Part 3

“What is your name?” Grey asked, suddenly.

“Fancy!” exclaimed the Irishman. “Have you forgotten that, too? John James O’Hara, lieutenant in His Majesty’s Second Dragoon Guards, of Kirwan Lodge, Drumsna, County Leitrim, at your service, sir. And you’ll be telling me next, I suppose, that you don’t remember meeting me in the smoke-room of the _Lucania_ the first day out of New York, and that over two months ago.

“As God is my judge,” Grey answered, solemnly, “I have no recollection of ever seeing you before tonight.”

O’Hara’s muscles stiffened and then relaxed. There was no incredulity in his face, only wonder.

“And have you forgotten your own name, too?” he queried, after a moment.

“I never knew the name I am called by until today.”

“Gad, man, you’re crazy,” the Irishman commented, lighting a fresh cigarette. “You’ve got me all of a tangle. I’m damned if you’re not uncanny. And your name is not Max Arndt at all, then?”

“No.”

“And Herr Schlippenbach. He is not your uncle?”

“God forbid!”

“And the Fräulein von Altdorf is not your sister’s daughter, I suppose?”

“I never had a sister.”

The dragoon guard threw up his hands.

“Then, if it’s all the same to you,” he continued, “and not revealing any State secrets, would you be so good as to tell me who you are? Introduce yourself to me. For it seems that though we’ve been together the better part of two months we’re still strangers.”

Grey made a rapid but careful survey of his neighbours. Under the circumstances it might not be well to speak his own name where it could be overheard. He took another drink of his _grenadine_ before replying.

“After all,” he said, “this is hardly the place for confidences. What do you say to walking over to my hotel? We can have privacy there.”

And Lieutenant O’Hara readily consented.

At the door of the Hôtel Grammont a courier was in excited dispute with the _portier_.

“But he will be here tomorrow, perhaps. Is it not so?”

“I cannot say. There is no Monsieur Grey here now, of a certainty.”

“You are sure? You are most sure?”

“Is it not that I have said it twenty--thirty--a hundred times?” insisted the _portier_. “And you are not the only one who has asked. There have been three others here, including an agent of police. Ah, Monsieur Grey! He had better stay away, perhaps.”

When at length the room of the American was reached and the door locked on the inside, Grey turned to his friend.

“Did you overhear the conversation below?” he asked.

“I caught snatches of it. A wire for someone, wasn’t it?”

“Yes; for me.”

“For you?” O’Hara stared. “Then why in God’s name didn’t you take it?”

“I couldn’t afford to, and yet I’d give a good deal to know its message.”

“But it was for a person named Grey, I thought. You are Grey, then?”

“Yes.”

“And the police officer! He was looking for--you?”

“For me,” Grey confessed. “Now you can understand why I didn’t care to talk in the café.”

O’Hara dropped into a chair.

“This is very interesting,” he said, and his blue eyes twinkled.

Grey, his hands in his trousers’ pockets, was standing before the chimney-piece. His expression was very grave.

“I suppose,” he began, “that you think me rather a blackguard. Appearances so far are against me, aren’t they? By my own admission I’m here under an assumed name trying to evade the minions of the law, who are hot-foot on my trail. Everything you thought you knew about me I have informed you is false. Therefore you are not likely to be predisposed in my favour. Consequently the story I’m going to tell you now you’ll probably not believe. I’m free to admit that if the situation were reversed I wouldn’t believe you; and yet--I--well, I wouldn’t have taken you into my confidence if it were not that I’m sure you’re a gentleman--an honest, high-principled, Irish gentleman who loves right and is willing to fight for it.”

O’Hara smiled encouragingly.

“Drive ahead, my boy,” he urged; “the jury is absolutely unprejudiced.”

Then Grey plunged into a detailed narrative of that surprising day. He told of his strange awakening and parenthetically gave his hearer an idea of his position at home and a glimpse of his previous life. He rehearsed his conversation with Frothingham; he repeated word for word the cables he had sent to New York; he summarized the articles he had read in the _Herald_; he described the passing of Herr Schlippenbach and recited his death-bed communication, and finally he gave, as nearly as he could remember it, the conversation between Lutz and Johann.

O’Hara listened with rapt interest, interrupting him now and then with a question, at times smiling understandingly and at others scowling at what he regarded as evidence of importance against the little group by which Grey was surrounded. At the conclusion of the recital he sprang up and impulsively grasped the American’s hand.

“You’ll come out on top yet, boy,” he cried, “and it’s John James O’Hara that’ll help to put you there. I’ve heard of such cases as this before. They’ve been drugging you, lad, that’s as plain as the nose on my face, and your dear uncle, Herr Schlippenbach, do you mind, has been the chief drugger. It was because he was too ill to do his work that the effects wore off. Now that he’s gone they’re worried to death over you. Sure, you’re not so blind that you can’t see that yourself.”

“But I don’t understand----”

“Of course you don’t. Neither do I. There’s a lot we have got to find out. But two heads are better than one; and you just put a big bundle of trust in mine.”

He was excited and his brogue, Grey thought, was delightful.

“What do you suggest?”

“In the first place it is probably best that I tell you what little I know. Your memory, up until this afternoon, is a blank. Well, then, I’ll give you the benefit of mine.”

O’Hara lighted another cigarette and, taking a deep inhalation, started pacing the floor, his head bent thoughtfully forward.

“As I said,” he began, “we met in the smoke-room of the _Lucania_ on the afternoon of Saturday, the seventh of April. You told me your name was Max Arndt, that you were born in Kürschdorf, the capital of Budavia, where your uncle, Herr Schlippenbach, whom you accompanied, had at one time been tutor in the royal family. You had spent your life, however, in the United States, had been engaged in the importation of German wines, I think you said, in New York, and were now on your way back to your native town, where, by the death of a relation, you had recently come into large estates. The man Lutz was with you, but he appeared to be old Schlippenbach’s valet rather than yours. On reaching Liverpool you were met by Captain Lindenwald, who is of the royal household of the Kingdom of Budavia, and by the fellow Johann. After about a week in London your party was joined by Miss von Altdorf, who had been at school somewhere in Kent. You told me she was your sister’s child, an orphan, and that your uncle and yourself supported her.”

“Great God!” exclaimed Grey, amazedly, “and did I seem sane--rational?”

“Perfectly,” O’Hara answered; “you were the character to the smallest detail. Your voice was the only peculiar thing about you. You spoke like a deaf man, with practically no inflection.”

“Did you talk to Schlippenbach?”

“Oh, yes; frequently. He was really very clever. He had a wonderful fund of general knowledge. There was scarcely a subject with which he was not familiar. But his specialty was phrenology. He told me that in his youth he had known Dr. Spurzheim, the pupil of Dr. Franz Gall, the founder of the science, that he had studied under him and gone very deeply into the matter. He was a chemist, too, and from something he let drop one day I got the impression that he had experimented considerably with anæsthetics, narcotics, and that sort of thing.”

“And to some purpose, apparently,” put in Grey. “But his object, O’Hara? What in heaven’s name could have been his object? I never knew him--never saw him to my recollection until he was dying.”

“Ah, lad, we haven’t got that far yet, but we’ll know before we’re through.”

And then he went on with his story. He was with the quartet a great deal in London, he said. He showed them about, and they were all very appreciative. They stopped there until the middle of May and then they moved on to Paris. Without any intention of prying into their affairs he had observed that Herr Schlippenbach and Captain Lindenwald had a good deal of correspondence with parties in Kürschdorf.

“And what was my attitude towards them all?” Grey inquired. “Was I very sociable or was I reserved?”

“You were rather dignified,” O’Hara answered; “and now I come to think of it, they treated you with considerable deference, though they endeavoured to dissemble it whenever I was about. Miss von Altdorf seemed quite fond of you, old chap, and it was amusing to note how Captain Lindenwald insisted on making love to her at every opportunity, only to be gently, but firmly, repulsed. As for that young woman I found her most charming,--and you did too, apparently. Of course, as she was your niece, you could take her to dine tête-à-tête and to places of amusement unchaperoned, and you did very frequently, much to Lindenwald’s annoyance. Whatever the plot is, Grey, I feel satisfied that she is not in it.”

“And now what do you advise?”

“For the present at least to give no sign that you suspect anything. You are well enough posted now, my boy, to go straight ahead. Give them enough rope and they’ll hang themselves as sure as your name’s Grey and mine’s O’Hara. Assume the tone I told you of, and they’ll never suspect. They may be surprised, but they’ll be happy and they’ll be unwary. Never take the initiative yourself. Leave it all to Lindenwald.”

“But what will they make out of it?” Grey urged, curiously. “Surely you have formed some theory?”

“Yes, I have a theory,” O’Hara responded, “but it is probably just as well for me to keep it to myself for a while.”

“What do you think this talk about ‘thrones’ and ‘mad princes’ means?”

“That is for us to find out. And unless I am more of a fool than I think, it will very shortly develop. In the meantime you are anxious about the answers to your cables, aren’t you? Since they are addressed to Grey, you can’t accept them, that’s clear. But you shall know what is in them just the same. I’ll undertake that for you.”

“But----”

“Never mind, lad; leave it to me.”

“And the box with proofs that Schlippenbach spoke of? That is important.”

“To be sure. It is at the Gare du Nord in his name or yours, eh? I’ll get it for you. But the key?”

Suddenly Grey remembered.

“There is a key in a wallet I found. Possibly that is it.”

“Possibly.”

And the thought of the wallet reminded him that a fifty-franc note and some change was all the money he had in his possession.

“I’m a little short of funds,” he said. “Do you happen to know how or where I have been in the habit of getting money when I needed it?”

O’Hara laughed.

“The whole thing is so absurd,” he explained, “as well as serious. Fancy your not knowing what you have done every few days since you landed! Johann has your letter of credit and gets you whatever you desire. All that is necessary is for you to sign your name.”

When O’Hara had gone Grey sat for a long time brooding over his extraordinary experience. His head was still aching, throbbingly, and his nerves were still a-tingle. Whatever treatment he had been subjected to its effects had not yet been entirely eliminated. He undressed, got into his pyjamas and went to bed; but sleep was coy and not to be won by wooing. He heard the clock strike two and three and four, and he saw the first gray sign of dawn between his curtains before he fell into a restless, troubled, unrefreshing slumber.

V

Mr. Herbert Frothingham had that evening been one of a dinner party of six at Armenonville. He had sat between Miss Hope Van Tuyl and Lady Constance Vincent, and across a plateau of primrose-coloured orchids the charming Mrs. Dickie Venable had at intervals favoured him with fleeting smiles. Nicholas Van Tuyl, sleek and ruddy, was at the left of Lady Constance, who had for her vis-à-vis Sinclair Edson, a tall, young, sallow-faced secretary from the United States Embassy.

“I hope you haven’t failed to observe the notabilities,” this latter-named gentleman was saying as he daintily dissected his _carpe au buerre noir_; “there are quite a number here this evening.” His pose as mentor was apt to grow annoying at times, but the Van Tuyls had been in Paris only two days, and father and daughter were alike interested.

“Oh, do show me that East Indian prince or whatever he is,” cried Hope enthusiastically, her great dark eyes brilliant; “I’ve heard so much of him. Is he here?”

“The Maharajah of Kahlapore? Yes, he must be here, surely. I never come nowadays but he is.”

He turned his head and craned his neck in an effort to locate the Hindu potentate. The piazza of the pavilion was, as usual, crowded. Every table was occupied--and the throng was the acme of cosmopolitanism. Five continents were represented. It was indeed a veritable congress of nations. Monarchs, kings dethroned, and pretenders rubbed elbows. Women of the world and of the half-world brushed skirts. Dazzling toilets of delicate tints were silhouetted against coats of lustreless black. Diamonds blazed; pearls reflected the myriad lights; gems of all colours, shapes, and sizes glistened in the foreground and sparkled in remote corners.

“Ah, there he is,” Edson discovered, speaking without turning his face; “there, off to the right. You can just see his white turban over the head of that Titian-haired woman in the blue gown.”

The whole party stared, stretching, twisting to get a glimpse.

“Rather insignificant, isn’t he?” observed Mrs. Dickie disparagingly.

“His turban accentuates his _café au lait_ complexion,” laughed Hope.

“But you should see him at finger-bowl time,” suggested Lady Constance, who had lunched next to him and his suite that day at Paillard’s. “He is most original.”

“Oh, tell us,” cried Hope pleadingly; “what does he do?”

“It must be seen to be appreciated,” the Englishwoman replied. She was auburn-haired, generously proportioned, and rather stolid. Her tone was even more of a refusal than her words.

“I’ll tell you,” volunteered Edson glibly. “He has a special bowl twice the ordinary size and he plunges his whole face in it.”

“Horrors!” shrieked Mrs. Dickie; “he should be arrested for attempted suicide.”

“But he isn’t the most interesting personage here by any means,” Edson pursued, now thoroughly launched in the exercise of his _métier_; “have you noticed the sallow-faced, heavy-browed and long-moustached gentleman just three tables away, dining with the dark-bearded president of the Chamber of Deputies?”

“The man with that enormous, gorgeously jewelled star on his breast?” asked Miss Van Tuyl, leaning back and gazing over Frothingham’s shoulder. “Oh, what a brutal face he has!”

“It is the Shah of Persia,” announced Edson; and then he glanced about to revel in the effect of his revelation.

“He’s a beast,” commented Lady Constance, disgustedly, “though I believe his manners have improved somewhat since he was here last. Do you know when he was in Berlin some years ago he sat next to the Empress Augusta at a State banquet, and whenever he got anything in his mouth that was not to his taste, he just calmly removed it!”

“They say he thought nothing of putting his hands on the bare shoulders of the women he met,” Edson added.

“I saw the King of the Belgians as we came in,” said Mr. Van Tuyl, presently, as a waiter passed the _filet aux truffes_; “one sees him everywhere, eh?”

“Oh, yes,” Edson hastened to observe; “he’s as omnipresent as the poor. But did you see the woman with him? She’s the very latest, you know. Was a _Quartier Latin_ model six months ago and is now regarded as the most beautiful woman in Paris. _La Minette Blanche_, they call her. She has a palace on the Boulevard Malesherbes and as many retainers as a princess.”

“The old scoundrel!” exclaimed Mrs. Dickie, vindictively; “I don’t know which is worse, the Shah or he. He gained a reputation as a wife-beater or something, didn’t he? At all events I’ll bet the devil is keeping a griddle hot for him down below, and it’s pretty near time he occupied it.”

“How terribly spiteful!” laughed Frothingham; “His Majesty isn’t a bad sort at all; a little fickle, perhaps, but with his love of beauty and his opportunities you can hardly expect domesticity. And he’s done a lot of good in his way.”

“Speaking of royalty, that is rather an odd condition of affairs in Budavia, by the way,” suggested Nicholas Van Tuyl. “Did you see the paper this morning? The King is very ill. Can’t live a fortnight; and there is a question as to the succession. It seems that the Crown Prince was kidnapped when he was five years old and nothing has ever been heard of him. They don’t know whether he is alive or dead.”

“Oh, how interesting!” exclaimed Mrs. Dickie, putting down her fork to listen. “And to whom does the crown go?”

“To King Frederic’s nephew, Prince Hugo; as thorough a reprobate, they say, as there is in all Europe.”

“Wouldn’t it be funny if the Crown Prince should turn up at this juncture?” suggested Edson; and there was something significant in his tone.

“Has such a possibility been hinted at?” asked Van Tuyl.

“Well--” and Edson hesitated the briefest moment, “one can never tell.” Whether intentionally or not, he gave the impression that he knew more than he cared to divulge. “I had a call today from an officer of the Budavian army. He is a member of the royal household.” He said this with an air, and Frothingham muttered, “Snob!” under his breath.

“I suppose he spoke of the situation, eh?” asked Van Tuyl.

“Yes, of course, he referred to it. I met him last year in Vienna. His call was purely social.”

“Is he to be in Paris long?” asked Mrs. Dickie, quickly. “Bring him to tea next Tuesday.”

But Edson evaded a promise. He was listening to Frothingham, who was saying:

“You can never tell when or where or under what circumstances a lost man will reappear. After today I shall make it a rule not to believe a man is dead unless I have seen him buried.”

“Why, whom on earth have you seen?” questioned Miss Van Tuyl. There was just the slightest suspicion of a tremour in her voice, and her eyes were apprehensive. The speaker, however, detected neither. He had, in fact, quite forgotten, if he had ever heard, that there had been an attachment between the man he had that day met on the _terrasse_ of the Café de la Paix and the woman who sat at his side.

“Carey Grey, the absconder!”

The words struck her as a blow from a clenched fist. Her cheeks, which had been a trifle flushed, went suddenly white as the damask napery. Her jewelled fingers clutched the edge of the table. She felt that she was falling backward, that everything was receding, and she caught the table edge to save herself.

“Carey Grey!” repeated Nicholas Van Tuyl, in amazement. “Surely you must have been mistaken!”

“Not a bit of it. I talked to him.”

“The devil!” exclaimed Edson and then apologised.

“You’d never know him,” Frothingham went on, after emptying his champagne glass; “he has bleached his hair, and he is wearing a bleached beard, too.”

“Oh, horrible!” This from Mrs. Dickie.

“Told a most remarkable story about not knowing anything for five months; brain fever or something. I must admit he was very convincing.”

“I wonder if that is the man I knew?” Lady Constance broke in. “He came over with an American polo team; he was a great friend of Lord Stanniscourt’s.”

“Same man,” said Van Tuyl, with a glint of admiration in his tone. “He was a capital polo player, and--yes, by Jove, a rattling good fellow in every way. It was a surprise to everyone when he went wrong.” He had been watching his daughter with no little anxiety. Now her colour was returning and her hands were in her lap.

“Yes, to everyone,” Mrs. Dickie volunteered, “the whole thing was simply astounding. He had a good business, hadn’t he? What do you suppose he wanted with that money?”

“Nobody was ever able to conjecture,” answered Frothingham, as he helped himself to some _caneton_.

“And he is really here in Paris?” queried Edson, twirling the long stem of a fragile wineglass between thumb and finger. “Where is he stopping?”

Hope Van Tuyl unconsciously leaned forward to catch the address.

“I don’t know. I never thought to inquire.”

From the violins of the tziganes glided the languorous strains of the “Valse Bleue,” and instantly all other sounds dwindled. Even the clatter of knives and forks seemed gradually to cease and the babble of tongues was vague and far away. Into the girl’s dark eyes came an expression of melancholy, and the corners of her red-lipped mouth drooped. The leaves of her calendar had been fluttered back a twelvemonth by the melody, and she was out under the stars with the cool breeze from the Hudson fanning her flushed cheeks. Through the open French windows of the clubhouse at her back the music was floating. Beside her, his arm girdling her waist, was the man to whom she had just promised her love and loyalty--the man whose name she would be proud to wear through all her days--Carey Grey. The ineffable joy, the blissful content of the moment were, in some mystic manner, reborn by the chords that sang and swelled and vibrated and whispered, and yet over all, mingling with the delicious, intoxicating happiness of this reincarnated experience, was an overpowering sense of loss--dire, monstrous, crushing.

“Hope, dear,”--it was her father’s voice that brought her back to the present. His anxious eyes had still been upon her. “Drink your wine, girl; you aren’t ill, are you? Mr. Edson has been speaking to you and I don’t believe you’ve heard a word.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Edson,” she ejaculated, recovering herself. “I fear for the moment I was very far off. Would you mind repeating what you said?”

“I was proposing a coaching party to Versailles for Saturday, and as everybody seemed to approve I took the opportunity to ask you if you would do me the honour of occupying the box seat.”

“With pleasure,” she accepted, smiling bravely, though a dull, leaden pain was gripping her heart; “I think it will be simply lovely.”

The sextet had come to the restaurant crowded into Mr. Edson’s big touring car, and when at length the dinner was finished and the men had smoked their cigars and the moon had come up from behind the trees and floated like a silver boat in the deep blue sea of the heavens, they took their places again and went spinning at frantic speed out into the Allée de Longchamp. A quick turn to the left and in another instant the Porte Dauphine had been passed and the machine was flying smoothly down the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne with the Arc de Triomphe rising massively white in the moonlight ahead.