Part 10

Grey’s relief from the tension of uncertainty found expression in an interested animation that impressed Prince von Eisenthal most favourably. He asked many questions concerning the affairs of the little kingdom, both political and commercial, and exhibited a concern over the conservative policy of the late King that was especially pleasing to the leader of the conservative forces. General Roederer, meanwhile, addressed himself to the ladies and Lieutenant O’Hara. He was a bluff but gallant old fellow, with ruddy complexion and iron-grey hair, and he possessed a quaint humour that kept the little company in gay spirits throughout the hour of the trip from the frontier to the capital.

“I am deeply regretful, your Royal Highness,” he said to Grey, as the towers and spires of Kürschdorf came into view, “that we are not at liberty to offer you such a demonstration on your arrival as I should have liked. But His Majesty, the late King, you understand, is still above sod, the Court is in mourning, and the Prince Regent deemed it unfitting to give you more than the most informal of welcomes.”

Grey bowed his acknowledgment.

“I am glad,” he said, tactfully, “though I do not fail to appreciate the expression of good will in your desire. The Prince Regent’s views and mine, in this matter, are in perfect accord.”

But, however well the ideas of the supposed heir and the Prince Regent may have coincided, the populace was by no means of the same mind. It is not every day that a Prince of Kronfeld arrives in Kürschdorf--not every day that a new King comes from across the sea to take his place as ruler of his people--and the loyal townsfolk, despite the brevity of time between announcement and arrival, and the expressed opposition of their temporary ruler to anything in the nature of an ovation, hung gay banners amid the mourning drapery of their house fronts, closed their offices and shops and turned out in gala dress and mood to crowd the streets, the squares and the cafés.

As the train drew slowly into the railway station Grey leaned over and took Hope’s hand.

“I’ll probably have to leave you for a little,” he said, regretfully, “but O’Hara will see that you get to the hotel, and I’ll try to look in this evening.”

Outside the station a landau, its panels decorated with the royal arms and drawn by six cream-white Arabian horses in glittering, gold-mounted harness, stood in waiting, with coachman, footman and postillions in the purple and scarlet livery of the Court; while thirty yards away, in line along the opposite side of the Bahnhof Platz, was a troop of the King’s Cuirassiers, their breastplates and helmets of silver and gold glinting fiery red in the glow of the sunset.

Cheer after cheer rang out as Grey, with the Prince on his right and the General on his left, passed through the station, followed by the welcoming company that had escorted him from Anslingen, and took his place in the waiting carriage. And, as the little procession of which he was the dominating feature wound through the boulevards and streets of the new town and across the beautiful Charlemagne bridge over the turbulent Weisswasser into the more ancient and picturesque quarter of the city, the cheering, it seemed to him, grew louder and more continuous. At one point a group of young girls in white frocks and red ribbons ran out into the roadway to spread flowers in the path of his equipage, and at another a chorus of a hundred students, crowded on the balconies of a _Brauerei_, greeted his coming with a patriotic glee, sung as only male voices of Teutonic breeding and training can sing choruses.

Grey’s emotions during this drive were novel and complex. There were moments when he almost felt that he was indeed the Prince--not that any marvellous transubstantiation had taken place, but that he had always been so--and that all this homage, this enthusiastic applause and adulation were his by right; and there were moments when his heart grew sick at the fraud, the imposition, the error, and he knit his brows and reproached himself for letting the deception go so far.

The magnitude the affair had suddenly assumed appalled him. Heretofore he had regarded it as a mere personal matter. He had been outraged, his honour sullied, his life threatened, and he was justified, he had told himself, in using every means within his power to bring his enemies to book. But he had not perceived the possibilities of permitting this line of investigation to run on unchecked. In a single moment the adventure had become a matter of national import. He was guilty now of masquerading as heir to the throne of a European monarchy. Hitherto the crime lay at the doors of a few conspirators, who, to serve certain nefarious ends of which he knew nothing, had striven to secure for him the crown. In that plot he had personally had no part. Everything had been done without his cognisance or consent; but now it was not they alone who were forcing the scheme to a consummation. He had, practically, for the time being at least, joined hands with them and was passively allowing their plans to be carried out, though fully aware of the impious character of the whole proceeding.

And the enormity of his thoughtless offence was at each foot of the way made more and more apparent by these cheering masses of people. When they should learn that they had been tricked, what explanation would serve to assuage their resentment? Love and homage would be turned to hatred and vengeance, and no excuse that he could offer would have any weight against their sense of outraged loyalty.

Then his thoughts took a new trend, and he asked himself how it was possible that old Schlippenbach and his fellow-plotters had been able thus to fool the conservative leaders of a great nation regarding a matter so vital to the very existence of their most cherished institutions as the legitimate succession to the regal sceptre. What incontrovertible proofs had it been possible to offer in order to bring about this ready acceptance of a man whom the Budavian people had never seen to rule over their nation’s destinies? After all, there was where the blame must lie. The preposterousness of the proposition, it seemed to him, should have been apparent to the most simple-minded.

And, as he thought, the landau, with the flashing cuirassiers galloping ahead and behind and on either side, began the tortuous ascent of the Wartburg by the wide, wooded avenues that wind from the palace gates through the sumptuous royal gardens up to the imposing Residenz Schloss on the mountain’s apex. Now and then, through rifts in the foliage, Grey got glimpses of the vast, formidable, castle-like pile of sombre stone perched far above him, the outline of its battlemented towers showing sharp and clear against the pink of the sunset-tinted sky; and it seemed to frown forbiddingly, resembling more a great fortress at this distance than the magnificent palace it is.

Twenty minutes later, to a musical fanfare of bugles, a clinking of bit chains and a rattle of steel-shod hoofs on stone paving, the carriage swept in under the great grey _porte-cochère_; the massive oaken doors of the Schloss swung impressively inward, and Chancellor von Ritter, in his robes of office, with a dozen attendants at his back, stood in token of formal welcome on the threshold.

To Grey’s immense relief, however, the ensuing formalities were of the briefest description, and almost immediately he found himself proceeding under the Chancellor’s guidance and direction toward a suite of rooms in the Flag Tower that had been prepared against his coming.

XV

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.

XVI

The apartment in the Flag Tower to which Carey Grey was conducted by Chancellor von Ritter was at the top of two flights of winding stone stairs, and the barred windows of its four rooms commanded a view of varied and picturesque loveliness. In the foreground were the Palace gardens, with their series of descending terraces, their fountains and statuary, their parterres of gay flowers, their gracefully curving driveways and gravelled walks, and their wonderful old trees of every shade of green leafage. Beyond the gardens were the red and grey roofs, the spires and steeples and domes and turrets of the city, divided by the sparkling silver-white waters of the rushing river, and beyond these stretched the fertile valley checkered with fields of ripening grain--yellow and orange and russet--and olive patches of woodland, and dotted with farm houses and cottages and barns and hayricks.

The rooms, themselves, were somewhat sombre. There was a small library, panelled and finished in black oak; a _salon_, long and high, with much tarnished gilt ornamentation and red upholstery; a tiny bare dressing-room, and a bedchamber with a great canopied bedstead, beside which stood a quaintly carved _prie-dieu_.

“Your Royal Highness will, I trust, be comfortable here,” said the Chancellor, when he had walked with Grey from one room to another and the two were standing together in the long _salon_.

The American hesitated a moment before replying. He was revolving mentally several alternatives of action. It was his duty, he knew, not to let this farce proceed further; and yet he had thus far learned absolutely nothing.

“I shall,” he said, at length, “be quite comfortable.”

“If there is anything your Royal Highness desires,” continued the Chancellor, “you have but to make it known.”

The invitation arrested the whirl of indecision and settled the course of procedure.

“If you will be so good as to answer me a few questions, Count,” Grey began, “I shall be indebted. Won’t you sit down?”

Count von Ritter found a place for his angular length upon a settee beside a pedestalled bust of King Oswald the First, and Grey sank into a chair near by.

“I am entirely at your Royal Highness’s disposal,” the Chancellor avowed, amiably; and the American, not without some trepidation, it must be confessed, began:

“You understand, of course, that events in my career have followed one another in the most rapid succession during the past few months; and regarding some of the most important details I am entirely uninformed. You will be surprised, perhaps, to learn, for instance, that I do not know with any degree of definiteness how my identity was established. Herr Schlippenbach was my discoverer, of course, but with whom did he consult here and by what means was it made clear that I am really the abducted heir of the Budavian crown?”

Count von Ritter listened to the question with growing suspicion. Here were, perhaps, the first indications of that insanity of which Lindenwald had spoken.

“It does seem hardly possible, your Royal Highness,” he replied, “that on such a vital matter you should have been left in ignorance. It was, I think, nearly a year ago that the first communication from the Herr Doctor Schlippenbach was brought to me by Herr Professor Trent.”

“And who is Herr Professor Trent?” Grey asked, quickly.

“The Herr Professor,” answered the Chancellor, “is the head of the University of Kürschdorf.”

“And his reputation is, of course, beyond reproach, eh?”

“Quite beyond reproach, your Royal Highness.”

“And what steps followed?” Grey pursued, inquisitorially, crossing his legs and leaning back in his chair.

“I took up the matter personally,” the Count responded, with frankness. “I entered into correspondence with Schlippenbach at once, and after some months of writing back and forth he placed before me a very circumstantial story, which he afterward confirmed with documentary evidence--old letters, photographs, affidavits.”

“And then?”

“When I had thoroughly assured myself of the authenticity of all he claimed, I brought the subject to the attention of the Privy Council, and eventually it was laid before His Majesty. In the meantime the Budavian Minister at Washington had been investigating, and the Budavian Consul at New York as well. But all that, of course, you know.”