THE MYSTERY OF PRINCE ZASTROW
Events now began to move with an almost bewildering rapidity, at least,
so far as they affected the immediate temporal concerns of Nitocris and
her father. For days and weeks a furious storm raged round the famous
lecture, and the atmosphere of the scientific world was thick with
figures and formulæ, diagrams and disquisitions; but since none of the
learned disputators proved himself capable of detecting the slightest
flaw in the lecturer's mathematics, it had very little interest for him,
and therefore has none for us. In fact, so little did he seem concerned
with the tempest he had raised, that a few days later, to the
astonishment and chagrin of his baffled critics, he and Nitocris bade
adieu to their more intimate friends and disappeared on a wandering trip
of undetermined destination for change of air and scene and a
much-needed holiday for the over-worked Professor. At least, that is the
reason which Nitocris gave to Lord Leighton and the Van Huysmans, and
the few others to whom she thought it necessary to give any explanation
at all.
The day before they left, Merrill lunched at "The Wilderness," took a
fitting leave of his lady-love and his prospective father-in-law, and
departed to join his ship, slightly mystified, perhaps, by recent
happenings, but still believing himself with sufficient reason to be the
happiest and most fortunate Lieutenant-Commander in the British Navy.
The true reasons for the sudden departure of the now more than ever
famous Professor and his beautiful daughter from the scene of his latest
and most marvellous triumph may be set forth as follows:
On the evening of the third day after the lecture Franklin Marmion was
going back by train to Wimbledon after a long day at the British Museum
among the relics of Egyptian antiquity--which, as may well be
understood, he studied now with an interest of which no other man living
could have been capable; and as soon as he was seated in a comfortable
corner, and had his pipe going, he opened his _Pall Mall Gazette_, and,
as was his wont on such occasions, began with the leading article and
read straight along through the Special Article and the Occ. Notes,
until he came to the news of the day, skipping only the financial news
and quotations, which, under his present changed conditions of
existence, he dare not trust himself to read lest he might be tempted by
the unrighteousness of Mammon, a form of idolatry which he had always
heartily despised.
The first item on the news page was headed in bold type:
~"MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF A
RULING GERMAN PRINCE.
"SUSPICION OF FOUL PLAY.
"IMPORTANT STATE PAPERS VANISH WITH
HIM.--SPECIAL.~
"In spite of the most rigorous censorship of the Press Bureau, it
has now become a matter of practical certainty that Prince Emil
Rudolf von Zastrow, the youthful and very capable ruler of Boravia,
who, during the last two or three years, has become one of the most
brilliant figures in European society, has disappeared under
circumstances so strangely mysterious as to suggest some analogy
with the tragedy of which the unhappy Prince Alexander of Bulgaria
was the central figure.
"The facts, so far as they have been ascertained, are briefly as
follows:--Up to about a fortnight ago, the Prince was living in
semi-retirement with his consort, the Princess Hermia, in his
picturesque Castle of Trelitz, which, as every one knows, looks
down over the waters of the Baltic from a solitary eminence of rock
which rises out of the vast forests that cover the rolling plains
for leagues on the landward sides. It will be remembered that every
year since his accession, the Prince has been wont to retire to
this famous hunting-ground of his to enjoy at once the pleasures of
the chase and the society of his beautiful young consort in peace
and solitude after the whirl of the European winter season. As far
as is known, the only guests at the Castle were the Count Ulik von
Kessner, High Chamberlain of Boravia, who is believed to have been
present on business of State, and Captain Alexis Vollmar, of the
55th Caucasus Regiment, at present attached to the Imperial
Headquarter Staff at St Petersburg. Captain Vollmar, in addition to
being a brilliant young officer, is also a scion of two of the
wealthiest and most aristocratic families in Russia.
"It is now fully established that on the evening of the 6th of this
month--that is to say, nearly three weeks ago--the Prince and his
two guests returned after a long day in the forest, and that the
Prince retired to rest very shortly before supper. From that day to
this he has never been seen, either at home or in society. What
makes the disappearance more strangely striking is the fact that
the Prince, who is Colonel of the 28th Pommeranian Regiment, did
not put in an appearance at the recent review in the Kaiserhof when
the German Emperor held his usual inspection. Although it was
obvious that His Majesty was both puzzled and annoyed by his
absence, no official explanation of it has been given, and all
information on the subject is rigidly withheld. Our own comes from
a personal friend, and, as far as it goes, may be absolutely relied
upon."
For some reason or other, which, after his recent experiences, he
thought it would be as well not to try and fathom for the present, these
few paragraphs made a strangely persistent impression on him. When he
got home he gave his evening papers as usual to his daughter, and at
dinner the Zastrow mystery was the chief, in fact almost the only, topic
of conversation.
"Yes, it certainly is very extraordinary," said Nitocris. "The papers
make mysteries enough out of the disappearance, of the most everyday,
insignificant persons, who were probably only running away from their
debts or their domestic troubles, but for a real Prince to utterly
vanish like this--that certainly looks like a little more than an
ordinary mystery. And I suppose," she went on, after a little interval
of silence, "if there really has been foul play--I mean, granted that
Prince Charming, as all the Society papers got to call him, has been
spirited away for some hidden reason of State or politics and is never
intended to see the light of day again, who knows how many secrets may
be connected with this affair which might be like matches in a powder
magazine? And--Oh yes--why, Dad, it was this same Prince Zastrow who has
been mentioned by most of the best European papers as the only possible
Elective Tsar of Russia if the Romanoffs are driven out by the
Revolution, and the people go back to the old Constitution. In fact,
some of them went so far as to say that nothing but his selection could
prevent a scramble for the fragments of Russia which could only end in
general conflagration."
"Yes, of course I do," replied her father. "But what an atrocious shame,
if it is so! One of the most popular of the minor princes of Europe
spirited away, and perhaps either murdered or thrown into some prison or
fortress, where he will drag out his days and nights in solitude until
he goes mad: a young, bright, promising life ruined, just because he
happens to stand in the way of some unscrupulous ambition, or vile
political intrigue!
"It would be a crime of the very first magnitude, that is to say, of the
most villainous description, and all the more horrible because it would
be committed by people in the highest of places. Really, Niti, it is
enough to make one think that there ought to be some higher power in the
world capable of making these political crimes impossible. The inner
history of European politics--I mean, the history that doesn't get into
books or newspapers--would, I am certain, prove that quite half the wars
of the world, at least during the period of what we are pleased to call
civilisation, would have been avoided if some means could have been
found of putting an end to the miserable personal ambitions and
jealousies which have never anything to do with the welfare of nations,
but quite the reverse. I shouldn't wonder if poor Prince Zastrow has
been the victim of something of the sort. It is quite possible that
expiring Tsardom had a finger in the pie. At any rate, there was a
Russian officer in the Castle the day he disappeared. I should very much
like to see the sort of explanation _he_ could give of the affair, if he
chose."
"But is there not such a power in the world now, Dad?" asked Nitocris,
looking across the table at him with a peculiar smile.
He looked back in silence for a moment or two. Then he replied slowly:
"I see what you mean, Niti. Of course, I suppose we shall be able to
read each other's thoughts now, or even converse without speaking, or
when we are out of earshot of each other. The same idea came to me while
I was reading the account of this affair in the train; but should I, or,
rather we, be doing right in interfering actively in the transactions,
political and otherwise, of the world--by which I mean, of course, the
state of three dimensions? It would be a terrific responsibility.
Remember what tremendous powers we are capable of wielding by simply--it
is so very simple now--simply transferring our personalities to the
higher plane. What if we were to do wrong? We might involve the whole
world in some unspeakable catastrophe."
"And which do _you_ consider to be the greatest catastrophe, or, perhaps
I ought rather to say the greatest evil, that has ever afflicted the
world, Dad?" she asked, with just a suspicion of a smile in her eyes,
though her lips were perfectly serious.
"Oh, war, of course!" he replied, with his usual emphasis when he got on
to that topic. "What was I saying only just now about personal intrigues
and ambitions that make war? What have I always thought about war? It is
the most appalling curse----"
"Then, Dad," she interrupted in her sweetest tones, "do you think that,
supposing we possess these wonderful powers, they could be better used
than in preventing any war which may possibly arise out of this
disappearance of Prince Zastrow, and so convincing those who are wicked
enough to plunge the human race into blood and misery that henceforth
all wars of aggression and ambition will be impossible?"
"Yes, you are right as usual, Niti," he exclaimed, getting up. "Now you
go and think about it all, and give me your advice in the morning. I
want to get away now and work out an intelligible solution of those
three problems--if I can make it so--for the benefit of Van Huysman and
the rest of my respected critics. When I've done that, we'll be off to
the Continent or somewhere----"
"And see what we can make of the Zastrow Mystery, perhaps!" said
Nitocris. "Good-night, Dad. I want to do some thinking, too."
He went to his study and set to work upon a development of the
demonstrations with which he had astounded not only London, but the
whole civilised world.
But it was no good to-night. The ideas would not come. Over and over
again he picked up the threads of his arguments, only to drop them
again. At last, in something like wondering despair, he muttered:
"Confound the thing! I almost had it last night, and now I seem as far
away from it as ever. What on earth can be the matter with me?"
He put his elbows on the table, took his head between his hands, and
stared down at the pages covered with angles and circles, chords and
curves, and wildernesses of symbols, which were scattered about his
desk. As he stared at them they seemed somehow to come together, and the
lines and curves arranged themselves in symmetrical shapes, until they
developed from diagrams into pictures; and as they did so he found
himself forgetting all about the problems, and thinking only of the
strange vision which seemed to be unfolding itself among the scattered
papers before him. The straight lines became the walls and turrets of
one of those two-or three-hundred-year-old German country houses, half
castle, half mansion, which every explorer of the bye-paths of the
Fatherland has seen and admired so often. The curves became long,
sweeping stretches of sandy bays, fringed with other curves of breaking
rollers; and as the picture grew more distinct, one great circle
embraced a whole perfect picture of land and seascape--land dusky and
forest-covered in the southward half; and the misty sea, island-dotted,
wind-whipped, and foam-flecked, to the northward.
The castle stood on the top of a somewhat steeply sloping hill about
five hundred feet above the sandy shore, on which the breakers were
curling a couple of miles away. The hill was covered with thick-growing
firs from the plain to the castle wall, but two broad avenues ran in
straight lines, one to seaward, and the other down into the depths of
the vast forest, until it opened on to the post road, which afforded the
only practicable carriage route to the station of Trelitz on the main
Berlin-Königsberg Railway.
The longer he looked, the more surprisingly distinct the picture became,
and, curiously enough, the less his wonder grew. He saw three men on
horseback riding at a canter up the avenue from the forest. Their
costumes showed plainly enough that they had just come back from the
chase. As they rode on they seemed to come quite close to him, until he
could see their features with perfect distinctness. By the changing
expression of their faces he could tell they were laughing and chatting;
but, singularly enough, he could not hear a word that they were saying,
which, considering the minuteness with which he saw everything, struck
him as being distinctly curious.
He watched them ride up to the old Gothic gateway in the wall which ran
round the castle, suiting itself to the irregularities of the hill. They
crossed the courtyard and dismounted. The grooms led their horses away,
and, as the big double doors opened, they went in, one of them, standing
aside for the younger of his companions but entering before the other.
In the great hall whose walls were adorned with horns and heads and
tusks, and whose floor was almost completely carpeted with skins, they
gave their weapons to a couple of footmen; and as they did so he saw the
slim and yet stately figure of a woman coming down the winding stair
which led into the hall from a broad gallery running round it. As she
reached the bottom of the stairway she threw her head back a little, and
held out both her hands towards the man who had come in second. As the
light of a great swinging lamp above the stairway fell upon her upturned
face, he recognised the Countess Hermia von Zastrow, the reigning
European beauty whose portrait in the illustrated papers, and in the
great photographer's windows, was almost as familiar as that of Queen
Alexandra.
The Count--for the handsome young hunter who now took her hands could
now be no other than the Prince of Boravia-Trelitz--raised her right
hand in courtly fashion to his lips. The other two bowed low before her,
and then she led the way up the stairs.
He saw all this as distinctly as though he had been actually present,
and yet none of the party seemed to take the slightest notice of him.
But he was getting quite accustomed to miracle-working now, and so he
accepted the extraordinary conditions of his visions, or whatever it
was, with more interest than astonishment. He followed them up the
stairs and along the right hand side of the gallery. The Count opened a
door of heavy black oak and stood aside for his Countess to enter. Again
the younger of his companions went first, and again he followed; then,
as the elder man entered and closed the door, the scene was blotted out
as though a sudden darkness had fallen upon his eyes.
"Dear me!" he said, getting up and rubbing his temples with both hands.
"If I hadn't had so many extraordinary experiences since my promotion to
the plane of N4, I should probably be a little scared as well. But it
is really astonishing how soon the trained intellect gets accustomed to
anything--even the eccentricities of the fourth dimensional world.
Well, well! I hope that's not the end of the adventure, I was getting
quite interested. I suppose this must be in some obscure way the reason
why those paragraphs in the _Pall Mall_ interested me so strangely."
He walked towards the window, pulled the blind aside and looked out. But
instead of his own tree-shaded lawn and the wide expanse of moonlit
common beyond which he expected to see, he found himself looking, as it
were, through a window from the outside into a great, oak-panelled
sleeping chamber, lighted by a huge silver lamp hanging from the middle
of the painted and corniced ceiling. Against the middle of the left hand
side wall, as he was looking into the room, stood one of the huge,
heavily-draped, four-post bedsteads in which the great ones of the earth
were wont to take their rest a couple of hundred years ago. The curtains
were drawn back on both sides. In the middle of the bed lay Count
Zastrow, deathly white, with fast-closed eyes and lips, breathing
heavily as the rise and fall of the embroidered sheet and silken
coverlet which lay across his chest showed. On the right hand side stood
the Countess and the two men whom he had seen before; on the other side
stood a tall, strikingly handsome woman, whose dark imperious features
seemed strangely at variance with the severely fashioned grey dress and
the plainly arranged hair which proclaimed her either a nurse or an
upper servant.
He saw the elder of the two men lean over the bed and raise one of the
sleeper's eyelids with his thumb. The nurse took up a lighted taper by
the table beside her and passed it in front of the opened eye. The man
closed the eyelid, and turned and said something to the Countess and the
other man. The Countess nodded and smiled, not quite as a man likes to
see a woman smile, and, with a swift glance at the motionless figure on
the bed, turned away and left the room. The nurse said something to the
two men, and as the door closed behind her the scene changed again.
This time he was not looking into a window, but out of one. He was
gazing over a vast expanse of forest pierced by a broad, straight road
which led for several miles, as it seemed to him, between two dark walls
of thickly-growing pines until it ended abruptly with the forest and
opened out on a tiny sand-fringed inlet whose narrow mouth was guarded
by two little outcrops of rock half a mile to seaward.
A carriage drawn by four black horses rolled rapidly along the road,
swung out on to the beach, and stopped. Almost at the same moment a
grey-painted, six-oared boat grounded on the sandy beach. A couple of
men landed from her, and as the carriage door opened, they saluted. The
Count's two guests got out and the others entered the carriage, then one
of them got out again followed by the other, and between them they
carried a limp, motionless human form completely covered by a great rug
of dark fur. It was taken to the boat. All embarked, and the pinnace
shot away out through the little headlands. A mile out to seaward lay
the long black shape of a torpedo destroyer. The pinnace ran alongside
and they all went on board, two of the sailors carrying the body as
before.
Professor Marmion found himself accompanying them. The body was taken
into a little cabin and laid in a berth. The rug was turned down from
the face, and he recognised Prince Zastrow. A few minutes later he found
himself in the main cabin of the destroyer. The two men who had come in
the carriage were sitting at a little table with a man in mufti. This
man raised his head and said something. He did not hear the words--but,
to his amazement, he recognised the handsome face as that of Prince
Oscarovitch, whom he had never seen before he came as his guest to the
garden-party at "The Wilderness."
On the bulkhead of the cabin at the Prince's head there hung a little
block-calendar, and the exposed leaf showed the date, Monday, 6th June.
As he read it an impulse caused him to look round at the calendar
standing upon his own mantel-shelf. It showed the date, Friday, 24th
June. He turned back to the window and saw nothing but his own lawn and
the moonlit Common beyond.