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The Grand Babylon Hôtel

by Arnold Bennett · English · Gutenberg #2813 · 404,683 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Grand Babylon Hôtel

Author: Arnold Bennett


        
Release date: September 1, 2001 [eBook #2813]
                Most recently updated: October 9, 2017

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2813

Credits: Produced by David Reed, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAND BABYLON HÔTEL ***




Produced by David Reed, and David Widger








THE GRAND BABYLON HÔTEL

By Arnold Bennett



T. Racksole & Daughter





CONTENTS


Chapter One.   THE MILLIONAIRE AND THE WAITER

Chapter Two.   HOW MR RACKSOLE OBTAINED HIS DINNER

Chapter Three.   AT THREE A.M.

Chapter Four.   ENTRANCE OF THE PRINCE

Chapter Five.   WHAT OCCURRED TO REGINALD DIMMOCK

Chapter Six.   IN THE GOLD ROOM

Chapter Seven.   NELLA AND THE PRINCE

Chapter Eight.   ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF THE BARONESS

Chapter Nine.   TWO WOMEN AND THE REVOLVER

Chapter Ten.   AT SEA

Chapter Eleven.   THE COURT PAWNBROKER

Chapter Twelve.   ROCCO AND ROOM NO. 111

Chapter Thirteen.   IN THE STATE BEDROOM

Chapter Fourteen.   ROCCO ANSWERS SOME QUESTIONS

Chapter Fifteen.   END OF THE YACHT ADVENTURE

Chapter Sixteen.   THE WOMAN WITH THE RED HAT

Chapter Seventeen.   THE RELEASE OF PRINCE EUGEN

Chapter Eighteen.   IN THE NIGHT-TIME

Chapter Nineteen.   ROYALTY AT THE GRAND BABYLON

Chapter Twenty.   MR SAMPSON LEVI BIDS PRINCE EUGEN GOOD MORNING

Chapter Twenty-One.   THE RETURN OF FÉLIX BABYLON

Chapter Twenty-Two.   IN THE WINE CELLARS OF THE GRAND BABYLON

Chapter Twenty-Three.   FURTHER EVENTS IN THE CELLAR

Chapter Twenty-Four.   THE BOTTLE OF WINE

Chapter Twenty-Five.   THE STEAM LAUNCH

Chapter Twenty-Six.   THE NIGHT CHASE AND THE MUDLARK

Chapter Twenty-Seven.   THE CONFESSION OF MR TOM JACKSON

Chapter Twenty-Eight.      THE STATE BEDROOM ONCE MORE

Chapter Twenty-Nine.   THEODORE IS CALLED TO THE RESCUE

Chapter Thirty.   CONCLUSION













Chapter One THE MILLIONAIRE AND THE WAITER

‘YES, sir?’

Jules, the celebrated head waiter of the Grand Babylon, was bending
formally towards the alert, middle-aged man who had just entered the
smoking-room and dropped into a basket-chair in the corner by the
conservatory. It was 7.45 on a particularly sultry June night, and
dinner was about to be served at the Grand Babylon. Men of all sizes,
ages, and nationalities, but every one alike arrayed in faultless
evening dress, were dotted about the large, dim apartment. A faint odour
of flowers came from the conservatory, and the tinkle of a fountain. The
waiters, commanded by Jules, moved softly across the thick Oriental
rugs, balancing their trays with the dexterity of jugglers, and
receiving and executing orders with that air of profound importance of
which only really first-class waiters have the secret. The atmosphere
was an atmosphere of serenity and repose, characteristic of the Grand
Babylon. It seemed impossible that anything could occur to mar the
peaceful, aristocratic monotony of existence in that perfectly-managed
establishment. Yet on that night was to happen the mightiest upheaval
that the Grand Babylon had ever known.

‘Yes, sir?’ repeated Jules, and this time there was a shade of august
disapproval in his voice: it was not usual for him to have to address a
customer twice.

‘Oh!’ said the alert, middle-aged man, looking up at length. Beautifully
ignorant of the identity of the great Jules, he allowed his grey eyes to
twinkle as he caught sight of the expression on the waiter’s face.
‘Bring me an Angel Kiss.’

‘Pardon, sir?’

‘Bring me an Angel Kiss, and be good enough to lose no time.’

‘If it’s an American drink, I fear we don’t keep it, sir.’ The voice of
Jules fell icily distinct, and several men glanced round uneasily, as if
to deprecate the slightest disturbance of their calm. The appearance of
the person to whom Jules was speaking, however, reassured them somewhat,
for he had all the look of that expert, the travelled Englishman, who
can differentiate between one hotel and another by instinct, and who
knows at once where he may make a fuss with propriety, and where it is
advisable to behave exactly as at the club. The Grand Babylon was a
hotel in whose smoking-room one behaved as though one was at one’s club.

‘I didn’t suppose you did keep it, but you can mix it, I guess, even in
this hotel.’

‘This isn’t an American hotel, sir.’ The calculated insolence of the
words was cleverly masked beneath an accent of humble submission.

The alert, middle-aged man sat up straight, and gazed placidly at Jules,
who was pulling his famous red side-whiskers.

‘Get a liqueur glass,’ he said, half curtly and half with good-humoured
tolerance, ‘pour into it equal quantities of maraschino, cream, and
crême de menthe. Don’t stir it; don’t shake it. Bring it to me. And, I
say, tell the bar-tender--’

‘Bar-tender, sir?’

‘Tell the bar-tender to make a note of the recipe, as I shall probably
want an Angel Kiss every evening before dinner so long as this weather
lasts.’

‘I will send the drink to you, sir,’ said Jules distantly. That was his
parting shot, by which he indicated that he was not as other waiters
are, and that any person who treated him with disrespect did so at his
own peril.

A few minutes later, while the alert, middle-aged man was tasting the
Angel Kiss, Jules sat in conclave with Miss Spencer, who had charge of
the bureau of the Grand Babylon. This bureau was a fairly large chamber,
with two sliding glass partitions which overlooked the entrance-hall and
the smoking-room. Only a small portion of the clerical work of the great
hotel was performed there. The place served chiefly as the lair of Miss
Spencer, who was as well known and as important as Jules himself. Most
modern hotels have a male clerk to superintend the bureau. But the Grand
Babylon went its own way. Miss Spencer had been bureau clerk almost
since the Grand Babylon had first raised its massive chimneys to heaven,
and she remained in her place despite the vagaries of other hotels.
Always admirably dressed in plain black silk, with a small diamond
brooch, immaculate wrist-bands, and frizzed yellow hair, she looked now
just as she had looked an indefinite number of years ago. Her age--none
knew it, save herself and perhaps one other, and none cared. The
gracious and alluring contours of her figure were irreproachable; and in
the evenings she was a useful ornament of which any hotel might be
innocently proud. Her knowledge of Bradshaw, of steamship services, and
the programmes of theatres and music-halls was unrivalled; yet she never
travelled, she never went to a theatre or a music-hall. She seemed to
spend the whole of her life in that official lair of hers, imparting
information to guests, telephoning to the various departments, or
engaged in intimate conversations with her special friends on the staff,
as at present.

‘Who’s Number 107?’ Jules asked this black-robed lady.

Miss Spencer examined her ledgers.

‘Mr Theodore Racksole, New York.’

‘I thought he must be a New Yorker,’ said Jules, after a brief,
significant pause, ‘but he talks as good English as you or me. Says he
wants an “Angel Kiss”--maraschino and cream, if you please--every night.
I’ll see he doesn’t stop here too long.’

Miss Spencer smiled grimly in response. The notion of referring to
Theodore Racksole as a ‘New Yorker’ appealed to her sense of humour, a
sense in which she was not entirely deficient. She knew, of course, and
she knew that Jules knew, that this Theodore Racksole must be the unique
and only Theodore Racksole, the third richest man in the United States,
and therefore probably in the world. Nevertheless she ranged herself at
once on the side of Jules.

Just as there was only one Racksole, so there was only one Jules, and
Miss Spencer instinctively shared the latter’s indignation at the
spectacle of any person whatsoever, millionaire or Emperor, presuming to
demand an ‘Angel Kiss’, that unrespectable concoction of maraschino and
cream, within the precincts of the Grand Babylon. In the world of hotels
it was currently stated that, next to the proprietor, there were three
gods at the Grand Babylon--Jules, the head waiter, Miss Spencer, and,
most powerful of all, Rocco, the renowned chef, who earned two thousand
a year, and had a chalet on the Lake of Lucerne. All the great hotels in
Northumberland Avenue and on the Thames Embankment had tried to get
Rocco away from the Grand Babylon, but without success. Rocco was well
aware that even he could rise no higher than the maître hotel of the
Grand Babylon, which, though it never advertised itself, and didn’t
belong to a limited company, stood an easy first among the hotels of
Europe--first in expensiveness, first in exclusiveness, first in that
mysterious quality known as ‘style’.

Situated on the Embankment, the Grand Babylon, despite its noble
proportions, was somewhat dwarfed by several colossal neighbours. It had
but three hundred and fifty rooms, whereas there are two hotels within a
quarter of a mile with six hundred and four hundred rooms respectively.
On the other hand, the Grand Babylon was the only hotel in London with a
genuine separate entrance for Royal visitors constantly in use. The
Grand Babylon counted that day wasted on which it did not entertain, at
the lowest, a German prince or the Maharajah of some Indian State. When
Felix Babylon--after whom, and not with any reference to London’s
nickname, the hotel was christened--when Felix Babylon founded the hotel
in 1869 he had set himself to cater for Royalty, and that was the secret
of his triumphant eminence.

The son of a rich Swiss hotel proprietor and financier, he had contrived
to established a connection with the officials of several European
Courts, and he had not spared money in that respect. Sundry kings and
not a few princesses called him Felix, and spoke familiarly of the hotel
as ‘Felix’s’; and Felix had found that this was very good for trade. The
Grand Babylon was managed accordingly. The ‘note’ of its policy was
discretion, always discretion, and quietude, simplicity, remoteness. The
place was like a palace incognito. There was no gold sign over the roof,
not even an explanatory word at the entrance. You walked down a small
side street off the Strand, you saw a plain brown building in front of
you, with two mahogany swing doors, and an official behind each; the
doors opened noiselessly; you entered; you were in Felix’s. If you meant
to be a guest, you, or your courier, gave your card to Miss Spencer.
Upon no consideration did you ask for the tariff. It was not good form
to mention prices at the Grand Babylon; the prices were enormous, but
you never mentioned them. At the conclusion of your stay a bill was
presented, brief and void of dry details, and you paid it without a
word. You met with a stately civility, that was all. No one had
originally asked you to come; no one expressed the hope that you would
come again. The Grand Babylon was far above such manoeuvres; it defied
competition by ignoring it; and consequently was nearly always full
during the season.

If there was one thing more than another that annoyed the Grand Babylon-
-put its back up, so to speak--it was to be compared with, or to be
mistaken for, an American hotel. The Grand Babylon was resolutely
opposed to American methods of eating, drinking, and lodging--but
especially American methods of drinking. The resentment of Jules, on
being requested to supply Mr Theodore Racksole with an Angel Kiss, will
therefore be appreciated.

‘Anybody with Mr Theodore Racksole?’ asked Jules, continuing his
conversation with Miss Spencer. He put a scornful stress on every
syllable of the guest’s name.

‘Miss Racksole--she’s in No. 111.’

Jules paused, and stroked his left whisker as it lay on his gleaming
white collar.

‘She’s where?’ he queried, with a peculiar emphasis.

‘No. 111. I couldn’t help it. There was no other room with a bathroom
and dressing-room on that floor.’ Miss Spencer’s voice had an appealing
tone of excuse.

‘Why didn’t you tell Mr Theodore Racksole and Miss Racksole that we were
unable to accommodate them?’

‘Because Babs was within hearing.’

Only three people in the wide world ever dreamt of applying to Mr Felix
Babylon the playful but mean abbreviation--Babs: those three were Jules,
Miss Spencer, and Rocco. Jules had invented it. No one but he would have
had either the wit or the audacity to do so.

‘You’d better see that Miss Racksole changes her room to-night,’ Jules
said after another pause. ‘Leave it to me: I’ll fix it. Au revoir! It’s
three minutes to eight. I shall take charge of the dining-room myself
to-night.’

And Jules departed, rubbing his fine white hands slowly and
meditatively. It was a trick of his, to rub his hands with a strange,
roundabout motion, and the action denoted that some unusual excitement
was in the air.

At eight o’clock precisely dinner was served in the immense salle
manger, that chaste yet splendid apartment of white and gold. At a small
table near one of the windows a young lady sat alone. Her frocks said
Paris, but her face unmistakably said New York. It was a self-possessed
and bewitching face, the face of a woman thoroughly accustomed to doing
exactly what she liked, when she liked, how she liked: the face of a
woman who had taught hundreds of gilded young men the true art of
fetching and carrying, and who, by twenty years or so of parental
spoiling, had come to regard herself as the feminine equivalent of the
Tsar of All the Russias. Such women are only made in America, and they
only come to their full bloom in Europe, which they imagine to be a
continent created by Providence for their diversion.

The young lady by the window glanced disapprovingly at the menu card.
Then she looked round the dining-room, and, while admiring the diners,
decided that the room itself was rather small and plain. Then she gazed
through the open window, and told herself that though the Thames by
twilight was passable enough, it was by no means level with the Hudson,
on whose shores her father had a hundred thousand dollar country
cottage. Then she returned to the menu, and with a pursing of lovely
lips said that there appeared to be nothing to eat.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Nella.’ It was Mr Racksole, the intrepid
millionaire who had dared to order an Angel Kiss in the smoke-room of
the Grand Babylon. Nella--her proper name was Helen--smiled at her
parent cautiously, reserving to herself the right to scold if she should
feel so inclined.

‘You always are late, father,’ she said.

‘Only on a holiday,’ he added. ‘What is there to eat?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Then let’s have it. I’m hungry. I’m never so hungry as when I’m being
seriously idle.’

‘Consommé Britannia,’ she began to read out from the menu, ‘Saumon
d’Ecosse, Sauce Genoise, Aspics de Homard. Oh, heavens! Who wants these
horrid messes on a night like this?’

‘But, Nella, this is the best cooking in Europe,’ he protested.

‘Say, father,’ she said, with seeming irrelevance, ‘had you forgotten
it’s my birthday to-morrow?’

‘Have I ever forgotten your birthday, O most costly daughter?’

‘On the whole you’ve been a most satisfactory dad,’ she answered
sweetly, ‘and to reward you I’ll be content this year with the cheapest
birthday treat you ever gave me. Only I’ll have it to-night.’

‘Well,’ he said, with the long-suffering patience, the readiness for any
surprise, of a parent whom Nella had thoroughly trained, ‘what is it?’

‘It’s this. Let’s have filleted steak and a bottle of Bass for dinner
to-night. It will be simply exquisite. I shall love it.’

‘But my dear Nella,’ he exclaimed, ‘steak and beer at Felix’s! It’s
impossible! Moreover, young women still under twenty-three cannot be
permitted to drink Bass.’

‘I said steak and Bass, and as for being twenty-three, shall be going in
twenty-four to-morrow.’

Miss Racksole set her small white teeth.

There was a gentle cough. Jules stood over them. It must have been out
of a pure spirit of adventure that he had selected this table for his
own services. Usually Jules did not personally wait at dinner. He merely
hovered observant, like a captain on the bridge during the mate’s watch.
Regular frequenters of the hotel felt themselves honoured when Jules
attached himself to their tables.

Theodore Racksole hesitated one second, and then issued the order with a
fine air of carelessness:

‘Filleted steak for two, and a bottle of Bass.’ It was the bravest act
of Theodore Racksole’s life, and yet at more than one previous crisis a
high courage had not been lacking to him.

‘It’s not in the menu, sir,’ said Jules the imperturbable.

‘Never mind. Get it. We want it.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Jules walked to the service-door, and, merely affecting to look behind,
came immediately back again.

‘Mr Rocco’s compliments, sir, and he regrets to be unable to serve steak
and Bass to-night, sir.’

‘Mr Rocco?’ questioned Racksole lightly.

‘Mr Rocco,’ repeated Jules with firmness.

‘And who is Mr Rocco?’

‘Mr Rocco is our chef, sir.’ Jules had the expression of a man who is
asked to explain who Shakespeare was.

The two men looked at each other. It seemed incredible that Theodore
Racksole, the ineffable Racksole, who owned a thousand miles of railway,
several towns, and sixty votes in Congress, should be defied by a
waiter, or even by a whole hotel. Yet so it was. When Europe’s effete
back is against the wall not a regiment of millionaires can turn its
flank. Jules had the calm expression of a strong man sure of victory.
His face said: ‘You beat me once, but not this time, my New York
friend!’

As for Nella, knowing her father, she foresaw interesting events, and
waited confidently for the steak. She did not feel hungry, and she could
afford to wait.

‘Excuse me a moment, Nella,’ said Theodore Racksole quietly, ‘I shall be
back in about two seconds,’ and he strode out of the salle à manger. No
one in the room recognized the millionaire, for he was unknown to
London, this being his first visit to Europe for over twenty years. Had
anyone done so, and caught the expression on his face, that man might
have trembled for an explosion which should have blown the entire Grand
Babylon into the Thames.

Jules retired strategically to a corner. He had fired; it was the
antagonist’s turn. A long and varied experience had taught Jules that a
guest who embarks on the subjugation of a waiter is almost always lost;
the waiter has so many advantages in such a contest.






Chapter Two HOW MR RACKSOLE OBTAINED HIS DINNER

NEVERTHELESS, there are men with a confirmed habit of getting their own
way, even as guests in an exclusive hotel: and Theodore Racksole had
long since fallen into that useful practice--except when his only
daughter Helen, motherless but high-spirited girl, chose to think that
his way crossed hers, in which case Theodore capitulated and fell back.
But when Theodore and his daughter happened to be going one and the same
road, which was pretty often, then Heaven alone might help any obstacle
that was so ill-advised as to stand in their path. Jules, great and
observant man though he was, had not noticed the terrible projecting
chins of both father and daughter, otherwise it is possible he would
have reconsidered the question of the steak and Bass.

Theodore Racksole went direct to the entrance-hall of the hotel, and
entered Miss Spencer’s sanctum.

‘I want to see Mr Babylon,’ he said, ‘without the delay of an instant.’

Miss Spencer leisurely raised her flaxen head.

‘I am afraid--,’ she began the usual formula. It was part of her daily
duty to discourage guests who desired to see Mr Babylon.

‘No, no,’ said Racksole quickly, ‘I don’t want any “I’m afraids.” This
is business. If you had been the ordinary hotel clerk I should have
slipped you a couple of sovereigns into your hand, and the thing would
have been done.

As you are not--as you are obviously above bribes--I merely say to you,
I must see Mr Babylon at once on an affair of the utmost urgency. My
name is Racksole--Theodore Racksole.’

‘Of New York?’ questioned a voice at the door, with a slight foreign
accent.

The millionaire turned sharply, and saw a rather short, French-looking
man, with a bald head, a grey beard, a long and perfectly-built frock
coat, eye-glasses attached to a minute silver chain, and blue eyes that
seemed to have the transparent innocence of a maid’s.

‘There is only one,’ said Theodore Racksole succinctly.

‘You wish to see me?’ the new-comer suggested.

‘You are Mr Felix Babylon?’

The man bowed.

‘At this moment I wish to see you more than anyone else in the world,’
said Racksole. ‘I am consumed and burnt up with a desire to see you, Mr
Babylon.

I only want a few minutes’ quiet chat. I fancy I can settle my business
in that time.’

With a gesture Mr Babylon invited the millionaire down a side corridor,
at the end of which was Mr Babylon’s private room, a miracle of Louis XV
furniture and tapestry: like most unmarried men with large incomes, Mr
Babylon had ‘tastes’ of a highly expensive sort.

The landlord and his guest sat down opposite each other. Theodore
Racksole had met with the usual millionaire’s luck in this adventure,
for Mr Babylon made a practice of not allowing himself to be interviewed
by his guests, however distinguished, however wealthy, however
pertinacious. If he had not chanced to enter Miss Spencer’s office at
that precise moment, and if he had not been impressed in a somewhat
peculiar way by the physiognomy of the millionaire, not all Mr
Racksole’s American energy and ingenuity would have availed for a
confabulation with the owner of the Grand Babylon Hôtel that night.
Theodore Racksole, however, was ignorant that a mere accident had served
him. He took all the credit to himself.

‘I read in the New York papers some months ago,’ Theodore started,
without even a clearing of the throat, ‘that this hotel of yours, Mr
Babylon, was to be sold to a limited company, but it appears that the
sale was not carried out.’

‘It was not,’ answered Mr Babylon frankly, ‘and the reason was that the
middle-men between the proposed company and myself wished to make a
large secret profit, and I declined to be a party to such a profit. They
were firm; I was firm; and so the affair came to nothing.’

‘The agreed price was satisfactory?’

‘Quite.’

‘May I ask what the price was?’

‘Are you a buyer, Mr Racksole?’

‘Are you a seller, Mr Babylon?’

‘I am,’ said Babylon, ‘on terms. The price was four hundred thousand
pounds, including the leasehold and goodwill. But I sell only on the
condition that the buyer does not transfer the property to a limited
company at a higher figure.’

‘I will put one question to you, Mr Babylon,’ said the millionaire.
‘What have your profits averaged during the last four years?’

‘Thirty-four thousand pounds per annum.’

‘I buy,’ said Theodore Racksole, smiling contentedly; ‘and we will, if
you please, exchange contract-letters on the spot.’

‘You come quickly to a resolution, Mr Racksole. But perhaps you have
been considering this question for a long time?’

‘On the contrary,’ Racksole looked at his watch, ‘I have been
considering it for six minutes.’

Felix Babylon bowed, as one thoroughly accustomed to eccentricity of
wealth.

‘The beauty of being well-known,’ Racksole continued, ‘is that you
needn’t trouble about preliminary explanations. You, Mr Babylon,
probably know all about me. I know a good deal about you. We can take
each other for granted without reference. Really, it is as simple to buy
an hotel or a railroad as it is to buy a watch, provided one is equal to
the transaction.’

‘Precisely,’ agreed Mr Babylon smiling. ‘Shall we draw up the little
informal contract? There are details to be thought of. But it occurs to
me that you cannot have dined yet, and might prefer to deal with minor
questions after dinner.’

‘I have not dined,’ said the millionaire, with emphasis, ‘and in that
connexion will you do me a favour? Will you send for Mr Rocco?’

‘You wish to see him, naturally.’

‘I do,’ said the millionaire, and added, ‘about my dinner.’

‘Rocco is a great man,’ murmured Mr Babylon as he touched the bell,
ignoring the last words. ‘My compliments to Mr Rocco,’ he said to the
page who answered his summons, ‘and if it is quite convenient I should
be glad to see him here for a moment.’

‘What do you give Rocco?’ Racksole inquired.

‘Two thousand a year and the treatment of an Ambassador.’

‘I shall give him the treatment of an Ambassador and three thousand.’

‘You will be wise,’ said Felix Babylon.

At that moment Rocco came into the room, very softly--a man of forty,
thin, with long, thin hands, and an inordinately long brown silky
moustache.

‘Rocco,’ said Felix Babylon, ‘let me introduce Mr Theodore Racksole, of
New York.’

‘Sharmed,’ said Rocco, bowing. ‘Ze--ze, vat you call it, millionaire?’

‘Exactly,’ Racksole put in, and continued quickly: ‘Mr Rocco, I wish to
acquaint you before any other person with the fact that I have purchased
the Grand Babylon Hôtel. If you think well to afford me the privilege of
retaining your services I shall be happy to offer you a remuneration of
three thousand a year.’

‘Tree, you said?’

‘Three.’

‘Sharmed.’

‘And now, Mr Rocco, will you oblige me very much by ordering a plain
beefsteak and a bottle of Bass to be served by Jules--I particularly
desire Jules--at table No. 17 in the dining-room in ten minutes from
now? And will you do me the honour of lunching with me to-morrow?’

Mr Rocco gasped, bowed, muttered something in French, and departed.

Five minutes later the buyer and seller of the Grand Babylon Hôtel had
each signed a curt document, scribbled out on the hotel note-paper.
Felix Babylon asked no questions, and it was this heroic absence of
curiosity, of surprise on his part, that more than anything else
impressed Theodore Racksole. How many hotel proprietors in the world,
Racksole asked himself, would have let that beef-steak and Bass go by
without a word of comment.

‘From what date do you wish the purchase to take effect?’ asked Babylon.

‘Oh,’ said Racksole lightly, ‘it doesn’t matter. Shall we say from to-
night?’

‘As you will. I have long wished to retire. And now that the moment has
come--and so dramatically--I am ready. I shall return to Switzerland.
One cannot spend much money there, but it is my native land. I shall be
the richest man in Switzerland.’ He smiled with a kind of sad amusement.

‘I suppose you are fairly well off?’ said Racksole, in that easy
familiar style of his, as though the idea had just occurred to him.

‘Besides what I shall receive from you, I have half a million invested.’

‘Then you will be nearly a millionaire?’

Felix Babylon nodded.

‘I congratulate you, my dear sir,’ said Racksole, in the tone of a judge
addressing a newly-admitted barrister. ‘Nine hundred thousand pounds,
expressed in francs, will sound very nice--in Switzerland.’

‘Of course to you, Mr Racksole, such a sum would be poverty. Now if one
might guess at your own wealth?’ Felix Babylon was imitating the other’s
freedom.

‘I do not know, to five millions or so, what I am worth,’ said Racksole,
with sincerity, his tone indicating that he would have been glad to give
the information if it were in his power.

‘You have had anxieties, Mr Racksole?’

‘Still have them. I am now holiday-making in London with my daughter in
order to get rid of them for a time.’

‘Is the purchase of hotels your notion of relaxation, then?’

Racksole shrugged his shoulders. ‘It is a change from railroads,’ he
laughed.

‘Ah, my friend, you little know what you have bought.’

‘Oh! yes I do,’ returned Racksole; ‘I have bought just the first hotel
in the world.’

‘That is true, that is true,’ Babylon admitted, gazing meditatively at
the antique Persian carpet. ‘There is nothing, anywhere, like my hotel.
But you will regret the purchase, Mr Racksole. It is no business of
mine, of course, but I cannot help repeating that you will regret the
purchase.’

‘I never regret.’

‘Then you will begin very soon--perhaps to-night.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because the Grand Babylon is the Grand Babylon. You think because you
control a railroad, or an iron-works, or a line of steamers, therefore
you can control anything. But no. Not the Grand Babylon. There is
something about the Grand Babylon--’ He threw up his hands.

‘Servants rob you, of course.’

‘Of course. I suppose I lose a hundred pounds a week in that way. But it
is not that I mean. It is the guests. The guests are too--too
distinguished.

The great Ambassadors, the great financiers, the great nobles, all the
men that move the world, put up under my roof. London is the centre of
everything, and my hotel--your hotel--is the centre of London. Once I
had a King and a Dowager Empress staying here at the same time. Imagine
that!’

‘A great honour, Mr Babylon. But wherein lies the difficulty?’

‘Mr Racksole,’ was the grim reply, ‘what has become of your shrewdness--
that shrewdness which has made your fortune so immense that even you
cannot calculate it? Do you not perceive that the roof which habitually
shelters all the force, all the authority of the world, must necessarily
also shelter nameless and numberless plotters, schemers, evil-doers, and
workers of mischief? The thing is as clear as day--and as dark as night.
Mr Racksole, I never know by whom I am surrounded. I never know what is
going forward.

Only sometimes I get hints, glimpses of strange acts and strange
secrets.

You mentioned my servants. They are almost all good servants, skilled,
competent. But what are they besides? For anything I know my fourth sub-
chef may be an agent of some European Government. For anything I know my
invaluable Miss Spencer may be in the pay of a court dressmaker or a
Frankfort banker. Even Rocco may be someone else in addition to Rocco.’

‘That makes it all the more interesting,’ remarked Theodore Racksole.

‘What a long time you have been, Father,’ said Nella, when he returned
to table No. 17 in the salle à manger.

‘Only twenty minutes, my dove.’

‘But you said two seconds. There is a difference.’

‘Well, you see, I had to wait for the steak to cook.’

‘Did you have much trouble in getting my birthday treat?’

‘No trouble. But it didn’t come quite as cheap as you said.’

‘What do you mean, Father?’

‘Only that I’ve bought the entire hotel. But don’t split.’

‘Father, you always were a delicious parent. Shall you give me the hotel
for a birthday present?’

‘No. I shall run it--as an amusement. By the way, who is that chair
for?’

He noticed that a third cover had been laid at the table.

‘That is for a friend of mine who came in about five minutes ago. Of
course I told him he must share our steak. He’ll be here in a moment.’

‘May I respectfully inquire his name?’

‘Dimmock--Christian name Reginald; profession, English companion to
Prince Aribert of Posen. I met him when I was in St Petersburg with
cousin Hetty last fall. Oh; here he is. Mr Dimmock, this is my dear
father. He has succeeded with the steak.’

Theodore Racksole found himself confronted by a very young man, with
deep black eyes, and a fresh, boyish expression. They began to talk.

Jules approached with the steak. Racksole tried to catch the waiter’s
eye, but could not. The dinner proceeded.

‘Oh, Father!’ cried Nella, ‘what a lot of mustard you have taken!’

‘Have I?’ he said, and then he happened to glance into a mirror on his
left hand between two windows. He saw the reflection of Jules, who stood
behind his chair, and he saw Jules give a slow, significant, ominous
wink to Mr Dimmock--Christian name, Reginald.

He examined his mustard in silence. He thought that perhaps he had
helped himself rather plenteously to mustard.






Chapter Three AT THREE A.M.

MR REGINALD DIMMOCK proved himself, despite his extreme youth, to be a
man of the world and of experiences, and a practised talker.
Conversation between him and Nella Racksole seemed never to flag. They
chattered about St Petersburg, and the ice on the Neva, and the tenor at
the opera who had been exiled to Siberia, and the quality of Russian
tea, and the sweetness of Russian champagne, and various other aspects
of Muscovite existence. Russia exhausted, Nella lightly outlined her own
doings since she had met the young man in the Tsar’s capital, and this
recital brought the topic round to London, where it stayed till the
final piece of steak was eaten. Theodore Racksole noticed that Mr
Dimmock gave very meagre information about his own movements, either
past or future. He regarded the youth as a typical hanger-on of Courts,
and wondered how he had obtained his post of companion to Prince Aribert
of Posen, and who Prince Aribert of Posen might be. The millionaire
thought he had once heard of Posen, but he wasn’t sure; he rather
fancied it was one of those small nondescript German States of which
five-sixths of the subjects are Palace officials, and the rest charcoal-
burners or innkeepers. Until the meal was nearly over, Racksole said
little--perhaps his thoughts were too busy with Jules’ wink to Mr
Dimmock, but when ices had been followed by coffee, he decided that it
might be as well, in the interests of the hotel, to discover something
about his daughter’s friend. He never for an instant questioned her
right to possess her own friends; he had always left her in the most
amazing liberty, relying on her inherited good sense to keep her out of
mischief; but, quite apart from the wink, he was struck by Nella’s
attitude towards Mr Dimmock, an attitude in which an amiable scorn was
blended with an evident desire to propitiate and please.

‘Nella tells me, Mr Dimmock, that you hold a confidential position with
Prince Aribert of Posen,’ said Racksole. ‘You will pardon an American’s
ignorance, but is Prince Aribert a reigning Prince--what, I believe, you
call in Europe, a Prince Regnant?’

‘His Highness is not a reigning Prince, nor ever likely to be,’ answered
Dimmock. ‘The Grand Ducal Throne of Posen is occupied by his Highness’s
nephew, the Grand Duke Eugen.’

‘Nephew?’ cried Nella with astonishment.

‘Why not, dear lady?’

‘But Prince Aribert is surely very young?’

‘The Prince, by one of those vagaries of chance which occur sometimes in
the history of families, is precisely the same age as the Grand Duke.
The late Grand Duke’s father was twice married. Hence this youthfulness
on the part of an uncle.’

‘How delicious to be the uncle of someone as old as yourself! But I
suppose it is no fun for Prince Aribert. I suppose he has to be
frightfully respectful and obedient, and all that, to his nephew?’

‘The Grand Duke and my Serene master are like brothers. At present, of
course, Prince Aribert is nominally heir to the throne, but as no doubt
you are aware, the Grand Duke will shortly marry a near relative of the
Emperor’s, and should there be a family--’ Mr Dimmock stopped and
shrugged his straight shoulders. ‘The Grand Duke,’ he went on, without
finishing the last sentence, ‘would much prefer Prince Aribert to be his
successor. He really doesn’t want to marry. Between ourselves, strictly
between ourselves, he regards marriage as rather a bore. But, of course,
being a German Grand Duke, he is bound to marry. He owes it to his
country, to Posen.’

‘How large is Posen?’ asked Racksole bluntly.

‘Father,’ Nella interposed laughing, ‘you shouldn’t ask such
inconvenient questions. You ought to have guessed that it isn’t
etiquette to inquire about the size of a German Dukedom.’

‘I am sure,’ said Dimmock, with a polite smile, ‘that the Grand Duke is
as much amused as anyone at the size of his territory. I forget the
exact acreage, but I remember that once Prince Aribert and myself walked
across it and back again in a single day.’

‘Then the Grand Duke cannot travel very far within his own dominions?
You may say that the sun does set on his empire?’

‘It does,’ said Dimmock.

‘Unless the weather is cloudy,’ Nella put in. ‘Is the Grand Duke content
always to stay at home?’

‘On the contrary, he is a great traveller, much more so than Prince
Aribert.

I may tell you, what no one knows at present, outside this hotel, that
his Royal Highness the Grand Duke, with a small suite, will be here to-
morrow.’

‘In London?’ asked Nella.

‘Yes.’

‘In this hotel?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh! How lovely!’

‘That is why your humble servant is here to-night--a sort of advance
guard.’

‘But I understood,’ Racksole said, ‘that you were--er--attached to
Prince Aribert, the uncle.’

‘I am. Prince Aribert will also be here. The Grand Duke and the Prince
have business about important investments connected with the Grand
Duke’s marriage settlement.... In the highest quarters, you understand.’

‘For so discreet a person,’ thought Racksole, ‘you are fairly
communicative.’ Then he said aloud: ‘Shall we go out on the terrace?’

As they crossed the dining-room Jules stopped Mr Dimmock and handed him
a letter. ‘Just come, sir, by messenger,’ said Jules.

Nella dropped behind for a second with her father. ‘Leave me alone with
this boy a little--there’s a dear parent,’ she whispered in his ear.

‘I am a mere cypher, an obedient nobody,’ Racksole replied, pinching her
arm surreptitiously. ‘Treat me as such. Use me as you like. I will go
and look after my hotel’ And soon afterwards he disappeared.

Nella and Mr Dimmock sat together on the terrace, sipping iced drinks.
They made a handsome couple, bowered amid plants which blossomed at the
command of a Chelsea wholesale florist. People who passed by remarked
privately that from the look of things there was the beginning of a
romance in that conversation. Perhaps there was, but a more intimate
acquaintance with the character of Nella Racksole would have been
necessary in order to predict what precise form that romance would take.

Jules himself served the liquids, and at ten o’clock he brought another
note. Entreating a thousand pardons, Reginald Dimmock, after he had
glanced at the note, excused himself on the plea of urgent business for
his Serene master, uncle of the Grand Duke of Posen. He asked if he
might fetch Mr Racksole, or escort Miss Racksole to her father. But Miss
Racksole said gaily that she felt no need of an escort, and should go to
bed. She added that her father and herself always endeavoured to be
independent of each other.

Just then Theodore Racksole had found his way once more into Mr
Babylon’s private room. Before arriving there, however, he had
discovered that in some mysterious manner the news of the change of
proprietorship had worked its way down to the lowest strata of the
hotel’s cosmos. The corridors hummed with it, and even under-servants
were to be seen discussing the thing, just as though it mattered to
them.

‘Have a cigar, Mr Racksole,’ said the urbane Mr Babylon, ‘and a mouthful
of the oldest cognac in all Europe.’

In a few minutes these two were talking eagerly, rapidly. Felix Babylon
was astonished at Racksole’s capacity for absorbing the details of hotel
management. And as for Racksole he soon realized that Felix Babylon must
be a prince of hotel managers. It had never occurred to Racksole before
that to manage an hotel, even a large hotel, could be a specially
interesting affair, or that it could make any excessive demands upon the
brains of the manager; but he came to see that he had underrated the
possibilities of an hotel. The business of the Grand Babylon was
enormous. It took Racksole, with all his genius for organization,
exactly half an hour to master the details of the hotel laundry-work.
And the laundry-work was but one branch of activity amid scores, and not
a very large one at that. The machinery of checking supplies, and of
establishing a mean ratio between the raw stuff received in the kitchen
and the number of meals served in the salle à manger and the private
rooms, was very complicated and delicate. When Racksole had grasped it,
he at once suggested some improvements, and this led to a long
theoretical discussion, and the discussion led to digressions, and then
Felix Babylon, in a moment of absent-mindedness, yawned.

Racksole looked at the gilt clock on the high mantelpiece.

‘Great Scott!’ he said. ‘It’s three o’clock. Mr Babylon, accept my
apologies for having kept you up to such an absurd hour.’

‘I have not spent so pleasant an evening for many years. You have let me
ride my hobby to my heart’s content. It is I who should apologize.’

Racksole rose.

‘I should like to ask you one question,’ said Babylon. ‘Have you ever
had anything to do with hotels before?’

‘Never,’ said Racksole.

‘Then you have missed your vocation. You could have been the greatest of
all hotel-managers. You would have been greater than me, and I am
unequalled, though I keep only one hotel, and some men have half a
dozen. Mr Racksole, why have you never run an hotel?’

‘Heaven knows,’ he laughed, ‘but you flatter me, Mr Babylon.’

‘I? Flatter? You do not know me. I flatter no one, except, perhaps, now
and then an exceptionally distinguished guest. In which case I give
suitable instructions as to the bill.’

‘Speaking of distinguished guests, I am told that a couple of German
princes are coming here to-morrow.’

‘That is so.’

‘Does one do anything? Does one receive them formally--stand bowing in
the entrance-hall, or anything of that sort?’

‘Not necessarily. Not unless one wishes. The modern hotel proprietor is
not like an innkeeper of the Middle Ages, and even princes do not expect
to see him unless something should happen to go wrong. As a matter of
fact, though the Grand Duke of Posen and Prince Aribert have both
honoured me by staying here before, I have never even set eyes on them.
You will find all arrangements have been made.’

They talked a little longer, and then Racksole said good night. ‘Let me
see you to your room. The lifts will be closed and the place will be
deserted.

As for myself, I sleep here,’ and Mr Babylon pointed to an inner door.

‘No, thanks,’ said Racksole; ‘let me explore my own hotel unaccompanied.
I believe I can discover my room.’ When he got fairly into the passages,
Racksole was not so sure that he could discover his own room. The number
was 107, but he had forgotten whether it was on the first or second
floor.

Travelling in a lift, one is unconscious of floors. He passed several
lift-doorways, but he could see no glint of a staircase; in all self-
respecting hotels staircases have gone out of fashion, and though hotel
architects still continue, for old sakes’ sake, to build staircases,
they are tucked away in remote corners where their presence is not
likely to offend the eye of a spoiled and cosmopolitan public. The hotel
seemed vast, uncanny, deserted. An electric light glowed here and there
at long intervals. On the thick carpets, Racksole’s thinly-shod feet
made no sound, and he wandered at ease to and fro, rather amused, rather
struck by the peculiar senses of night and mystery which had suddenly
come over him. He fancied he could hear a thousand snores peacefully
descending from the upper realms. At length he found a staircase, a very
dark and narrow one, and presently he was on the first floor. He soon
discovered that the numbers of the rooms on this floor did not get
beyond seventy. He encountered another staircase and ascended to the
second floor. By the decoration of the walls he recognized this floor as
his proper home, and as he strolled through the long corridor he
whistled a low, meditative whistle of satisfaction. He thought he heard
a step in the transverse corridor, and instinctively he obliterated
himself in a recess which held a service-cabinet and a chair. He did
hear a step. Peeping cautiously out, he perceived, what he had not
perceived previously, that a piece of white ribbon had been tied round
the handle of the door of one of the bedrooms. Then a man came round the
corner of the transverse corridor, and Racksole drew back. It was Jules-
-Jules with his hands in his pockets and a slouch hat over his eyes, but
in other respects attired as usual.

Racksole, at that instant, remembered with a special vividness what
Felix Babylon had said to him at their first interview. He wished he had
brought his revolver. He didn’t know why he should feel the desirability
of a revolver in a London hotel of the most unimpeachable fair fame, but
he did feel the desirability of such an instrument of attack and
defence. He privately decided that if Jules went past his recess he
would take him by the throat and in that attitude put a few plain
questions to this highly dubious waiter. But Jules had stopped. The
millionaire made another cautious observation. Jules, with infinite
gentleness, was turning the handle of the door to which the white ribbon
was attached. The door slowly yielded and Jules disappeared within the
room. After a brief interval, the night-prowling Jules reappeared,
closed the door as softly as he had opened it, removed the ribbon,
returned upon his steps, and vanished down the transverse corridor.

‘This is quaint,’ said Racksole; ‘quaint to a degree!’

It occurred to him to look at the number of the room, and he stole
towards it.

‘Well, I’m d--d!’ he murmured wonderingly.

The number was 111, his daughter’s room! He tried to open it, but the
door was locked. Rushing to his own room, No. 107, he seized one of a
pair of revolvers (the kind that are made for millionaires) and followed
after Jules down the transverse corridor. At the end of this corridor
was a window; the window was open; and Jules was innocently gazing out
of the window. Ten silent strides, and Theodore Racksole was upon him.

‘One word, my friend,’ the millionaire began, carelessly waving the
revolver in the air. Jules was indubitably startled, but by an admirable
exercise of self-control he recovered possession of his faculties in a
second.

‘Sir?’ said Jules.

‘I just want to be informed, what the deuce you were doing in No. 111 a
moment ago.’

‘I had been requested to go there,’ was the calm response.

‘You are a liar, and not a very clever one. That is my daughter’s room.
Now--out with it, before I decide whether to shoot you or throw you into
the street.’

‘Excuse me, sir, No. 111 is occupied by a gentleman.’

‘I advise you that it is a serious error of judgement to contradict me,
my friend. Don’t do it again. We will go to the room together, and you
shall prove that the occupant is a gentleman, and not my daughter.’

‘Impossible, sir,’ said Jules.

‘Scarcely that,’ said Racksole, and he took Jules by the sleeve. The
millionaire knew for a certainty that Nella occupied No. 111, for he had
examined the room with her, and himself seen that her trunks and her maid and
herself had arrived there in safety. ‘Now open the door,’ whispered
Racksole, when they reached No.111.

‘I must knock.’

‘That is just what you mustn’t do. Open it. No doubt you have your pass-
key.’

Confronted by the revolver, Jules readily obeyed, yet with a deprecatory
gesture, as though he would not be responsible for this outrage against
the decorum of hotel life. Racksole entered. The room was brilliantly
lighted.

‘A visitor, who insists on seeing you, sir,’ said Jules, and fled.

Mr Reginald Dimmock, still in evening dress, and smoking a cigarette,
rose hurriedly from a table.

‘Hello, my dear Mr Racksole, this is an unexpected--ah--pleasure.’

‘Where is my daughter? This is her room.’

‘Did I catch what you said, Mr Racksole?’

‘I venture to remark that this is Miss Racksole’s room.’

‘My good sir,’ answered Dimmock, ‘you must be mad to dream of such a
thing.

Only my respect for your daughter prevents me from expelling you
forcibly, for such an extraordinary suggestion.’

A small spot half-way down the bridge of the millionaire’s nose turned
suddenly white.

‘With your permission,’ he said in a low calm voice, ‘I will examine the
dressing-room and the bath-room.’

‘Just listen to me a moment,’ Dimmock urged, in a milder tone.

‘I’ll listen to you afterwards, my young friend,’ said Racksole, and he
proceeded to search the bath-room, and the dressing-room, without any
result whatever. ‘Lest my attitude might be open to misconstruction, Mr
Dimmock, I may as well tell you that I have the most perfect confidence
in my daughter, who is as well able to take care of herself as any woman
I ever met, but since you entered it there have been one or two rather
mysterious occurrences in this hotel. That is all.’ Feeling a draught of
air on his shoulder, Racksole turned to the window. ‘For instance,’ he
added, ‘I perceive that this window is broken, badly broken, and from
the outside.

Now, how could that have occurred?’

‘If you will kindly hear reason, Mr Racksole,’ said Dimmock in his best
diplomatic manner, ‘I will endeavour to explain things to you. I
regarded your first question to me when you entered my room as being
offensively put, but I now see that you had some justification.’ He
smiled politely. ‘I was passing along this corridor about eleven
o’clock, when I found Miss Racksole in a difficulty with the hotel
servants. Miss Racksole was retiring to rest in this room when a large
stone, which must have been thrown from the Embankment, broke the
window, as you see. Apart from the discomfort of the broken window, she
did not care to remain in the room. She argued that where one stone had
come another might follow. She therefore insisted on her room being
changed. The servants said that there was no other room available with a
dressing-room and bath-room attached, and your daughter made a point of
these matters. I at once offered to exchange apartments with her. She
did me the honour to accept my offer. Our respective belongings were
moved--and that is all. Miss Racksole is at this moment, I trust, asleep
in No. 124.’

Theodore Racksole looked at the young man for a few seconds in silence.

There was a faint knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ said Racksole loudly.

Someone pushed open the door, but remained standing on the mat. It was
Nella’s maid, in a dressing-gown.

‘Miss Racksole’s compliments, and a thousand excuses, but a book of hers
was left on the mantelshelf in this room. She cannot sleep, and wishes
to read.’

‘Mr Dimmock, I tender my apologies--my formal apologies,’ said Racksole,
when the girl had gone away with the book. ‘Good night.’

‘Pray don’t mention it,’ said Dimmock suavely--and bowed him out.






Chapter Four ENTRANCE OF THE PRINCE

NEVERTHELESS, sundry small things weighed on Racksole’s mind. First
there was Jules’ wink. Then there was the ribbon on the door-handle and
Jules’ visit to No. 111, and the broken window--broken from the outside.
Racksole did not forget that the time was 3 a.m. He slept but little
that night, but he was glad that he had bought the Grand Babylon Hôtel.
It was an acquisition which seemed to promise fun and diversion.

The next morning he came across Mr Babylon early. ‘I have emptied my
private room of all personal papers,’ said Babylon, ‘and it is now at
your disposal.

I purpose, if agreeable to yourself, to stay on in the hotel as a guest
for the present. We have much to settle with regard to the completion of
the purchase, and also there are things which you might want to ask me.
Also, to tell the truth, I am not anxious to leave the old place with
too much suddenness. It will be a wrench to me.’

‘I shall be delighted if you will stay,’ said the millionaire, ‘but it
must be as my guest, not as the guest of the hotel.’

‘You are very kind.’

‘As for wishing to consult you, no doubt I shall have need to do so, but
I must say that the show seems to run itself.’

‘Ah!’ said Babylon thoughtfully. ‘I have heard of hotels that run
themselves. If they do, you may be sure that they obey the laws of
gravity and run downwards. You will have your hands full. For example,
have you yet heard about Miss Spencer?’

‘No,’ said Racksole. ‘What of her?’

‘She has mysteriously vanished during the night, and nobody appears to
be able to throw any light on the affair. Her room is empty, her boxes
gone.

You will want someone to take her place, and that someone will not be
very easy to get.’

‘H’m!’ Racksole said, after a pause. ‘Hers is not the only post that
falls vacant to-day.’

A little later, the millionaire installed himself in the late owner’s
private room and rang the bell.

‘I want Jules,’ he said to the page.

While waiting for Jules, Racksole considered the question of Miss
Spencer’s disappearance.

‘Good morning, Jules,’ was his cheerful greeting, when the imperturbable
waiter arrived.

‘Good morning, sir.’

‘Take a chair.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘We have met before this morning, Jules.’

‘Yes, sir, at 3 a.m.’

‘Rather strange about Miss Spencer’s departure, is it not?’ suggested
Racksole.

‘It is remarkable, sir.’

‘You are aware, of course, that Mr Babylon has transferred all his
interests in this hotel to me?’

‘I have been informed to that effect, sir.’

‘I suppose you know everything that goes on in the hotel, Jules?’

‘As the head waiter, sir, it is my business to keep a general eye on
things.’

‘You speak very good English for a foreigner, Jules.’

‘For a foreigner, sir! I am an Englishman, a Hertfordshire man born and
bred. Perhaps my name has misled you, sir. I am only called Jules
because the head waiter of any really high-class hotel must have either
a French or an Italian name.’

‘I see,’ said Racksole. ‘I think you must be rather a clever person,
Jules.’

‘That is not for me to say, sir.’

‘How long has the hotel enjoyed the advantage of your services?’

‘A little over twenty years.’

‘That is a long time to be in one place. Don’t you think it’s time you
got out of the rut? You are still young, and might make a reputation for
yourself in another and wider sphere.’

Racksole looked at the man steadily, and his glance was steadily
returned.

‘You aren’t satisfied with me, sir?’

‘To be frank, Jules, I think--I think you--er--wink too much. And I
think that it is regrettable when a head waiter falls into a habit of
taking white ribbons from the handles of bedroom doors at three in the
morning.’

Jules started slightly.

‘I see how it is, sir. You wish me to go, and one pretext, if I may use
the term, is as good as another. Very well, I can’t say that I’m
surprised. It sometimes happens that there is incompatibility of temper
between a hotel proprietor and his head waiter, and then, unless one of
them goes, the hotel is likely to suffer. I will go, Mr Racksole. In
fact, I had already thought of giving notice.’

The millionaire smiled appreciatively. ‘What wages do you require in
lieu of notice? It is my intention that you leave the hotel within an
hour.’

‘I require no wages in lieu of notice, sir. I would scorn to accept
anything. And I will leave the hotel in fifteen minutes.’

‘Good-day, then. You have my good wishes and my admiration, so long as
you keep out of my hotel.’

Racksole got up. ‘Good-day, sir. And thank you.’

‘By the way, Jules, it will be useless for you to apply to any other
first-rate European hotel for a post, because I shall take measures
which will ensure the rejection of any such application.’

‘Without discussing the question whether or not there aren’t at least
half a dozen hotels in London alone that would jump for joy at the
chance of getting me,’ answered Jules, ‘I may tell you, sir, that I
shall retire from my profession.’

‘Really! You will turn your brains to a different channel.’

‘No, sir. I shall take rooms in Albemarle Street or Jermyn Street, and
just be content to be a man-about-town. I have saved some twenty
thousand pounds--a mere trifle, but sufficient for my needs, and I shall
now proceed to enjoy it. Pardon me for troubling you with my personal
affairs. And good-day again.’

That afternoon Racksole went with Felix Babylon first to a firm of
solicitors in the City, and then to a stockbroker, in order to carry out
the practical details of the purchase of the hotel.

‘I mean to settle in England,’ said Racksole, as they were coming back.
‘It is the only country--’ and he stopped.

‘The only country?’

‘The only country where you can invest money and spend money with a
feeling of security. In the United States there is nothing worth
spending money on, nothing to buy. In France or Italy, there is no real
security.’

‘But surely you are a true American?’ questioned Babylon.

‘I am a true American,’ said Racksole, ‘but my father, who began by
being a bedmaker at an Oxford college, and ultimately made ten million
dollars out of iron in Pittsburg--my father took the wise precaution of
having me educated in England. I had my three years at Oxford, like any
son of the upper middle class! It did me good. It has been worth more to
me than many successful speculations. It taught me that the English
language is different from, and better than, the American language, and
that there is something--I haven’t yet found out exactly what--in
English life that Americans will never get. Why,’ he added, ‘in the
United States we still bribe our judges and our newspapers. And we talk
of the eighteenth century as though it was the beginning of the world.
Yes, I shall transfer my securities to London. I shall build a house in
Park Lane, and I shall buy some immemorial country seat with a history
as long as the A. T. and S. railroad, and I shall calmly and gradually
settle down. D’you know--I am rather a good-natured man for a
millionaire, and of a social disposition, and yet I haven’t six real
friends in the whole of New York City. Think of that!’

‘And I,’ said Babylon, ‘have no friends except the friends of my boyhood
in Lausanne. I have spent thirty years in England, and gained nothing
but a perfect knowledge of the English language and as much gold coin as
would fill a rather large box.’

These two plutocrats breathed a simultaneous sigh.

‘Talking of gold coin,’ said Racksole, ‘how much money should you think
Jules has contrived to amass while he has been with you?’

‘Oh!’ Babylon smiled. ‘I should not like to guess. He has had unique
opportunities--opportunities.’

‘Should you consider twenty thousand an extraordinary sum under the
circumstances?’

‘Not at all. Has he been confiding in you?’

‘Somewhat. I have dismissed him.’

‘You have dismissed him?’

‘Why not?’

‘There is no reason why not. But I have felt inclined to dismiss him for
the past ten years, and never found courage to do it.’

‘It was a perfectly simple proceeding, I assure you. Before I had done
with him, I rather liked the fellow.’

‘Miss Spencer and Jules--both gone in one day!’ mused Felix Babylon.

‘And no one to take their places,’ said Racksole. ‘And yet the hotel
continues its way!’

But when Racksole reached the Grand Babylon he found that Miss Spencer’s
chair in the bureau was occupied by a stately and imperious girl,
dressed becomingly in black.

‘Heavens, Nella!’ he cried, going to the bureau. ‘What are you doing
here?’

‘I am taking Mis Spencer’s place. I want to help you with your hotel,
Dad. I fancy I shall make an excellent hotel clerk. I have arranged with
a Miss Selina Smith, one of the typists in the office, to put me up to
all the tips and tricks, and I shall do very well.’

‘But look here, Helen Racksole. We shall have the whole of London
talking about this thing--the greatest of all American heiresses a hotel
clerk! And I came here for quiet and rest!’

‘I suppose it was for the sake of quiet and rest that you bought the
hotel, Papa?’

‘You would insist on the steak,’ he retorted. ‘Get out of this, on the
instant.’

‘Here I am, here to stay,’ said Nella, and deliberately laughed at her
parent.

Just then the face of a fair-haired man of about thirty years appeared
at the bureau window. He was very well-dressed, very aristocratic in his
pose, and he seemed rather angry.

He looked fixedly at Nella and started back.

‘Ach!’ he exclaimed. ‘You!’

‘Yes, your Highness, it is indeed I. Father, this is his Serene Highness
Prince Aribert of Posen--one of our most esteemed customers.’

‘You know my name, Fräulein?’ the new-comer murmured in German.

‘Certainly, Prince,’ Nella replied sweetly. ‘You were plain Count
Steenbock last spring in Paris--doubtless travelling incognito--’

‘Silence,’ he entreated, with a wave of the hand, and his forehead went
as white as paper.






Chapter Five WHAT OCCURRED TO REGINALD DIMMOCK

IN another moment they were all three talking quite nicely, and with at
any rate an appearance of being natural. Prince Aribert became suave,
even deferential to Nella, and more friendly towards Nella’s father than
their respective positions demanded. The latter amused himself by
studying this sprig of royalty, the first with whom he had ever come
into contact. He decided that the young fellow was personable enough,
‘had no frills on him,’ and would make an exceptionally good commercial
traveller for a first-class firm. Such was Theodore Racksole’s
preliminary estimate of the man who might one day be the reigning Grand
Duke of Posen.

It occurred to Nella, and she smiled at the idea, that the bureau of the
hotel was scarcely the correct place in which to receive this august
young man. There he stood, with his head half-way through the bureau
window, negligently leaning against the woodwork, just as though he were
a stockbroker or the manager of a New York burlesque company.

‘Is your Highness travelling quite alone?’ she asked.

‘By a series of accidents I am,’ he said. ‘My equerry was to have met me
at Charing Cross, but he failed to do so--I cannot imagine why.’

‘Mr Dimmock?’ questioned Racksole.

‘Yes, Dimmock. I do not remember that he ever missed an appointment
before.

You know him? He has been here?’

‘He dined with us last night,’ said Racksole--‘on Nella’s invitation,’
he added maliciously; ‘but to-day we have seen nothing of him. I know,
however, that he has engaged the State apartments, and also a suite
adjoining the State apartments--No. 55. That is so, isn’t it, Nella?’

‘Yes, Papa,’ she said, having first demurely examined a ledger. ‘Your
Highness would doubtless like to be conducted to your room--apartments I
mean.’ Then Nella laughed deliberately at the Prince, and said, ‘I don’t
know who is the proper person to conduct you, and that’s a fact. The
truth is that Papa and I are rather raw yet in the hotel line. You see,
we only bought the place last night.’

‘You have bought the hotel!’ exclaimed the Prince.

‘That’s so,’ said Racksole.

‘And Felix Babylon has gone?’

‘He is going, if he has not already gone.’

‘Ah! I see,’ said the Prince; ‘this is one of your American “strokes”.
You have bought to sell again, is that not it? You are on your holidays,
but you cannot resist making a few thousands by way of relaxation. I
have heard of such things.’

‘We sha’n’t sell again, Prince, until we are tired of our bargain.
Sometimes we tire very quickly, and sometimes we don’t. It depends--eh?
What?’

Racksole broke off suddenly to attend to a servant in livery who had
quietly entered the bureau and was making urgent mysterious signs to
him.

‘If you please, sir,’ the man by frantic gestures implored Mr Theodore
Racksole to come out.

‘Pray don’t let me detain you, Mr Racksole,’ said the Prince, and
therefore the proprietor of the Grand Babylon departed after the
servant, with a queer, curt little bow to Prince Aribert.

‘Mayn’t I come inside?’ said the Prince to Nella immediately the
millionaire had gone.

‘Impossible, Prince,’ Nella laughed. ‘The rule against visitors entering
this bureau is frightfully strict.’

‘How do you know the rule is so strict if you only came into possession
last night?’

‘I know because I made the rule myself this morning, your Highness.’

‘But seriously, Miss Racksole, I want to talk to you.’

‘Do you want to talk to me as Prince Aribert or as the friend--the
acquaintance--whom I knew in Paris last year?’

‘As the friend, dear lady, if I may use the term.’

‘And you are sure that you would not like first to be conducted to your
apartments?’

‘Not yet. I will wait till Dimmock comes; he cannot fail to be here
soon.’

‘Then we will have tea served in father’s private room--the proprietor’s
private room, you know.’

‘Good!’ he said.

Nella talked through a telephone, and rang several bells, and behaved
generally in a manner calculated to prove to Princes and to whomever it
might concern that she was a young woman of business instincts and
training, and then she stepped down from her chair of office, emerged
from the bureau, and, preceded by two menials, led Prince Aribert to the
Louis XV chamber in which her father and Felix Babylon had had their
long confabulation on the previous evening.

‘What do you want to talk to me about?’ she asked her companion, as she
poured out for him a second cup of tea. The Prince looked at her for a
moment as he took the proffered cup, and being a young man of sane,
healthy, instincts, he could think of nothing for the moment except her
loveliness.

Nella was indeed beautiful that afternoon. The beauty of even the most
beautiful woman ebbs and flows from hour to hour. Nella’s this afternoon
was at the flood. Vivacious, alert, imperious, and yet ineffably sweet,
she seemed to radiate the very joy and exuberance of life.

‘I have forgotten,’ he said.

‘You have forgotten! That is surely very wrong of you? You gave me to
understand that it was something terribly important. But of course I
knew it couldn’t be, because no man, and especially no Prince, ever
discussed anything really important with a woman.’

‘Recollect, Miss Racksole, that this afternoon, here, I am not the
Prince.’

‘You are Count Steenbock, is that it?’

He started. ‘For you only,’ he said, unconsciously lowering his voice.
‘Miss Racksole, I particularly wish that no one here should know that I
was in Paris last spring.’

‘An affair of State?’ she smiled.

‘An affair of State,’ he replied soberly. ‘Even Dimmock doesn’t know. It
was strange that we should be fellow guests at that quiet out-of-the-way
hotel--strange but delightful. I shall never forget that rainy afternoon
that we spent together in the Museum of the Trocadéro. Let us talk about
that.’

‘About the rain, or the museum?’

‘I shall never forget that afternoon,’ he repeated, ignoring the
lightness of her question.

‘Nor I,’ she murmured corresponding to his mood.

‘You, too enjoyed it?’ he said eagerly.

‘The sculptures were magnificent,’ she replied, hastily glancing at the
ceiling.

‘Ah! So they were! Tell me, Miss Racksole, how did you discover my
identity.’

‘I must not say,’ she answered. ‘That is my secret. Do not seek to
penetrate it. Who knows what horrors you might discover if you probed
too far?’ She laughed, but she laughed alone. The Prince remained
pensive--as it were brooding.

‘I never hoped to see you again,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

‘One never sees again those whom one wishes to see.’

‘As for me, I was perfectly convinced that we should meet again.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I always get what I want.’

‘Then you wanted to see me again?’

‘Certainly. You interested me extremely. I have never met another man
who could talk so well about sculpture as the Count Steenbock.’

‘Do you really always get what you want, Miss Racksole?’

‘Of course.’

‘That is because your father is so rich, I suppose?’

‘Oh, no, it isn’t!’ she said. ‘It’s simply because I always do get what
I want. It’s got nothing to do with Father at all.’

‘But Mr Racksole is extremely wealthy?’

‘Wealthy isn’t the word, Count. There is no word. It’s positively awful
the amount of dollars poor Papa makes. And the worst of it is he can’t
help it.

He told me once that when a man had made ten millions no power on earth
could stop those ten millions from growing into twenty. And so it
continues.

I spend what I can, but I can’t come near coping with it; and of course
Papa is no use whatever at spending.’

‘And you have no mother?’

‘Who told you I had no mother?’ she asked quietly.

‘I--er--inquired about you,’ he said, with equal candour and humility.

‘In spite of the fact that you never hoped to see me again?’

‘Yes, in spite of that.’

‘How funny!’ she said, and lapsed into a meditative silence.

‘Yours must be a wonderful existence,’ said the Prince. ‘I envy you.’

‘You envy me--what? My father’s wealth?’

‘No,’ he said; ‘your freedom and your responsibilities.’

‘I have no responsibilities,’ she remarked.

‘Pardon me,’ he said; ‘you have, and the time is coming when you will
feel them.’

‘I’m only a girl,’ she murmured with sudden simplicity. ‘As for you,
Count, surely you have sufficient responsibilities of your own?’

‘I?’ he said sadly. ‘I have no responsibilities. I am a nobody--a Serene
Highness who has to pretend to be very important, always taking immense
care never to do anything that a Serene Highness ought not to do. Bah!’

‘But if your nephew, Prince Eugen, were to die, would you not come to
the throne, and would you not then have these responsibilities which you
so much desire?’

‘Eugen die?’ said Prince Aribert, in a curious tone. ‘Impossible. He is
the perfection of health. In three months he will be married. No, I
shall never be anything but a Serene Highness, the most despicable of
God’s creatures.’

‘But what about the State secret which you mentioned? Is not that a
responsibility?’

‘Ah!’ he said. ‘That is over. That belongs to the past. It was an
accident in my dull career. I shall never be Count Steenbock again.’

‘Who knows?’ she said. ‘By the way, is not Prince Eugen coming here to-
day? Mr Dimmock told us so.’

‘See!’ answered the Prince, standing up and bending over her. ‘I am
going to confide in you. I don’t know why, but I am.’

‘Don’t betray State secrets,’ she warned him, smiling into his face.

But just then the door of the room was unceremoniously opened.

‘Go right in,’ said a voice sharply. It was Theodore Racksole’s. Two men
entered, bearing a prone form on a stretcher, and Racksole followed
them.

Nella sprang up. Racksole stared to see his daughter.

‘I didn’t know you were in here, Nell. Here,’ to the two men, ‘out
again.’

‘Why!’ exclaimed Nella, gazing fearfully at the form on the stretcher,
‘it’s Mr Dimmock!’

‘It is,’ her father acquiesced. ‘He’s dead,’ he added laconically. ‘I’d
have broken it to you more gently had I known. Your pardon, Prince.’
There was a pause.

‘Dimmock dead!’ Prince Aribert whispered under his breath, and he
kneeled down by the side of the stretcher. ‘What does this mean?’

The poor fellow was just walking across the quadrangle towards the
portico when he fell down. A commissionaire who saw him says he was
walking very quickly. At first I thought it was sunstroke, but it
couldn’t have been, though the weather certainly is rather warm. It must
be heart disease. But anyhow, he’s dead. We did what we could. I’ve sent
for a doctor, and for the police. I suppose there’ll have to be an
inquest.’

Theodore Racksole stopped, and in an awkward solemn silence they all
gazed at the dead youth. His features were slightly drawn, and his eyes
closed; that was all. He might have been asleep.

‘My poor Dimmock!’ exclaimed the Prince, his voice broken. ‘And I was
angry because the lad did not meet me at Charing Cross!’

‘Are you sure he is dead, Father?’ Nella said.

‘You’d better go away, Nella,’ was Racksole’s only reply; but the girl
stood still, and began to sob quietly. On the previous night she had
secretly made fun of Reginald Dimmock. She had deliberately set herself
to get information from him on a topic in which she happened to be
specially interested and she had got it, laughing the while at his
youthful crudities--his vanity, his transparent cunning, his absurd
airs. She had not liked him; she had even distrusted him, and decided
that he was not ‘nice’. But now, as he lay on the stretcher, these
things were forgotten. She went so far as to reproach herself for them.
Such is the strange commanding power of death.

‘Oblige me by taking the poor fellow to my apartments,’ said the Prince,
with a gesture to the attendants. ‘Surely it is time the doctor came.’

Racksole felt suddenly at that moment he was nothing but a mere hotel
proprietor with an awkward affair on his hands. For a fraction of a
second he wished he had never bought the Grand Babylon.

A quarter of an hour later Prince Aribert, Theodore Racksole, a doctor,
and an inspector of police were in the Prince’s reception-room. They had
just come from an ante-chamber, in which lay the mortal remains of
Reginald Dimmock.

‘Well?’ said Racksole, glancing at the doctor.

The doctor was a big, boyish-looking man, with keen, quizzical eyes.

‘It is not heart disease,’ said the doctor.

‘Not heart disease?’

‘No.’

‘Then what is it?’ asked the Prince.

‘I may be able to answer that question after the post-mortem,’ said the
doctor. ‘I certainly can’t answer it now. The symptoms are unusual to a
degree.’

The inspector of police began to write in a note-book.






Chapter Six IN THE GOLD ROOM

AT the Grand Babylon a great ball was given that night in the Gold Room,
a huge saloon attached to the hotel, though scarcely part of it, and
certainly less exclusive than the hotel itself. Theodore Racksole knew
nothing of the affair, except that it was an entertainment offered by a
Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi to their friends. Who Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi
were he did not know, nor could anyone tell him anything about them
except that Mr Sampson Levi was a prominent member of that part of the
Stock Exchange familiarly called the Kaffir Circus, and that his wife
was a stout lady with an aquiline nose and many diamonds, and that they
were very rich and very hospitable. Theodore Racksole did not want a
ball in his hotel that evening, and just before dinner he had almost a
mind to issue a decree that the Gold Room was to be closed and the ball
forbidden, and Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi might name the amount of damages
suffered by them. His reasons for such a course were threefold--first,
he felt depressed and uneasy; second, he didn’t like the name of Sampson
Levi; and, third, he had a desire to show these so-called plutocrats
that their wealth was nothing to him, that they could not do what they
chose with Theodore Racksole, and that for two pins Theodore Racksole
would buy them up, and the whole Kaffir Circus to boot. But something
warned him that though such a high-handed proceeding might be tolerated
in America, that land of freedom, it would never be tolerated in
England. He felt instinctively that in England there are things you
can’t do, and that this particular thing was one of them. So the ball
went forward, and neither Mr nor Mrs Sampson Levi had ever the least
suspicion what a narrow escape they had had of looking very foolish in
the eyes of the thousand or so guests invited by them to the Gold Room
of the Grand Babylon that evening.

The Gold Room of the Grand Babylon was built for a ballroom. A balcony,
supported by arches faced with gilt and lapis-lazulo, ran around it, and
from this vantage men and maidens and chaperons who could not or would
not dance might survey the scene. Everyone knew this, and most people
took advantage of it. What everyone did not know--what no one knew--was
that higher up than the balcony there was a little barred window in the
end wall from which the hotel authorities might keep a watchful eye, not
only on the dancers, but on the occupants of the balcony itself.

It may seem incredible to the uninitiated that the guests at any social
gathering held in so gorgeous and renowned an apartment as the Gold Room
of the Grand Babylon should need the observation of a watchful eye. Yet
so it was. Strange matters and unexpected faces had been descried from
the little window, and more than one European detective had kept vigil
there with the most eminently satisfactory results.

At eleven o’clock Theodore Racksole, afflicted by vexation of spirit,
found himself gazing idly through the little barred window. Nella was
with him.

Together they had been wandering about the corridors of the hotel, still
strange to them both, and it was quite by accident that they had lighted
upon the small room which had a surreptitious view of Mr and Mrs Sampson
Levi’s ball. Except for the light of the chandelier of the ball-room the
little cubicle was in darkness. Nella was looking through the window;
her father stood behind.

‘I wonder which is Mrs Sampson Levi?’ Nella said, ‘and whether she
matches her name. Wouldn’t you love to have a name like that, Father--
something that people could take hold of--instead of Racksole?’

The sound of violins and a confused murmur of voices rose gently up to
them.

‘Umphl’ said Theodore. ‘Curse those evening papers!’ he added,
inconsequently but with sincerity.

‘Father, you’re very horrid to-night. What have the evening papers been
doing?’

‘Well, my young madame, they’ve got me in for one, and you for another;
and they’re manufacturing mysteries like fun. It’s young Dimmock’s death
that has started ‘em.’

‘Well, Father, you surely didn’t expect to keep yourself out of the
papers. Besides, as regards newspapers, you ought to be glad you aren’t
in New York. Just fancy what the dear old Herald would have made out of
a little transaction like yours of last night.’

‘That’s true,’ assented Racksole. ‘But it’ll be all over New York to-
morrow morning, all the same. The worst of it is that Babylon has gone
off to Switzerland.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t know. Sudden fancy, I guess, for his native heath.’

‘What difference does it make to you?’

‘None. Only I feel sort of lonesome. I feel I want someone to lean up
against in running this hotel.’

‘Father, if you have that feeling you must be getting ill.’

‘Yes,’ he sighed, ‘I admit it’s unusual with me. But perhaps you haven’t
grasped the fact, Nella, that we’re in the middle of a rather queer
business.’

‘You mean about poor Mr Dimmock?’

‘Partly Dimmock and partly other things. First of all, that Miss
Spencer, or whatever her wretched name is, mysteriously disappears. Then
there was the stone thrown into your bedroom. Then I caught that rascal
Jules conspiring with Dimmock at three o’clock in the morning. Then your
precious Prince Aribert arrives without any suite--which I believe is a
most peculiar and wicked thing for a Prince to do--and moreover I find
my daughter on very intimate terms with the said Prince. Then young
Dimmock goes and dies, and there is to be an inquest; then Prince Eugen
and his suite, who were expected here for dinner, fail to turn up at
all--’

‘Prince Eugen has not come?’

‘He has not; and Uncle Aribert is in a deuce of a stew about him, and
telegraphing all over Europe. Altogether, things are working up pretty
lively.’

‘Do you really think, Dad, there was anything between Jules and poor Mr
Dimmock?’

‘Think! I know! I tell you I saw that scamp give Dimmock a wink last
night at dinner that might have meant--well!’

‘So you caught that wink, did you, Dad?’

‘Why, did you?’

‘Of course, Dad. I was going to tell you about it.’

The millionaire grunted.

‘Look here, Father,’ Nella whispered suddenly, and pointed to the
balcony immediately below them. ‘Who’s that?’ She indicated a man with a
bald patch on the back of his head, who was propping himself up against
the railing of the balcony and gazing immovable into the ball-room.

‘Well, who is it?’

‘Isn’t it Jules?’

‘Gemini! By the beard of the prophet, it is!’

‘Perhaps Mr Jules is a guest of Mrs Sampson Levi.’

‘Guest or no guest, he goes out of this hotel, even if I have to throw
him out myself.’

Theodore Racksole disappeared without another word, and Nella followed
him.

But when the millionaire arrived on the balcony floor he could see
nothing of Jules, neither there nor in the ball-room itself. Saying no
word aloud, but quietly whispering wicked expletives, he searched
everywhere in vain, and then, at last, by tortuous stairways and
corridors returned to his original post of observation, that he might
survey the place anew from the vantage ground. To his surprise he found
a man in the dark little room, watching the scene of the ball as
intently as he himself had been doing a few minutes before. Hearing
footsteps, the man turned with a start.

It was Jules.

The two exchanged glances in the half light for a second.

‘Good evening, Mr Racksole,’ said Jules calmly. ‘I must apologize for
being here.’

‘Force of habit, I suppose,’ said Theodore Racksole drily.

‘Just so, sir.’

‘I fancied I had forbidden you to re-enter this hotel?’

‘I thought your order applied only to my professional capacity. I am
here to-night as the guest of Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi.’

‘In your new rôle of man-about-town, eh?’

‘Exactly.’

‘But I don’t allow men-about-town up here, my friend.’

‘For being up here I have already apologized.’

‘Then, having apologized, you had better depart; that is my
disinterested advice to you.’

‘Good night, sir.’

‘And, I say, Mr Jules, if Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi, or any other Hebrews
or Christians, should again invite you to my hotel you will oblige me by
declining the invitation. You’ll find that will be the safest course for
you.’

‘Good night, sir.’

Before midnight struck Theodore Racksole had ascertained that the
invitation-list of Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi, though a somewhat lengthy
one, contained no reference to any such person as Jules.

He sat up very late. To be precise, he sat up all night. He was a man
who, by dint of training, could comfortably dispense with sleep when he
felt so inclined, or when circumstances made such a course advisable. He
walked to and fro in his room, and cogitated as few people beside
Theodore Racksole could cogitate. At 6 a.m. he took a stroll round the
business part of his premises, and watched the supplies come in from
Covent Garden, from Smithfield, from Billingsgate, and from other
strange places. He found the proceedings of the kitchen department quite
interesting, and made mental notes of things that he would have altered,
of men whose wages he would increase and men whose wages he would
reduce. At 7 a.m. he happened to be standing near the luggage lift, and
witnessed the descent of vast quantities of luggage, and its
disappearance into a Carter Paterson van.

‘Whose luggage is that?’ he inquired peremptorily.

The luggage clerk, with an aggrieved expression, explained to him that
it was the luggage of nobody in particular, that it belonged to various
guests, and was bound for various destinations; that it was, in fact,
‘expressed’ luggage despatched in advance, and that a similar quantity
of it left the hotel every morning about that hour.

Theodore Racksole walked away, and breakfasted upon one cup of tea and
half a slice of toast.

At ten o’clock he was informed that the inspector of police desired to
see him. The inspector had come, he said, to superintend the removal of
the body of Reginald Dimmock to the mortuary adjoining the place of
inquest, and a suitable vehicle waited at the back entrance of the
hotel.

The inspector had also brought subpoenas for himself and Prince Aribert
of Posen and the commissionaire to attend the inquest.

‘I thought Mr Dimmock’s remains were removed last night,’ said Racksole
wearily.

‘No, sir. The fact is the van was engaged on another job.’

The inspector gave the least hint of a professional smile, and Racksole,
disgusted, told him curtly to go and perform his duties.

In a few minutes a message came from the inspector requesting Mr
Racksole to be good enough to come to him on the first floor. Racksole
went. In the ante-room, where the body of Reginald Dimmock had
originally been placed, were the inspector and Prince Aribert, and two
policemen.

‘Well?’ said Racksole, after he and the Prince had exchanged bows. Then
he saw a coffin laid across two chairs. ‘I see a coffin has been
obtained,’ he remarked. ‘Quite right’ He approached it. ‘It’s empty,’ he
observed unthinkingly.

‘Just so,’ said the inspector. ‘The body of the deceased has
disappeared.

And his Serene Highness Prince Aribert informs me that though he has
occupied a room immediately opposite, on the other side of the corridor,
he can throw no light on the affair.’

‘Indeed, I cannot!’ said the Prince, and though he spoke with sufficient
calmness and dignity, you could see that he was deeply pained, even
distressed.

‘Well, I’m--’ murmured Racksole, and stopped.






Chapter Seven NELLA AND THE PRINCE

IT appeared impossible to Theodore Racksole that so cumbrous an article
as a corpse could be removed out of his hotel, with no trace, no hint,
no clue as to the time or the manner of the performance of the deed.
After the first feeling of surprise, Racksole grew coldly and severely
angry. He had a mind to dismiss the entire staff of the hotel. He
personally examined the night-watchman, the chambermaids and all other
persons who by chance might or ought to know something of the affair;
but without avail. The corpse of Reginald Dimmock had vanished utterly--
disappeared like a fleshless spirit.

Of course there were the police. But Theodore Racksole held the police
in sorry esteem. He acquainted them with the facts, answered their
queries with a patient weariness, and expected nothing whatever from
that quarter. He also had several interviews with Prince Aribert of
Posen, but though the Prince was suavity itself and beyond doubt
genuinely concerned about the fate of his dead attendant, yet it seemed
to Racksole that he was keeping something back, that he hesitated to say
all he knew. Racksole, with characteristic insight, decided that the
death of Reginald Dimmock was only a minor event, which had occurred, as
it were, on the fringe of some far more profound mystery. And,
therefore, he decided to wait, with his eyes very wide open, until
something else happened that would throw light on the business. At the
moment he took only one measure--he arranged that the theft of Dimmock’s
body should not appear in the newspapers. It is astonishing how well a
secret can be kept, when the possessors of the secret are handled with
the proper mixture of firmness and persuasion. Racksole managed this
very neatly. It was a complicated job, and his success in it rather
pleased him.

At the same time he was conscious of being temporarily worsted by an
unknown group of schemers, in which he felt convinced that Jules was an
important item. He could scarcely look Nella in the eyes. The girl had
evidently expected him to unmask this conspiracy at once, with a single
stroke of the millionaire’s magic wand. She was thoroughly accustomed,
in the land of her birth, to seeing him achieve impossible feats. Over
there he was a ‘boss’; men trembled before his name; when he wished a
thing to happen--well, it happened; if he desired to know a thing, he
just knew it. But here, in London, Theodore Racksole was not quite the
same Theodore Racksole. He dominated New York; but London, for the most
part, seemed not to take much interest in him; and there were certainly
various persons in London who were capable of snapping their fingers at
him--at Theodore Racksole. Neither he nor his daughter could get used to
that fact.

As for Nella, she concerned herself for a little with the ordinary
business of the bureau, and watched the incomings and outgoings of
Prince Aribert with a kindly interest. She perceived, what her father
had failed to perceive, that His Highness had assumed an attitude of
reserve merely to hide the secret distraction and dismay which consumed
him. She saw that the poor fellow had no settled plan in his head, and
that he was troubled by something which, so far, he had confided to
nobody. It came to her knowledge that each morning he walked to and fro
on the Victoria Embankment, alone, and apparently with no object. On the
third morning she decided that driving exercise on the Embankment would
be good for her health, and thereupon ordered a carriage and issued
forth, arrayed in a miraculous putty-coloured gown. Near Blackfriars
Bridge she met the Prince, and the carriage was drawn up by the
pavement.

‘Good morning, Prince,’ she greeted him. ‘Are you mistaking this for
Hyde Park?’

He bowed and smiled.

‘I usually walk here in the mornings,’ he said.

‘You surprise me,’ she returned. ‘I thought I was the only person in
London who preferred the Embankment, with this view of the river, to the
dustiness of Hyde Park. I can’t imagine how it is that London will never
take exercise anywhere except in that ridiculous Park. Now, if they had
Central Park--’

‘I think the Embankment is the finest spot in all London,’ he said.

She leaned a little out of the landau, bringing her face nearer to his.

‘I do believe we are kindred spirits, you and I,’ she murmured; and
then, ‘Au revoir, Prince!’

‘One moment, Miss Racksole.’ His quick tones had a note of entreaty.

‘I am in a hurry,’ she fibbed; ‘I am not merely taking exercise this
morning. You have no idea how busy we are.’

‘Ah! then I will not trouble you. But I leave the Grand Babylon to-
night.’

‘Do you?’ she said. ‘Then will your Highness do me the honour of
lunching with me today in Father’s room? Father will be out--he is
having a day in the City with some stockbroking persons.’

‘I shall be charmed,’ said the Prince, and his face showed that he meant
it.

Nella drove off.

If the lunch was a success that result was due partly to Rocco, and
partly to Nella. The Prince said little beyond what the ordinary rules
of the conversational game demanded. His hostess talked much and talked
well, but she failed to rouse her guest. When they had had coffee he
took a rather formal leave of her.

‘Good-bye, Prince,’ she said, ‘but I thought--that is, no I didn’t.

Good-bye.’

‘You thought I wished to discuss something with you. I did; but I have
decided that I have no right to burden your mind with my affairs.’

‘But suppose--suppose I wish to be burdened?’

‘That is your good nature.’

‘Sit down,’ she said abruptly, ‘and tell me everything; mind,
everything. I adore secrets.’

Almost before he knew it he was talking to her, rapidly, eagerly.

‘Why should I weary you with my confidences?’ he said. ‘I don’t know, I
cannot tell; but I feel that I must. I feel that you will understand me
better than anyone else in the world. And yet why should you understand
me? Again, I don’t know. Miss Racksole, I will disclose to you the whole
trouble in a word. Prince Eugen, the hereditary Grand Duke of Posen, has
disappeared. Four days ago I was to have met him at Ostend. He had
affairs in London. He wished me to come with him. I sent Dimmock on in
front, and waited for Eugen. He did not arrive. I telegraphed back to
Cologne, his last stopping-place, and I learned that he had left there
in accordance with his programme; I learned also that he had passed
through Brussels. It must have been between Brussels and the railway
station at Ostend Quay that he disappeared. He was travelling with a
single equerry, and the equerry, too, has vanished. I need not explain
to you, Miss Racksole, that when a person of the importance of my nephew
contrives to get lost one must proceed cautiously. One cannot advertise
for him in the London Times. Such a disappearance must be kept secret.
The people at Posen and at Berlin believe that Eugen is in London, here,
at this hotel; or, rather, they did so believe. But this morning I
received a cypher telegram from--from His Majesty the Emperor, a very
peculiar telegram, asking when Eugen might be expected to return to
Posen, and requesting that he should go first to Berlin. That telegram
was addressed to myself. Now, if the Emperor thought that Eugen was
here, why should he have caused the telegram to be addressed to me? I
have hesitated for three days, but I can hesitate no longer. I must
myself go to the Emperor and acquaint him with the facts.’

‘I suppose you’ve just got to keep straight with him?’ Nella was on the
point of saying, but she checked herself and substituted, ‘The Emperor
is your chief, is he not? “First among equals”, you call him.’

‘His Majesty is our over-lord,’ said Aribert quietly.

‘Why do you not take immediate steps to inquire as to the whereabouts of
your Royal nephew?’ she asked simply. The affair seemed to her just then
so plain and straightforward.

‘Because one of two things may have happened. Either Eugen may have
been, in plain language, abducted, or he may have had his own reasons
for changing his programme and keeping in the background--out of reach
of telegraph and post and railways.’

‘What sort of reasons?’

‘Do not ask me. In the history of every family there are passages--’ He
stopped.

‘And what was Prince Eugen’s object in coming to London?’

Aribert hesitated.

‘Money,’ he said at length. ‘As a family we are very poor--poorer than
anyone in Berlin suspects.’

‘Prince Aribert,’ Nella said, ‘shall I tell you what I think?’ She
leaned back in her chair, and looked at him out of half-closed eyes. His
pale, thin, distinguished face held her gaze as if by some fascination.
There could be no mistaking this man for anything else but a Prince.

‘If you will,’ he said.

‘Prince Eugen is the victim of a plot.’

‘You think so?’

‘I am perfectly convinced of it.’

‘But why? What can be the object of a plot against him?’

‘That is a point of which you should know more than me,’ she remarked
drily.

‘Ah! Perhaps, perhaps,’ he said. ‘But, dear Miss Racksole, why are you
so sure?’

‘There are several reasons, and they are connected with Mr Dimmock. Did
you ever suspect, your Highness, that that poor young man was not
entirely loyal to you?’

‘He was absolutely loyal,’ said the Prince, with all the earnestness of
conviction.

‘A thousand pardons, but he was not.’

‘Miss Racksole, if any other than yourself made that assertion, I would-
-I would--’

‘Consign them to the deepest dungeon in Posen?’ she laughed, lightly.

‘Listen.’ And she told him of the incidents which had occurred in the
night preceding his arrival in the hotel.

‘Do you mean, Miss Racksole, that there was an understanding between
poor Dimmock and this fellow Jules?’

‘There was an understanding.’

‘Impossible!’

‘Your Highness, the man who wishes to probe a mystery to its root never
uses the word “impossible”. But I will say this for young Mr Dimmock. I
think he repented, and I think that it was because he repented that he--
er--died so suddenly, and that his body was spirited away.’

‘Why has no one told me these things before?’ Aribert exclaimed.

‘Princes seldom hear the truth,’ she said.

He was astonished at her coolness, her firmness of assertion, her air of
complete acquaintance with the world.

‘Miss Racksole,’ he said, ‘if you will permit me to say it, I have never
in my life met a woman like you. May I rely on your sympathy--your
support?’

‘My support, Prince? But how?’

‘I do not know,’ he replied. ‘But you could help me if you would. A
woman, when she has brain, always has more brain than a man.’

‘Ah!’ she said ruefully, ‘I have no brains, but I do believe I could
help you.’

What prompted her to make that assertion she could not have explained,
even to herself. But she made it, and she had a suspicion--a prescience-
-that it would be justified, though by what means, through what good
fortune, was still a mystery to her.

‘Go to Berlin,’ she said. ‘I see that you must do that; you have no
alternative. As for the rest, we shall see. Something will occur. I
shall be here. My father will be here. You must count us as your
friends.’

He kissed her hand when he left, and afterwards, when she was alone, she
kissed the spot his lips had touched again and again. Now, thinking the
matter out in the calmness of solitude, all seemed strange, unreal,
uncertain to her. Were conspiracies actually possible nowadays? Did
queer things actually happen in Europe? And did they actually happen in
London hotels? She dined with her father that night.

‘I hear Prince Aribert has left,’ said Theodore Racksole.

‘Yes,’ she assented. She said not a word about their interview.






Chapter Eight ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF THE BARONESS

ON the following morning, just before lunch, a lady, accompanied by a
maid and a considerable quantity of luggage, came to the Grand Babylon
Hôtel. She was a plump, little old lady, with white hair and an old-
fashioned bonnet, and she had a quaint, simple smile of surprise at
everything in general.

Nevertheless, she gave the impression of belonging to some aristocracy,
though not the English aristocracy. Her tone to her maid, whom she
addressed in broken English--the girl being apparently English--was
distinctly insolent, with the calm, unconscious insolence peculiar to a
certain type of Continental nobility. The name on the lady’s card ran
thus: ‘Baroness Zerlinski’. She desired rooms on the third floor. It
happened that Nella was in the bureau.

‘On the third floor, madam?’ questioned Nella, in her best clerkly
manner.

‘I did say on de tird floor,’ said the plump little old lady.

‘We have accommodation on the second floor.’

‘I wish to be high up, out of de dust and in de light,’ explained the
Baroness.

‘We have no suites on the third floor, madam.’

‘Never mind, no mattaire! Have you not two rooms that communicate?’

Nella consulted her books, rather awkwardly.

‘Numbers 122 and 123 communicate.’

‘Or is it 121 and 122?’ the little old lady remarked quickly, and then
bit her lip.

‘I beg your pardon. I should have said 121 and 122.’

At the moment Nella regarded the Baroness’s correction of her figures as
a curious chance, but afterwards, when the Baroness had ascended in the
lift, the thing struck her as somewhat strange. Perhaps the Baroness
Zerlinski had stayed at the hotel before. For the sake of convenience an
index of visitors to the hotel was kept and the index extended back for
thirty years. Nella examined it, but it did not contain the name of
Zerlinski. Then it was that Nella began to imagine, what had swiftly
crossed her mind when first the Baroness presented herself at the
bureau, that the features of the Baroness were remotely familiar to her.
She thought, not that she had seen the old lady’s face before, but that
she had seen somewhere, some time, a face of a similar cast. It occurred
to Nella to look at the ‘Almanach de Gotha’--that record of all the
mazes of Continental blue blood; but the ‘Almanach de Gotha’ made no
reference to any barony of Zerlinski. Nella inquired where the Baroness
meant to take lunch, and was informed that a table had been reserved for
her in the dining-room, and she at once decided to lunch in the dining-
room herself. Seated in a corner, half-hidden by a pillar, she could
survey all the guests, and watch each group as it entered or left.
Presently the Baroness appeared, dressed in black, with a tiny lace
shawl, despite the June warmth; very stately, very quaint, and gently
smiling. Nella observed her intently. The lady ate heartily, working
without haste and without delay through the elaborate menu of the
luncheon. Nella noticed that she had beautiful white teeth. Then a
remarkable thing happened. A cream puff was served to the Baroness by
way of sweets, and Nella was astonished to see the little lady remove
the top, and with a spoon quietly take something from the interior which
looked like a piece of folded paper. No one who had not been watching
with the eye of a lynx would have noticed anything extraordinary in the
action; indeed, the chances were nine hundred and ninety-nine to one
that it would pass unheeded. But, unfortunately for the Baroness, it was
the thousandth chance that happened. Nella jumped up, and walking over
to the Baroness, said to her:

‘I’m afraid that the tart is not quite nice, your ladyship.’

‘Thanks, it is delightful,’ said the Baroness coldly; her smile had
vanished. ‘Who are you? I thought you were de bureau clerk.’

‘My father is the owner of this hotel. I thought there was something in
the tart which ought not to have been there.’

Nella looked the Baroness full in the face. The piece of folded paper,
to which a little cream had attached itself, lay under the edge of a
plate.

‘No, thanks.’ The Baroness smiled her simple smile.

Nella departed. She had noticed one trifling thing besides the paper--
namely, that the Baroness could pronounce the English ‘th’ sound if she
chose.

That afternoon, in her own room, Nella sat meditating at the window for
long time, and then she suddenly sprang up, her eyes brightening.

‘I know,’ she exclaimed, clapping her hands. ‘It’s Miss Spencer,
disguised!

Why didn’t I think of that before?’ Her thoughts ran instantly to Prince
Aribert. ‘Perhaps I can help him,’ she said to herself, and gave a
little sigh. She went down to the office and inquired whether the
Baroness had given any instructions about dinner. She felt that some
plan must be formulated. She wanted to get hold of Rocco, and put him in
the rack. She knew now that Rocco, the unequalled, was also concerned in
this mysterious affair.

‘The Baroness Zerlinski has left, about a quarter of an hour ago,’ said
the attendant.

‘But she only arrived this morning.’

‘The Baroness’s maid said that her mistress had received a telegram and
must leave at once. The Baroness paid the bill, and went away in a four-
wheeler.’

‘Where to?’

‘The trunks were labelled for Ostend.’

Perhaps it was instinct, perhaps it was the mere spirit of adventure;
but that evening Nella was to be seen of all men on the steamer for
Ostend which leaves Dover at 11 p.m. She told no one of her intentions--
not even her father, who was not in the hotel when she left. She had
scribbled a brief note to him to expect her back in a day or two, and
had posted this at Dover. The steamer was the Marie Henriette, a large
and luxurious boat, whose state-rooms on deck vie with the glories of
the Cunard and White Star liners. One of these state-rooms, the best,
was evidently occupied, for every curtain of its windows was carefully
drawn. Nella did not hope that the Baroness was on board; it was quite
possible for the Baroness to have caught the eight o’clock steamer, and
it was also possible for the Baroness not to have gone to Ostend at all,
but to some other place in an entirely different direction.
Nevertheless, Nella had a faint hope that the lady who called herself
Zerlinski might be in that curtained stateroom, and throughout the
smooth moonlit voyage she never once relaxed her observation of its
doors and its windows.

The Maria Henriette arrived in Ostend Harbour punctually at 2 a.m. in
the morning. There was the usual heterogeneous, gesticulating crowd on
the quay.

Nella kept her post near the door of the state-room, and at length she
was rewarded by seeing it open. Four middle-aged Englishmen issued from
it. From a glimpse of the interior Nella saw that they had spent the
voyage in card-playing.

It would not be too much to say that she was distinctly annoyed. She
pretended to be annoyed with circumstances, but really she was annoyed
with Nella Racksole. At two in the morning, without luggage, without any
companionship, and without a plan of campaign, she found herself in a
strange foreign port--a port of evil repute, possessing some of the
worst-managed hotels in Europe. She strolled on the quay for a few
minutes, and then she saw the smoke of another steamer in the offing.
She inquired from an official what that steamer might be, and was told
that it was the eight o’clock from Dover, which had broken down, put
into Calais for some slight necessary repairs, and was arriving at its
destination nearly four hours late. Her mercurial spirits rose again. A
minute ago she was regarding herself as no better than a ninny engaged
in a wild-goose chase. Now she felt that after all she had been very
sagacious and cunning. She was morally sure that she would find the
Zerlinski woman on this second steamer, and she took all the credit to
herself in advance. Such is human nature.

The steamer seemed interminably slow in coming into harbour. Nella
walked on the Digue for a few minutes to watch it the better. The town
was silent and almost deserted. It had a false and sinister aspect. She
remembered tales which she had heard of this glittering resort, which in
the season holds more scoundrels than any place in Europe, save only
Monte Carlo. She remembered that the gilded adventurers of every nation
under the sun forgathered there either for business or pleasure, and
that some of the most wonderful crimes of the latter half of the century
had been schemed and matured in that haunt of cosmopolitan iniquity.

When the second steamer arrived Nella stood at the end of the gangway,
close to the ticket-collector. The first person to step on shore was--
not the Baroness Zerlinski, but Miss Spencer herself! Nella turned aside
instantly, hiding her face, and Miss Spencer, carrying a small bag,
hurried with assured footsteps to the Custom House. It seemed as if she
knew the port of Ostend fairly well. The moon shone like day, and Nella
had full opportunity to observe her quarry. She could see now quite
plainly that the Baroness Zerlinski had been only Miss Spencer in
disguise. There was the same gait, the same movement of the head and of
the hips; the white hair was easily to be accounted for by a wig, and
the wrinkles by a paint brush and some grease paints. Miss Spencer,
whose hair was now its old accustomed yellow, got through the Custom
House without difficulty, and Nella saw her call a closed carriage and
say something to the driver. The vehicle drove off. Nella jumped into
the next carriage--an open one--that came up.

‘Follow that carriage,’ she said succinctly to the driver in French.

‘Bien, madame!’ The driver whipped up his horse, and the animal shot
forward with a terrific clatter over the cobbles. It appeared that this
driver was quite accustomed to following other carriages.

‘Now I am fairly in for it!’ said Nella to herself. She laughed
unsteadily, but her heart was beating with an extraordinary thump.

For some time the pursued vehicle kept well in front. It crossed the
town nearly from end to end, and plunged into a maze of small streets
far on the south side of the Kursaal. Then gradually Nella’s equipage
began to overtake it. The first carriage stopped with a jerk before a
tall dark house, and Miss Spencer emerged. Nella called to her driver to
stop, but he, determined to be in at the death, was engaged in whipping
his horse, and he completely ignored her commands. He drew up
triumphantly at the tall dark house just at the moment when Miss Spencer
disappeared into it. The other carriage drove away. Nella, uncertain
what to do, stepped down from her carriage and gave the driver some
money. At the same moment a man reopened the door of the house, which
had closed on Miss Spencer.

‘I want to see Miss Spencer,’ said Nella impulsively. She couldn’t think
of anything else to say.

‘Miss Spencer?’

‘Yes; she’s just arrived.’

‘It’s O.K., I suppose,’ said the man.

‘I guess so,’ said Nella, and she walked past him into the house. She
was astonished at her own audacity.

Miss Spencer was just going into a room off the narrow hall. Nella
followed her into the apartment, which was shabbily furnished in the
Belgian lodging-house style.

‘Well, Miss Spencer,’ she greeted the former Baroness Zerlinski, ‘I
guess you didn’t expect to see me. You left our hotel very suddenly this
afternoon, and you left it very suddenly a few days ago; and so I’ve
just called to make a few inquiries.’

To do the lady justice, Miss Spencer bore the surprising ordeal very
well.

She did not flinch; she betrayed no emotion. The sole sign of
perturbation was in her hurried breathing.

‘You have ceased to be the Baroness Zerlinski,’ Nella continued. ‘May I
sit down?’

‘Certainly, sit down,’ said Miss Spencer, copying the girl’s tone. ‘You
are a fairly smart young woman, that I will say. What do you want?
Weren’t my books all straight?’

‘Your books were all straight. I haven’t come about your books. I have
come about the murder of Reginald Dimmock, the disappearance of his
corpse, and the disappearance of Prince Eugen of Posen. I thought you
might be able to help me in some investigations which I am making.’

Miss Spencer’s eyes gleamed, and she stood up and moved swiftly to the
mantelpiece.

‘You may be a Yankee, but you’re a fool,’ she said.

She took hold of the bell-rope.

‘Don’t ring that bell if you value your life,’ said Nella.

‘If what?’ Miss Spencer remarked.

‘If you value your life,’ said Nella calmly, and with the words she
pulled from her pocket a very neat and dainty little revolver.






Chapter Nine TWO WOMEN AND THE REVOLVER

‘YOU--you’re only doing that to frighten me,’ stammered Miss Spencer, in
a low, quavering voice.

‘Am I?’ Nella replied, as firmly as she could, though her hand shook
violently with excitement, could Miss Spencer but have observed it. ‘Am
I? You said just now that I might be a Yankee girl, but I was a fool.
Well, I am a Yankee girl, as you call it; and in my country, if they
don’t teach revolver-shooting in boarding-schools, there are at least a
lot of girls who can handle a revolver. I happen to be one of them. I
tell you that if you ring that bell you will suffer.’

Most of this was simple bluff on Nella’s part, and she trembled lest
Miss Spencer should perceive that it was simple bluff. Happily for her,
Miss Spencer belonged to that order of women who have every sort of
courage except physical courage. Miss Spencer could have withstood
successfully any moral trial, but persuade her that her skin was in
danger, and she would succumb. Nella at once divined this useful fact,
and proceeded accordingly, hiding the strangeness of her own sensations
as well as she could.

‘You had better sit down now,’ said Nella, ‘and I will ask you a few
questions.’

And Miss Spencer obediently sat down, rather white, and trying to screw
her lips into a formal smile.

‘Why did you leave the Grand Babylon that night?’ Nella began her
examination, putting on a stern, barrister-like expression.

‘I had orders to, Miss Racksole.’

‘Whose orders?’

‘Well, I’m--I’m--the fact is, I’m a married woman, and it was my
husband’s orders.’

‘Who is your husband?’

‘Tom Jackson--Jules, you know, head waiter at the Grand Babylon.’

‘So Jules’s real name is Tom Jackson? Why did he want you to leave
without giving notice?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know, Miss Racksole. I swear I don’t know. He’s my
husband, and, of course, I do what he tells me, as you will some day do
what your husband tells you. Please heaven you’ll get a better husband
than mine!’

Miss Spencer showed a sign of tears.

Nella fingered the revolver, and put it at full cock. ‘Well,’ she
repeated, ‘why did he want you to leave?’ She was tremendously surprised
at her own coolness, and somewhat pleased with it, too.

‘I can’t tell you, I can’t tell you.’

‘You’ve just got to,’ Nella said, in a terrible, remorseless tone.

‘He--he wished me to come over here to Ostend. Something had gone wrong.

Oh! he’s a fearful man, is Tom. If I told you, he’d--’

‘Had something gone wrong in the hotel, or over here?’

‘Both.’

‘Was it about Prince Eugen of Posen?’

‘I don’t know--that is, yes, I think so.’

‘What has your husband to do with Prince Eugen?’

‘I believe he has some--some sort of business with him, some money
business.’

‘And was Mr Dimmock in this business?’

‘I fancy so, Miss Racksole. I’m telling you all I know, that I swear.’

‘Did your husband and Mr Dimmock have a quarrel that night in Room 111?’

‘They had some difficulty.’

‘And the result of that was that you came to Ostend instantly?’

‘Yes; I suppose so.’

‘And what were you to do in Ostend? What were your instructions from
this husband of yours?’

Miss Spencer’s head dropped on her arms on the table which separated her
from Nella, and she appeared to sob violently.

‘Have pity on me,’ she murmured, ‘I can’t tell you any more.’

‘Why?’

‘He’d kill me if he knew.’

‘You’re wandering from the subject,’ observed Nella coldly. ‘This is the
last time I shall warn you. Let me tell you plainly I’ve got the best
reasons for being desperate, and if anything happens to you I shall say
I did it in self-defence. Now, what were you to do in Ostend?’

‘I shall die for this anyhow,’ whined Miss Spencer, and then, with a
sort of fierce despair, ‘I had to keep watch on Prince Eugen.’

‘Where? In this house?’

Miss Spencer nodded, and, looking up, Nella could see the traces of
tears in her face.

‘Then Prince Eugen was a prisoner? Some one had captured him at the
instigation of Jules?’

‘Yes, if you must have it.’

‘Why was it necessary for you specially to come to Ostend?’

‘Oh! Tom trusts me. You see, I know Ostend. Before I took that place at
the Grand Babylon I had travelled over Europe, and Tom knew that I knew
a thing or two.’

‘Why did you take the place at the Grand Babylon?’

‘Because Tom told me to. He said I should be useful to him there.’

‘Is your husband an Anarchist, or something of that kind, Miss Spencer?’

‘I don’t know. I’d tell you in a minute if I knew. But he’s one of those
that keep themselves to themselves.’

‘Do you know if he has ever committed a murder?’

‘Never!’ said Miss Spencer, with righteous repudiation of the mere idea.

‘But Mr Dimmock was murdered. He was poisoned. If he had not been
poisoned why was his body stolen? It must have been stolen to prevent
inquiry, to hide traces. Tell me about that.’

‘I take my dying oath,’ said Miss Spencer, standing up a little way from
the table, ‘I take my dying oath I didn’t know Mr Dimmock was dead till
I saw it in the newspaper.’

‘You swear you had no suspicion of it?’

‘I swear I hadn’t.’

Nella was inclined to believe the statement. The woman and the girl
looked at each other in the tawdry, frowsy, lamp-lit room. Miss Spencer
nervously patted her yellow hair into shape, as if gradually recovering
her composure and equanimity. The whole affair seemed like a dream to
Nella, a disturbing, sinister nightmare. She was a little uncertain what
to say. She felt that she had not yet got hold of any very definite
information. ‘Where is Prince Eugen now?’ she asked at length.

‘I don’t know, miss.’

‘He isn’t in this house?’

‘No, miss.’

‘Ah! We will see presently.’

‘They took him away, Miss Racksole.’

‘Who took him away? Some of your husband’s friends?’

‘Some of his--acquaintances.’

‘Then there is a gang of you?’

‘A gang of us--a gang! I don’t know what you mean,’ Miss Spencer
quavered.

‘Oh, but you must know,’ smiled Nella calmly. ‘You can’t possibly be so
innocent as all that, Mrs Tom Jackson. You can’t play games with me.
You’ve just got to remember that I’m what you call a Yankee girl.
There’s one thing that I mean to find out, within the next five minutes,
and that is--how your charming husband kidnapped Prince Eugen, and why
he kidnapped him. Let us begin with the second question. You have evaded
it once.’

Miss Spencer looked into Nella’s face, and then her eyes dropped, and
her fingers worked nervously with the tablecloth.

‘How can I tell you,’ she said, ‘when I don’t know? You’ve got the whip-
hand of me, and you’re tormenting me for your own pleasure.’ She wore an
expression of persecuted innocence.

‘Did Mr Tom Jackson want to get some money out of Prince Eugen?’

‘Money! Not he! Tom’s never short of money.’

‘But I mean a lot of money--tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands?’

‘Tom never wanted money from anyone,’ said Miss Spencer doggedly.

‘Then had he some reason for wishing to prevent Prince Eugen from coming
to London?’

‘Perhaps he had. I don’t know. If you kill me, I don’t know.’ Nella
stopped to reflect. Then she raised the revolver. It was a mechanical,
unintentional sort of action, and certainly she had no intention of
using the weapon, but, strange to say, Miss Spencer again cowered before
it. Even at that moment Nella wondered that a woman like Miss Spencer
could be so simple as to think the revolver would actually be used.
Having absolutely no physical cowardice herself, Nella had the greatest
difficulty in imagining that other people could be at the mercy of a
bodily fear. Still, she saw her advantage, and used it relentlessly, and
with as much theatrical gesture as she could command. She raised the
revolver till it was level with Miss Spencer’s face, and suddenly a new,
queer feeling took hold of her. She knew that she would indeed use that
revolver now, if the miserable woman before her drove her too far. She
felt afraid--afraid of herself; she was in the grasp of a savage,
primeval instinct. In a flash she saw Miss Spencer dead at her feet--the
police--a court of justice--the scaffold. It was horrible.

‘Speak,’ she said hoarsely, and Miss Spencer’s face went whiter.

‘Tom did say,’ the woman whispered rapidly, awesomely, ‘that if Prince
Eugen got to London it would upset his scheme.’

‘What scheme? What scheme? Answer me.’

‘Heaven help me, I don’t know.’ Miss Spencer sank into a chair. ‘He said
Mr Dimmock had turned tail, and he should have to settle him and then
Rocco--’

‘Rocco! What about Rocco?’ Nella could scarcely hear herself. Her grip
of the revolver tightened.

Miss Spencer’s eyes opened wider; she gazed at Nella with a glassy
stare.

‘Don’t ask me. It’s death!’ Her eyes were fixed as if in horror.

‘It is,’ said Nella, and the sound of her voice seemed to her to issue
from the lips of some third person.

‘It’s death,’ repeated Miss Spencer, and gradually her head and
shoulders sank back, and hung loosely over the chair. Nella was
conscious of a sudden revulsion. The woman had surely fainted. Dropping
the revolver she ran round the table. She was herself again--feminine,
sympathetic, the old Nella. She felt immensely relieved that this had
happened. But at the same instant Miss Spencer sprang up from the chair
like a cat, seized the revolver, and with a wild movement of the arm
flung it against the window. It crashed through the glass, exploding as
it went, and there was a tense silence.

‘I told you that you were a fool,’ remarked Miss Spencer slowly, ‘coming
here like a sort of female Jack Sheppard, and trying to get the best of
me.

We are on equal terms now. You frightened me, but I knew I was a
cleverer woman than you, and that in the end, if I kept on long enough,
I should win.

Now it will be my turn.’

Dumbfounded, and overcome with a miserable sense of the truth of Miss
Spencer’s words, Nella stood still. The idea of her colossal foolishness
swept through her like a flood. She felt almost ashamed. But even at
this juncture she had no fear. She faced the woman bravely, her mind
leaping about in search of some plan. She could think of nothing but a
bribe--an enormous bribe.

‘I admit you’ve won,’ she said, ‘but I’ve not finished yet. Just
listen.’

Miss Spencer folded her arms, and glanced at the door, smiling bitterly.

‘You know my father is a millionaire; perhaps you know that he is one of
the richest men in the world. If I give you my word of honour not to
reveal anything that you’ve told me, what will you take to let me go
free?’

‘What sum do you suggest?’ asked Miss Spencer carelessly.

‘Twenty thousand pounds,’ said Nella promptly. She had begun to regard
the affair as a business operation.

Miss Spencer’s lip curled.

‘A hundred thousand.’

Again Miss Spencer’s lip curled.

‘Well, say a million. I can rely on my father, and so may you.’

‘You think you are worth a million to him?’

‘I do,’ said Nella.

‘And you think we could trust you to see that it was paid?’

‘Of course you could.’

‘And we should not suffer afterwards in any way?’

‘I would give you my word, and my father’s word.’

‘Bah!’ exclaimed Miss Spencer: ‘how do you know I wouldn’t let you go
free for nothing? You are only a rash, silly girl.’

‘I know you wouldn’t. I can read your face too well.’

‘You are right,’ Miss Spencer replied slowly. ‘I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t
let you go for all the dollars in America.’

Nella felt cold down the spine, and sat down again in her chair. A
draught of air from the broken window blew on her cheek. Steps sounded
in the passage; the door opened, but Nella did not turn round. She could
not move her eyes from Miss Spencer’s. There was a noise of rushing
water in her ears. She lost consciousness, and slipped limply to the
ground.






Chapter Ten AT SEA

IT seemed to Nella that she was being rocked gently in a vast cradle,
which swayed to and fro with a motion at once slow and incredibly
gentle. This sensation continued for some time, and there was added to
it the sound of a quick, quiet, muffled beat. Soft, exhilarating breezes
wafted her forward in spite of herself, and yet she remained in a
delicious calm. She wondered if her mother was kneeling by her side,
whispering some lullaby in her childish ears. Then strange colours swam
before her eyes, her eyelids wavered, and at last she awoke. For a few
moments her gaze travelled to and fro in a vain search for some clue to
her surroundings, was aware of nothing except sense of repose and a
feeling of relief that some mighty and fatal struggle was over; she
cared not whether she had conquered or suffered defeat in the struggle
of her soul with some other soul; it was finished, done with, and the
consciousness of its conclusion satisfied and contented her. Gradually
her brain, recovering from its obsession, began to grasp the phenomena
of her surroundings, and she saw that she was on a yacht, and that the
yacht was moving. The motion of the cradle was the smooth rolling of the
vessel; the beat was the beat of its screw; the strange colours were the
cloud tints thrown by the sun as it rose over a distant and receding
shore in the wake of the yacht; her mother’s lullaby was the crooned
song of the man at the wheel. Nella all through her life had had many
experiences of yachting. From the waters of the River Hudson to those
bluer tides of the Mediterranean Sea, she had yachted in all seasons and
all weathers. She loved the water, and now it seemed deliciously right
and proper that she should be on the water again. She raised her head to
look round, and then let it sink back: she was fatigued, enervated; she
desired only solitude and calm; she had no care, no anxiety, no
responsibility: a hundred years might have passed since her meeting with
Miss Spencer, and the memory of that meeting appeared to have faded into
the remotest background of her mind.

It was a small yacht, and her practised eye at once told that it
belonged to the highest aristocracy of pleasure craft. As she reclined
in the deck-chair (it did not occur to her at that moment to speculate
as to the identity of the person who had led her therein) she examined
all visible details of the vessel. The deck was as white and smooth as
her own hand, and the seams ran along its length like blue veins. All
the brass-work, from the band round the slender funnel to the concave
surface of the binnacle, shone like gold.

The tapered masts stretched upwards at a rakish angle, and the rigging
seemed like spun silk. No sails were set; the yacht was under steam, and
doing about seven or eight knots. She judged that it was a boat of a
hundred tons or so, probably Clyde-built, and not more than two or three
years old.

No one was to be seen on deck except the man at the wheel: this man wore
a blue jersey; but there was neither name nor initial on the jersey, nor
was there a name on the white life-buoys lashed to the main rigging, nor
on the polished dinghy which hung on the starboard davits. She called to
the man, and called again, in a feeble voice, but the steerer took no
notice of her, and continued his quiet song as though nothing else
existed in the universe save the yacht, the sea, the sun, and himself.

Then her eyes swept the outline of the land from which they were
hastening, and she could just distinguish a lighthouse and a great white
irregular dome, which she recognized as the Kursaal at Ostend, that
gorgeous rival of the gaming palace at Monte Carlo. So she was leaving
Ostend. The rays of the sun fell on her caressingly, like a restorative.
All around the water was changing from wonderful greys and dark blues to
still more wonderful pinks and translucent unearthly greens; the magic
kaleidoscope of dawn was going forward in its accustomed way, regardless
of the vicissitudes of mortals.

Here and there in the distance she descried a sail--the brown sail of
some Ostend fishing-boat returning home after a night’s trawling. Then
the beat of paddles caught her ear, and a steamer blundered past,
wallowing clumsily among the waves like a tortoise. It was the Swallow
from London. She could see some of its passengers leaning curiously over
the aft-rail. A girl in a mackintosh signalled to her, and mechanically
she answered the salute with her arm. The officer of the bridge of the
Swallow hailed the yacht, but the man at the wheel offered no reply. In
another minute the Swallow was nothing but a blot in the distance.

Nella tried to sit straight in the deck-chair, but she found herself
unable to do so. Throwing off the rug which covered her, she discovered
that she had been tied to the chair by means of a piece of broad
webbing. Instantly she was alert, awake, angry; she knew that her perils
were not over; she felt that possibly they had scarcely yet begun. Her
lazy contentment, her dreamy sense of peace and repose, vanished
utterly, and she steeled herself to meet the dangers of a grave and
difficult situation.

Just at that moment a man came up from below. He was a man of forty or
so, clad in irreproachable blue, with a peaked yachting cap. He raised
the cap politely.

‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Beautiful sunrise, isn’t it?’ The clever and
calculated insolence of his tone cut her like a lash as she lay bound in
the chair. Like all people who have lived easy and joyous lives in those
fair regions where gold smoothes every crease and law keeps a tight hand
on disorder, she found it hard to realize that there were other regions
where gold was useless and law without power. Twenty-four hours ago she
would have declared it impossible that such an experience as she had
suffered could happen to anyone; she would have talked airily about
civilization and the nineteenth century, and progress and the police.
But her experience was teaching her that human nature remains always the
same, and that beneath the thin crust of security on which we good
citizens exist the dark and secret forces of crime continue to move,
just as they did in the days when you couldn’t go from Cheapside to
Chelsea without being set upon by thieves. Her experience was in a fair
way to teach her this lesson better than she could have learnt it even
in the bureaux of the detective police of Paris, London, and St
Petersburg.

‘Good morning,’ the man repeated, and she glanced at him with a sullen,
angry gaze.

‘You!’ she exclaimed, ‘You, Mr Thomas Jackson, if that is your name!
Loose me from this chair, and I will talk to you.’ Her eyes flashed as
she spoke, and the contempt in them added mightily to her beauty. Mr
Thomas Jackson, otherwise Jules, erstwhile head waiter at the Grand
Babylon, considered himself a connoisseur in feminine loveliness, and
the vision of Nella Racksole smote him like an exquisite blow.

‘With pleasure,’ he replied. ‘I had forgotten that to prevent you from
falling I had secured you to the chair’; and with a quick movement he
unfastened the band. Nella stood up, quivering with fiery annoyance and
scorn.

‘Now,’ she said, fronting him, ‘what is the meaning of this?’

‘You fainted,’ he replied imperturbably. ‘Perhaps you don’t remember.’

The man offered her a deck-chair with a characteristic gesture. Nella
was obliged to acknowledge, in spite of herself, that the fellow had
distinction, an air of breeding. No one would have guessed that for
twenty years he had been an hotel waiter. His long, lithe figure, and
easy, careless carriage seemed to be the figure and carriage of an
aristocrat, and his voice was quiet, restrained, and authoritative.

‘That has nothing to do with my being carried off in this yacht of
yours.’

‘It is not my yacht,’ he said, ‘but that is a minor detail. As to the
more important matter, forgive me that I remind you that only a few
hours ago you were threatening a lady in my house with a revolver.’

‘Then it was your house?’

‘Why not? May I not possess a house?’ He smiled.

‘I must request you to put the yacht about at once, instantly, and take
me back.’ She tried to speak firmly.

‘Ah!’ he said, ‘I am afraid that’s impossible. I didn’t put out to sea
with the intention of returning at once, instantly.’ In the last words
he gave a faint imitation of her tone.

‘When I do get back,’ she said, ‘when my father gets to know of this
affair, it will be an exceedingly bad day for you, Mr Jackson.’

‘But supposing your father doesn’t hear of it--’

‘What?’

‘Supposing you never get back?’

‘Do you mean, then, to have my murder on your conscience?’

‘Talking of murder,’ he said, ‘you came very near to murdering my
friend, Miss Spencer. At least, so she tells me.’

‘Is Miss Spencer on board?’ Nella asked, seeing perhaps a faint ray of
hope in the possible presence of a woman.

‘Miss Spencer is not on board. There is no one on board except you and
myself and a small crew--a very discreet crew, I may add.’

‘I will have nothing more to say to you. You must take your own course.’

‘Thanks for the permission,’ he said. ‘I will send you up some
breakfast.’

He went to the saloon stairs and whistled, and a Negro boy appeared with
a tray of chocolate. Nella took it, and, without the slightest
hesitation, threw it overboard. Mr Jackson walked away a few steps and
then returned.

‘You have spirit,’ he said, ‘and I admire spirit. It is a rare quality.’

She made no reply. ‘Why did you mix yourself up in my affairs at all?’
he went on. Again she made no reply, but the question set her thinking:
why had she mixed herself up in this mysterious business? It was quite
at variance with the usual methods of her gay and butterfly existence to
meddle at all with serious things. Had she acted merely from a desire to
see justice done and wickedness punished? Or was it the desire of
adventure? Or was it, perhaps, the desire to be of service to His Serene
Highness Prince Aribert? ‘It is no fault of mine that you are in this
fix,’ Jules continued. ‘I didn’t bring you into it. You brought yourself
into it. You and your father--you have been moving along at a pace which
is rather too rapid.’

‘That remains to be seen,’ she put in coldly.

‘It does,’ he admitted. ‘And I repeat that I can’t help admiring you--
that is, when you aren’t interfering with my private affairs. That is a
proceeding which I have never tolerated from anyone--not even from a
millionaire, nor even from a beautiful woman.’ He bowed. ‘I will tell
you what I propose to do. I propose to escort you to a place of safety,
and to keep you there till my operations are concluded, and the
possibility of interference entirely removed. You spoke just now of
murder. What a crude notion that was of yours! It is only the amateur
who practises murder--’

‘What about Reginald Dimmock?’ she interjected quickly.

He paused gravely.

‘Reginald Dimmock,’ he repeated. ‘I had imagined his was a case of heart
disease. Let me send you up some more chocolate. I’m sure you’re
hungry.’

‘I will starve before I touch your food,’ she said.

‘Gallant creature!’ he murmured, and his eyes roved over her face. Her
superb, supercilious beauty overcame him. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘what a wife
you would make!’ He approached nearer to her. ‘You and I, Miss Racksole,
your beauty and wealth and my brains--we could conquer the world. Few
men are worthy of you, but I am one of the few. Listen! You might do
worse. Marry me. I am a great man; I shall be greater. I adore you.
Marry me, and I will save your life. All shall be well. I will begin
again. The past shall be as though there had been no past.’

‘This is somewhat sudden--Jules,’ she said with biting contempt.

‘Did you expect me to be conventional?’ he retorted. ‘I love you.’

‘Granted,’ she said, for the sake of the argument. ‘Then what will occur
to your present wife?’

‘My present wife?’

‘Yes, Miss Spencer, as she is called.’

‘She told you I was her husband?’

‘Incidentally she did.’

‘She isn’t.’

‘Perhaps she isn’t. But, nevertheless, I think I won’t marry you.’ Nella
stood like a statue of scorn before him.

He went still nearer to her. ‘Give me a kiss, then; one kiss--I won’t
ask for more; one kiss from those lips, and you shall go free. Men have
ruined themselves for a kiss. I will.’

‘Coward!’ she ejaculated.

‘Coward!’ he repeated. ‘Coward, am I? Then I’ll be a coward, and you
shall kiss me whether you will or not.’

He put a hand on her shoulder. As she shrank back from his lustrous
eyes, with an involuntary scream, a figure sprang out of the dinghy a
few feet away. With a single blow, neatly directed to Mr Jackson’s ear,
Mr Jackson was stretched senseless on the deck. Prince Aribert of Posen
stood over him with a revolver. It was probably the greatest surprise of
Mr Jackson’s whole life.

‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said the Prince to Nella, ‘my being here is the
simplest thing in the world, and I will explain it as soon as I have
finished with this fellow.’

Nella could think of nothing to say, but she noticed the revolver in the
Prince’s hand.

‘Why,’ she remarked, ‘that’s my revolver.’

‘It is,’ he said, ‘and I will explain that, too.’

The man at the wheel gave no heed whatever to the scene.






Chapter Eleven THE COURT PAWNBROKER

‘MR SAMPSON LEVI wishes to see you, sir.’

These words, spoken by a servant to Theodore Racksole, aroused the
millionaire from a reverie which had been the reverse of pleasant. The
fact was, and it is necessary to insist on it, that Mr Racksole, owner
of the Grand Babylon Hôtel, was by no means in a state of self-
satisfaction. A mystery had attached itself to his hotel, and with all
his acumen and knowledge of things in general he was unable to solve
that mystery. He laughed at the fruitless efforts of the police, but he
could not honestly say that his own efforts had been less barren. The
public was talking, for, after all, the disappearance of poor Dimmock’s
body had got noised abroad in an indirect sort of way, and Theodore
Racksole did not like the idea of his impeccable hotel being the subject
of sinister rumours. He wondered, grimly, what the public and the Sunday
newspapers would say if they were aware of all the other phenomena, not
yet common property: of Miss Spencer’s disappearance, of Jules’ strange
visits, and of the non-arrival of Prince Eugen of Posen. Theodore
Racksole had worried his brain without result. He had conducted an
elaborate private investigation without result, and he had spent a
certain amount of money without result. The police said that they had a
clue; but Racksole remarked that it was always the business of the
police to have a clue, that they seldom had more than a clue, and that a
clue without some sequel to it was a pretty stupid business. The only
sure thing in the whole affair was that a cloud rested over his hotel,
his beautiful new toy, the finest of its kind. The cloud was not
interfering with business, but, nevertheless, it was a cloud, and he
fiercely resented its presence; perhaps it would be more correct to say
that he fiercely resented his inability to dissipate it.

‘Mr Sampson Levi wishes to see you, sir,’ the servant repeated, having
received no sign that his master had heard him.

‘So I hear,’ said Racksole. ‘Does he want to see me, personally?’

‘He asked for you, sir.’

‘Perhaps it is Rocco he wants to see, about a menu or something of that
kind?’

‘I will inquire, sir,’ and the servant made a move to withdraw.

‘Stop,’ Racksole commanded suddenly. ‘Desire Mr Sampson Levi to step
this way.’

The great stockbroker of the ‘Kaffir Circus’ entered with a simple
unassuming air. He was a rather short, florid man, dressed like a
typical Hebraic financier, with too much watch-chain and too little
waistcoat. In his fat hand he held a gold-headed cane, and an absolutely
new silk hat--for it was Friday, and Mr Levi purchased a new hat every
Friday of his life, holiday times only excepted. He breathed heavily and
sniffed through his nose a good deal, as though he had just performed
some Herculean physical labour. He glanced at the American millionaire
with an expression in which a slight embarrassment might have been
detected, but at the same time his round, red face disclosed a certain
frank admiration and good nature.

‘Mr Racksole, I believe--Mr Theodore Racksole. Proud to meet you, sir.’

Such were the first words of Mr Sampson Levi. In form they were the
greeting of a third-rate chimney-sweep, but, strangely enough, Theodore
Racksole liked their tone. He said to himself that here, precisely where
no one would have expected to find one, was an honest man.

‘Good day,’ said Racksole briefly. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure--’

‘I expect your time is limited,’ answered Sampson Levi. ‘Anyhow, mine
is, and so I’ll come straight to the point, Mr Racksole. I’m a plain
man. I don’t pretend to be a gentleman or any nonsense of that kind. I’m
a stockbroker, that’s what I am, and I don’t care who knows it. The
other night I had a ball in this hotel. It cost me a couple of thousand
and odd pounds, and, by the way, I wrote out a cheque for your bill this
morning. I don’t like balls, but they’re useful to me, and my little
wife likes ‘em, and so we give ‘em. Now, I’ve nothing to say against the
hotel management as regards that ball: it was very decently done, very
decently, but what I want to know is this--Why did you have a private
detective among my guests?’

‘A private detective?’ exclaimed Racksole, somewhat surprised at this
charge.

‘Yes,’ Mr Sampson Levi said firmly, fanning himself in his chair, and
gazing at Theodore Racksole with the direct earnest expression of a man
having a grievance. ‘Yes; a private detective. It’s a small matter, I
know, and I dare say you think you’ve got a right, as proprietor of the
show, to do what you like in that line; but I’ve just called to tell you
that I object. I’ve called as a matter of principle. I’m not angry; it’s
the principle of the thing.’

‘My dear Mr Levi,’ said Racksole, ‘I assure you that, having let the
Gold Room to a private individual for a private entertainment, I should
never dream of doing what you suggest.’

‘Straight?’ asked Mr Sampson Levi, using his own picturesque language.

‘Straight,’ said Racksole smiling.

‘There was a gent present at my ball that I didn’t ask. I’ve got a
wonderful memory for faces, and I know. Several fellows asked me
afterwards what he was doing there. I was told by someone that he was
one of your waiters, but I didn’t believe that. I know nothing of the
Grand Babylon; it’s not quite my style of tavern, but I don’t think
you’d send one of your own waiters to watch my guests--unless, of
course, you sent him as a waiter; and this chap didn’t do any waiting,
though he did his share of drinking.’

‘Perhaps I can throw some light on this mystery,’ said Racksole. ‘I may
tell you that I was already aware that man had attended your ball
uninvited.’

‘How did you get to know?’

‘By pure chance, Mr Levi, and not by inquiry. That man was a former
waiter at this hotel--the head waiter, in fact--Jules. No doubt you have
heard of him.’

‘Not I,’ said Mr Levi positively.

‘Ah!’ said Racksole, ‘I was informed that everyone knew Jules, but it
appears not. Well, be that as it may, previously to the night of your
ball, I had dismissed Jules. I had ordered him never to enter the
Babylon again.

But on that evening I encountered him here--not in the Gold Room, but in
the hotel itself. I asked him to explain his presence, and he stated he
was your guest. That is all I know of the matter, Mr Levi, and I am
extremely sorry that you should have thought me capable of the enormity
of placing a private detective among your guests.’

‘This is perfectly satisfactory to me,’ Mr Sampson Levi said, after a
pause.

‘I only wanted an explanation, and I’ve got it. I was told by some pals
of mine in the City I might rely on Mr Theodore Racksole going straight
to the point, and I’m glad they were right. Now as to that feller Jules,
I shall make my own inquiries as to him. Might I ask you why you
dismissed him?’

‘I don’t know why I dismissed him.’

‘You don’t know? Oh! come now! I’m only asking because I thought you
might be able to give me a hint why he turned up uninvited at my ball.
Sorry if I’m too inquisitive.’

‘Not at all, Mr Levi; but I really don’t know. I only sort of felt that
he was a suspicious character. I dismissed him on instinct, as it were.
See?’

Without answering this question Mr Levi asked another. ‘If this Jules is
such a well-known person,’ he said, ‘how could the feller hope to come
to my ball without being recognized?’

‘Give it up,’ said Racksole promptly.

‘Well, I’ll be moving on,’ was Mr Sampson Levi’s next remark. ‘Good day,
and thank ye. I suppose you aren’t doing anything in Kaffirs?’

Mr Racksole smiled a negative.

‘I thought not,’ said Levi. ‘Well, I never touch American rails myself,
and so I reckon we sha’n’t come across each other. Good day.’

‘Good day,’ said Racksole politely, following Mr Sampson Levi to the
door.

With his hand on the handle of the door, Mr Levi stopped, and, gazing at
Theodore Racksole with a shrewd, quizzical expression, remarked:

‘Strange things been going on here lately, eh?’

The two men looked very hard at each other for several seconds.

‘Yes,’ Racksole assented. ‘Know anything about them?’

‘Well--no, not exactly,’ said Mr Levi. ‘But I had a fancy you and I
might be useful to each other; I had a kind of fancy to that effect.’

‘Come back and sit down again, Mr Levi,’ Racksole said, attracted by the
evident straightforwardness of the man’s tone. ‘Now, how can we be of
service to each other? I flatter myself I’m something of a judge of
character, especially financial character, and I tell you--if you’ll put
your cards on the table, I’ll do ditto with mine.’

‘Agreed,’ said Mr Sampson Levi. ‘I’ll begin by explaining my interest in
your hotel. I have been expecting to receive a summons from a certain
Prince Eugen of Posen to attend him here, and that summons hasn’t
arrived. It appears that Prince Eugen hasn’t come to London at all. Now,
I could have taken my dying davy that he would have been here yesterday
at the latest.’

‘Why were you so sure?’

‘Question for question,’ said Levi. ‘Let’s clear the ground first, Mr
Racksole. Why did you buy this hotel? That’s a conundrum that’s been
puzzling a lot of our fellows in the City for some days past. Why did
you buy the Grand Babylon? And what is the next move to be?’

‘There is no next move,’ answered Racksole candidly, ‘and I will tell
you why I bought the hotel; there need be no secret about it. I bought
it because of a whim.’ And then Theodore Racksole gave this little Jew,
whom he had begun to respect, a faithful account of the transaction with
Mr Felix Babylon. ‘I suppose,’ he added, ‘you find a difficulty in
appreciating my state of mind when I did the deal.’

‘Not a bit,’ said Mr Levi. ‘I once bought an electric launch on the
Thames in a very similar way, and it turned out to be one of the most
satisfactory purchases I ever made. Then it’s a simple accident that you
own this hotel at the present moment?’

‘A simple accident--all because of a beefsteak and a bottle of Bass.’

‘Um!’ grunted Mr Sampson Levi, stroking his triple chin.

‘To return to Prince Eugen,’ Racksole resumed. ‘I was expecting His
Highness here. The State apartments had been prepared for him. He was
due on the very afternoon that young Dimmock died. But he never came,
and I have not heard why he has failed to arrive; nor have I seen his
name in the papers. What his business was in London, I don’t know.’

‘I will tell you,’ said Mr Sampson Levi, ‘he was coming to arrange a
loan.’

‘A State loan?’

‘No--a private loan.’

‘Whom from?’

‘From me, Sampson Levi. You look surprised. If you’d lived in London a
little longer, you’d know that I was just the person the Prince would
come to. Perhaps you aren’t aware that down Throgmorton Street way I’m
called “The Court Pawnbroker”, because I arrange loans for the minor,
second-class Princes of Europe. I’m a stockbroker, but my real business
is financing some of the little Courts of Europe. Now, I may tell you
that the Hereditary Prince of Posen particularly wanted a million, and
he wanted it by a certain date, and he knew that if the affair wasn’t
fixed up by a certain time here he wouldn’t be able to get it by that
certain date. That’s why I’m surprised he isn’t in London.’

‘What did he need a million for?’

‘Debts,’ answered Sampson Levi laconically.

‘His own?’

‘Certainly.’

‘But he isn’t thirty years of age?’

‘What of that? He isn’t the only European Prince who has run up a
million of debts in a dozen years. To a Prince the thing is as easy as
eating a sandwich.’

‘And why has he taken this sudden resolution to liquidate them?’

‘Because the Emperor and the lady’s parents won’t let him marry till he
has done so! And quite right, too! He’s got to show a clean sheet, or
the Princess Anna of Eckstein-Schwartzburg will never be Princess of
Posen. Even now the Emperor has no idea how much Prince Eugen’s debts
amount to. If he had--!’

‘But would not the Emperor know of this proposed loan?’

‘Not necessarily at once. It could be so managed. Twig?’ Mr Sampson Levi
laughed. ‘I’ve carried these little affairs through before. After
marriage it might be allowed to leak out. And you know the Princess
Anna’s fortune is pretty big! Now, Mr Racksole,’ he added, abruptly
changing his tone, ‘where do you suppose Prince Eugen has disappeared
to? Because if he doesn’t turn up to-day he can’t have that million. To-
day is the last day. To-morrow the money will be appropriated,
elsewhere. Of course, I’m not alone in this business, and my friends
have something to say.’

‘You ask me where I think Prince Eugen has disappeared to?’

‘I do.’

‘Then you think it’s a disappearance?’

Sampson Levi nodded. ‘Putting two and two together,’ he said, ‘I do. The
Dimmock business is very peculiar--very peculiar, indeed. Dimmock was a
left-handed relation of the Posen family. Twig? Scarcely anyone knows
that.

He was made secretary and companion to Prince Aribert, just to keep him
in the domestic circle. His mother was an Irishwoman, whose misfortune
was that she was too beautiful. Twig?’ (Mr Sampson Levi always used this
extraordinary word when he was in a communicative mood.) ‘My belief is
that Dimmock’s death has something to do with the disappearance of
Prince Eugen.

The only thing that passes me is this: Why should anyone want to make
Prince Eugen disappear? The poor little Prince hasn’t an enemy in the
world. If he’s been “copped”, as they say, why has he been “copped”? It
won’t do anyone any good.’

‘Won’t it?’ repeated Racksole, with a sudden flash.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Mr Levi.

‘I mean this: Suppose some other European pauper Prince was anxious to
marry Princess Anna and her fortune, wouldn’t that Prince have an
interest in stopping this loan of yours to Prince Eugen? Wouldn’t he
have an interest in causing Prince Eugen to disappear--at any rate, for
a time?’

Sampson Levi thought hard for a few moments.

‘Mr Theodore Racksole,’ he said at length, ‘I do believe you have hit on
something.’






Chapter Twelve ROCCO AND ROOM NO. 111

ON the afternoon of the same day--the interview just described had
occurred in the morning--Racksole was visited by another idea, and he
said to himself that he ought to have thought of it before. The
conversation with Mr Sampson Levi had continued for a considerable time,
and the two men had exchanged various notions, and agreed to meet again,
but the theory that Reginald Dimmock had probably been a traitor to his
family--a traitor whose repentance had caused his death--had not been
thoroughly discussed; the talk had tended rather to Continental
politics, with a view to discovering what princely family might have an
interest in the temporary disappearance of Prince Eugen. Now, as
Racksole considered in detail the particular affair of Reginald Dimmock,
deceased, he was struck by one point especially, to wit: Why had Dimmock
and Jules manoeuvred to turn Nella Racksole out of Room No. 111 on that
first night? That they had so manoeuvred, that the broken window-pane
was not a mere accident, Racksole felt perfectly sure. He had felt
perfectly sure all along; but the significance of the facts had not
struck him. It was plain to him now that there must be something of
extraordinary and peculiar importance about Room No. 111. After lunch he
wandered quietly upstairs and looked at Room No. 111; that is to say, he
looked at the outside of it; it happened to be occupied, but the guest
was leaving that evening. The thought crossed his mind that there could
be no object in gazing blankly at the outside of a room; yet he gazed;
then he wandered quickly down again to the next floor, and in passing
along the corridor of that floor he stopped, and with an involuntary
gesture stamped his foot.

‘Great Scott!’ he said, ‘I’ve got hold of something--No. 111 is exactly
over the State apartments.’

He went to the bureau, and issued instructions that No. 111 was not to
be re-let to anyone until further orders. At the bureau they gave him
Nella’s note, which ran thus:

Dearest Papa,--I am going away for a day or two on the trail of a clue.

If I’m not back in three days, begin to inquire for me at Ostend. Till
then leave me alone.--Your sagacious daughter, NELL.

These few words, in Nella’s large scrawling hand, filled one side of the
paper. At the bottom was a P.T.O. He turned over, and read the sentence,
underlined, ‘P.S.--Keep an eye on Rocco.’

‘I wonder what the little creature is up to?’ he murmured, as he tore
the letter into small fragments, and threw them into the waste-paper
basket.

Then, without any delay, he took the lift down to the basement, with the
object of making a preliminary inspection of Rocco in his lair. He could
scarcely bring himself to believe that this suave and stately gentleman,
this enthusiast of gastronomy, was concerned in the machinations of
Jules and other rascals unknown. Nevertheless, from habit, he obeyed his
daughter, giving her credit for a certain amount of perspicuity and
cleverness.

The kitchens of the Grand Babylon Hôtel are one of the wonders of
Europe.

Only three years before the events now under narration Felix Babylon had
had them newly installed with every device and patent that the ingenuity
of two continents could supply. They covered nearly an acre of
superficial space.

They were walled and floored from end to end with tiles and marble,
which enabled them to be washed down every morning like the deck of a
man-of-war.

Visitors were sometimes taken to see the potato-paring machine, the
patent plate-dryer, the Babylon-spit (a contrivance of Felix Babylon’s
own), the silver-grill, the system of connected stock-pots, and other
amazing phenomena of the department. Sometimes, if they were fortunate,
they might also see the artist who sculptured ice into forms of men and
beasts for table ornaments, or the first napkin-folder in London, or the
man who daily invented fresh designs for pastry and blancmanges. Twelve
chefs pursued their labours in those kitchens, helped by ninety
assistant chefs, and a further army of unconsidered menials. Over all
these was Rocco, supreme and unapproachable. Half-way along the suite of
kitchens, Rocco had an apartment of his own, wherein he thought out
those magnificent combinations, those marvellous feats of succulence and
originality, which had given him his fame. Visitors never caught a
glimpse of Rocco in the kitchens, though sometimes, on a special night,
he would stroll nonchalantly through the dining-room, like the great man
he was, to receive the compliments of the hotel habitués--people of
insight who recognized his uniqueness.

Theodore Racksole’s sudden and unusual appearance in the kitchen caused
a little stir. He nodded to some of the chefs, but said nothing to
anyone, merely wandering about amid the maze of copper utensils, and
white-capped workers. At length he saw Rocco, surrounded by several
admiring chefs. Rocco was bending over a freshly-roasted partridge which
lay on a blue dish. He plunged a long fork into the back of the bird,
and raised it in the air with his left hand. In his right he held a long
glittering carving-knife. He was giving one of his world-famous
exhibitions of carving. In four swift, unerring, delicate, perfect
strokes he cleanly severed the limbs of the partridge. It was a
wonderful achievement--how wondrous none but the really skilful carver
can properly appreciate. The chefs emitted a hum of applause, and Rocco,
long, lean, and graceful, retired to his own apartment. Racksole
followed him. Rocco sat in a chair, one hand over his eyes; he had not
noticed Theodore Racksole.

‘What are you doing, M. Rocco?’ the millionaire asked smiling. ‘Ah!’
exclaimed Rocco, starting up with an apology. ‘Pardon! I was inventing a
new mayonnaise, which I shall need for a certain menu next week.’

‘Do you invent these things without materials, then?’ questioned
Racksole.

‘Certainly. I do dem in my mind. I tink dem. Why should I want
materials? I know all flavours. I tink, and tink, and tink, and it is
done. I write down.

I give the recipe to my best chef--dere you are. I need not even taste,
I know how it will taste. It is like composing music. De great composers
do not compose at de piano.’

‘I see,’ said Racksole.

‘It is because I work like dat dat you pay me three thousand a year,’
Rocco added gravely.

‘Heard about Jules?’ said Racksole abruptly.

‘Jules?’

‘Yes. He’s been arrested in Ostend,’ the millionaire continued, lying
cleverly at a venture. ‘They say that he and several others are
implicated in a murder case--the murder of Reginald Dimmock.’

‘Truly?’ drawled Rocco, scarcely hiding a yawn. His indifference was so
superb, so gorgeous, that Racksole instantly divined that it was assumed
for the occasion.

‘It seems that, after all, the police are good for something. But this
is the first time I ever knew them to be worth their salt. There is to
be a thorough and systematic search of the hotel to-morrow,’ Racksole
went on. ‘I have mentioned it to you to warn you that so far as you are
concerned the search is of course merely a matter of form. You will not
object to the detectives looking through your rooms?’

‘Certainly not,’ and Rocco shrugged his shoulders.

‘I shall ask you to say nothing about this to anyone,’ said Racksole.
‘The news of Jules’ arrest is quite private to myself. The papers know
nothing of it. You comprehend?’

Rocco smiled in his grand manner, and Rocco’s master thereupon went
away.

Racksole was very well satisfied with the little conversation. It was
perhaps dangerous to tell a series of mere lies to a clever fellow like
Rocco, and Racksole wondered how he should ultimately explain them to
this great master-chef if his and Nella’s suspicions should be
unfounded, and nothing came of them. Nevertheless, Rocco’s manner, a
strange elusive something in the man’s eyes, had nearly convinced
Racksole that he was somehow implicated in Jules’ schemes--and probably
in the death of Reginald Dimmock and the disappearance of Prince Eugen
of Posen.

That night, or rather about half-past one the next morning, when the
last noises of the hotel’s life had died down, Racksole made his way to
Room 111 on the second floor. He locked the door on the inside, and
proceeded to examine the place, square foot by square foot. Every now
and then some creak or other sound startled him, and he listened
intently for a few seconds. The bedroom was furnished in the ordinary
splendid style of bedrooms at the Grand Babylon Hôtel, and in that
respect called for no remark. What most interested Racksole was the
flooring. He pulled up the thick Oriental carpet, and peered along every
plank, but could discover nothing unusual.

Then he went to the dressing-room, and finally to the bathroom, both of
which opened out of the main room. But in neither of these smaller
chambers was he any more successful than in the bedroom itself. Finally
he came to the bath, which was enclosed in a panelled casing of polished
wood, after the manner of baths. Some baths have a cupboard beneath the
taps, with a door at the side, but this one appeared to have none. He
tapped the panels, but not a single one of them gave forth that ‘curious
hollow sound’ which usually betokens a secret place. Idly he turned the
cold-tap of the bath, and the water began to rush in. He turned off the
cold-tap and turned on the waste-tap, and as he did so his knee, which
was pressing against the panelling, slipped forward. The panelling had
given way, and he saw that one large panel was hinged from the inside,
and caught with a hasp, also on the inside. A large space within the
casing of the end of the bath was thus revealed. Before doing anything
else, Racksole tried to repeat the trick with the waste-tap, but he
failed; it would not work again, nor could he in any way perceive that
there was any connection between the rod of the waste-tap and the hasp
of the panel. Racksole could not see into the cavity within the casing,
and the electric light was fixed, and could not be moved about like a
candle. He felt in his pockets, and fortunately discovered a box of
matches. Aided by these, he looked into the cavity, and saw nothing;
nothing except a rather large hole at the far end--some three feet from
the casing. With some difficulty he squeezed himself through the open
panel, and took a half-kneeling, half-sitting posture within. There he
struck a match, and it was a most unfortunate thing that in striking,
the box being half open, he set fire to all the matches, and was half
smothered in the atrocious stink of phosphorus which resulted. One match
burned clear on the floor of the cavity, and, rubbing his eyes, Racksole
picked it up, and looked down the hole which he had previously descried.
It was a hole apparently bottomless, and about eighteen inches square.
The curious part about the hole was that a rope-ladder hung down it.
When he saw that rope-ladder Racksole smiled the smile of a happy man.

The match went out.

Should he make a long journey, perhaps to some distant corner of the
hotel, for a fresh box of matches, or should he attempt to descend that
rope-ladder in the dark? He decided on the latter course, and he was the
more strongly moved thereto as he could now distinguish a faint, a very
faint tinge of light at the bottom of the hole.

With infinite care he compressed himself into the well-like hole, and
descended the latter. At length he arrived on firm ground, perspiring,
but quite safe and quite excited. He saw now that the tinge of light
came through a small hole in the wood. He put his eye to the wood, and
found that he had a fine view of the State bathroom, and through the
door of the State bathroom into the State bedroom. At the massive
marble-topped washstand in the State bedroom a man was visible, bending
over some object which lay thereon.

The man was Rocco!






Chapter Thirteen IN THE STATE BEDROOM

IT was of course plain to Racksole that the peculiar passageway which he
had, at great personal inconvenience, discovered between the bathroom of
No. 111 and the State bathroom on the floor below must have been
specially designed by some person or persons for the purpose of keeping
a nefarious watch upon the occupants of the State suite of apartments.
It was a means of communication at once simple and ingenious. At that
moment he could not be sure of the precise method employed for it, but
he surmised that the casing of the waterpipes had been used as a ‘well’,
while space for the pipes themselves had been found in the thickness of
the ample brick walls of the Grand Babylon. The eye-hole, through which
he now had a view of the bedroom, was a very minute one, and probably
would scarcely be noticed from the exterior. One thing he observed
concerning it, namely, that it had been made for a man somewhat taller
than himself; he was obliged to stand on tiptoe in order to get his eye
in the correct position. He remembered that both Jules and Rocco were
distinctly above the average height; also that they were both thin men,
and could have descended the well with comparative ease. Theodore
Racksole, though not stout, was a well-set man with large bones.

These things flashed through his mind as he gazed, spellbound, at the
mysterious movements of Rocco. The door between the bathroom and the
bedroom was wide open, and his own situation was such that his view
embraced a considerable portion of the bedroom, including the whole of
the immense and gorgeously-upholstered bedstead, but not including the
whole of the marble washstand. He could see only half of the washstand,
and at intervals Rocco passed out of sight as his lithe hands moved over
the object which lay on the marble. At first Theodore Racksole could not
decide what this object was, but after a time, as his eyes grew
accustomed to the position and the light, he made it out.

It was the body of a man. Or, rather, to be more exact, Racksole could
discern the legs of a man on that half of the table which was visible to
him. Involuntarily he shuddered, as the conviction forced itself upon
him that Rocco had some unconscious human being helpless on that cold
marble surface. The legs never moved. Therefore, the hapless creature
was either asleep or under the influence of an anaesthetic--or (horrible
thought!) dead.

Racksole wanted to call out, to stop by some means or other the dreadful
midnight activity which was proceeding before his astonished eyes; but
fortunately he restrained himself.

On the washstand he could see certain strangely-shaped utensils and
instruments which Rocco used from time to time. The work seemed to
Racksole to continue for interminable hours, and then at last Rocco
ceased, gave a sign of satisfaction, whistled several bars from
‘Cavalleria Rusticana’, and came into the bath-room, where he took off
his coat, and very quietly washed his hands. As he stood calmly and
leisurely wiping those long fingers of his, he was less than four feet
from Racksole, and the cooped-up millionaire trembled, holding his
breath, lest Rocco should detect his presence behind the woodwork. But
nothing happened, and Rocco returned unsuspectingly to the bedroom.
Racksole saw him place some sort of white flannel garment over the prone
form on the table, and then lift it bodily on to the great bed, where it
lay awfully still. The hidden watcher was sure now that it was a corpse
upon which Rocco had been exercising his mysterious and sinister
functions.

But whose corpse? And what functions? Could this be a West End hotel,
Racksole’s own hotel, in the very heart of London, the best-policed city
in the world? It seemed incredible, impossible; yet so it was. Once more
he remembered what Felix Babylon had said to him and realized the truth
of the saying anew. The proprietor of a vast and complicated
establishment like the Grand Babylon could never know a tithe of the
extraordinary and queer occurrences which happened daily under his very
nose; the atmosphere of such a caravanserai must necessarily be an
atmosphere of mystery and problems apparently inexplicable.
Nevertheless, Racksole thought that Fate was carrying things with rather
a high hand when she permitted his chef to spend the night hours over a
man’s corpse in his State bedroom, this sacred apartment which was
supposed to be occupied only by individuals of Royal Blood. Racksole
would not have objected to a certain amount of mystery, but he decidedly
thought that there was a little too much mystery here for his taste. He
thought that even Felix Babylon would have been surprised at this.

The electric chandelier in the centre of the ceiling was not lighted;
only the two lights on either side of the washstand were switched on,
and these did not sufficiently illuminate the features of the man on the
bed to enable Racksole to see them clearly. In vain the millionaire
strained his eyes; he could only make out that the corpse was probably
that of a young man. Just as he was wondering what would be the best
course of action to pursue, he saw Rocco with a square-shaped black box
in his hand. Then the chef switched off the two electric lights, and the
State bedroom was in darkness. In that swift darkness Racksole heard
Rocco spring on to the bed. Another half-dozen moments of suspense, and
there was a blinding flash of white, which endured for several seconds,
and showed Rocco standing like an evil spirit over the corpse, the black
box in one hand and a burning piece of aluminium wire in the other. The
aluminium wire burnt out, and darkness followed blacker than before.

Rocco had photographed the corpse by flashlight.

But the dazzling flare which had disclosed the features of the dead man
to the insensible lens of the camera had disclosed them also to Theodore
Racksole. The dead man was Reginald Dimmock!

Stung into action by this discovery, Racksole tried to find the exit
from his place of concealment. He felt sure that there existed some way
out into the State bathroom, but he sought for it fruitlessly, groping
with both hands and feet. Then he decided that he must ascend the rope-
ladder, make haste for the first-floor corridor, and intercept Rocco
when he left the State apartments. It was a painful and difficult
business to ascend that thin and yielding ladder in such a confined
space, but Racksole was managing it very nicely, and had nearly reached
the top, when, by some untoward freak of chance, the ladder broke above
his weight, and he slipped ignominiously down to the bottom of the
wooden tube. Smothering an excusable curse, Racksole crouched, baffled.
Then he saw that the force of his fall had somehow opened a trap-door at
his feet. He squeezed through, pushed open another tiny door, and in
another second stood in the State bathroom. He was dishevelled,
perspiring, rather bewildered; but he was there. In the next second he
had resumed absolute command of all his faculties.

Strange to say, he had moved so quietly that Rocco had apparently not
heard him. He stepped noiselessly to the door between the bathroom and
the bedroom, and stood there in silence. Rocco had switched on again the
lights over the washstand and was busy with his utensils.

Racksole deliberately coughed.






Chapter Fourteen ROCCO ANSWERS SOME QUESTIONS

ROCCO turned round with the swiftness of a startled tiger, and gave
Theodore Racksole one long piercing glance.

‘D--n!’ said Rocco, with as pure an Anglo-Saxon accent and intonation as
Racksole himself could have accomplished.

The most extraordinary thing about the situation was that at this
juncture Theodore Racksole did not know what to say. He was so
dumbfounded by the affair, and especially by Rocco’s absolute and
sublime calm, that both speech and thought failed him.

‘I give in,’ said Rocco. ‘From the moment you entered this cursed hotel
I was afraid of you. I told Jules I was afraid of you. I knew there
would be trouble with a man of your kidney, and I was right; confound
it! I tell you I give in. I know when I’m beaten. I’ve got no revolver
and no weapons of any kind. I surrender. Do what you like.’

And with that Rocco sat down on a chair. It was magnificently done. Only
a truly great man could have done it. Rocco actually kept his dignity.

For answer, Racksole walked slowly into the vast apartment, seized a
chair, and, dragging it up to Rocco’s chair, sat down opposite to him.
Thus they faced each other, their knees almost touching, both in evening
dress. On Rocco’s right hand was the bed, with the corpse of Reginald
Dimmock. On Racksole’s right hand, and a little behind him, was the
marble washstand, still littered with Rocco’s implements. The electric
light shone on Rocco’s left cheek, leaving the other side of his face in
shadow. Racksole tapped him on the knee twice.

‘So you’re another Englishman masquerading as a foreigner in my hotel,’

Racksole remarked, by way of commencing the interrogation.

‘I’m not,’ answered Rocco quietly. ‘I’m a citizen of the United States.’

‘The deuce you are!’ Racksole exclaimed.

‘Yes, I was born at West Orange, New Jersey, New York State. I call
myself an Italian because it was in Italy that I first made a name as a
chef--at Rome. It is better for a great chef like me to be a foreigner.
Imagine a great chef named Elihu P. Rucker. You can’t imagine it. I
changed my nationality for the same reason that my friend and colleague,
Jules, otherwise Mr Jackson, changed his.’

‘So Jules is your friend and colleague, is he?’

‘He was, but from this moment he is no longer. I began to disapprove of
his methods no less than a week ago, and my disapproval will now take
active form.’

‘Will it?’ said Racksole. ‘I calculate it just won’t, Mr Elihu P.
Rucker, citizen of the United States. Before you are very much older
you’ll be in the kind hands of the police, and your activities, in no
matter what direction, will come to an abrupt conclusion.’

‘It is possible,’ sighed Rocco.

‘In the meantime, I’ll ask you one or two questions for my own private
satisfaction. You’ve acknowledged that the game is up, and you may as
well answer them with as much candour as you feel yourself capable of.
See?’

‘I see,’ replied Rocco calmly, ‘but I guess I can’t answer all
questions.

I’ll do what I can.’

‘Well,’ said Racksole, clearing his throat, ‘what’s the scheme all
about? Tell me in a word.’

‘Not in a thousand words. It isn’t my secret, you know.’

‘Why was poor little Dimmock poisoned?’ The millionaire’s voice softened
as he looked for an instant at the corpse of the unfortunate young man.

‘I don’t know,’ said Rocco. ‘I don’t mind informing you that I objected
to that part of the business. I wasn’t made aware of it till after it
was done, and then I tell you it got my dander up considerable.’

‘You mean to say you don’t know why Dimmock was done to death?’

‘I mean to say I couldn’t see the sense of it. Of course he--er--died,
because he sort of cried off the scheme, having previously taken a share
of it. I don’t mind saying that much, because you probably guessed it
for yourself. But I solemnly state that I have a conscientious objection
to murder.’

‘Then it was murder?’

‘It was a kind of murder,’ Rocco admitted. ‘Who did it?’

‘Unfair question,’ said Rocco.

‘Who else is in this precious scheme besides Jules and yourself?’

‘Don’t know, on my honour.’

‘Well, then, tell me this. What have you been doing to Dimmock’s body?’

‘How long were you in that bathroom?’ Rocco parried with sublime
impudence.

‘Don’t question me, Mr Rucker,’ said Theodore Racksole. ‘I feel very
much inclined to break your back across my knee. Therefore I advise you
not to irritate me. What have you been doing to Dimmock’s body?’

‘I’ve been embalming it.’

‘Em--balming it.’

‘Certainly; Richardson’s system of arterial fluid injection, as improved
by myself. You weren’t aware that I included the art of embalming among
my accomplishments. Nevertheless, it is so.’

‘But why?’ asked Racksole, more mystified than ever. ‘Why should you
trouble to embalm the poor chap’s corpse?’

‘Can’t you see? Doesn’t it strike you? That corpse has to be taken care
of.

It contains, or rather, it did contain, very serious evidence against
some person or persons unknown to the police. It may be necessary to
move it about from place to place. A corpse can’t be hidden for long; a
corpse betrays itself. One couldn’t throw it in the Thames, for it would
have been found inside twelve hours. One couldn’t bury it--it wasn’t
safe. The only thing was to keep it handy and movable, ready for
emergencies. I needn’t inform you that, without embalming, you can’t
keep a corpse handy and movable for more than four or five days. It’s
the kind of thing that won’t keep. And so it was suggested that I should
embalm it, and I did. Mind you, I still objected to the murder, but I
couldn’t go back on a colleague, you understand. You do understand that,
don’t you? Well, here you are, and here it is, and that’s all.’

Rocco leaned back in his chair as though he had said everything that
ought to be said. He closed his eyes to indicate that so far as he was
concerned the conversation was also closed. Theodore Racksole stood up.

‘I hope,’ said Rocco, suddenly opening his eyes, ‘I hope you’ll call in
the police without any delay. It’s getting late, and I don’t like going
without my night’s rest.’

‘Where do you suppose you’ll get a night’s rest?’ Racksole asked.

‘In the cells, of course. Haven’t I told you I know when I’m beaten. I’m
not so blind as not to be able to see that there’s at any rate a prima
facie case against me. I expect I shall get off with a year or two’s
imprisonment as accessory after the fact--I think that’s what they call
it. Anyhow, I shall be in a position to prove that I am not implicated
in the murder of this unfortunate nincompoop.’ He pointed, with a
strange, scornful gesture of his elbow, to the bed. ‘And now, shall we
go? Everyone is asleep, but there will be a policeman within call of the
watchman in the portico. I am at your service. Let us go down together,
Mr Racksole. I give you my word to go quietly.’

‘Stay a moment,’ said Theodore Racksole curtly; ‘there is no hurry. It
won’t do you any harm to forego another hour’s sleep, especially as you
will have no work to do to-morrow. I have one or two more questions to
put to you.’

‘Well?’ Rocco murmured, with an air of tired resignation, as if to say,
‘What must be must be.’

‘Where has Dimmock’s corpse been during the last three or four days,
since he--died?’

‘Oh!’ answered Rocco, apparently surprised at the simplicity of the
question. ‘It’s been in my room, and one night it was on the roof; once
it went out of the hotel as luggage, but it came back the next day as a
case of Demerara sugar. I forget where else it has been, but it’s been
kept perfectly safe and treated with every consideration.’

‘And who contrived all these manoeuvres?’ asked Racksole as calmly as he
could.

‘I did. That is to say, I invented them and I saw that they were carried
out. You see, the suspicions of your police obliged me to be
particularly spry.’

‘And who carried them out?’

‘Ah! that would be telling tales. But I don’t mind assuring you that my
accomplices were innocent accomplices. It is absurdly easy for a man
like me to impose on underlings--absurdly easy.’

‘What did you intend to do with the corpse ultimately?’ Racksole pursued
his inquiry with immovable countenance.

‘Who knows?’ said Rocco, twisting his beautiful moustache. ‘That would
have depended on several things--on your police, for instance. But
probably in the end we should have restored this mortal clay’--again he
jerked his elbow--‘to the man’s sorrowing relatives.’

‘Do you know who the relatives are?’

‘Certainly. Don’t you? If you don’t I need only hint that Dimmock had a
Prince for his father.’

‘It seems to me,’ said Racksole, with cold sarcasm, ‘that you behaved
rather clumsily in choosing this bedroom as the scene of your
operations.’

‘Not at all,’ said Rocco. ‘There was no other apartment so suitable in
the whole hotel. Who would have guessed that anything was going on here?
It was the very place for me.’

‘I guessed,’ said Racksole succinctly.

‘Yes, you guessed, Mr Racksole. But I had not counted on you. You are
the only smart man in the business. You are an American citizen, and I
hadn’t reckoned to have to deal with that class of person.’

‘Apparently I frightened you this afternoon?’

‘Not in the least.’

‘You were not afraid of a search?’

‘I knew that no search was intended. I knew that you were trying to
frighten me. You must really credit me with a little sagacity and
insight, Mr Racksole. Immediately you began to talk to me in the kitchen
this afternoon I felt you were on the track. But I was not frightened. I
merely decided that there was no time to be lost--that I must act
quickly. I did act quickly, but, it seems, not quickly enough. I grant
that your rapidity exceeded mine. Let us go downstairs, I beg.’

Rocco rose and moved towards the door. With an instinctive action
Racksole rushed forward and seized him by the shoulder.

‘No tricks!’ said Racksole. ‘You’re in my custody and don’t forget it.’

Rocco turned on his employer a look of gentle, dignified scorn. ‘Have I
not informed you,’ he said, ‘that I have the intention of going
quietly?’

Racksole felt almost ashamed for the moment. It flashed across him that
a man can be great, even in crime.

‘What an ineffable fool you were,’ said Racksole, stopping him at the
threshold, ‘with your talents, your unique talents, to get yourself
mixed up in an affair of this kind. You are ruined. And, by Jove! you
were a great man in your own line.’

‘Mr Racksole,’ said Rocco very quickly, ‘that is the truest word you
have spoken this night. I was a great man in my own line. And I am an
ineffable fool. Alas!’ He brought his long arms to his sides with a
thud.

‘Why did you do it?’

‘I was fascinated--fascinated by Jules. He, too, is a great man. We had
great opportunities, here in the Grand Babylon. It was a great game. It
was worth the candle. The prizes were enormous. You would admit these
things if you knew the facts. Perhaps some day you will know them, for
you are a fairly clever person at getting to the root of a matter. Yes,
I was blinded, hypnotized.’

‘And now you are ruined.’

‘Not ruined, not ruined. Afterwards, in a few years, I shall come up
again.

A man of genius like me is never ruined till he is dead. Genius is
always forgiven. I shall be forgiven. Suppose I am sent to prison. When
I emerge I shall be no gaol-bird. I shall be Rocco--the great Rocco. And
half the hotels in Europe will invite me to join them.’

‘Let me tell you, as man to man, that you have achieved your own
degradation. There is no excuse.’

‘I know it,’ said Rocco. ‘Let us go.’

Racksole was distinctly and notably impressed by this man--by this
master spirit to whom he was to have paid a salary at the rate of three
thousand pounds a year. He even felt sorry for him. And so, side by
side, the captor and the captured, they passed into the vast deserted
corridor of the hotel.

Rocco stopped at the grating of the first lift.

‘It will be locked,’ said Racksole. ‘We must use the stairs to-night.’

‘But I have a key. I always carry one,’ said Rocco, and he pulled one
out of his pocket, and, unfastening the iron screen, pushed it open.
Racksole smiled at his readiness and aplomb.

‘After you,’ said Rocco, bowing in his finest manner, and Racksole
stepped into the lift.

With the swiftness of lighting Rocco pushed forward the iron screen,
which locked itself automatically. Theodore Racksole was hopelessly a
prisoner within the lift, while Rocco stood free in the corridor.

‘Good-bye, Mr Racksole,’ he remarked suavely, bowing again, lower than
before. ‘Good-bye: I hate to take a mean advantage of you in this
fashion, but really you must allow that you have been very simple. You
are a clever man, as I have already said, up to a certain point. It is
past that point that my own cleverness comes in. Again, good-bye. After
all, I shall have no rest to-night, but perhaps even that will be better
that sleeping in a police cell. If you make a great noise you may wake
someone and ultimately get released from this lift. But I advise you to
compose yourself, and wait till morning. It will be more dignified. For
the third time, good-bye.’

And with that Rocco, without hastening, walked down the corridor and so
out of sight.

Racksole said never a word. He was too disgusted with himself to speak.
He clenched his fists, and put his teeth together, and held his breath.
In the silence he could hear the dwindling sound of Rocco’s footsteps on
the thick carpet.

It was the greatest blow of Racksole’s life.

The next morning the high-born guests of the Grand Babylon were aroused
by a rumour that by some accident the millionaire proprietor of the
hotel had remained all night locked up in the lift. It was also stated
that Rocco had quarrelled with his new master and incontinently left the
place. A duchess said that Rocco’s departure would mean the ruin of the
hotel, whereupon her husband advised her not to talk nonsense.

As for Racksole, he sent a message for the detective in charge of the
Dimmock affair, and bravely told him the happenings of the previous
night.

The narration was a decided ordeal to a man of Racksole’s temperament.

‘A strange story!’ commented Detective Marshall, and he could not avoid
a smile. ‘The climax was unfortunate, but you have certainly got some
valuable facts.’

Racksole said nothing.

‘I myself have a clue,’ added the detective. ‘When your message arrived
I was just coming up to see you. I want you to accompany me to a certain
spot not far from here. Will you come, now, at once?’

‘With pleasure,’ said Racksole.

At that moment a page entered with a telegram. Racksole opened it read:

‘Please come instantly. Nella. Hôtel Wellington, Ostend.’

He looked at his watch.

‘I can’t come,’ he said to the detective. I’m going to Ostend.’

‘To Ostend?’

‘Yes, now.’

‘But really, Mr Racksole,’ protested the detective. ‘My business is
urgent.’

‘So’s mine,’ said Racksole.

In ten minutes he was on his way to Victoria Station.






Chapter Fifteen END OF THE YACHT ADVENTURE

WE must now return to Nella Racksole and Prince Aribert of Posen on
board the yacht without a name. The Prince’s first business was to make
Jules, otherwise Mr Tom Jackson, perfectly secure by means of several
pieces of rope. Although Mr Jackson had been stunned into a complete
unconsciousness, and there was a contused wound under his ear, no one
could say how soon he might not come to himself and get very violent. So
the Prince, having tied his arms and legs, made him fast to a stanchion.

‘I hope he won’t die,’ said Nella. ‘He looks very white.’

‘The Mr Jacksons of this world,’ said Prince Aribert sententiously,
‘never die till they are hung. By the way, I wonder how it is that no
one has interfered with us. Perhaps they are discreetly afraid of my
revolver--of your revolver, I mean.’

Both he and Nella glanced up at the imperturbable steersman, who kept
the yacht’s head straight out to sea. By this time they were about a
couple of miles from the Belgian shore.

Addressing him in French, the Prince ordered the sailor to put the yacht
about, and make again for Ostend Harbour, but the fellow took no notice
whatever of the summons. The Prince raised the revolver, with the idea
of frightening the steersman, and then the man began to talk rapidly in
a mixture of French and Flemish. He said that he had received Jules’
strict orders not to interfere in any way, no matter what might happen
on the deck of the yacht. He was the captain of the yacht, and he had to
make for a certain English port, the name of which he could not divulge:
he was to keep the vessel at full steam ahead under any and all
circumstances. He seemed to be a very big, a very strong, and a very
determined man, and the Prince was at a loss what course of action to
pursue. He asked several more questions, but the only effect of them was
to render the man taciturn and ill-humoured.

In vain Prince Aribert explained that Miss Nella Racksole, daughter of
millionaire Racksole, had been abducted by Mr Tom Jackson; in vain he
flourished the revolver threateningly; the surly but courageous captain
said merely that that had nothing to do with him; he had instructions,
and he should carry them out. He sarcastically begged to remind his
interlocutor that he was the captain of the yacht.

‘It won’t do to shoot him, I suppose,’ said the Prince to Nella. ‘I
might bore a hole into his leg, or something of that kind.’

‘It’s rather risky, and rather hard on the poor captain, with his
extraordinary sense of duty,’ said Nella. ‘And, besides, the whole crew
might turn on us. No, we must think of something else.’

‘I wonder where the crew is,’ said the Prince.

Just then Mr Jackson, prone and bound on the deck, showed signs of
recovering from his swoon. His eyes opened, and he gazed vacantly
around. At length he caught sight of the Prince, who approached him with
the revolver well in view.

‘It’s you, is it?’ he murmured faintly. ‘What are you doing on board?
Who’s tied me up like this?’

‘See here!’ replied the Prince, ‘I don’t want to have any arguments, but
this yacht must return to Ostend at once, where you will be given up to
the authorities.’

‘Really!’ snarled Mr Tom Jackson. ‘Shall I!’ Then he called out in
French to the man at the wheel, ‘Hi André! let these two be put off in
the dinghy.’

It was a peculiar situation. Certain of nothing but the possession of
Nella’s revolver, the Prince scarcely knew whether to carry the argument
further, and with stronger measures, or to accept the situation with as
much dignity as the circumstances would permit.

‘Let us take the dinghy,’ said Nella; ‘we can row ashore in an hour.’

He felt that she was right. To leave the yacht in such a manner seemed
somewhat ignominious, and it certainly involved the escape of that
profound villain, Mr Thomas Jackson. But what else could be done? The
Prince and Nella constituted one party on the vessel; they knew their
own strength, but they did not know the strength of their opponents.
They held the hostile ringleader bound and captive, but this man had
proved himself capable of giving orders, and even to gag him would not
help them if the captain of the yacht persisted in his obstinate course.
Moreover, there was a distinct objection to promiscuous shooting. The
Prince felt that there was no knowing how promiscuous shooting might
end.

‘We will take the dinghy,’ said the Prince quickly, to the captain.

A bell rang below, and a sailor and the Negro boy appeared on deck. The
pulsations of the screw grew less rapid. The yacht stopped. The dinghy
was lowered. As the Prince and Nella prepared to descend into the little
cock-boat Mr Tom Jackson addressed Nella, all bound as he lay.

‘Good-bye,’ he said, ‘I shall see you again, never fear.’.

In another moment they were in the dinghy, and the dinghy was adrift.
The yacht’s screw churned the water, and the beautiful vessel slipped
away from them. As it receded a figure appeared at the stem. It was Mr
Thomas Jackson.

He had been released by his minions. He held a white handkerchief to his
ear, and offered a calm, enigmatic smile to the two forlorn but
victorious occupants of the dinghy. Jules had been defeated for once in
his life; or perhaps it would be more just to say that he had been out-
manoeuvred. Men like Jules are incapable of being defeated. It was
characteristic of his luck that now, in the very hour when he had been
caught red-handed in a serious crime against society, he should be
effecting a leisurely escape--an escape which left no clue behind.

The sea was utterly calm and blue in the morning sun. The dinghy rocked
itself lazily in the swell of the yacht’s departure. As the mist cleared
away the outline of the shore became more distinct, and it appeared as
if Ostend was distant scarcely a cable’s length. The white dome of the
great Kursaal glittered in the pale turquoise sky, and the smoke of
steamers in the harbour could be plainly distinguished. On the offing
was a crowd of brown-sailed fishing luggers returning with the night’s
catch. The many-hued bathing-vans could be counted on the distant beach.
Everything seemed perfectly normal. It was difficult for either Nella or
her companion to realize that anything extraordinary had happened within
the last hour. Yet there was the yacht, not a mile off, to prove to them
that something very extraordinary had, in fact, happened. The yacht was
no vision, nor was that sinister watching figure at its stern a vision,
either.

‘I suppose Jules was too surprised and too feeble to inquire how I came
to be on board his yacht,’ said the Prince, taking the oars.

‘Oh! How did you?’ asked Nella, her face lighting up. ‘Really, I had
almost forgotten that part of the affair.’

‘I must begin at the beginning and it will take some time,’ answered the
Prince. ‘Had we not better postpone the recital till we get ashore?’

‘I will row and you shall talk,’ said Nella. ‘I want to know now.’

He smiled happily at her, but gently declined to yield up the oars.

‘Is it not sufficient that I am here?’ he said.

‘It is sufficient, yes,’ she replied, ‘but I want to know.’

With a long, easy stroke he was pulling the dinghy shorewards. She sat
in the stern-sheets.

‘There is no rudder,’ he remarked, ‘so you must direct me. Keep the
boat’s head on the lighthouse. The tide seems to be running in strongly;
that will help us. The people on shore will think that we have only been
for a little early morning excursion.’

‘Will you kindly tell me how it came about that you were able to save my
life, Prince?’ she said.

‘Save your life, Miss Racksole? I didn’t save your life; I merely
knocked a man down.’

‘You saved my life,’ she repeated. ‘That villain would have stopped at
nothing. I saw it in his eye.’

‘Then you were a brave woman, for you showed no fear of death.’ His
admiring gaze rested full on her. For a moment the oars ceased to move.

She gave a gesture of impatience.

‘It happened that I saw you last night in your carriage,’ he said. ‘The
fact is, I had not had the audacity to go to Berlin with my story. I
stopped in Ostend to see whether I could do a little detective work on
my own account.

It was a piece of good luck that I saw you. I followed the carriage as
quickly as I could, and I just caught a glimpse of you as you entered
that awful house. I knew that Jules had something to do with that house.
I guessed what you were doing. I was afraid for you. Fortunately I had
surveyed the house pretty thoroughly. There is an entrance to it at the
back, from a narrow lane. I made my way there. I got into the yard at
the back, and I stood under the window of the room where you had the
interview with Miss Spencer. I heard everything that was said. It was a
courageous enterprise on your part to follow Miss Spencer from the Grand
Babylon to Ostend. Well, I dared not force an entrance, lest I might
precipitate matters too suddenly, and involve both of us in a
difficulty. I merely kept watch. Ah, Miss Racksole! you were magnificent
with Miss Spencer; as I say, I could hear every word, for the window was
slightly open. I felt that you needed no assistance from me. And then
she cheated you with a trick, and the revolver came flying through the
window. I picked it up, I thought it would probably be useful. There was
a silence. I did not guess at first that you had fainted. I thought that
you had escaped. When I found out the truth it was too late for me to
intervene. There were two men, both desperate, besides Miss Spencer--’

‘Who was the other man?’ asked Nella.

‘I do not know. It was dark. They drove away with you to the harbour.
Again I followed. I saw them carry you on board. Before the yacht
weighed anchor I managed to climb unobserved into the dinghy. I lay down
full length in it, and no one suspected that I was there. I think you
know the rest.’

‘Was the yacht all ready for sea?’

‘The yacht was all ready for sea. The captain fellow was on the bridge,
and steam was up.’

‘Then they expected me! How could that be?’

‘They expected some one. I do not think they expected you.’

‘Did the second man go on board?’

‘He helped to carry you along the gangway, but he came back again to the
carriage. He was the driver.’

‘And no one else saw the business?’

‘The quay was deserted. You see, the last steamer had arrived for the
night.’

There was a brief silence, and then Nella ejaculated, under her breath.

‘Truly, it is a wonderful world!’

And it was a wonderful world for them, though scarcely perhaps, in the
sense which Nella Racksole had intended. They had just emerged from a
highly disconcerting experience. Among other minor inconveniences, they
had had no breakfast. They were out in the sea in a tiny boat. Neither
of them knew what the day might bring forth. The man, at least, had the
most serious anxieties for the safety of his Royal nephew. And yet--and
yet--neither of them wished that that voyage of the little boat on the
summer tide should come to an end. Each, perhaps unconsciously, had a
vague desire that it might last for ever, he lazily pulling, she
directing his course at intervals by a movement of her distractingly
pretty head. How was this condition of affairs to be explained? Well,
they were both young; they both had superb health, and all the ardour of
youth; and--they were together.

The boat was very small indeed; her face was scarcely a yard from his.
She, in his eyes, surrounded by the glamour of beauty and vast wealth;
he, in her eyes, surrounded by the glamour of masculine intrepidity and
the brilliance of a throne.

But all voyages come to an end, either at the shore or at the bottom of
the sea, and at length the dinghy passed between the stone jetties of
the harbour. The Prince rowed to the nearest steps, tied up the boat,
and they landed. It was six o’clock in the morning, and a day of
gorgeous sunlight had opened. Few people were about at that early hour.

‘And now, what next?’ said the Prince. ‘I must take you to an hotel.’

‘I am in your hands,’ she acquiesced, with a smile which sent the blood
racing through his veins. He perceived now that she was tired and
overcome, suffering from a sudden and natural reaction.

At the Hôtel Wellington the Prince told the sleepy door-keeper that they
had come by the early train from Bruges, and wanted breakfast at once.
It was absurdly early, but a common English sovereign will work wonders
in any Belgian hotel, and in a very brief time Nella and the Prince were
breakfasting on the verandah of the hotel upon chocolate that had been
specially and hastily brewed for them.

‘I never tasted such excellent chocolate,’ claimed the Prince.

The statement was wildly untrue, for the Hôtel Wellington is not
celebrated for its chocolate. Nevertheless Nella replied
enthusiastically, ‘Nor I.’

Then there was a silence, and Nella, feeling possibly that she had been
too ecstatic, remarked in a very matter-of-fact tone: ‘I must telegraph
to Papa instantly.’

Thus it was that Theodore Racksole received the telegram which drew him
away from Detective Marshall.






Chapter Sixteen THE WOMAN WITH THE RED HAT

‘THERE is one thing, Prince, that we have just got to settle straight
off,’ said Theodore Racksole.

They were all three seated--Racksole, his daughter, and Prince Aribert--
round a dinner table in a private room at the Hôtel Wellington. Racksole
had duly arrived by the afternoon boat, and had been met on the quay by
the other two. They had dined early, and Racksole had heard the full
story of the adventures by sea and land of Nella and the Prince. As to
his own adventure of the previous night he said very little, merely
explaining, with as little detail as possible, that Dimmock’s body had
come to light.

‘What is that?’ asked the Prince, in answer to Racksole’s remark.

‘We have got to settle whether we shall tell the police at once all that
has occurred, or whether we shall proceed on our own responsibility.
There can be no doubt as to which course we ought to pursue. Every
consideration of prudence points to the advisability of taking the
police into our confidence, and leaving the matter entirely in their
hands.’

‘Oh, Papa!’ Nella burst out in her pouting, impulsive way. ‘You surely
can’t think of such a thing. Why, the fun has only just begun.’

‘Do you call last night fun?’ questioned Racksole, gazing at her
solemnly.

‘Yes, I do,’ she said promptly. ‘Now.’

‘Well, I don’t,’ was the millionaire’s laconic response; but perhaps he
was thinking of his own situation in the lift.

‘Do you not think we might investigate a little further,’ said the
Prince judiciously, as he cracked a walnut, ‘just a little further--and
then, if we fail to accomplish anything, there would still be ample
opportunity to consult the police?’

‘How do you suggest we should begin?’ asked Racksole.

‘Well, there is the house which Miss Racksole so intrepidly entered last
evening’--he gave her the homage of an admiring glance; ‘you and I, Mr
Racksole, might examine that abode in detail.’

‘To-night?’

‘Certainly. We might do something.’

‘We might do too much.’

‘For example?’

‘We might shoot someone, or get ourselves mistaken for burglars. If we
outstepped the law, it would be no excuse for us that we had been acting
in a good cause.’

‘True,’ said the Prince. ‘Nevertheless--’ He stopped.

‘Nevertheless you have a distaste for bringing the police into the
business.

You want the hunt all to yourself. You are on fire with the ardour of
the chase. Is not that it? Accept the advice of an older man, Prince,
and sleep on this affair. I have little fancy for nocturnal escapades
two nights together. As for you, Nella, off with you to bed. The Prince
and I will have a yarn over such fluids as can be obtained in this
hole.’

‘Papa,’ she said, ‘you are perfectly horrid to-night.’

‘Perhaps I am,’ he said. ‘Decidedly I am very cross with you for coming
over here all alone. It was monstrous. If I didn’t happen to be the most
foolish of parents--There! Good-night. It’s nine o’clock. The Prince, I
am sure, will excuse you.’

If Nella had not really been very tired Prince Aribert might have been
the witness of a good-natured but stubborn conflict between the
millionaire and his spirited offspring. As it was, Nella departed with
surprising docility, and the two men were left alone.

‘Now,’ said Racksole suddenly, changing his tone, ‘I fancy that after
all I’m your man for a little amateur investigation to-night. And, if I
must speak the exact truth, I think that to sleep on this affair would
be about the very worst thing we could do. But I was anxious to keep
Nella out of harm’s way at any rate till to-morrow. She is a very
difficult creature to manage, Prince, and I may warn you,’ he laughed
grimly, ‘that if we do succeed in doing anything to-night we shall catch
it from her ladyship in the morning. Are you ready to take that risk?’

‘I am,’ the Prince smiled. ‘But Miss Racksole is a young lady of quite
remarkable nerve.’

‘She is,’ said Racksole drily. ‘I wish sometimes she had less.’

‘I have the highest admiration for Miss Racksole,’ said the Prince, and
he looked Miss Racksole’s father full in the face.

‘You honour us, Prince,’ Racksole observed. ‘Let us come to business. Am
I right in assuming that you have a reason for keeping the police out of
this business, if it can possibly be done?’

‘Yes,’ said the Prince, and his brow clouded. ‘I am very much afraid
that my poor nephew has involved himself in some scrape that he would
wish not to be divulged.’

‘Then you do not believe that he is the victim of foul play?’

‘I do not.’

‘And the reason, if I may ask it?’

‘Mr Racksole, we speak in confidence--is it not so? Some years ago my
foolish nephew had an affair--an affair with a feminine star of the
Berlin stage. For anything I know

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