At seven o’clock that evening Posadowski and Posnovitch had entered an
elevated car at Houston Street, bound up-town. They were dressed with
more regard for appearances than usual. On their faces was an expression
of suppressed excitement, and their gestures, as they talked earnestly
in their native tongue, indicated that they had a grave matter under
discussion.
“I will tell you all that I have done,” said Posadowski, after they were
seated. “Part of it you know. You have fixed Rudolph, and the house is
ready for us. Did he give you much trouble?”
“No,” answered Posnovitch. “Give Rudolph plenty of liquor, a little
money, and appeal to his patriotism, and he is an easy tool to handle.”
“Good!” returned Posadowski. “Now I have sworn in fifteen men who have
agreed to devote their time for the next few weeks to this matter. Eight
of them went up to Rudolph’s place at six o’clock. At four o’clock
to-morrow morning they will be relieved by the others. I have arranged
the shifts so that the work will be easy for all of us.”
“But how,” asked Posnovitch, eagerly, “will you get the prince to leave
the house alone?”
“I know the man,” answered Posadowski. “I am depending upon his pride and
the fact that he will not dare to make a confidant of any one of his new
friends.”
“How did you learn where he was going to dine?”
“That was not difficult,” answered Posadowski modestly. “I heard him tell
the clerk at his hotel this afternoon to send any cable despatch that
came for him this evening to No.—Fifth Avenue. I telegraphed Rukacs,
in cipher, to watch the house and to have the carriage ready for us.
Svolak—I swore him in this morning—will be on the box alone. There is
only one thing now that can defeat our scheme.”
“And that is——?” asked the gigantic Rexanian, eagerly.
“The refusal of the prince to look upon us as friends.”
“He will be suspicious, of course. And we can’t use violence on Fifth
Avenue in the early evening.”
Posadowski smiled confidently. Taking a letter from his pocket, he handed
it to his companion. It was a short note, addressed to “My Good Friend
Posadowski,” signed by the King of Rexania, and expressing the gratitude
of the writer for services performed by the recipient.
“It is easily explained,” remarked the arch-conspirator. “My brother,
you know, was a loyalist. He did the king many good turns in the days
of the revolution. When my brother died, his effects were sent to me; I
found this letter among them. The Rexanian officials on the border are
sometimes very careless. Of course I have always taken good care of
this epistle. I had a feeling that it would be of value to me some time
or other. I am inclined to think that the success of our plans to-night
rests on the king’s signature.”
“You heard from the palace to-day?”
“A short cable despatch in cipher. The king is restless; his physicians
are worried about him.”
“Good!” cried Posnovitch. “I think they have good cause to be. Both he
and his kingdom are on their last legs.”
When the train reached Forty-seventh Street the two Rexanians made a
hasty exit and hurried down the stairs. It was a hot, close night in
September. Somehow the summer, dissatisfied with its career, had impinged
upon the fall and was now engaged in maliciously breaking a record. The
sky was overhung with heavy clouds, and now and then a flash of lightning
glared through the streets.
Posadowski and his towering companion turned up Fifth Avenue, and after a
short walk were accosted by Rukacs. Pointing to a house just opposite to
where they stood, he said, with a tremor of excitement in his voice:
“There’s where he is dining. He has been in there over an hour.”
“Good!” cried Posadowski. “Wait here until I rejoin you.”
Crossing the street, the Rexanian mounted the steps of Gerald Strong’s
mansion, rang the bell, and, after a short discussion with the attendant,
left in his hands the note that informed the prince that friends awaited
him outside—a note that, as we know, he received and acted upon.
When he returned to the sidewalk, Posadowski, noting carefully that he
was not being watched from the house, approached the carriage that was
awaiting the prince’s exit.
“Listen, Svolak,” he said to the liveried driver, who had dismounted from
the box. “If you are dismissed by an order from the house, drive off and
station yourself by that corner light, half a block down the street. Wait
there until you get another order from me. Understand me?”
“Thoroughly,” answered Svolak, remounting the box.
A moment later Posadowski had rejoined Posnovitch and Rukacs on the
opposite side of the street. The front door of the house opened; the hall
attendant ran down the steps and gave an order to Svolak. The carriage
rattled over the noisy pavement and made its way down-town.
“All goes well, my brothers,” cried Posadowski, joyfully. “If he leaves
that house alone, no power on earth can save the kingdom of Rexania from
destruction. Never before in the history of the world did the birth of a
republic depend upon whether a guest left his host in company or alone.
But that is just how the crisis stands at this moment. I have played the
whole game on the chance that the prince will not care to have his new
friends learn his secret. I believe that he will come out to us alone. If
he does, success is in our hands. If he doesn’t, we must wait for another
chance.”
Time went by: the conspirators grew restless and impatient. So much was
at stake on the opening of the front door of a Fifth Avenue mansion that
they were appalled by the possibilities suggested by the line of thought
Posadowski had struck out. It was not too much to say that peace or war
in Europe might depend upon the details of the next exit that should take
place through the entrance that glared at them across the street.
Suddenly Posadowski clutched Rukacs’ arm. “Here he comes,” he whispered.
“Walk down toward the carriage. I will join him at once. Let me do the
talking. You can put in a word of loyalty at first, but keep quiet after
that. Go!”
On the steps opposite to them stood the prince, gazing up and down the
street, as the door closed behind him. There for a moment he paused, the
incarnation of an anachronism, a youth who had failed to conceal his
awful crime of being born a king. For that one moment he stood, poised
on the brink of a precipice, while Reaction and Progress trembled in the
balance. Then slowly he descended the steps and found himself face to
face with Posadowski. As he scanned his fellow-countryman searchingly,
the Crown Prince of Rexania felt reassured.
“Let us walk down the avenue together,” said Posadowski, quietly,
purposely avoiding the young man’s title. “I have much to say to you, and
friends await us down the street.”
For one moment the prince hesitated: his eyes sought the house he had
just left, as though the mansion contained something from which he had no
wish to part. Then he turned and accompanied Posadowski down the avenue.