The rumoured meeting of the Budavian Assembly proved, like many other
rumoured events, to be a canard, the only foundation for which was a
hastily called session of the Privy Council. Before this august body,
over which the Prince Regent presided, Chancellor von Ritter laid
all the facts that had come into his possession; and very startling
facts they were, including a confiscated letter from Baron von
Einhard addressed to Captain Lindenwald, telling of the failure of
the abduction plot and of the securing of that precious heirloom, the
signet ring of the Prince of Kronfeld.
This communication gave indubitable proof that Lindenwald had been
false to his trust, and it fully justified the Chancellor in having him
placed under arrest. It did not tend, however, to throw any light on
the mystifying main question. Was the man who had been welcomed with
such acclaim on the previous evening really the Crown Prince, as every
bit of evidence up to the time of his arrival tended to prove, or was
he, as he claimed, simply the cat’s-paw of a company of conscienceless
conspirators?
The von Einhard letter would in a way indicate that his title was
clear and genuine, as, had it been otherwise, there would have been no
necessity to conspire with Lindenwald to bring about his abduction.
Yet, if Lindenwald knew him to be the Crown Prince, why should he
run the risk of dickering with the Baron, seeing that greater good
fortune than he could possibly hope to earn by such a course lay in the
direction of his faithful carrying out of his mission?
Upon these points the Privy Council debated long and eagerly, if not
altogether wisely. Men are slow to confess even to themselves that
they have been imposed upon, and the State Council had months before
by an overwhelming majority declared its faith in the integrity of
the claimant. It was, therefore, no more than to be expected that
the majority should still favour the theory that Prince Max, in his
assertion that he was simply a plain American citizen, was labouring
under an hallucination. There had been a strain of dementia in the
ruling line for seven generations, and this exhibition of mental
malady was to those who now recalled the fact but another evidence of
legitimacy.
On the minority who were known to be partial to Prince Hugo the proof
of von Einhard’s treachery served as an effective gag. They could not
afford to imply sympathy for such conduct by opposition to the ruling
notion; and so it happened that, while every phase of the question was
discussed with much earnestness, there was ever an underlying sentiment
that promised but one conclusion--the unqualified endorsement of the
fancied unfortunately demented young Prince in the Flag Tower.
As the session was approaching its close, a card was brought to Count
von Ritter. The Chancellor, however, deeply interested in the speech
of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, which was then in progress, laid
it on the table before him without adjusting his glasses to read it,
and had it not been for the dullness of the speech of the Secretary
of War which followed, the session would probably have come to a vote
and adjourned before he gave it heed. But as it chanced, bored by the
prosiness of the speaker, he took up the piece of pasteboard, placed
his _pince-nez_ on the bridge of his nose, and read the name: “Mr.
Nicholas Van Tuyl,” with a pencil scrawl beneath: “Your friend of
Munich and the Monterossan War Loan.” Whereupon he arose instantly and
tip-toed from the Council Hall into the ante-room adjoining, where Van
Tuyl and O’Hara were with some impatience waiting.
Their reception by Count von Ritter was cordial in the extreme. The
sentiment of the Council had served to lift a load from his shoulders,
and he was in fine good humour.
“Remember you!” he cried, wringing Van Tuyl’s hand, his small eyes
alight, “of course I remember you; and my debt to you, too--Budavia’s
debt to you. Why, my dear sir, you should have had a decoration. The
late King was very remiss in not sending you one. But we will do what
we can to make up for it.”
“Ah,” returned the New York banker, “you are very good indeed, Count,
and I am going to hold you to your word. Lieutenant O’Hara and I have
come for something this evening--something we want very much, and
something I feel sure you can give us.”
The Chancellor bowed and stretched forth his hands with palms upturned
and open, in signal of his willingness to give.
“What we desire,” continued Nicholas Van Tuyl, smiling his recognition,
“is information. There are many sensational reports abroad, as you
probably know; but we men of finance are in the habit of discounting
unverified rumours. We are not credulous. We want facts with an
authority to back them up. We want confirmation or denial.”
Von Ritter’s geniality was still fervent.
“You wish to know, for instance--” he invited.
“We wish to know, Count, whether there is any basis for the story that
His Royal Highness, Prince Maximilian, is being restrained of his
liberty.”
The Chancellor smiled a little patronisingly.
“Do they say that?” he asked.
“That is the least they say,” Van Tuyl returned.
For a moment Count von Ritter hesitated.
“May I, without discourtesy, inquire why you are interested?” he
questioned.
“We are interested,” answered the New Yorker, promptly, “because he is
our personal friend. I have known him for years, and Lieutenant O’Hara
here has been with him, he tells me, continually from the day he left
America.”
The three were still standing; but now the Chancellor motioned his
visitors to be seated.
“You in turn interest me,” he said, as he took a chair and sat down
facing them. “How long, Mr. Van Tuyl, have you known him? For how many
years?”
“Ten at least,” was the answer. “He came down to the Street when he was
twenty. He was with Dunscomb & Fiske in 1893, I remember.”
“The Street?” repeated the Count, questioningly.
“Yes, Wall Street. You knew he was a Wall Street stock broker, didn’t
you?”
The Chancellor paled perceptibly, his eyes widened a trifle and the
straight line of his lips narrowed under his close-cropped moustache.
“Yes,” he returned, diplomatically, after an instant’s pause. “Yes. His
name, I think, was Grey, was it not?”
“Grey. Yes, Carey Grey.”
Count von Ritter cleared his throat and then for a moment he sat in
silence, his lids half-closed, his mouth tight-drawn. When he spoke it
was very seriously, with a changed demeanour.
“Budavia has still more for which to thank you, Mr. Van Tuyl,” he said,
rising.
The New York banker and the Irish lieutenant also stood up. It was
evident to both that a blunder had been made.
“I don’t just see for what,” said the older man, a little nervously. “I
haven’t told you anything you didn’t know. I didn’t come here to tell
you anything. I came to have you tell me something.”
“I think,” replied the Count, with an urbanity that was the acme of
trained diplomacy, “that you said just now you came here to confirm a
rumour, or words to that effect. You have, my dear sir, confirmed it.
And now I must ask you to excuse me. You are at the Königin Anna, I
suppose? I shall have the pleasure of calling upon you tomorrow.”
The Chancellor bowed, smiling, and before Van Tuyl could remonstrate
had disappeared into the Hall of Council. And then it was that O’Hara
for the first time found words.
“Well, I’m damned!” he said. And he said it with emphasis.
Meanwhile the Colonial Secretary had finished his wearying oration
and the Prince Regent had suggested the advisability of adjournment.
But the return of the Chancellor, craving the privilege of the floor,
awakened a new interest. His usually immobile face was portentous in
its marked gravity, and when he spoke every ear was alert.
“Your Highness,” he began, addressing the Prince Regent, “I am come to
cry ‘Pause!’ I have listened to and taken part in a debate this evening
the sole purpose of which, as I regard it now, has been to accomplish
our own convincing. We constructed a theory upon a basis as unstable
as the sands of the sea, and then marshalled arguments of straw to
effect its establishment. In the whole history of Budavia I know of no
incident of parallel puerility. We call ourselves statesmen, and we
have acted with the confiding innocence of children. We gambolled like
foolhardy lads blindfold upon the brink of a precipice, over which,
had not a miracle intervened, we must have fallen into the slough of
ignominious dishonour. Even as it is the smirch of its miasma is upon
us, and we cannot escape the ridicule that is entailed.
“Our supposed mad Prince Maximilian of Kronfeld, now so carefully
guarded in the Flag Tower, your Highness, is, I make bold to announce,
a perfectly sane American gentleman and nothing more.”
The Prince Regent leaned suddenly forward, his hands clutching the arms
of his chair. The other members of the Council stirred, changed their
positions; two of them got onto their feet. But the Chancellor still
standing, the Prince Regent motioned them back to their places, and the
speaker continued:
“In the chain of evidence I have, within the past five minutes, found
a broken link. The statements made to me by the supposed heir have,
in one important particular, been verified to my entire satisfaction,
and these statements were, as you know, at utter variance with what we
had been led to believe was the truth--in direct contradiction to the
alleged proofs of royal birth.”
“But, your Excellency,” protested the Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
rising again, “is not this simply jumping from one conclusion to
another?”
The Chancellor frowned grimly.
“At first glance,” he replied, resting the tips of his long, knotted
fingers on the table between them, “it may appear so. But a chain is
only as strong as its weakest link, and this link, as I have stated,
has been shattered into infinitesimal atoms.”
Count von Ritter spoke for fully an hour. He reviewed the affair from
the beginning, detailing every step in the building up of the fabric
and demonstrating with marked effect how a single pin-prick had brought
about its total collapse. The pretender--if he could be so called in
view of the fact that he personally had laid no claim to the throne,
but, on the other hand, had of his own free will protested against the
honour they would have forced upon him--should be quietly deported, and
as expeditiously as possible arrangements effected for the coronation
of Prince Hugo. The detection and punishment of those involved in the
plot to steal the crown must be brought about with all the secrecy
possible. Already two of the conspirators, he announced, were under
arrest, and the apprehension of others would speedily follow.
It was long after midnight when the Council adjourned, and the
Chancellor returned to his ancient mansion on the Graf Strasse. Rest
for him, however, was not yet to come. Upon the writing table in his
library were many State papers demanding his attention, and, aided
by his secretary, who had been awaiting his home-coming, he went
systematically to work to clear away the more important before retiring.
At a quarter past two he threw down his quill and leaned back in his
chair with a yawn.
“That will do for tonight, Heinrich,” he said, kindly, “I’m sorry to
have had to keep you up so long.”
And as he spoke the telephone rang long, loud and viciously. The
secretary put the receiver to his ear, and answered into the
mouthpiece. The Count rose and stretched himself. It was unusual
for the telephone to ring at that hour, and he wondered, watching
Heinrich’s face. He saw the young man’s chin drop and his eyes suddenly
grow round.
“Your Excellency!” he exclaimed, excitement in his voice. “Your
Excellency! Listen! The Crown Prince has escaped from the Flag Tower,
together with his servant and Captain Lindenwald. And the Captain’s
man has been shot, seriously--they think fatally. One of the guards
was found bound in His Royal Highness’s apartment. Another guard has a
broken leg, and three others are slightly injured.”