The Grand Hotel Königin Anna at Kürschdorf is much like the
Schweitzerhof at Lucerne. It stretches its long, yellow front, bordered
by a stone terrace, along the wide Schloss Strasse, on the other side
of which, shaded by four rows of leafy linden trees, is the Königin
Quai, skirting the fast-flowing Weisswasser. At one end of the Quai is
the Wartburg Brücke, and at the other the Kursaal.
At about ten o’clock on the morning following his arrival in
Kürschdorf, O’Hara appeared on the terrace with a troubled expression
on his usually care-free face and a newspaper in his hand. The events
of the previous evening had filled him with an apprehension greater
even than that which had beset his friend. Being himself a subject
of monarchical rule, and appreciating by reason of his breeding and
environment the very serious nature of the affair, he viewed these
late developments with less leniency than would naturally temper the
consideration of a citizen of a republic, whose knowledge of the ethics
of dynasties had been gleaned chiefly from books.
Grey, in allowing himself to be invested with royal honours, had cut
loose from O’Hara’s counsel. The Crown Prince was no longer travelling
_incognito_. He was now within the very shadow of the throne that
awaited him, and was consequently hedged in by all the formalities
of the Court. Yesterday they were able to consult as man to man on
an equal footing. Today a gulf divided them. It would be possible,
of course, for O’Hara to present himself at the Palace and crave an
audience, but it was doubtful whether anything approaching a private
consultation could be managed. The American now, oddly enough, was not
his own master. Otherwise he would have come to the hotel the evening
before, as he had planned. He belonged to the state, and, if rumour
spoke truly, he was, and had been since his arrival at the Residenz
Schloss, under the strictest surveillance.
There was a hint of this in the paper that O’Hara carried, and the
very air was pregnant with more or less detailed gossip, sensational
in the extreme. At breakfast the Irishman had overheard a conversation
at the next table to the effect that the Crown Prince was quite mad
and had been locked in a dungeon under the Palace in the care of a
half-dozen burly wardens. Everyone was talking on the same subject. An
officer in uniform, connected with the Royal Horse Guards, was reported
to have said that Prince Max had attempted suicide on his way from
Paris, and O’Hara, knowing this to be untrue, discounted most of the
other tales as equally baseless. Nevertheless, he was very considerably
disturbed. He longed to act, but realised that his hands were tied. All
that was left for him to do was to wait with what patience he could
command until something further developed. And so he lighted a cigar
and strolled forth across the Schlosse Strasse to the Quai, where,
presently, he was joined by Miss Van Tuyl and the Fräulein von Altdorf.
They, too, had heard the rumours with which the very atmosphere was
vibrant, and they came to him with long faces seeking reassurance.
“Isn’t it possible to find out something definite?” Hope asked,
plaintively. “Surely there must be some authority somewhere. You are
his friend and you have a right to know. Why not go to see General
Roederer? Let us get a carriage and we will all three go.”
“I should be only too glad, Miss Van Tuyl,” O’Hara replied, “if I
thought anything was to be gained by it; but the truth of the matter
is, you are unnecessarily alarmed. Carey is all right. Don’t you pay
any attention to these cock-and-bull stories. He has done this thing
with his eyes open, and if we go interfering we may upset all his
plans. We shall hear from him some time during the day, I feel certain.
But if we don’t I’ll see that you have the facts before you sleep
tonight. By the way, have you heard from your father?”
“Oh, yes. I had a telegram late last night. He is on his way. He will
be here this evening.”
“Good. Two heads are better than one, and when he arrives we’ll find
out what we want to know if we have to blow up the palace to do it.
But I really feel that we shall have tidings from His Royal Highness
before many hours.” And he laughed in his characteristic rollicking
fashion.
“It all seems just like a dream to me,” said Minna, soberly. “I’m
completely dazed. So much has happened in the last week that I hardly
know what I’m doing. And now I shouldn’t stop here another minute, for
I’m sure my sister will be at the hotel and those stupid people will
not know where to tell her to find me.”
“We’ll all go over and sit on the terrace,” suggested O’Hara. “The band
will be playing before long, and they tell me it is a very good one.”
On the journey from Paris the Irishman and the Fräulein had been much
in each other’s company, and the growth of their mutual interest had
been more than once remarked by both Grey and Miss Van Tuyl. Now, as he
gazed at her fresh young beauty, there was a tenderness in his eyes,
the meaning of which there was no mistaking. Hope saw it, and when the
terrace was reached she excused herself and went inside, leaving them
together.
“You will be going to your sister’s today, then, I suppose,” said the
soldier, when they had found places under the shade of an awning not
too close to the band stand and well away from the other loungers; in
his tone was regret.
“Yes,” Minna answered, and her accent, too, was regretful. “Her house
is to be my home after this, you know.”
“And there’ll be somebody that will miss you very much,” O’Hara
ventured. His eyes had grown worshipful, and the girl’s colour deepened
as she looked into them.
“And I shall miss somebody very much,” she returned, with a tincture of
coquetry; adding, after a briefest moment, “Miss Van Tuyl is lovely. I
feel as if I had known her always.”
“But I wasn’t speaking of her,” he protested, softly. “She’ll miss you,
I dare say; but there’s a man who’ll miss you a whole lot more--miss
you as he never thought it would be possible for him to miss anyone.”
The girl’s eyes drooped under the ardour of his gaze, and her cheeks
flushed pinker still at his words. Her heart fluttered with an
emotion that was new to it, and that she did not quite understand.
She had experienced it once or twice before, in lesser degree, on
the train when this big, hearty, boyish fellow had--not altogether by
chance--touched her hand. It made her mute then, and now her tongue was
again for the moment tied.
“But I am not going far,” she replied, when utterance returned; “my
sister’s place is only a mile or two out of town, and the man has told
me that he is very fond of walking.”
“And may he come?” he pleaded, eagerly, his face suddenly alight with
the smile she had grown to regard as not the least of his attractions.
“May he?”
“Why not?” she asked, laughing lightly.
“Yes, why not?” he repeated, joyously. “Since he will want to see her
very much, and since she has not denied him.”
Frau Fahler, Minna’s sister, was much older than she; a woman of
thirty-four at least, short, stout and fair-haired, but with eyes of
that deep pansy blue which was a family characteristic. She arrived
about eleven o’clock in a rather quaint-looking country wagon, and she
carried off the Fräulein almost immediately, in spite of the urging of
Hope and O’Hara that she would stop for luncheon and delay the parting
until afternoon.
Minna was naturally loth to leave until some tidings had been received
from the Palace, but her sister had a dozen reasons for her haste, and
so it was arranged that when towards evening her luggage was sent for,
the messenger should be given whatever news had arrived.
Hope’s anxiety meanwhile had grown with every passing minute. O’Hara’s
assurances were well intentioned, but, backed only by surmise, they
were by no means satisfying.
“I don’t suppose he can come himself, or he would be here,” she said,
in reply to his oft-repeated explanation that a Crown Prince is not
wholly his own master, “but he certainly could send Johann or some one
with a note.”
But the afternoon wore away without any message. On the other hand,
the rumours of the morning grew more ominous. A special session of the
Budavian Assembly had been called for that very evening. A question, it
was said, had arisen as to the legitimacy of the alleged heir apparent.
Certain members of the Royal household were reported under arrest,
charged with no less a crime than treason. The adherents of Prince Hugo
were in the highest feather. Already the more optimistic were speaking
of him as His Majesty. In the crowded cafés, the _Brauerei_ and the
beer gardens but the one subject was discussed; and the newspapers got
out special extras, which hinted guardedly at the mystery, but gave
absolutely no facts.
At seven o’clock Hope Van Tuyl drove to the railway station and met
her father. She was nervously excited to the verge of hysteria, and
Nicholas Van Tuyl had some difficulty in piecing together her somewhat
disconnected and, it seemed to him at times, irrational statements.
Eventually, however, by dint of careful questioning he became
acquainted with the salient points of the situation; and later, at
dinner, the Irishman supplied what was lacking in important detail.
“I agree with Lieutenant O’Hara,” said Mr. Van Tuyl, in a tone that
smacked of the judicial; “it is a very delicate problem, and one that
must be handled with the utmost care. At the same time, my dear child,
your anxiety is natural, and, though I think you have exaggerated the
seriousness of the affair, I can well understand your impatience for
facts. And facts we are going to have.”
He smiled confidently, and his daughter’s face brightened on the
instant.
“All the time you have been telling me your story,” he went on, “I have
been trying to think of the name of a man I met in Munich a few years
ago. He holds some high position here, and would be just the chap to
help us now. We were excellent friends, and when we parted he begged me
to come to Kürschdorf and visit him. Strange I can’t think of his name.”
“What about the American Minister?” O’Hara suggested.
“I doubt that he would know. Besides, under the circumstances, there’s
no use taking chances. If we told him the truth it would be a case of
out of the frying-pan into the fire. Grey is extraditable, you know. I
wonder if we could learn anything by attending this Parliament meeting?”
“We couldn’t get in. I thought of that at once and made inquiries. It’s
an executive session.”
Van Tuyl was silent for a minute or more, evidently deep in thought.
“I don’t suppose you know the names of the high monkey-monks here, do
you?” he asked, presently.
“I know a few,” O’Hara answered. “There’s Prince von Eisenthal, and
Herr Marscheim, and Count von Ritter, and----”
“Aha!” cried the New York man, gleefully, “now you’ve hit it. Von
Ritter--Count von Ritter. He is my Munich friend. What is he? What
position does he hold?”
“He is what they call Chancellor, I believe; but in reality he’s a sort
of Prime Minister.”
“That’s our man, by all that’s good!” Van Tuyl exclaimed. “We’ll find
where he hangs out and call on him. And, girlie,” he added, turning to
his daughter, “you’ll know all about it in a few hours.”
“He’ll be at the Assembly session, of course,” said O’Hara.
“Certainly. We’ll go there and send him in a message, and I’ll bet
ten dollars to a cent he’ll come a-running. He owes me a debt of
gratitude; I put him in the way of placing a government loan at very
good figures when the Budavian credit wasn’t the best in all Europe by
any means.”
Hope smiled her gratitude. She had great faith in her father. He was of
the type of successful Americans that do things.