--and
its consequences to you.”
There was an ugly hint in the last words which lost nothing in their
pointed emphasis. Poor Minna abruptly ceased to wonder how much her
tormentor knew and how he came to know it, in apprehending her own
punishment.
“I have abetted nothing scandalous,” was all she could protest, and
that feebly enough.
Rollmar gave a shrug. “I hold a different opinion, Countess. The affair
would be disreputable enough in a private family; in connection with a
Royal house it involves not only dishonour, but treason to the State.
That is unquestionable. You probably know the penalty of treason?”
The wretched Minna knew it but too well, since many a case of
ministerial vengeance had come under her notice. Such dark events
were not of infrequent occurrence and were bound to be common talk,
since it was policy not to hush them up too closely. Already she felt
herself a dead woman, or at least one for whom liberty was to be but a
recollection. It was manifest to her that, from the Minister’s point of
view, at least, the affair was sufficiently serious to warrant the most
dire measures. To do her justice, her feeling of abject despair was not
confined to herself. What would be the result to her mistress of this
discovery? Still, her own situation was the more perilous; she recalled
a similar case in which all the possessors of a scandalous secret were
removed from the face of the earth--how, could be only shudderingly
conjectured.
She could but protest her innocence of all wrongful, all treasonable
intention. Not a particularly cogent argument to move the stern old
man, whose fierce, merciless eyes seemed to shrivel up her protests.
“Call it folly rather than treason, if you please,” he retorted with
his pitiless logic; “folly, culpable folly, such as yours, is treason
where the State is concerned. An assignation, innocent or otherwise, is
common enough, its consequences would be purely domestic in every case
but one, the highest. It has been your misfortune, Countess, to allow
yourself to be mixed up in that one exception where the consequences
might be imperial and widely disastrous.”
“Yes, but, Excellency,” she urged, pricked on by apprehension of what
she dared not contemplate, “how could I know? How be to blame for a
chance meeting?”
“A chance meeting? Really, Countess, it is best to be straightforward
with me. A chance meeting? With the Princess visiting the chapel after
dark, and a man hidden in the organ?”
“Let me explain, Excellency.”
“Ah! if you please.” He leaned back, slowly rubbing his white hands
together as though feeling carelessly the talons that were ready to
strike.
“The Princess had been playing the organ that afternoon in the chapel
as is her habit,” Minna said, her voice dry with fear. “I was blowing
the bellows for her as I always do, when this----this person came in
and offered to take my place.”
“Ah! Just so. And this person was----?”
“The--the man who afterwards got inside the organ, Excellency,
because----”
“No doubt. I ask you who he was.”
The name was on her lips; then, in the extremity of her distress, an
idea, a desperate expedient flashed to her mind. She checked the answer
and hesitated. Was this unfathomable old fox really ignorant of von
Bertheim’s identity? The forlorn chance gave her courage and sharpened
her wits. She could but try.
“Come!” Rollmar insisted.
“You know his name, Excellency,” she stammered.
“I ask you.”
She looked at him, but the crumpled parchment of his face told her
nothing. Still, in her woeful plight chance was in her favour, since
she had nothing to lose. “I--I cannot tell you,” she replied, “for I do
not know.”
The cruel eyes shot forth a light which had struck despair in many a
stouter heart than this girl’s; yet she was resolute to play her game
through.
“If you are going to trifle with me, Countess, I shall hesitate no
longer in signing the order for your arrest.”
“Excellency!” she cried, trembling with a terror that was not all
simulated. “I cannot tell you that. It is impossible. I will help you
in every way to find out, I will do all I can to atone for my fault,
but I cannot tell you this man’s name.”
“You will not?”
“I cannot. It is easy for you to find out.”
“Quite,” he assented dryly. “Go on with your story.”
“Someone came into the chapel. Fearing I had done wrong to let him
remain, even to blow the organ, I opened the door and made him get in.
The Princess and I went out into the Park for a few minutes and when I
ran back to release him I found the chapel locked up for the night.”
“So you came down and let him out after dark?” Rollmar suggested with
an incredulous smile.
“Yes, Excellency. I could not let him stay there all night.”
“It would have been too bad, certainly. I am waiting to hear, Countess,
why it was necessary for the Princess to accompany you on this errand
of relief.”
“The Princess was distressed at the idea of the poor fellow being boxed
up in the organ.”
“So distressed that she was obliged to kiss him on his release?”
Minna threw up her hands in horror. She was beginning to feel at home
in her part now. “Kiss! Excellency, you have been grossly misinformed.
Someone has been maligning the Princess to you. It is abominable!”
“It is,” he agreed with a grim smile. “So there was no kiss, eh?”
“Most assuredly not My dear Princess kiss a man like that! You don’t
know her, Excellency.”
He gave a shrug and a look which suggested that if he could not
read the Princess he was at least able to decipher her maid of
honour without trouble. “We shall see, my Countess,” he observed
significantly. “And let me tell you at once that you are very foolish
if you think to hoodwink me. Now, take care. Do I understand you to
suggest that the Princess is engaged in no love affair?”
“A love affair? Perhaps. With the love on one side and that not the
Princess’s. And a kiss! It is preposterous. I take upon myself to deny
the kiss.”
“Never mind the kiss.” Rollmar softened his expression into one of
vulpine humour, and continued almost pleasantly, “I fancy you know more
than you choose to tell, Countess. Never mind”--he silenced her protest
with a gesture--“it makes but the difference of an hour or two. Now,
your one chance of escape from the consequences of your--indiscretion
is to make amends by giving me assistance in this affair.”
This proposal had been precisely what Minna had been aiming at for the
furtherance of her delusive expedient, but she was careful not to show
eagerness. Her courage rose with the realisation that at last she had
a chance of measuring her wits successfully against her cunning old
bugbear.
“But the Princess?” she objected with the suggestion of a scruple. “You
ask me to do her an ill turn.”
“On the contrary,” was the natural retort. “I employ you to do her a
good turn, to be loyal to her best interests. You will not help the
affair by refusing, while it is obviously desirable that the secret
should be confined to ourselves. Still,” he gave one of his ominous
shrugs--“you are at liberty to refuse, but I am afraid it is the only
liberty you can count on.”
The threat appeared to decide her. After a moment’s hesitation she
said: “Your Excellency wishes to discover the man who courts the
Princess?” He nodded. “Then if I may be so bold as to suggest a plan
you might make an unexpected visit to the Royal Chapel at about five
o’clock to-day, in the meantime giving no hint of your suspicions to
any one.”
He looked at her keenly, and under those searching eyes it was all she
could do to keep an expression of ingenuousness.
“Very well,” he said curtly, rising to end the interview. “I need
hardly warn you, Countess, not to attempt to deceive me.”
“I could not hope to do so, Excellency, even if I wished,” she replied
humbly. “And you will soon see that I have no wish.”
He held open the door, and she passed out, hiding with one of her
demurest looks the exultant relief at her heart.
That afternoon, close upon the appointed hour, the Chancellor came
quietly into the Royal Chapel--not so quietly, however, but that Minna,
cunningly on the watch, detected the first signal of his arrival.
There was hurried whispering, a scramble and a hiding away, with a
momentary giving out of the wind supply in the organ. The Chancellor
came in quiet, fox-like and confident, ostensibly listening to the
music, but having eyes for every movement round him. He stood by the
screen overlooking the player till the Princess turned and saw him.
“Ah, Baron!” she said, with some show of composure, “how you startled
me.”
“Do not let me interrupt you, Princess,” he protested grimly.
“Oh, I have finished playing,” and she left the keyboard. “I did not
know you cared for music, Baron.”
“I was a player in my youth,” he replied readily, “before the business
of state-craft left me no time for the pleasures of mere sound. Ah,” he
went on blandly, “this old organ has a history; it would be a pity to
have it removed. I came in to examine it.”
“The organ, Baron?” the Princess exclaimed incredulously and, it
seemed to him, with trepidation, making allowance for her power of
self-control.
“This organ,” he repeated. “There is a question of replacing it.”
“You are going to try it, Baron,” the Princess laughed, making way for
him to reach the player’s seat.
“My fingers have long ago lost their cunning,” he returned with a
gesture of protest, and a half-veiled look which suggested that their
cunning had migrated to another part of his anatomy. “But at least I
know something of instruments and will look at this.”
He affected to make a cursory examination of the manuals, the stops
and pedals, counted the pipes, and so worked round to the door giving
access to the interior. A look of intelligence had passed between him
and Minna, and he felt confident that he had trapped his prey. “Now let
me take a look inside,” he said casually.
“You, Excellency? It is impossible,” Minna affected to protest. “It is
frightfully dusty, no one but a mechanic can go inside.”
But he waved her aside with a smile at her objection.
Then the Princess gave a forced laugh.
“Really, Baron, apart from the dust it is hardly dignified for our
Chancellor to creep into the inside of the organ. You really will
consult your dignity by delegating that inspection to the mechanic.”
He turned and eyed her uncompromisingly. “If I have served your father
well, Princess, it is because I have made a rule to look with my own
eyes into everything that concerned his welfare and that of the State.”
“But, surely the organ, Baron----?”
“May include a question of greater importance and delicacy than one
would suppose,” he rejoined significantly. “Therefore, in pursuance of
my rule I am going to look inside.”
There was clearly no more protest to be made in view of that stern
resolve. Minna stood aside with anxiety on her face. The Baron turned
the latch and pulled open the narrow door. The sharp eyes instantly
detected a pair of legs in military boots, the upper part of the
owner’s body being hidden behind the heavy framework.
The Chancellor turned round to the Princess with a triumphant glitter
in his eyes. “What did I tell you, Princess? You see the wisdom of
my rule. And how unwise it would have been to have delegated this
examination. The organ does contain superfluous matter which I am
better fitted than a mechanic to remove. No wonder, Princess, the
instrument is liable to be out of order. I think we must have one built
for you in your private apartments where your playing will be less
open to be interfered with. Now, sir,” he changed to a loud peremptory
tone--“have the goodness to come out at once!”
He stepped back from the door. The man inside, thus summoned, was heard
moving. The Baron put a silver whistle to his lips, and, as it sounded,
Captain von Ompertz, alert and business-like, entered the chapel by the
outer door. As he did so the hider in the organ appeared and sprang
down to the floor. At sight of him the expression on the Baron’s face
changed from malicious anticipation to chagrined astonishment, as on
those of the Princess and Minna pretended anxiety gave way to amused
triumph. For the man who stood before him, whom he was there to arrest
and send off to secret execution, was his own son, Udo Rollmar.