“Kürschdorf,” the guide-books will tell you, “is the Capital of the
Kingdom of Budavia; 118 miles from Munich and forty-nine miles from
Nuremberg. It stands on both banks of the Weisswasser, united by
the Charlemagne and Wartberg bridges, 400 yards long. Surrounded by
towering mountains its King’s Residenz Schloss, erected 1607-1642,
rises like the Acropolis above the dwellings and other buildings of
the city. The steep sides of the Wartberg (1,834 feet) rise directly
from amid the houses of the town, and it is on one extremity of the
elevation that the imposing royal palace is located, with its 365
rooms, frescoes and statues, a ‘Diana’ of Canova, a ‘Perseus’ of
Schwanhaler, a ‘Sleeping Ariadne’ of Thorwaldsen, and casts. The
palace gardens are two miles long, and consist of a series of terraces
overlooking the Wartberg valley on one side and a fertile plain on the
other.”
The guide-books, too, will tell you of the Königsbau, a quarter-mile
long, containing a coffee house, the Bourse, and the Concert Hall; and
of the Museum, where the chief treasures of Kürschdorf are on view
daily (10 A. M. TO 4 P. M.); and of the Hof Theatre, and of the beer
gardens. And they will give you a long and detailed description of the
cathedral, completed in 1317, with its spire 452 feet high, ascended
by 575 steps, its wonderful astronomical clock, and its great west
window. They will even tell you that the best shops are in the Schloss
Strasse, and that the Grand Hotel Königin Anna is a first-class and
well-situated hostelry. But in no one of them will you find any mention
of the most ancient dwelling house in all Kürschdorf, a quaint, dark
stone building, on the Graf Strasse, only a stone’s throw from the
Friedrich Platz and two blocks away from the Wartburg Brücke.
At the moment Carey Grey was sending his telegram from the railway
station at Château-Thierry to Nicholas Van Tuyl, in Paris, Count
Hermann von Ritter, Chancellor of Budavia, was standing at a rear
window of this venerable Kürschdorf mansion, gazing out upon a spacious
and orderly rose garden. He was very tall and very angular. From a
fringe of silver-white hair rose a shining pink crown; from beneath
bushy brows of only slightly darker grey appeared small, keen black
eyes; and a moustache of the same colour, heavy but close-cropped,
accentuated rather than hid a straight, thin-lipped, nervous mouth. His
head was bent thoughtfully forward and his hands, long and sinewy, with
sharply defined knuckles, were clasped behind his back.
The drawing-room in which he stood was large and square, with high
walls hung with many splendid pictures in heavy gilded frames. The
furniture was massive and richly carved. Rococo cabinets held a wealth
of curios--odd vases and drinking cups of repoussé work in gold and
silver; idols from the Orient, peculiar antique knives--bodkins and
poniards, and carvings of jade and ivory and ebony. The polished floor
was strewn with Eastern rugs of silken texture, and at the doors and
windows were hangings of still softer fabric and less florid colour and
ornamentation.
After a little the Count crossed to a table on which stood lighted
candelabra, and taking out his watch glanced at it with some show of
impatience. Almost at the same moment a bell jangled, and very soon
after a portière was raised by a servant wearing the Court mourning
livery.
“Herr Captain Lindenwald, your Excellency!” he announced. And the
Captain entered, saluting.
He was flushed and somewhat ill at ease, and the Chancellor’s icy
manner as he bade him be seated was not altogether reassuring.
“I am very much distressed over the news conveyed by your telegram,”
began the older man, when he had taken a chair at a little distance
from his visitor. “Any delay at this juncture, you must understand, is
only calculated to result in complications. Was His Royal Highness so
violent that to bring him with you was impracticable?”
Lindenwald hesitated for just the shade of a second, his fingers
playing nervously with the arm of his chair.
“I regarded the risk as too great,” he ventured.
“That is no answer,” the Count returned, irritably. “I asked you if he
was violent.”
“Yes, Count, he was,” replied the Captain, with sudden assurance. “He
was very violent at intervals. It would have been impossible to get
him here without his causing a scene at some stage of the journey and
probably revealing his identity. Besides, it was most dangerous. He was
liable to evade his watchers and throw himself from the train.”
The annoyance of the Chancellor increased.
“You have never heard, Captain,” he said with a sneer, “that there are
such things as handcuffs and strait-jackets.”
“Ah, but Count,” pleaded the other, in a tone of conciliation. “His
Royal Highness! Could I put the Crown Prince to such humiliation? You
know yourself that I would not be justified. It was better, it seemed
to me, to have him safely confined in a private hospital in Paris for
the present. In a little while, perhaps, his mind will clear.”
“What is the form of his mania?”
“It is most peculiar,” explained the Herr Captain. “You understand, of
course, that until five months ago he had no idea whatever that he was
who he is. He was, as you have been told, a valet, but a very superior
man of his class. It is most certainly true that blood counts. He had
all the inherent dignity of birth. His mind was far above his assumed
station. All this you know. You may not have heard, though, that he was
employed by an American stock broker named Grey who one day embezzled
four hundred thousand marks and ran away.”
“Yes,” put in the Count, “I was informed of that as well.”
“Just so. Well,” continued the Captain, “His Royal Highness now,
strangely enough, imagines that he is Grey.”
“Imagines that he is an embezzler?” queried Ritter.
“Precisely. He even cabled to New York giving his Paris address, and
the United States Embassy there was for arresting him and having him
extradited.”
“And when did this mania develop?”
“After the death of the Herr Doctor Schlippenbach.”
The Chancellor sat thoughtfully rubbing together his long, virile hands.
“But I thought that this man Grey, this embezzler, committed
suicide--was drowned or something.”
“He was,” Lindenwald assented, “at least he is supposed to be dead.”
“It will be possible, I presume,” the Count pursued, after another
moment of meditation, “to have the present temporary regency continued
by simply proving that Prince Maximilian, the heir apparent, is alive
and mentally incapacitated, though to have had him here in the flesh
would have been far better. And now as to these proofs--I am in
possession of copies of the papers, but where are the originals?”
The Captain shifted uneasily in his chair, and his eyes refused to meet
those of his interlocutor.
“That is a question, Count,” he replied.
“A question!” cried the other, surprised and annoyed. “Why a question?
Surely you are in possession of them!”
“Alas, I am not!”
His Excellency, his face crimson, sprang to his feet.
“My God, Captain!” he exclaimed in a rage, “you exasperate me beyond
all bearing.”
“I am deeply sorry, Count von Ritter,” returned Lindenwald, “but if you
will hear me for one moment you will know that I am not to blame.”
“Excuses will not avail,” he retorted, glowering. “You are a bungler,
sir, a bungler. You have been either criminally careless in this matter
or intentionally--yes, Captain, intentionally criminal.”
“Your Excellency!” The Captain arose with a fine assumption of anger.
“I permit no man, your Excellency----”
The Chancellor’s lips were close pressed. His beady eyes were two
points of fire.
“Tut, tut,” he said, “this is neither the time nor place for that
sort of thing. I am pained, distressed, mortified. From first to last
your mission has been a series of blunders. Delay has followed delay;
excuse has followed excuse; and now, at the crucial moment, comes the
climax of your incapacity. A child could have done better. Knowing the
importance of getting the Prince of Kronfeld here while His Majesty
still lived you, on one pretext and another, dawdled away week after
week in London and Paris; you permitted knowledge of the existence of
the Prince to leak out; you could not even hide your stopping place
from Hugo’s emissaries--ah, you see I am well posted--and finally you
come here not only without the heir but without the documents that are
absolutely essential to the continuance of the direct succession.”
Lindenwald listened, cowed and speechless. After a little, however,
he spoke falteringly, while the Count, his hands behind him, strode
excitedly up and down the large, square drawing-room.
“If you will but hear me,” he protested, sullenly, “I think--I am
indeed almost certain, your Excellency, that I can show you I am at
least not altogether to blame. The Herr Doctor was ill when he landed
in England. He was, moreover, most eccentric and most self-willed.
And His Royal Highness was of the Herr Doctor’s mind, always. For
me to make a more expeditious journey was, under the circumstances,
impossible. It appeared to me that it was the Herr Doctor’s object
to delay our arrival until after the death of His Majesty. Then, as
you know, Herr Doctor Schlippenbach died, somewhat suddenly, and the
madness of the Prince ensued.”
“But the papers, the papers?” cried von Ritter, irritably, halting in
his walk. “What of them?”
“The Herr Doctor never so much as showed them to me, Count. They were,
I understand, in a strong-box, of which he and Prince Maximilian had
duplicate keys. But the strong-box when we reached Paris was not
brought to our hotel. Schlippenbach seemed to think it would be safer
at the railway station. I argued with him, but to no avail. There was
a fire, you remember, at our hotel in London, and that it and its
contents were not destroyed was simply miraculous. It was that which
frightened the Herr Doctor, and he refused to risk it in another hotel.
Well, your Excellency, after his death we could find no trace of the
box. The receipt for it had disappeared. I did my utmost to locate and
secure it, but as yet I have been unsuccessful. I have tracers out,
however, and it may be discovered any day.”
“Bah!” almost shrieked the Chancellor, irascibly, “and a throne hangs
on the slender thread of that ‘may be.’ Unless the box is found,
Captain, it will be well for you to--but it is needless for me to
suggest. You yourself know that your life, henceforth, would be not
only useless, but a burden.”
Lindenwald’s chin dropped and his eyes sought the floor.
“The box shall be found,” he said; but the assurance in his tone was
meagre.
“And His Royal Highness,” continued von Ritter, “is in a sanitarium in
Paris?”
“Yes, Count; the sanitarium of----”
But a rap on the door cut short his answer, and the name either was not
pronounced or was drowned in the Chancellor’s stentorian:
“_Herein!_”
A footman handed His Excellency a telegram, and with a “Pardon me,
Captain!” he opened it.
Years of diplomatic training had given the Count von Ritter a command
of his facial muscles that was perfect. Not by so much even as the
quiver of an eyelash did he signify the character of the tidings thus
conveyed to him. Having read the message at a glance he refolded the
paper with some deliberation, and then turning to Lindenwald again,
asked:
“In whose sanitarium did you say?”
“Dr. De Cerveau’s.”
“You saw him there yourself?”
“Yes, Count.”
“And there is no possible chance of his escaping?”
“None whatever, Count.”
His Excellency took another turn to the window overlooking the rose
garden, his head bowed meditatively. Lindenwald was still standing, his
arm resting on the high back of the chair from which he had risen.
“You are quite sure,” His Excellency pursued, when he was again
opposite the Captain, “that we need have no apprehension on that score?”
“Quite sure, Count von Ritter.”
Very slowly, and with a care and precision that emphasised the action,
the Chancellor again unfolded the telegram he held and extended it
towards Lindenwald.
“Then you will, perhaps, explain to me what that means?” he said, with
a calmness that was portentous.
The face of the Herr Captain went ashen white. He caught his breath
sharply, and his left hand gripped the chair back where a second before
his arm had rested.
“_Am leaving this evening, Orient Express_,” he read. “_Have me
met on arrival._ ARNDT.”
He made as if to speak, but his lips emitted no sound.
“Well? Well?” queried the Count, impatiently. “What is it? Explain it.
That is from His Royal Highness, isn’t it?”
“I--I--you see, I--” stammered the Captain, dazed and affrighted, “I--I
am not so sure. It may be a hoax--a trap.”
Von Ritter’s eyes poured out upon him their contempt.
“A hoax, a trap,” he sneered. “No, no, unless it be a trap in which
to catch a certain officer of the Army who is not so very far away. I
think, Captain, that it is useless to prolong this interview,” and he
pressed an electric button in the table under his thumb.
Captain Lindenwald bowed, but said nothing.
At the same moment the footman reappeared and at a signal from
the Chancellor lifted the portière, and the Captain went rather
shamefacedly from the room.
When the Count heard the street door close he pressed the button in the
table again, and to the footman who entered he said:
“Otto, I wish to speak to the Chief of Police. Call him up, and when
you have him on the telephone let me know.”
He walked to the window again. The moon had risen, and the rose garden
was clad in luminous white with trimmings of purplish grey and black
shadows.