There came a gentle tap on Grey’s door; then a rap, louder and more
insistent; and then repeated knocking, aggressive, commanding; and
Grey, aroused suddenly from what was more stupor than sleep, sat up in
bed, startled, crying:
“Come in! _Entrez! Herein!_”
The door opened and Johann entered.
“It is long after noon, Herr Arndt,” he said, bowing, “and the funeral
is arranged for three o’clock.”
Grey rubbed his eyes and made an effort to collect his scattered senses.
“Ah, yes,” he murmured, after a moment; “Herr Schlippenbach’s funeral.”
“It is very wet,” Johann continued; “since six this morning it has been
raining. I have ordered Herr Arndt’s coffee. It will be here presently.”
“And my tub?”
“It waits, Herr Arndt.”
While Grey, in bathrobe and slippers, was sipping his _café au lait_
and nibbling a _brioche_, Captain Lindenwald presented himself.
“I have arranged everything,” he announced, with an air of thorough
self-satisfaction; “for the present we will leave the remains here
in Paris. Later we can decide whether they shall be brought on to
Kürschdorf or sent back to America. I have placed all the details of
the obsequies in the hands of the _Compagnie des Pompes Funèbres_. The
temporary interment will be this afternoon at Père-la-Chaise. Will it
be the pleasure of Herr Arndt to attend?”
Grey raised his cup to his lips and replaced it on the saucer before
replying. He wished to make sure that he could rid his tone of all
modulation.
“Yes,” he answered, speaking with great care, “I will go.” If he was to
play the game it were better that he played every hand dealt to him.
After a little he asked:
“And the Fraülein von Altdorf? How is she today?”
“Oh, much better,” returned the Herr Captain, his face beaming; “she
is more composed, more resigned. She is a wonderful young woman, Herr
Arndt; and oh, she is so beautiful!”
“Yes, she is very lovely,” Grey acquiesced.
But his thoughts at the moment were not of her. Lindenwald’s eulogy had
set vibrant a chord of emotion, had conjured a picture, had reproduced
a dream that seemed a reality. It was indeed difficult for him to
reconcile the remembrance of that sleep fantasy, so vivid was it in
every detail, with the knowledge that it was not a waking experience.
He had sat for hours, it seemed, beside Hope Van Tuyl, gazing into the
limpid depths of her sympathetic eyes, listening to the melody of her
clear, full-toned voice. They were in a great garden with parterres of
gay, sweet-scented flowers--roses and heliotrope and geraniums--and
smooth terraces of greensward with marble nymphs and satyrs on mossy
pedestals, and above them the kindly, protecting, leafy branches of an
old oak. He had, he thought, just found again the girl he loved--found
her after a long, long separation, and now she was close within his
hungry arms and her lips were always very near his own. He was telling
her some fantastic tale, like a bit culled from the Arthurian legends,
of how he was a great king, and had only been away to claim his own,
and now she was to be his queen and sit beside him on the throne in
robes of purple and ermine and help him rule his people with justice
and mercy.
Yet here he was sitting in a Paris hotel bedchamber, with a man who
was almost a stranger, while the rain was pelting on the window-panes
and the room was so gloomy that he could scarcely see the face of his
visitor. The recollection of the dream thus contrasted filled him
with a spirit of rebellion. He was beset with an impulse to reveal
without further delay his true condition and let the culprits, whoever
they might be, escape with their object undefined and their plunder
unrestored. The craving to see and hold and talk to the woman he adored
obsessed him for the moment, and he felt that all else was trivial and
futile.
It was in this mood still that Jack O’Hara found him an hour later.
“I am off to America by the first steamer,” he said, joyously. “It is
all tommyrot following this thing up. I’m going back, tell everything
as far as I know, and let the police do the rest.”
The Irishman looked at him in amazement.
“What’s come over you, lad?” he asked, solemnly. “Have you gone off
your head or are you dreaming? Sure you’re not going to back out now
when we’ve got such a pretty little fight ahead of us, with the enemy
in ambush and afraid to show their colours?”
“No, I’m not off my head,” Grey replied a little less gaily. He did not
like the suggested imputation of cowardice.
“Then you are dreaming, sure.”
“I have been.” The reply was ambiguous, but O’Hara took it that his
friend had changed his mind.
“And you’re not now; you’re awake, wide awake, eh? And you’re going to
stop and rout ’em, horse, foot, and dragoon? That’s right, man. What
the devil put the going-home notion in your noddle? I’ll wager twenty
pounds it’s a woman you’ve been thinking of.”
Grey stood by the window looking out on the drenched Boulevard.
O’Hara’s words were an inspiration, but the face and form of Hope were
still before him and her voice still echoed in his ears. The longing
would not easily down.
“I’ve been looking after your blessed cablegrams,” the Irishman went
on. “There’s only one there for you. I told ’em my name was Grey and
opened it and read it. Then I gave it back to ’em, and explained it
must be for same other Grey. I told ’em my name was Charley, and that
that was addressed to Carey.”
“Only one?” Grey exclaimed, in a tone of disappointment, turning. “I
don’t suppose Mallory will answer. What a damned blackguard he must
think me! He’s handed my cable over to the police, of course. I suppose
extradition papers are under way by this time. But the one? What was
it?”
“Here, I wrote it down so as not to forget,” and O’Hara, after fumbling
in his breast pocket, produced an envelope on which was written:
Overcome with joy. I never gave up hope. God bless you.--MOTHER.
Grey turned to the window again, his eyes as wet as the panes. After a
little he asked:
“And that was the only one?”
“The only one.”
Then Hope had not answered. She believed him guilty, of course. It
would have been better to have let her, like the rest of the world,
think him dead. What a trickster is the weaver of dreams! How real had
seemed his vision, and yet how untrue! And he had thought of going to
her as fast as the speediest ocean liner could take him. Oh, yes, he
was awake now; wide, wide awake.
“I couldn’t get the box at the Gare du Nord,” O’Hara continued. “They’d
given a brass or something for it and had no record of your name or
Schlippenbach’s either. You had better ask Johann about it, or Lutz.”
“I will,” said Grey.
A hearse had stopped before the door, and he began now putting on his
gloves.
“No,” he added as he buttoned the grey suèdes, “I’m not going back to
America, O’Hara. Maybe I’ll never go back. I’m going to Schlippenbach’s
funeral now, and I’m going to follow this thing to the end of the route
if it takes me through hell.” His face was very set and solemn, and he
spoke with a determination that made O’Hara’s eyes dance.
“Bravo, lad!” he cried, enthusiastically. “I still have two months’
leave, and I’ll go with you, hand in hand, every step of the way.”
The drive to Père-la-Chaise was very long and very boresome. Captain
Lindenwald was not inclined to conversation and Grey dared not attempt
to lead in the direction he wished, for fear of revealing how little
he knew of what had been prearranged. He gathered, however, that it
had been planned to start for Budavia early in the following week and
that the death of Herr Schlippenbach was not to interfere with this
arrangement; but of what they were going for--of what was to follow
their arrival, he could glean no hint.
On the return from the cemetery, however, an incident occurred which he
regarded as significant, though it only added to his perplexity. The
carriage had just crossed the Place de la République, past the great
bronze statue which adorns the square, and was rolling leisurely along
the Boulevard St. Martin, when Lindenwald suddenly drew back in the
corner in evident trepidation, catching Grey’s arm and dragging him
back with him.
“For God’s sake!” he whispered, excitedly. “Did you see that man?”
“What man?” Grey asked, a little annoyed. He had seen a score of men.
The day was waning; the rain had ceased and there was the usual crowd
that throngs the boulevards at the green hour.
Lindenwald clutched him tightly for a moment, huddled away from the
window of the voiture. At this point the sidewalks are somewhat higher
than the roadway and they had both been looking up at the pedestrians,
more interested in the procession than in each other.
“He was standing in front of the Folies Dramatiques,” Lindenwald
explained, presently; “his presence here means no good.”
“But who?” Grey persisted.
“It was the Baron von Einhard. You know who the Baron von Einhard is.
Ah! It is very plain. In some way, in spite of all our precautions,
Hugo has got word. We must now be more than careful. The Baron, my dear
Herr Arndt, would not hesitate one little--one very little moment to
cut your throat if he got the chance.” Lindenwald shut his teeth tight,
puckered his lips, and peered convincingly at Grey between half-lowered
lids.
The American crushed back an exclamation of surprise. In its place he
substituted an inquiry.
“What is the Baron like?” he asked, wondering whether he had seen him.
The question was a risk, but he ventured.
“He is small, dark, sharp-featured. He looks more like an Italian
than a Budavian, and he is vengeful. He is, too, oh, so shrewd! Six
assassinations are at his door, and yet--positively, Herr Arndt, what I
say is true--not one of them can be brought home to him.”
“You are quite sure it was he whom you saw?”
“Oh, quite sure, of a certainty. I only trust he did not see us. But
his eyes are lynx-like. If he saw us you can be assured we are even
now being followed. Will it be too warm, do you think, if I lower the
shade? He is not here alone, and they are on the lookout.”
“As you think best,” Grey replied. And Captain Lindenwald pulled down
the silk covering of the window.
When at length they alighted at the Hôtel Grammont and entered the
courtyard the _portier_ informed the Captain that a gentleman was
waiting for him in the reading-room. He went in, with Grey, who wished
to look at a newspaper, closely following; and a tall, sallow-faced
young man, faultlessly attired, rose and came towards them.
Grey turned aside to a table, but Lindenwald greeted the caller with no
little suavity of manner.
“Ah, Monsieur Edson,” he said, affably, “this is indeed an honour. You
have not, I hope, been waiting long?”
“I have a favour to ask,” the young diplomat replied, “and I shall take
only a moment of your time, Captain. I today received advices from the
State Department at Washington that there is an American stopping at
this hotel whose name is Grey, though they tell me here there is no one
of that name in the house. It seems he cabled to New York yesterday and
gave this as his address. He is wanted for embezzlement.”
Grey overheard the words and stood motionless, tense, listening
eagerly. His eyes were bent over the table, but it was so dark in the
room that the print of the paper before him was but a grey blur.
“And you would like me to--?” asked Lindenwald. There was no savour of
agitation in his voice, and Grey wondered how much or how little he
knew.
“I thought perhaps you might aid me. Fortunately I have his
description. I dined in company with a man last night who has seen him.
He is tall, well set-up, and has fair hair, beard and moustache.”
“There are many such,” replied the Captain, shrugging his shoulders.
A servant entered with a burning wax taper, and Grey stepped aside for
him to light the gas over the table. As he did so he faced Edson, and
the illumination lit his features.
“Ah, there,” the caller whispered, a little nervously, “standing by the
table behind you--there is a man of the very type. Perhaps that is he.”
Captain Lindenwald turned his head.
“Ha, ha!” he laughed, clapping his hand on Edson’s shoulder, “that is
very droll, very. Do you remember what I told you yesterday at the
Embassy?”
Edson nodded.
“Yes, yes, of course. But----”
“Well, it is he.”
“He?”
“Yes, to be sure. In the strictest confidence, mind you. I would not
tell you were it not that I want to assure you beyond all question that
he, of all persons, cannot be suspected.”
Grey smiled in spite of himself.
“That man is----”
“Sh!” warned Lindenwald his voice very low. “Yes, that man is His Royal
Highness, Prince Maximilian, heir apparent to the throne of Budavia.”
In spite of the low tone of the speaker Grey caught the words, and the
blood went rushing to his head and set him dizzy. What monstrous lie
was this? He heir apparent to the throne of Budavia! He, a descendant
of plain Puritan ancestry, a republican of republicans, being posed
as a royal personage! It was staggering. And this was the solution to
the riddle. This was why they were going to Kürschdorf. Herr Arndt was
a name assumed. The Crown Prince was travelling incognito. It was all
too ridiculous. He had suspected some mad scheme from Schlippenbach’s
death-bed admonition and from Lutz’s overheard conversation with
Johann, but this comic opera dénouement was quite beyond anything he
had permitted himself to fancy.
The young gentleman from the United States Embassy was evidently duly
impressed. He coloured and he apologised and he looked hard at Grey to
make sure that he would recognise Prince Maximilian should he again
chance to see him--dining at Armenonville, for instance.
“I hope,” he added, with a faint smile, “that you will not mention my
stupid blunder to His Royal Highness. I should be mortified to have him
know.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Lindenwald again, “he would take it as a good joke.
Oh, yes, I must tell him. He will be so much amused.”
Edson sidled toward the door and the Budavian officer turned to
accompany him, but stopped short, his face suddenly pallid. Standing
on the threshold, not five paces away, was the small, wiry, dark,
sharp-featured man he had noticed on the Boulevard St. Martin.
“Good evening, Herr Captain,” said the Baron von Einhard, his eyes
twinkling.
Captain Lindenwald saluted in military fashion, and the Baron returned
the salute as Edson brushed by him into the passage.
“You did not, I suppose, expect to see me in Paris, eh?” the newcomer
observed.
“You were the last man for whom I looked, Baron,” the officer rejoined.
“What is the latest news from Kürschdorf?”
“You have not seen the evening papers, then?”
“No.”
“His Majesty is much worse. His condition became alarming this
morning, at nine o’clock. He cannot, the doctors say, live over
forty-eight hours.” He made the announcement with an air of pleasurable
anticipation. “I should fancy, Herr Captain, that your presence might
be required at the Palace. Or,” and there was a world of cunning
suggestion in his tone, “you have more important business here in
Paris?”
“As you say, Herr Baron,” Lindenwald replied, visibly uncomfortable. He
was questioning whether the Baron had overheard his conversation with
Edson, and if so, how much. The man’s small eyes were like the eyes of
a snake, beady and sinister. They compelled against one’s will.
“You remain here long?” von Einhard continued, smiling insinuatingly.
“The length of my stay is undetermined.”
“I trust we shall meet again,” and the Baron, still smiling, bowed,
turned on his heel and vanished.
Grey, who had been listening, now rejoined the Captain.
“He followed us, evidently,” he ventured.
“He is a serpent,” Lindenwald commented, gravely, “and one to be
feared. He crawls in the grass, gives no sign and strikes with poisoned
fang where and when least expected. We must be very wary--very wary,
indeed, until we are quite sure he has left the city. Ah, and that is
not the worst--how can we ever be sure? This is a case, Herr Arndt,
where caution is more advisable than valour.”
“And your advice is?” Grey queried.
“My advice is never to go out unaccompanied. Already he is setting his
traps, arranging his pitfalls. You cannot conceive of his ingenuity. I
am vexed because I feel myself unequal to combat his trickery. In fair
fight I have no fear, but to fence with von Einhard is to be always in
danger of the impalpable.”
When they had separated and Grey was alone in his room, he flung
himself into a comfortable chair, lighted a cigarette and gave himself
up to reflection. The gravity of the affair was not to be minimized,
yet he could not repress a smile as he thought of the triangular form
the matter had assumed and of the complications, ramifications and
cross-purposes that had developed. Personally his object was to detect
and bring to justice those persons who had, for some reason not yet
divulged, been using him as a cat’s-paw to attain an end of which he
was also ignorant. He had, of course, every reason to believe that in
this plot Captain Lindenwald was a prominent factor, and as such his
hand was against him. Meanwhile the machinery of international justice
had been set in motion to bring about his own apprehension, extradition
and punishment for a crime he had never contemplated and never
willingly committed. Whether to this infraction Captain Lindenwald had
been a party he had no means of knowing, but now it had turned out that
another enemy was in the field--an aggressive foe seeking his life--and
in this new battle Captain Lindenwald, strangely enough, was, it would
seem, his staunch ally. He wondered whether any man had ever before
been so harassed, so persecuted, so maligned, so humiliated through no
fault of his own; and his sense of injury waxed more galling and his
resentment more turbulently avid. He grew impatient of every hour’s
delay in the chase, restless under his enforced inaction and fretful
over the tardy revelation of past events and the development of future
plans.
Then the thought of the box at the Gare du Nord recurred to him, and he
got up and rang for Johann. But the youth knew nothing of it.
“Lutz, perhaps,” he said; “it is possible that Lutz knows. I will send
him to you, Herr Arndt.”
And a little later Lutz came in. His air was timid and his manner
uneasy. His eyes were furtive and refused to meet his master’s, and his
fingers were in constant motion.
“Ah, Lutz,” Grey greeted him composedly, taking great care to erase
all modulation from his tone, “there is somewhere, probably among poor
Herr Schlippenbach’s effects, a receipt or check for a box at a railway
station here in Paris--at the Gare du Nord, in fact. I wish you would
see if you can find it for me.”
“Yes, Herr Arndt.” His gaze was on the carpet.
“Immediately, Lutz.”
“Yes, Herr Arndt.”
“That is all.”
When he had gone Grey began pacing the floor like a madman, his fists
clenched, his eyes blazing.
“Was ever guilt more apparent?” he asked himself. “It is written all
over him.”
And he wondered how he had controlled himself, how he had refrained
from catching him by the throat and strangling a confession from him
without more ado.