Title: The Illustrious Prince
Author: Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
Language: English
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THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE

By E. Phillips Oppenheim



CONTENTS

      I     Mr. Hamilton Fynes, Urgent
      II    The End of the Journey
      III   An Incident and an Accident
      IV    Miss Penelope Morse
      V     An Affair of State
      VI    Mr. Coulson Interviewed
      VII   A Fatal Despatch
      VIII  An Interrupted Theatre Party
      IX    Inspector Jacks Scores
      X     Mr. Coulson Outmatched
      XI    A Commission
      XII   Penelope Intervenes
      XIII  East and West
      XIV   An Engagement
      XV    Penelope Explains
      XVI   Concerning Prince Maiyo
      XVII  A Gay Night in Paris
      XVIII Mr. Coulson is Indiscreet
      XIX   A Momentous Question
      XX    The Answer
      XXI   A Clue
      XXII  A Breath From the East
      XXIII On the Trail
      XXIV  Prince Maiyo Bids High
      XXV   Hobson’s Choice
      XXVI  Some Farewells
      XXVII A Prisoner
      XXVIII Patriotism
      XXIX  A Race
      XXX   Inspector Jacks Importunate
      XXXI  Good-Bye!
      XXXII Prince Maiyo Speaks
      XXXIII Unafraid
      XXXIV Banzai



CHAPTER I. MR. HAMILTON FYNES, URGENT

There was a little murmur of regret amongst the five hundred and
eighty-seven saloon passengers on board the steamship Lusitania,
mingled, perhaps, with a few expressions of a more violent character.
After several hours of doubt, the final verdict had at last been
pronounced. They had missed the tide, and no attempt was to be made to
land passengers that night. Already the engines had ceased to throb,
the period of unnatural quietness had commenced. Slowly, and without
noticeable motion, the great liner swung round a little in the river.

A small tug, which had been hovering about for some time, came screaming
alongside. There was a hiss from its wave-splashed deck, and a rocket
with a blue light flashed up into the sky. A man who had formed one of
the long line of passengers, leaning over the rail, watching the tug
since it had come into sight, now turned away and walked briskly to the
steps leading to the bridge. As it happened, the captain himself was
in the act of descending. The passenger accosted him, and held out what
seemed to be a letter.

“Captain Goodfellow,” he said, “I should be glad if you would glance at
the contents of that note.”

The captain, who had just finished a long discussion with the pilot and
was not in the best of humor, looked a little surprised.

“What, now?” he asked.

“If you please,” was the quiet answer. “The matter is urgent.”

“Who are you?” the captain asked.

“My name is Hamilton Fynes,” the other answered. “I am a saloon
passenger on board your ship, although my name does not appear in the
list. That note has been in my pocket since we left New York, to deliver
to you in the event of a certain contingency happening.”

“The contingency being?” the captain asked, tearing open the envelope
and moving a little nearer the electric light which shone out from the
smoking room.

“That the Lusitania did not land her passengers this evening.”

The captain read the note, examined the signature carefully, and
whistled softly to himself.

“You know what is inside this?” he asked, looking into his companion’s
face with some curiosity.

“Certainly,” was the brief reply.

“Your name is Mr. Hamilton Fynes, the Mr. Hamilton Fynes mentioned in
this letter?”

“That is so,” the passenger admitted.

The captain nodded.

“Well,” he said, “you had better get down on the lower deck, port side.
By the bye, have you any friends with you?”

“I am quite alone,” he answered.

“So much the better,” the captain declared. “Don’t tell any one that you
are going ashore if you can help it.”

“I certainly will not, sir,” the other answered. “Thank you very much.”

“Of course, you know that you can’t take your luggage with you?” the
captain remarked.

“That is of no consequence at all, sir,” Mr. Hamilton Fynes answered. “I
will leave instructions for my trunk to be sent on after me. I have all
that I require, for the moment, in this suitcase.”

The captain blew his whistle. Mr. Hamilton Fynes made his way quietly to
the lower deck, which was almost deserted. In a very few minutes he was
joined by half a dozen sailors, dragging a rope ladder. The little tug
came screaming around, and before any of the passengers on the deck
above had any idea of what was happening, Mr. Hamilton Fynes was on
board the Anna Maria, and on his way down the river, seated in a small,
uncomfortable cabin, lit by a single oil lamp.

No one spoke more than a casual word to him from the moment he stepped
to the deck until the short journey was at an end. He was shown at once
into the cabin, the door of which he closed without a moment’s delay. A
very brief examination of the interior convinced him that he was indeed
alone. Thereupon he seated himself with his back to the wall and his
face to the door, and finding an English newspaper on the table, read
it until they reached the docks. Arrived there, he exchanged a civil
good-night with the captain, and handed a sovereign to the seaman who
held his bag while he disembarked.

For several minutes after he had stepped on to the wooden platform, Mr.
Hamilton Fynes showed no particular impatience to continue his journey.
He stood in the shadow of one of the sheds, looking about him with quick
furtive glances, as though anxious to assure himself that there was no
one around who was taking a noticeable interest in his movements. Having
satisfied himself at length upon this point, he made his way to the
London and North Western Railway Station, and knocked at the door of the
station-master’s office. The station-master was busy, and although
Mr. Hamilton Fynes had the appearance of a perfectly respectable
transatlantic man of business, there was nothing about his personality
remarkably striking,--nothing, at any rate, to inspire an unusual amount
of respect.

“You wished to see me, sir?” the official asked, merely glancing up from
the desk at which he was sitting with a pile of papers before him.

Mr. Hamilton Fynes leaned over the wooden counter which separated him
from the interior of the office. Before he spoke, he glanced around as
though to make sure that he had not forgotten to close the door.

“I require a special train to London as quickly as possible,” he
announced. “I should be glad if you could let me have one within half an
hour, at any rate.”

The station-master rose to his feet.

“Quite impossible, sir,” he declared a little brusquely. “Absolutely out
of the question!”

“May I ask why it is out of the question?” Mr. Hamilton Fynes inquired.

“In the first place,” the station-master answered, “a special train to
London would cost you a hundred and eighty pounds, and in the second
place, even if you were willing to pay that sum, it would be at
least two hours before I could start you off. We could not possibly
disorganize the whole of our fast traffic. The ordinary mail train
leaves here at midnight with sleeping-cars.”

Mr. Hamilton Fynes held out a letter which he had produced from his
breast pocket, and which was, in appearance, very similar to the
one which he had presented, a short time ago, to the captain of the
Lusitania.

“Perhaps you will kindly read this,” he said. “I am perfectly willing to
pay the hundred and eighty pounds.”

The station-master tore open the envelope and read the few lines
contained therein. His manner underwent at once a complete change, very
much as the manner of the captain of the Lusitania had done. He took the
letter over to his green-shaded writing lamp, and examined the signature
carefully. When he returned, he looked at Mr. Hamilton Fynes curiously.
There was, however, something more than curiosity in his glance. There
was also respect.

“I will give this matter my personal attention at once, Mr. Fynes,” he
said, lifting the flap of the counter and coming out. “Do you care to
come inside and wait in my private office?”

“Thank you,” Mr. Hamilton Fynes answered; “I will walk up and down the
platform.”

“There is a refreshment room just on the left,” the station-master
remarked, ringing violently at a telephone. “I dare say we shall get you
off in less than half an hour. We will do our best, at any rate. It’s an
awkward time just now to command an absolutely clear line, but if we can
once get you past Crewe you’ll be all right. Shall we fetch you from the
refreshment room when we are ready?”

“If you please,” the intending passenger answered.

Mr. Hamilton Fynes discovered that place of entertainment without
difficulty, ordered for himself a cup of coffee and a sandwich, and drew
a chair close up to the small open fire, taking care, however, to sit
almost facing the only entrance to the room. He laid his hat upon the
counter, close to which he had taken up his position, and smoothed
back with his left hand his somewhat thick black hair. He was a man,
apparently of middle age, of middle height, clean-shaven, with good but
undistinguished features, dark eyes, very clear and very bright, which
showed, indeed, but little need of the pince-nez which hung by a thin
black cord from his neck. His hat, low in the crown and of soft gray
felt, would alone have betrayed his nationality. His clothes, however,
were also American in cut. His boots were narrow and of unmistakable
shape. He ate his sandwich with suspicion, and after his first sip of
coffee ordered a whiskey and soda. Afterwards he sat leaning back in
his chair, glancing every now and then at the clock, but otherwise
manifesting no signs of impatience. In less than half an hour an
inspector, cap in hand, entered the room and announced that everything
was ready. Mr. Hamilton Fynes put on his hat, picked up his suitcase,
and followed him on to the platform. A long saloon carriage, with a
guard’s brake behind and an engine in front, was waiting there.

“We’ve done our best, sir,” the station-master remarked with a note of
self-congratulation in his tone. “It’s exactly twenty-two minutes since
you came into the office, and there she is. Finest engine we’ve got on
the line, and the best driver. You’ve a clear road ahead too. Wish you a
pleasant journey, sir.”

“You are very good, sir,” Mr. Hamilton Fynes declared. “I am sure that
my friends on the other side will appreciate your attention. By what
time do you suppose that we shall reach London?”

The station-master glanced at the clock.

“It is now eight o’clock, sir,” he announced. “If my orders down the
line are properly attended to, you should be there by twenty minutes to
twelve.”

Mr. Hamilton Fynes nodded gravely and took his seat in the car. He had
previously walked its entire length and back again.

“The train consists only of this carriage?” he asked. “There is no other
passenger, for instance, travelling in the guard’s brake?”

“Certainly not, sir,” the station-master declared. “Such a thing would
be entirely against the regulations. There are five of you, all told, on
board,--driver, stoker, guard, saloon attendant, and yourself.”

Mr. Hamilton Fynes nodded, and appeared satisfied.

“No more luggage, sir?” the guard asked.

“I was obliged to leave what I had, excepting this suitcase, upon the
steamer,” Mr. Hamilton Fynes explained. “I could not very well expect
them to get my trunk up from the hold. It will follow me to the hotel
tomorrow.”

“You will find that the attendant has light refreshments on board, sir,
if you should be wanting anything,” the station-master announced. “We’ll
start you off now, then. Good-night, sir!”

Mr. Fynes nodded genially.

“Good-night, Station-master!” he said. “Many thanks to you.”



CHAPTER II. THE END OF THE JOURNEY

Southward, with low funnel belching forth fire and smoke into the
blackness of the night, the huge engine, with its solitary saloon
carriage and guard’s brake, thundered its way through the night towards
the great metropolis. Across the desolate plain, stripped bare of all
vegetation, and made hideous forever by the growth of a mighty industry,
where the furnace fires reddened the sky, and only the unbroken line of
ceaseless lights showed where town dwindled into village and suburbs
led back again into town. An ugly, thickly populated neighborhood, whose
area of twinkling lights seemed to reach almost to the murky skies;
hideous, indeed by day, not altogether devoid now of a certain weird
attractiveness by reason of low-hung stars. On, through many tunnels
into the black country itself, where the furnace fires burned oftener,
but the signs of habitation were fewer. Down the great iron way the
huge locomotive rushed onward, leaping and bounding across the maze
of metals, tearing past the dazzling signal lights, through crowded
stations where its passing was like the roar of some earth-shaking
monster. The station-master at Crewe unhooked his telephone receiver and
rang up Liverpool.

“What about this special?” he demanded.

“Passenger brought off from the Lusitania in a private tug. Orders are
to let her through all the way to London.”

“I know all about that,” the station-master grumbled. “I have three
locals on my hands already,--been held up for half an hour. Old Glynn,
the director’s, in one of them too. Might be General Manager to hear him
swear.”

“Is she signalled yet?” Liverpool asked.

“Just gone through at sixty miles an hour,” was the reply. “She made our
old wooden sheds shake, I can tell you. Who’s driving her?”

“Jim Poynton,” Liverpool answered. “The guvnor took him off the mail
specially.”

“What’s the fellow’s name on board, anyhow?” Crewe asked. “Is it a
millionaire from the other side, trying to make records, or a member of
our bloated aristocracy?”

“The name’s Fynes, or something like it,” was the reply. “He didn’t look
much like a millionaire. Came into the office carrying a small handbag
and asked for a special to London. Guvnor told him it would take two
hours and cost a hundred and eighty pounds. Told him he’d better wait
for the mail. He produced a note from some one or other, and you
should have seen the old man bustle round. We started him off in twenty
minutes.”

The station-master at Crewe was interested. He knew very well that it
is not the easiest thing in the world to bring influence to bear upon a
great railway company.

“Seems as though he was some one out of the common, anyway,” he
remarked. “The guvnor didn’t let on who the note was from, I suppose?”

“Not he,” Liverpool answered. “The first thing he did when he came back
into the office was to tear it into small pieces and throw them on the
fire. Young Jenkins did ask him a question, and he shut him up pretty
quick.”

“Well, I suppose we shall read all about it in the papers tomorrow,”
 Crewe remarked. “There isn’t much that these reporters don’t get hold
of. He must be some one out of the common--some one with a pull, I
mean,--or the captain of the Lusitania would never have let him off
before the other passengers. When are the rest of them coming through?”

“Three specials leave here at nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” was the
reply. “Good night.”

The station-master at Crewe hung up his receiver and went about his
duties. Twenty miles southward by now, the special was still tearing its
way into the darkness. Its solitary passenger had suddenly developed a
fit of restlessness. He left his seat and walked once or twice up and
down the saloon. Then he opened the rear door, crossed the little open
space between, and looked into the guard’s brake. The guard was sitting
upon a stool, reading a newspaper. He was quite alone, and so absorbed
that he did not notice the intruder. Mr. Hamilton Fynes quietly
retreated, closing the door behind him. He made his way once more
through the saloon, passed the attendant, who was fast asleep in his
pantry, and was met by a locked door. He let down the window and
looked out. He was within a few feet of the engine, which was obviously
attached direct to the saloon. Mr. Hamilton Fynes resumed his seat,
having disturbed nobody. He produced some papers from his breast pocket,
and spread them out on the table before him. One, a sealed envelope, he
immediately returned, slipping it down into a carefully prepared place
between the lining and the material of his coat. Of the others he
commenced to make a close and minute investigation. It was a curious
fact, however, that notwithstanding his recent searching examination, he
looked once more nervously around the saloon before he settled down to
his task. For some reason or other, there was not the slightest doubt
that for the present, at any rate, Mr. Hamilton Fynes was exceedingly
anxious to keep his own company. As he drew nearer to his journey’s end,
indeed, his manner seemed to lose something of that composure of which,
during the earlier part of the evening, he had certainly been possessed.
Scarcely a minute passed that he did not lean sideways from his seat and
look up and down the saloon. He sat like a man who is perpetually on
the qui vive. A furtive light shone in his eyes, he was manifestly
uncomfortable. Yet how could a man be safer from espionage than he!

Rugby telephoned to Liverpool, and received very much the same answer as
Crewe. Euston followed suit.

“Who’s this you’re sending up tonight?” the station-master asked.
“Special’s at Willington now, come through without a stop. Is some one
trying to make a record round the world?”

Liverpool was a little tired of answering questions, and more than a
little tired of this mysterious client. The station-master at Euston,
however, was a person to be treated with respect.

“His name is Mr. Hamilton Fynes, sir,” was the reply. “That is all we
know about him. They have been ringing us up all down the line, ever
since the special left.”

“Hamilton Fynes,” Euston repeated. “Don’t know the name. Where did he
come from?”

“Off the Lusitania, sir.”

“But we had a message three hours ago that the Lusitania was not landing
her passengers until tomorrow morning,” Euston protested.

“They let our man off in a tug, sir,” was the reply.

“It went down the river to fetch him. The guvnor didn’t want to give him
a special at this time of night, but he just handed him a note, and we
made things hum up here. He was on his way in half an hour. We have had
to upset the whole of the night traffic to let him through without a
stop.”

Such a client was, at any rate, worth meeting. The station-master
brushed his coat, put on his silk hat, and stepped out on to the
platform.



CHAPTER III. AN INCIDENT AND AN ACCIDENT

Smoothly the huge engine came gliding into the station--a dumb, silent
creature now, drawing slowly to a standstill as though exhausted after
its great effort. Through the windows of the saloon the station-master
could see the train attendant bending over this mysterious passenger,
who did not seem, as yet, to have made any preparations for leaving his
place. Mr. Hamilton Fynes was seated at a table covered with papers,
but he was leaning back as though he had been or was still asleep. The
station-master stepped forward, and as he did so the attendant came
hurrying out to the platform, and, pushing back the porters, called to
him by name.

“Mr. Rice,” he said, “If you please, sir, will you come this way?”

The station-master acceded at once to the man’s request and entered
the saloon. The attendant clutched at his arm nervously. He was a pale,
anaemic-looking little person at any time, but his face just now was
positively ghastly.

“What on earth is the matter with you?” the station-master asked
brusquely.

“There’s something wrong with my passenger, sir,” the man declared in
a shaking voice. “I can’t make him answer me. He won’t look up, and I
don’t--I don’t think he’s asleep. An hour ago I took him some whiskey.
He told me not to disturb him again--he had some papers to go through.”

The station-master leaned over the table. The eyes of the man who sat
there were perfectly wide-open, but there was something unnatural in
their fixed stare,--something unnatural, too, in the drawn grayness of
his face.

“This is Euston, sir,” the station-master began,--“the terminus--”

Then he broke off in the middle of his sentence. A cold shiver was
creeping through his veins. He, too, began to stare; he felt the color
leaving his own cheeks. With an effort he turned to the attendant.

“Pull down the blinds,” he ordered, in a voice which he should never
have recognized as his own. “Quick! Now turn out those porters, and tell
the inspector to stop anyone from coming into the car.”

The attendant, who was shaking like a leaf, obeyed. The station-master
turned away and drew a long breath. He himself was conscious of a
sense of nausea, a giddiness which was almost overmastering. This was
a terrible thing to face without a second’s warning. He had not the
slightest doubt but that the man who was seated at the table was dead!

At such an hour there were only a few people upon the platform, and
two stalwart station policemen easily kept back the loiterers whose
curiosity had been excited by the arrival of the special. A third took
up his position with his back to the entrance of the saloon, and allowed
no one to enter it till the return of the station-master, who had gone
for a doctor. The little crowd was completely mystified. No one had
the slightest idea of what had happened. The attendant was besieged by
questions, but he was sitting on the step of the car, in the shadow of
a policeman, with his head buried in his hands, and he did not once look
up. Some of the more adventurous tried to peer through the windows at
the lower end of the saloon. Others rushed off to interview the guard.
In a very few minutes, however, the station-master reappeared upon the
scene, accompanied by the doctor. The little crowd stood on one side and
the two men stepped into the car.

The doctor proceeded at once with his examination. Mr. Hamilton Fynes,
this mysterious person who had succeeded, indeed, in making a record
journey, was leaning back in the corner of his seat, his arms folded,
his head drooping a little, but his eyes still fixed in that unseeing
stare. His body yielded itself unnaturally to the touch. For the main
truth the doctor needed scarcely a glance at him.

“Is he dead?” the station-master asked.

“Stone-dead!” was the brief answer.

“Good God!” the station-master muttered. “Good God!”

The doctor had thrown his handkerchief over the dead man’s face. He was
standing now looking at him thoughtfully.

“Did he die in his sleep, I wonder?” the station-master asked. “It must
have been horribly sudden! Was it heart disease?”

The doctor did not reply for a moment. He seemed to be thinking out some
problem.

“The body had better be removed to the station mortuary,” he said at
last. “Then, if I were you, I should have the saloon shunted on to a
siding and left absolutely untouched. You had better place two of your
station police in charge while you telephone to Scotland Yard.”

“To Scotland Yard?” the station-master exclaimed.

The doctor nodded. He looked around as though to be sure that none of
that anxious crowd outside could overhear.

“There’s no question of heart disease here,” he explained. “The man has
been murdered!”

The station-master was horrified,--horrified and blankly incredulous.

“Murdered!” he repeated. “Why, it’s impossible! There was no one else
on the train except the attendant--not a single other person. All my
advices said one passenger only.”

The doctor touched the man’s coat with his finger, and the
station-master saw what he had not seen before,--saw what made him turn
away, a little sick. He was a strong man, but he was not used to this
sort of thing, and he had barely recovered yet from the first shock of
finding himself face to face with a dead man. Outside, the crowd upon
the platform was growing larger. White faces were being pressed against
the windows at the lower end of the saloon.

“There is no question about the man having been murdered,” the doctor
said, and even his voice shook a little. “His own hand could never have
driven that knife home. I can tell you, even, how it was done. The man
who stabbed him was in the compartment behind there, leaned over, and
drove this thing down, just missing the shoulder. There was no struggle
or fight of any sort. It was a diabolical deed!”

“Diabolical indeed!” the station-master echoed hoarsely.

“You had better give orders for us to be shunted down on to a siding
just as we are,” the doctor continued, “and send one of your men to
telephone to Scotland Yard. Perhaps it would be as well, too, not to
touch those papers until some one comes. See that the attendant does
not go home, or the guard. They will probably be wanted to answer
questions.”

The station-master stepped out to the platform, summoned an inspector,
and gave a few brief orders. Slowly the saloon was backed out of the
station again on to a neglected siding, a sort of backwater for spare
carriages and empty trucks,--an ignominious resting place, indeed, after
its splendid journey through the night. The doors at both ends were
closed and two policemen placed on duty to guard them. The doctor and
the station-master seated themselves out of sight of their gruesome
companion, and the station-master told all that he knew about the
despatch of the special and the man who had ordered it. The attendant,
who still moved about like a man in a dream, brought them some brandy
and soda and served them with shaking hand. They all three talked
together in whispers, the attendant telling them the few incidents of
the journey down, which, except for the dead man’s nervous desire for
solitude, seemed to possess very little significance. Then at last there
was a sharp tap at the window. A tall, quietly dressed man, with reddish
skin and clear gray eyes, was helped up into the car. He saluted the
doctor mechanically. His eyes were already travelling around the saloon.

“Inspector Jacks from Scotland Yard, sir,” he announced. “I have another
man outside. If you don’t mind, we’ll have him in.”

“By all means,” the station-master answered. “I am afraid that you will
find this rather a serious affair. We have left everything untouched so
far as we could.”

The second detective was assisted to clamber up into the car. It seemed,
however, as though the whole force of Scotland Yard could scarcely do
much towards elucidating an affair which, with every question which
was asked and answered, grew more mysterious. The papers upon the
table before the dead man were simply circulars and prospectuses of
no possible importance. His suitcase contained merely a few toilet
necessaries and some clean linen. There was not a scrap of paper or even
an envelope of any sort in his pockets. In a small leather case they
found a thousand dollars in American notes, five ten-pound Bank of
England notes, and a single visiting card on which was engraved the name
of Mr. Hamilton Fynes. In his trousers pocket was a handful of gold.
He had no other personal belongings of any sort. The space between the
lining of his coat and the material itself was duly noticed, but it was
empty. His watch was a cheap one, his linen unmarked, and his clothes
bore only the name of a great New York retail establishment. He had
certainly entered the train alone, and both the guard and attendant were
ready to declare positively that no person could have been concealed in
it. The engine-driver, on his part, was equally ready to swear that
not once from the moment when they had steamed out of Liverpool Station
until they had arrived within twenty miles of London, had they travelled
at less than forty miles an hour. At Willington he had found a signal
against him which had brought him nearly to a standstill, and under
the regulations he had passed through the station at ten miles an hour.
These were the only occasions, however, on which he had slackened speed
at all. The train attendant, who was a nervous man, began to shiver
again and imagine unmentionable things. The guard, who had never left
his own brake, went home and dreamed that his effigy had been added to
the collection of Madame Tussaud. The reporters were the only people who
were really happy, with the exception, perhaps of Inspector Jacks, who
had a weakness for a difficult case.

Fifteen miles north of London, a man lay by the roadside in the shadow
of a plantation of pine trees, through which he had staggered only a few
minutes ago. His clothes were covered with dust, he had lost his cap,
and his trousers were cut about the knee as though from a fall. He
was of somewhat less than medium height, dark, slender, with delicate
features, and hair almost coal black. His face, as he moved slowly from
side to side upon the grass, was livid with pain. Every now and then he
raised himself and listened. The long belt of main road, which passed
within a few feet of him, seemed almost deserted. Once a cart came
lumbering by, and the man who lay there, watching, drew closely back
into the shadows. A youth on a bicycle passed, singing to himself. A boy
and girl strolled by, arm in arm, happy, apparently, in their profound
silence. Only a couple of fields away shone the red and green lights of
the railway track. Every few minutes the goods-trains went rumbling over
the metals. The man on the ground heard them with a shiver. Resolutely
he kept his face turned in the opposite direction. The night mail went
thundering northward, and he clutched even at the nettles which grew
amongst the grass where he was crouching, as though filled with a sudden
terror. Then there was silence once more--silence which became deeper
as the hour approached midnight. Passers-by were fewer; the birds and
animals came out from their hiding places. A rabbit scurried across the
road; a rat darted down the tiny stream. Now and then birds moved in the
undergrowth, and the man, who was struggling all the time with a deadly
faintness, felt the silence grow more and more oppressive. He began even
to wonder where he was. He closed his eyes. Was that really the tinkling
of a guitar, the perfume of almond and cherry blossom, floating to him
down the warm wind? He began to lose himself in dreams until he realized
that actual unconsciousness was close upon him. Then he set his
teeth tight and clenched his hands. Away in the distance a faint,
long-expected sound came travelling to his ears. At last, then, his long
wait was over. Two fiery eyes were stealing along the lonely road.
The throb of an engine was plainly audible. He staggered up, swaying a
little on his feet, and holding out his hands. The motor car came to
a standstill before him, and the man who was driving it sprang to the
ground. Words passed between them rapidly,--questions and answers,--the
questions of an affectionate servant, and the answers of a man fighting
a grim battle for consciousness. But these two spoke in a language of
their own, a language which no one who passed along that road was likely
to understand.

With a groan of relief the man who had been picked up sank back amongst
the cushioned seats, carefully almost tenderly, aided by the chauffeur.
Eagerly he thrust his hand into one of the leather pockets and drew
out a flask of brandy. The rush of cold air, as the car swung round
and started off, was like new life to him. He closed his eyes. When he
opened them again, they had come to a standstill underneath a red lamp.

“The doctor’s!” he muttered to himself, and, staggering out, rang the
bell.

Dr. Spencer Whiles had had a somewhat dreary day, and was thoroughly
enjoying a late rubber of bridge with three of his most agreeable
neighbors. A summons into the consulting room, however, was so
unexpected a thing that he did not hesitate for a moment to obey it,
without even waiting to complete a deal. When he entered the apartment,
he saw a slim but determined-looking young man, whose clothes were
covered with dust, and who, although he sat with folded arms and grim
face, was very nearly in a state of collapse.

“You seem to have met with an accident,” the doctor remarked. “How did
it happen?”

“I have been run over by a motor car,” his patient said, speaking slowly
and with something singularly agreeable in his voice notwithstanding its
slight accent of pain. “Can you patch me up till I get to London?”

The doctor looked him over.

“What were you doing in the road?” he asked.

“I was riding a bicycle,” the other answered. “I dare say it was my own
fault; I was certainly on the wrong side of the road. You can see what
has happened to me. I am bruised and cut; my side is painful, and also
my knee. A car is waiting outside now to take me to my home, but I
thought that I had better stop and see you.”

The doctor was a humane man, with a miserable practice, and he forgot
all about his bridge party. For half an hour he worked over his patient.
At the end of that time he gave him a brandy and soda and placed a box
of cigarettes before him.

“You’ll do all right now,” he said. “That’s a nasty cut on your leg, but
you’ve no broken bones.”

“I feel absolutely well again, thank you very much,” the young man said.
“I will smoke a cigarette, if I may. The brandy, I thank you, no!”

“Just as you like,” the doctor answered. “I won’t say that you are not
better without it. Help yourself to the cigarettes. Are you going back
to London in the motor car, then?”

“Yes!” the patient answered. “It is waiting outside for me now, and I
must not keep the man any longer. Will you let me know, if you please,
how much I owe you?”

The doctor hesitated. Fees were a rare thing with him, and the evidences
of his patient’s means were somewhat doubtful. The young man put his
hand into his pocket.

“I am afraid,” he said, “that I am not a very presentable-looking
object, but I am glad to assure you that I am not a poor man. I am able
to pay your charges and to still feel that the obligation is very much
on my side.”

The doctor summoned up his courage.

“We will say a guinea, then,” he remarked with studied indifference.

“You must allow me to make it a little more than that,” the patient
answered. “Your treatment was worth it. I feel perfectly recovered
already. Good night, sir!”

The doctor’s eyes sparkled as he glanced at the gold which his visitor
had laid upon the table.

“You are very good, I’m sure,” he murmured. “I hope you will have a
comfortable journey. With a nerve like yours, you’ll be all right in a
day or so.”

He let his patient out and watched him depart with some curiosity,
watched until the great motor-car had swung round the corner of the
street and started on its journey to London.

“No bicycle there,” he remarked to himself, as he closed the door. “I
wonder what they did with it.”



CHAPTER IV. MISS PENELOPE MORSE

It was already a little past the customary luncheon hour at the Carlton,
and the restaurant was well filled. The orchestra had played their first
selection, and the stream of incoming guests had begun to slacken. A
young lady who had been sitting in the palm court for at least half an
hour rose to her feet, and, glancing casually at her watch, made her way
into the hotel. She entered the office and addressed the chief reception
clerk.

“Can you tell me,” she asked, “if Mr. Hamilton Fynes is staying here? He
should have arrived by the Lusitania last night or early this morning.”

It is not the business of a hotel reception clerk to appear surprised
at anything. Nevertheless the man looked at her, for a moment, with a
curious expression in his eyes.

“Mr. Hamilton Fynes!” he repeated. “Did you say that you were expecting
him by the Lusitania, madam?”

“Yes!” the young lady answered. “He asked me to lunch with him here
today. Can you tell me whether he has arrived yet? If he is in his room,
I should be glad if you would send up to him.”

There were several people in the office who were in a position to
overhear their conversation. With a word of apology, the man came round
from his place behind the mahogany counter. He stood by the side of the
young lady, and he seemed to be suffering from some embarrassment.

“Will you pardon my asking, madam, if you have seen the newspapers this
morning?” he inquired.

Without a doubt, her first thought was that the question savored of
impertinence. She looked at him with slightly upraised eyebrows. She was
slim, of medium complexion, with dark brown hair parted in the middle
and waving a little about her temples. She was irreproachably dressed,
from the tips of her patent shoes to the black feathers in her Paris
hat.

“The newspapers!” she repeated. “Why, no, I don’t think that I have seen
them this morning. What have they to do with Mr. Hamilton Fynes?”

The clerk pointed to the open door of a small private office.

“If you will step this way for one moment, madam,” he begged.

She tapped the floor with her foot and looked at him curiously.
Certainly the people around seemed to be taking some interest in their
conversation.

“Why should I?” she asked. “Cannot you answer my question here?”

“If madam will be so good,” he persisted.

She shrugged her shoulders and followed him. Something in the man’s
earnest tone and almost pleading look convinced her, at least, of
his good intentions. Besides, the interest which her question had
undoubtedly aroused amongst the bystanders was, to say the least of it,
embarrassing. He pulled the door to after them.

“Madam,” he said, “there was a Mr. Hamilton Fynes who came over by the
Lusitania, and who had certainly engaged rooms in this hotel, but
he unfortunately, it seems, met with an accident on his way from
Liverpool.”

Her manner changed at once. She began to understand what it all meant.
Her lips parted, her eyes were wide open.

“An accident?” she faltered.

He gently rolled a chair up to her. She sank obediently into it.

“Madam,” he said, “it was a very bad accident indeed. I trust that Mr.
Hamilton Fynes was not a very intimate friend or a relative of yours. It
would perhaps be better for you to read the account for yourself.”

He placed a newspaper in her hands. She read the first few lines and
suddenly turned upon him. She was white to the lips now, and there
was real terror in her tone. Yet if he had been in a position to have
analyzed the emotion she displayed, he might have remarked that there
was none of the surprise, the blank, unbelieving amazement which
might have been expected from one hearing for the first time of such a
calamity.

“Murdered!” she exclaimed. “Is this true?”

“It appears to be perfectly true, madam, I regret to say,” the clerk
answered. “Even the earlier editions were able to supply the man’s name,
and I am afraid that there is no doubt about his identity. The captain
of the Lusitania confirmed it, and many of the passengers who saw him
leave the ship last night have been interviewed.”

“Murdered!” she repeated to herself with trembling lips. “It seems such
a horrible death! Have they any idea who did it?” she asked. “Has any
one been arrested?”

“At present, no, madam,” the clerk answered. “The affair, as you will
see if you read further, is an exceedingly mysterious one.”

She rocked a little in her chair, but she showed no signs of fainting.
She picked up the paper and found the place once more. There were two
columns filled with particulars of the tragedy.

“Where can I be alone and read this?” she asked.

“Here, if you please, madam,” the clerk answered. “I must go back to my
desk. There are many arrivals just now. Will you allow me to send you
something--a little brandy, perhaps?”

“Nothing, thank you,” she answered. “I wish only to be alone while I
read this.”

He left her with a little sympathetic murmur, and closed the door behind
him. The girl raised her veil now and spread the newspaper out on
the table before her. There was an account of the tragedy; there were
interviews with some of the passengers, a message from the captain. In
all, it seemed that wonderfully little was known of Mr. Hamilton Fynes.
He had spoken to scarcely a soul on board, and had remained for the
greater part of the time in his stateroom. The captain had not even
been aware of his existence till the moment when Mr. Hamilton Fynes
had sought him out and handed him an order, signed by the head of his
company, instructing him to obey in any respect the wishes of this
hitherto unknown passenger. The tug which had been hired to meet him had
gone down the river, so it was not possible, for the moment, to say by
whom it had been chartered. The station-master at Liverpool knew nothing
except that the letter presented to him by the dead man was a personal
one from a great railway magnate, whose wishes it was impossible to
disregard. There had not been a soul, apparently, upon the steamer
who had known anything worth mentioning of Mr. Hamilton Fynes or his
business. No one in London had made inquiries for him or claimed his few
effects. Half a dozen cables to America remained unanswered.

That papers had been stolen from him--papers or money--was evident from
the place of concealment in his coat, where the lining had been torn
away, but there was not the slightest evidence as to the nature of these
documents or the history of the murdered man. All that could be done was
to await the news from the other side, which was momentarily expected.

The girl went through it all, line by line, almost word by word.
Whatever there might have been of relationship or friendship between her
and the dead man, the news of his terrible end left her shaken, indeed,
but dry-eyed. She was apparently more terrified than grieved, and now
that the first shock had passed away, her mind seemed occupied with
thoughts which may indeed have had some connection with this tragedy,
but were scarcely wholly concerned with it. She sat for a long while
with her hands still resting upon the table but her eyes fixed out of
the window. Then at last she rose and made her way outside. Her friend
the reception clerk was engaged in conversation with one or two men, a
conversation of which she was obviously the subject. As she opened the
door, one of them broke off in the midst of what he was saying and would
have accosted her. The clerk, however, interposed, and drew her a step
or two back into the room.

“Madam,” he said, “one of these gentlemen is from Scotland Yard, and
the others are reporters. They are all eager to know anything about Mr.
Hamilton Fynes. I expect they will want to ask you some questions.”

The girl opened her lips and closed them again.

“I regret to say that I have nothing whatever to tell them,” she
declared. “Will you kindly let them know that?”

The clerk shook his head.

“I am afraid you will find them quite persistent, madam,” he said.

“I cannot tell them things which I do not know myself,” she answered,
frowning.

“Naturally,” the clerk admitted; “yet these gentlemen from Scotland Yard
have special privileges, of course, and there remains the fact that you
were engaged to lunch with Mr. Fynes here.”

“If it will help me to get rid of them,” she said, “I will speak to the
representative of Scotland Yard. I will have nothing whatever to say to
the reporters.”

The clerk turned round and beckoned to the foremost figure in the little
group. Inspector Jacks, tall, lantern-jawed, dressed with the quiet
precision of a well-to-do-man of affairs, and with no possible
suggestion of his calling in his manner or attire, was by her side
almost at once.

“Madam,” he said, “I understand that Mr. Hamilton Fynes was a friend of
yours?”

“An acquaintance,” she corrected him.

“And your name?” he asked.

“I am Miss Morse,” she replied,--“Miss Penelope Morse.”

“You were to have lunched here with Mr. Hamilton Fynes,” the detective
continued. “When, may I ask, did the invitation reach you?”

“Yesterday,” she told him, “by marconigram from Queenstown.”

“You can tell us a few things about the deceased, without doubt,” Mr.
Jacks said,--“his profession, for instance, or his social standing?
Perhaps you know the reason for his coming to Europe?”

The girl shook her head.

“Mr. Fynes and I were not intimately acquainted,” she answered. “We
met in Paris some years ago, and when he was last in London, during the
autumn, I lunched with him twice.”

“You had no letter from him, then, previous to the marconigram?” the
inspector asked.

“I have scarcely ever received a letter from him in my life,” she
answered. “He was as bad a correspondent as I am myself.”

“You know nothing, then, of the object of his present visit to England?”

“Nothing whatever,” she answered.

“When he was over here before,” the inspector asked, “do you know what
his business was then?”

“Not in the least,” she replied.

“You can tell us his address in the States?” Inspector Jacks suggested.

She shook her head.

“I cannot,” she answered. “As I told you just now, I have never had a
letter from him in my life. We exchanged a few notes, perhaps, when we
were in Paris, about trivial matters, but nothing more than that.”

“He must at some time, in Paris, for instance, or when you lunched with
him last year, have said something about his profession, or how he spent
his time?”

“He never alluded to it in any way,” the girl answered. “I have not the
slightest idea how he passed his time.”

The inspector was a little nonplussed. He did not for a moment believe
that the girl was telling the truth.

“Perhaps,” he said tentatively, “you do not care to have your name come
before the public in connection with a case so notorious as this?”

“Naturally,” the girl answered. “That, however, would not prevent my
telling you anything that I knew. You seem to find it hard to believe,
but I can assure you that I know nothing. Mr. Fynes was almost a
stranger to me.”

The detective was thoughtful.

“So you really cannot help us at all, madam?” he said at length.

“I am afraid not,” she answered.

“Perhaps,” he suggested, “after you have thought the matter over,
something may occur to you. Can I trouble you for your address?”

“I am staying at Devenham House for the moment,” she answered.

He wrote it down in his notebook.

“I shall perhaps do myself the honor of waiting upon you a little later
on,” he said. “You may be able, after reflection, to recall some small
details, at any rate, which will be interesting to us. At present we are
absurdly ignorant as to the man’s affairs.”

She turned away from him to the clerk, and pointed to another door.

“Can I go out without seeing those others?” she asked. “I really have
nothing to say to them, and this has been quite a shock to me.”

“By all means, madam,” the clerk answered. “If you will allow me, I will
escort you to the entrance.”

Two of the more enterprising of the journalists caught them up upon the
pavement. Miss Penelope Morse, however, had little to say to them.

“You must not ask me any more questions about Mr. Hamilton Fynes,” she
declared. “My acquaintance with him was of the slightest. It is true
that I came here to lunch today without knowing what had happened. It
has been a shock to me, and I do not wish to talk about it, and I will
not talk about it, for the present.”

She was deaf to their further questions. The hotel clerk handed her into
a taximeter cab, and gave the address to the driver. Then he went back
to his office, where Inspector Jacks was still sitting.

“This Mr. Hamilton Fynes,” he remarked, “seems to have been what you
might call a secretive sort of person. Nobody appears to know anything
about him. I remember when he was staying here before that he had
no callers, and seemed to spend most of his time sitting in the palm
court.”

The inspector nodded.

“He was certainly a man who knew how to keep his own counsel,” he
admitted. “Most Americans are ready enough to talk about themselves and
their affairs, even to comparative strangers.”

The hotel clerk nodded.

“Makes it difficult for you,” he remarked.

“It makes the case very interesting,” the inspector declared,
“especially when we find him engaged to lunch with a young lady of such
remarkable discretion as Miss Penelope Morse.”

“You know her?” the clerk asked a little eagerly.

The inspector was engaged, apparently, in studying the pattern of the
carpet.

“Not exactly,” he answered. “No, I have no absolute knowledge of Miss
Penelope Morse. By the bye, that was rather an interesting address that
she gave.”

“Devenham House,” the hotel clerk remarked. “Do you know who lives
there?”

The inspector nodded.

“The Duke of Devenham,” he answered. “A very interesting young lady, I
should think, that. I wonder what she and Mr. Hamilton Fynes would have
talked about if they had lunched here today.”

The hotel clerk looked dubious. He did not grasp the significance of the
question.



CHAPTER V. AN AFFAIR OF STATE

Miss Penelope Morse was perfectly well aware that the taxicab in which
she left the Carlton Hotel was closely followed by two others. Through
the tube which she found by her side, she altered her first instructions
to the driver, and told him to proceed as fast as possible to Harrod’s
Stores. Then, raising the flap at the rear of the cab, she watched the
progress of the chase. Along Pall Mall the taxi in which she was seated
gained considerably, but in the Park and along the Bird Cage Walk both
the other taxies, risking the police regulations, drew almost alongside.
Once past Hyde Park Corner, however, her cab again drew ahead, and when
she was deposited in front of Harrod’s Stores, her pursuers were out of
sight. She paid the driver quickly, a little over double his fare.

“If any one asks you questions,” she said, “say that you had
instructions to wait here for me. Go on to the rank for a quarter of an
hour. Then you can drive away.”

“You won’t be coming back, then, miss?” the man asked.

“I shall not,” she answered, “but I want those men who are following
me to think that I am. They may as well lose a little time for their
rudeness.”

The chauffeur touched his hat and obeyed his instructions. Miss Penelope
Morse plunged into the mazes of the Stores with the air of one to
whom the place is familiar. She did not pause, however, at any of the
counters. In something less than two minutes she had left it again by a
back entrance, stepped into another taxicab which was just setting down
a passenger, and was well on her way back towards Pall Mall. Her ruse
appeared to have been perfectly successful. At any rate, she saw nothing
more of the occupants of the two taxicabs.

She stopped in front of one of the big clubs and, scribbling a line on
her card, gave it to the door keeper.

“Will you find out if this gentleman is in?” she said. “If he is, will
you kindly ask him to step out and speak to me?”

She returned to the cab and waited. In less than five minutes a tall,
broad-shouldered young man, clean-shaven, and moving like an athlete,
came briskly down the steps. He carried a soft hat in his hand, and
directly he spoke his transatlantic origin was apparent.

“Penelope!” he exclaimed. “Why, what on earth--”

“My dear Dicky,” she interrupted, laughing at his expression, “you need
not look so displeased with me. Of course, I know that I ought not to
have come and sent a message into your club. I will admit at once that
it was very forward of me. Perhaps when I have told you why I did so,
you won’t look so shocked.”

“I’m glad to see you, anyway,” he declared. “There’s no bad news, I
hope?”

“Nothing that concerns us particularly,” she answered. “I simply want to
have a little talk with you. Come in here with me, please, at once. We
can ride for a short distance anywhere.”

“But I am just in the middle of a rubber of bridge,” he objected.

“It can’t be helped,” she declared. “To tell you the truth, the matter I
want to talk to you about is of more importance than any game of cards.
Don’t be foolish, Dicky. You have your hat in your hand. Step in here by
my side at once.”

He looked a little bewildered, but he obeyed her, as most people did
when she was in earnest. She gave the driver an address somewhere in the
city. As soon as they were off, she turned towards him.

“Dicky,” she said, “do you read the newspapers?”

“Well, I can’t say that I do regularly,” he answered. “I read the New
York Herald, but these London journals are a bit difficult, aren’t they?
One has to dig the news out,--sort of treasure-hunt all the time.”

“You have read this murder case, at any rate,” she asked, “about the man
who was killed in a special train between Liverpool and London?”

“Of course,” he answered, with a sudden awakening of interest. “What
about it?”

“A good deal,” she answered slowly. “In the first place, the man who was
murdered--Mr. Hamilton Fynes--comes from the village where I was brought
up in Massachusetts, and I know more about him, I dare say, than any
one else in this country. What I know isn’t very much, perhaps, but it’s
interesting. I was to have lunched with him at the Carlton today; in
fact, I went there expecting to do so, for I am like you--I scarcely
ever look inside these English newspapers. Well, I went to the Carlton
and waited and he did not come. At last I went into the office and asked
whether he had arrived. Directly I mentioned his name, it was as though
I had thrown a bomb shell into the place. The clerk called me on one
side, took me into a private office, and showed me a newspaper. As
soon as I had read the account, I was interviewed by an inspector from
Scotland Yard. Ever since then I have been followed about by reporters.”

The young man whistled softly.

“Say, Penelope!” he exclaimed. “Who was this fellow, anyhow, and what
were you doing lunching with him?”

“That doesn’t matter,” she answered. “You don’t tell me all your
secrets, Mr. Dicky Vanderpole, and it isn’t necessary for me to tell you
all mine, even if we are both foreigners in a strange country. The poor
fellow isn’t going to lunch with any one else in this world. I suppose
you are thinking what an indiscreet person I am, as usual?”

The young man considered the matter for a moment.

“No,” he said; “I didn’t understand that he was the sort of person
you would have been likely to have taken lunch with. But that isn’t my
affair. Have you seen the second edition?”

The girl shook her head.

“Haven’t I told you that I never read the papers? I only saw what they
showed me in at the Carlton.”

“The Press Association have cabled to America, but no one seems to be
able to make out exactly who the fellow is. His letter to the captain of
the steamer was from the chairman of the company, and his introduction
to the manager of the London and North Western Railway Company was from
the greatest railway man in the world. Mr. Hamilton Fynes must have
been a person who had a pretty considerable pull over there. Curiously
enough, though, only the name of the man was mentioned in them; nothing
about his business, or what he was doing over on this side. He was
simply alluded to as ‘Mr. Hamilton Fynes--the gentleman bearing this
communication.’ I expect, after all, that you know more about him than
any one.”

She shook her head.

“What I know,” she said, “or at least most of it, I am going to
tell you. A few years ago he was a clerk in a Government office in
Washington. He was steady in those days, and was supposed to have a
head. He used to write me occasionally. One day he turned up in London
quite unexpectedly. He said that he had come on business, and whatever
his business was, it took him to St. Petersburg and Berlin, and then
back to Berlin again. I saw quite a good deal of him that trip.”

“The dickens you did!” he muttered.

Miss Penelope Morse laughed softly.

“Come, Dicky,” she said, “don’t pretend to be jealous. You’re an
outrageous flirt, I know, but you and I are never likely to get
sentimental about one another.”

“Why not?” he grumbled. “We’ve always been pretty good pals, haven’t
we?”

“Naturally,” she answered, “or I shouldn’t be here. Do you want to hear
anything more about Mr. Hamilton Fynes?”

“Of course I do,” he declared.

“Well, be quiet, then, and don’t interrupt,” she said. “I knew London
well and he didn’t. That is why, as I told you before, we saw quite
a great deal of one another. He was always very reticent about his
affairs, and especially about the business which had taken him on the
Continent. Just before he left, however, he gave me--well, a hint.”

“What was it?” the young man asked eagerly.

She hesitated.

“He didn’t put it into so many words,” she said, “and I am not sure,
even now, that I ought to tell you, Dicky. Still, you are a fellow
countryman and a budding diplomatist. I suppose if I can give you a lift
I ought to.”

The taxi was on the Embankment now, and they sped along for some time in
silence. Mr. Richard Vanderpole was more than a little puzzled.

“Of course, Penelope,” he said, “I don’t expect you to tell me anything
which you feel that you oughtn’t to. There is one thing, however, which
I must ask you.”

She nodded.

“Well?”

“I should like to know what the mischief my being in the diplomatic
service has to do with it?”

“If I explained that,” she answered, “I should be telling you everything
I haven’t quite made up my mind to do that yet.”

“Tell me this?” he asked. “Would that hint which he dropped when he was
here last help you to solve the mystery of his murder?”

“It might,” she admitted.

“Then I think,” he said, “apart from any other reason, you ought to tell
somebody. The police at present don’t seem to have the ghost of a clue.”

“They are not likely to find one,” she answered, “unless I help them.”

“Say, Penelope,” he exclaimed, “you are not in earnest?”

“I am,” she assured him. “It is exactly as I say. I believe I am one of
the few people who could put the police upon the right track.”

“Is there any reason why you shouldn’t?” he asked.

“That’s just what I can’t make up my mind about,” she told him.
“However, I have brought you out with me expecting to hear something,
and I am going to tell you this. That last time he came to England--the
time he went to St. Petersburg and twice to Berlin--he came on
government business.”

The young man looked, for a moment, incredulous.

“Are you sure of that, Pen?” he asked. “It doesn’t sound like our
people, you know, does it?”

“I am quite sure,” she declared confidently. “You are a very youthful
diplomat, Dicky, but even you have probably heard of governments who
employ private messengers to carry despatches which for various reasons
they don’t care to put through their embassies.”

“Why, that’s so, of course, over on this side,” he agreed. “These
European nations are up to all manner of tricks. But I tell you frankly,
Pen, I never heard of anything of the sort being done from Washington.”

“Perhaps not,” she answered composedly. “You see, things have developed
with us during the last twenty-five years. The old America had only
one foreign policy, and that was to hold inviolate the Monroe doctrine.
European or Asiatic complications scarcely even interested her. Those
times have passed, Dicky. Cuba and the Philippines were the start of
other things. We are being drawn into the maelstrom. In another ten
years we shall be there, whether we want to be or not.”

The young man was deeply interested.

“Well,” he admitted, “there’s a good deal in what you say, Penelope. You
talk about it all as though you were a diplomat yourself.”

“Perhaps I am,” she answered calmly. “A stray young woman like myself
must have something to occupy her thoughts, you know.”

He laughed.

“That’s not bad,” he asserted, “for a girl whom the New York Herald
declared, a few weeks ago, to be one of the most brilliant young women
in English society.”

She shrugged her shoulders scornfully.

“That’s just the sort of thing the New York Herald would say,” she
remarked. “You see, I have to get a reputation for being smart and
saying bright things, or nobody would ask me anywhere. Penniless
American young women are not too popular over here.”

“Marry me, then,” he suggested amiably. “I shall have plenty of money
some day.”

“I’ll see about it when you’re grown up,” she answered. “Just at
present, I think we’d better return to the subject of Hamilton Fynes.”

Mr. Richard Vanderpole sighed, but seemed not disinclined to follow her
suggestion.

“Harvey is a silent man, as you know,” he said thoughtfully, “and he
keeps everything of importance to himself. At the same time these little
matters get about in the shop, of course, and I have never heard of any
despatches being brought across from Washington except in the usual way.
Presuming that you are right,” he added after a moment’s pause, “and
that this fellow Hamilton Fynes really had something for us, that would
account for his being able to get off the boat and securing his special
train so easily. No one can imagine where he got the pull.”

“It accounts, also,” Penelope remarked, “for his murder!”

Her companion started.

“You haven’t any idea--” he began.

“Nothing so definite as an idea,” she interrupted. “I am not going so
far as to say that. I simply know that when a man is practically the
secret agent of his government, and is probably carrying despatches
of an important nature, that an accident such as he has met with, in a
country which is greatly interested in the contents of those despatches,
is a somewhat serious thing.”

The young man nodded.

“Say,” he admitted “you’re dead right. The Pacific cruise, and our
relations with Japan, seem to have rubbed our friends over here
altogether the wrong way. We have irritations enough already to smooth
over, without anything of this sort on the carpet.”

“I am going to tell you now,” she continued, leaning a little towards
him, “the real reason why I fetched you out of the club this afternoon
and have brought you for this little expedition. The last time I lunched
with Mr. Hamilton Fynes was just after his return from Berlin. He
intrusted me then with a very important mission. He gave me a letter to
deliver to Mr. Blaine Harvey.”

“But I don’t understand!” he protested. “Why should he give you the
letter when he was in London himself?”

“I asked him that question myself, naturally,” she answered. “He told me
that it was an understood thing that when he was over here on business
he was not even to cross the threshold of the Embassy, or hold any
direct communication with any person connected with it. Everything had
to be done through a third party, and generally in duplicate. There
was another man, for instance, who had a copy of the same letter, but I
never came across him or even knew his name.”

“Gee whiz!” the young man exclaimed. “You’re telling me things, and no
mistake! Why this fellow Fynes made a secret service messenger of you!”

Penelope nodded.

“It was all very simple,” she said. “The first Mrs. Harvey, who was
alive then, was my greatest friend, and I was in and out of the place
all the time. Now, perhaps, you can understand the significance of
that marconigram from Hamilton Fynes asking me to lunch with him at the
Carlton today.”

Mr. Richard Vanderpole was sitting bolt upright, gazing steadily ahead.

“I wonder,” he said slowly, “what has become of the letter which he was
going to give you!”

“One thing is certain,” she declared. “It is in the hands of those whose
interests would have been affected by its delivery.”

“How much of this am I to tell the chief?” the young man asked.

“Every word,” Penelope answered. “You see, I am trying to give you
a start in your career. What bothers me is an entirely different
question.”

“What is it?” he asked.

She laid her hand upon his arm.

“How much of it I shall tell to a certain gentleman who calls himself
Inspector Jacks!”



CHAPTER VI. MR. COULSON INTERVIEWED

The Lusitania boat specials ran into Euston Station soon after three
o’clock in the afternoon. A small company of reporters, and several
other men whose profession was not disclosed from their appearance, were
on the spot to interview certain of the passengers. A young fellow from
the office of the Evening Comet was, perhaps, the most successful, as,
from the lengthy description which had been telegraphed to him from
Liverpool, he was fortunate enough to accost the only person who had
been seen speaking to the murdered man upon the voyage.

“This is Mr. Coulson, I believe?” the young man said with conviction,
addressing a somewhat stout, gray-headed American, with white moustache,
a Homburg hat, and clothes of distinctly transatlantic cut.

That gentlemen regarded his interlocutor with some surprise but without
unfriendliness.

“That happens to be my name, sir,” he replied. “You have the advantage
of me, though. You are not from my old friends Spencer & Miles, are
you?”

“Spencer & Miles,” the young man repeated thoughtfully.

“Woollen firm in London Wall,” Mr. Coulson added. “I know they wanted to
see me directly I arrived, and they did say something about sending to
the station.”

The young man shook his head, and assumed at the same time his most
engaging manner.

“Why, no, sir!” he admitted. “I have no connection with that firm at
all. The fact is I am on the staff of an evening paper. A friend of
mine in Liverpool--a mutual friend, I believe I may say,” he
explained--“wired me your description. I understand that you were
acquainted with Mr. Hamilton Fynes?”

Mr. Coulson set down his suitcase for a moment, to light a cigar.

“Well, if I did know the poor fellow just to nod to,” he said, “I don’t
see that’s any reason why I should talk about him to you newspaper
fellows. You’d better get hold of his relations, if you can find them.”

“But, my dear Mr. Coulson,” the young man said, “we haven’t any idea
where they are to be found, and in the meantime you can’t imagine what
reports are in circulation.”

“Guess I can figure them out pretty well,” Mr. Coulson remarked with a
smile. “We’ve got an evening press of our own in New York.”

The reporter nodded.

“Well,” he said, “They’d be able to stretch themselves out a bit on
a case like this. You see,” he continued confidentially, “we are up
against something almost unique. Here is an astounding and absolutely
inexplicable murder, committed in a most dastardly fashion by a person
who appears to have vanished from the face of the earth. Not a single
thing is known about the victim except his name. We do not know whether
he came to England on business or pleasure. He may, in short, have been
any one from a millionaire to a newspaper man. Judging from his special
train,” the reporter concluded with a smile, “and the money which was
found upon him, I imagine that he was certainly not the latter.”

Mr. Coulson went on his way toward the exit from the station, puffing
contentedly at his big cigar.

“Well,” he said to his companion, who showed not the slightest
disposition to leave his side, “it don’t seem to me that there’s much
worth repeating about poor Fynes,--much that I knew, at any rate. Still,
if you like to get in a cab with me and ride as far as the Savoy, I’ll
tell you what I can.”

“You are a brick, sir,” the young man declared. “Haven’t you any
luggage, though?”

“I checked what I had through from Liverpool to the hotel,” Mr. Coulson
answered. “I can’t stand being fussed around by all these porters, and
having to go and take pot luck amongst a pile of other people’s baggage.
We’ll just take one of these two-wheeled sardine tins that you people
call hansoms, and get round to the hotel as quick as we can. There are a
few pals of mine generally lunch in the cafe there, and they mayn’t all
have cleared out if we look alive.”

They started a moment or two later. Mr. Coulson leaned forward and,
folding his arms upon the apron of the cab, looked about him with
interest.

“Say,” he remarked, removing his cigar to the corner of his mouth in
order to facilitate conversation, “this old city of yours don’t change
any.”

“Not up in this part, perhaps,” the reporter agreed. “We’ve some fine
new buildings down toward the Strand.”

Mr. Coulson nodded.

“Well,” he said, “I guess you don’t want to be making conversation. You
want to know about Hamilton Fynes. I was just acquainted with him, and
that’s a fact, but I reckon you’ll have to find some one who knows a
good deal more than I do before you’ll get the stuff you want for your
paper.”

“The slightest particulars are of interest to us just now,” the reporter
reminded him.

Mr. Coulson nodded.

“Hamilton Fynes,” he said, “so far as I knew him, was a quiet,
inoffensive sort of creature, who has been drawing a regular salary from
the State for the last fifteen years and saving half of it. He has been
coming over to Europe now and then, and though he was a good, steady
chap enough, he liked his fling when he was over here, and between you
and me, he was the greatest crank I ever struck. I met him in London a
matter of three years ago, and he wanted to go to Paris. There were
two cars running at the regular time, meeting the boat at Dover. Do you
think he would have anything to do with them? Not he! He hired a special
train and went down like a prince.”

“What did he do that for?” the reporter asked.

“Why, because he was a crank, sir,” Mr. Coulson answered confidentially.
“There was no other reason at all. Take this last voyage on the
Lusitania, now. He spoke to me the first day out because he couldn’t
help it, but for pretty well the rest of the journey he either kept
down in his stateroom or, when he came up on deck, he avoided me and
everybody else. When he did talk, his talk was foolish. He was a good
chap at his work, I believe, but he was a crank. Seemed to me sometimes
as though that humdrum life of his had about turned his brain. The
last day out he was fidgeting all the time; kept looking at his watch,
studying the chart, and asking the sailors questions. Said he wanted to
get up in time to take a girl to lunch on Thursday. It was just for that
reason that he scuttled off the boat without a word to any of us, and
rushed up to London.”

“But he had letters, Mr. Coulson,” the reporter reminded him, “from
some one in Washington, to the captain of the steamer and to the
station-master of the London and North Western Railway. It seems rather
odd that he should have provided himself with these, doesn’t it?”

“They were easy enough to get,” Mr. Coulson answered. “He wasn’t a
worrying sort of chap, Fynes wasn’t. He did his work, year in and year
out, and asked no favors. The consequence was that when he asked a queer
one he got it all right. It’s easier to get a pull over there than it is
here, you know.”

“This is all very interesting,” the reporter said, “and I am sure I’m
very much obliged to you, Mr. Coulson. Now can you tell me of anything
in the man’s life or way of living likely to provoke enmity on the part
of any one? This murder was such a cold-blooded affair.”

“There I’m stuck,” Mr. Coulson admitted. “There’s only one thing I can
tell you, and that is that I believe he had a lot more money on him than
the amount mentioned in your newspapers this morning. My own opinion is
that he was murdered for what he’d got. A smart thief would say that a
fellow who takes a special tug off the steamer and a special train
to town was a man worth robbing. How the thing was done I don’t
know--that’s for your police to find out--but I reckon that whoever
killed him did it for his cash.”

The reporter sighed. He was, after all, a little disappointed. Mr.
Coulson was obviously a man of common sense. His words were clearly
pronounced, and his reasoning sound. They had reached the courtyard of
the hotel now, and the reporter began to express his gratitude.

“My first drink on English soil,” Mr. Coulson said, as he handed his
suitcase to the hall-porter, “is always--”

“It’s on me,” the young man declared quickly. “I owe you a good deal
more than drinks, Mr. Coulson.”

“Well, come along, anyway,” the latter remarked. “I guess my room is all
right, porter?”--turning to the man who stood by his side, bag in hand.
“I am Mr. James B. Coulson of New York, and I wrote on ahead. I’ll come
round to the office and register presently.”

They made their way to the American bar. The newspaper man and his
new friend drank together and, skillfully prompted by the former, the
conversation drifted back to the subject of Hamilton Fynes. There was
nothing else to be learned, however, in the way of facts. Mr. Coulson
admitted that he had been a little nettled by his friend’s odd manner
during the voyage, and the strange way he had of keeping to himself.

“But, after all,” he wound up, “Fynes was a crank, when all’s said and
done. We are all cranks, more or less,--all got our weak spot, I mean.
It was secretiveness with our unfortunate friend. He liked to play at
being a big personage in a mysterious sort of way, and the poor chap’s
paid for it,” he added with a sigh.

The reporter left his new-made friend a short time afterwards, and took
a hansom to his office. His newspaper at once issued a special edition,
giving an interview between their representative and Mr. James B.
Coulson, a personal friend of the murdered man. It was, after all,
something of a scoop, for not one of the other passengers had been found
who was in a position to say anything at all about him. The immediate
effect of the interview, however, was to procure for Mr. Coulson a
somewhat bewildering succession of callers. The first to arrive was a
gentleman who introduced himself as Mr. Jacks, and whose card, sent
back at first, was retendered in a sealed envelope with Scotland Yard
scrawled across the back of it. Mr. Coulson, who was in the act of
changing his clothes, interviewed Mr. Jacks in his chamber.

“Mr. Coulson,” the Inspector said, “I am visiting you on behalf of
Scotland Yard. We understand that you had some acquaintance with Mr.
Hamilton Fynes, and we hope that you will answer a few questions for
us.”

Mr. Coulson sat down upon a trunk with his hairbrushes in his hand.

“Well,” he declared, “you detectives do get to know things, don’t you?”

“Nothing so remarkable in that, Mr. Coulson,” Inspector Jacks remarked
pleasantly. “A newspaper man had been before me, I see.”

Mr. Coulson nodded.

“That’s so,” he admitted. “Seems to me I may have been a bit indiscreet
in talking so much to that young reporter. I have just read his account
of my interview, and he’s got it pat, word by word. Now, Mr. Jacks, if
you’ll just invest a halfpenny in that newspaper, you don’t need to ask
me any questions. That young man had a kind of pleasant way with him,
and I told him all I knew.”

“Just so, Mr. Coulson,” the Inspector answered. “At the same time
nothing that you told him throws any light at all upon the circumstances
which led to the poor fellow’s death.”

“That,” Mr. Coulson declared, “is not my fault. What I don’t know I
can’t tell you.”

“You were acquainted with Mr. Fynes some years ago?” the Inspector
asked. “Can you tell me what business he was in then?”

“Same as now, for anything I know,” Mr. Coulson answered. “He was a
clerk in one of the Government offices at Washington.”

“Government offices,” Inspector Jacks repeated. “Have you any idea what
department?”

Mr. Coulson was not sure.

“It may have been the Excise Office,” he remarked thoughtfully. “I did
hear, but I never took any particular notice.”

“Did you ever form any idea as to the nature of his work?” Inspector
Jacks asked.

“Bless you, no!” Mr. Coulson replied, brushing his hair vigorously. “It
never entered into my head to ask him, and I never heard him mention it.
I only know that he was a quiet-living, decent sort of a chap, but, as I
put it to our young friend the newspaper man, he was a crank.”

The Inspector was disappointed. He began to feel that he was wasting his
time.

“Did you know anything of the object of his journey to Europe?” he
asked.

“Nary a thing,” Mr. Coulson declared. “He only came on deck once or
twice, and he had scarcely a civil word even for me. Why, I tell
you, sir,” Mr. Coulson continued, “if he saw me coming along on the
promenade, he’d turn round and go the other way, for fear I’d ask him to
come and have a drink. A c-r-a-n-k, sir! You write it down at that, and
you won’t be far out.”

“He certainly seems to have been a queer lot,” the Inspector declared.
“By the bye,” he continued, “you said something, I believe, about his
having had more money with him than was found upon his person.”

“That’s so,” Mr. Coulson admitted. “I know he deposited a pocketbook
with the purser, and I happened to be standing by when he received it
back. I noticed that he had three or four thousand-dollar bills, and
there didn’t seem to be anything of the sort upon him when he was
found.”

The Inspector made a note of this.

“You believe yourself, then, Mr. Coulson,” he said, closing his
pocketbook, “that the murder was committed for the purpose of robbery?”

“Seems to me it’s common sense,” Mr. Coulson replied. “A man who goes
and takes a special train to London from the docks of a city like
Liverpool--a city filled with the scum of the world, mind you--kind of
gives himself away as a man worth robbing, doesn’t he?”

The Inspector nodded.

“That’s sensible talk, Mr. Coulson,” he acknowledged. “You never heard,
I suppose, of his having had a quarrel with any one?”

“Never in my life,” Mr. Coulson declared. “He wasn’t the sort to make
enemies, any more than he was the sort to make friends.”

The Inspector took up his hat. His manner now was no longer
inquisitorial. With the closing of his notebook a new geniality had
taken the place of his official stiffness.

“You are making a long stay here, Mr. Coulson?” he asked.

“A week or so, maybe,” that gentleman answered. “I am in the machinery
patent line--machinery for the manufacture of woollen goods mostly--and
I have a few appointments in London. Afterwards I am going on to Paris.
You can hear of me at any time either here or at the Grand Hotel, Paris,
but there’s nothing further to be got out of me as regards Mr. Hamilton
Fynes.”

The Inspector was of the same opinion and took his departure. Mr.
Coulson waited for some little time, still sitting on his trunk and
clasping his hairbrushes. Then he moved over to the table on which stood
the telephone instrument and asked for a number. The reply came in a
minute or two in the form of a question.

“It’s Mr. James B. Coulson from New York, landed this afternoon from the
Lusitania,” Mr. Coulson said. “I am at the Savoy Hotel, speaking from my
room--number 443.”

There was a brief silence--then a reply.

“You had better be in the bar smoking-room at seven o’clock. If nothing
happens, don’t leave the hotel this evening.”

Mr. Coulson replaced the receiver and rang off. A page-boy knocked at
the door.

“Young lady downstairs wishes to see you, sir,” he announced.

Mr. Coulson took up the card from the tray.

“Miss Penelope Morse,” he said softly to himself. “Seems to me I’m
rather popular this evening. Say I’ll be down right away, my boy.”

“Very good, sir,” the page answered. “There’s a gentleman with her, sir.
His card’s underneath the lady’s.”

Mr. Coulson examined the tray once more. A gentleman’s visiting card
informed him that his other caller was Sir Charles Somerfield, Bart.

“Bart,” Mr. Coulson remarked thoughtfully. “I’m not quite catching on to
that, but I suppose he goes in with the young lady.”

“They’re both together, sir,” the boy announced.

Mr. Coulson completed his toilet and hurried downstairs



CHAPTER VII. A FATAL DESPATCH

Mr. Coulson found his two visitors in the lounge of the hotel. He had
removed all traces of his journey, and was attired in a Tuxedo dinner
coat, a soft-fronted shirt, and a neatly arranged black tie. He wore
broad-toed patent boots and double lines of braid down the outsides of
his trousers. The page boy, who was on the lookout for him, conducted
him to the corner where Miss Penelope Morse and her companion were
sitting talking together. The latter rose at his approach, and Mr.
Coulson summed him up quickly,--a well-bred, pleasant-mannered,
exceedingly athletic young Englishman, who was probably not such a fool
as he looked,--that is, from Mr. Coulson’s standpoint, who was not used
to the single eyeglass and somewhat drawling enunciation.

“Mr. Coulson, isn’t it?” the young man asked, accepting the other’s
outstretched hand. “We are awfully sorry to disturb you, so soon after
your arrival, too, but the fact is that this young lady, Miss Penelope
Morse,”--Mr. Coulson bowed,--“was exceedingly anxious to make your
acquaintance. You Americans are such birds of passage that she was
afraid you might have moved on if she didn’t look you up at once.”

Penelope herself intervened.

“I’m afraid you’re going to think me a terrible nuisance, Mr. Coulson!”
 she exclaimed. Mr. Coulson, although he did not call himself a lady’s
man, was nevertheless human enough to appreciate the fact that the young
lady’s face was piquant and her smile delightful. She was dressed
with quiet but elegant simplicity. The perfume of the violets at her
waistband seemed to remind him of his return to civilization.

“Well, I’ll take my risks of that, Miss Morse,” he declared. “If you’ll
only let me know what I can do for you--”

“It’s about poor Mr. Hamilton Fynes,” she explained. “I took up the
evening paper only half an hour ago, and read your interview with the
reporter. I simply couldn’t help stopping to ask whether you could give
me any further particulars about that horrible affair. I didn’t dare to
come here all alone, so I asked Sir Charles to come along with me.”

Mr. Coulson, being invited to do so, seated himself on the lounge by
the young lady’s side. He leaned a little forward with a hand on either
knee.

“I don’t exactly know what I can tell you,” he remarked. “I take it,
then, that you were well acquainted with Mr. Fynes?”

“I used to know him quite well,” Penelope answered, “and naturally I am
very much upset. When I read in the paper an account of your interview
with the reporter, I could see at once that you were not telling him
everything. Why should you, indeed? A man does not want every detail of
his life set out in the newspapers just because he has become connected
with a terrible tragedy.”

“You’re a very sensible young lady, Miss Morse, if you will allow me to
say so,” Mr. Coulson declared. “You were expecting to see something of
Mr. Fynes over here, then?”

“I had an appointment to lunch with him today,” she answered. “He sent
me a marconigram before he arrived at Queenstown.”

“Is that so?” Mr. Coulson exclaimed. “Well, well!”

“I actually went to the restaurant,” Penelope continued, “without
knowing anything of this. I can’t understand it at all, even now. Mr.
Fynes always seemed to me such a harmless sort of person, so unlikely
to have enemies, or anything of that sort. Don’t you think so, Mr.
Coulson?”

“Well,” that gentleman answered, “to tell you the honest truth, Miss
Morse, I’m afraid I am going to disappoint you a little. I wasn’t over
well acquainted with Mr. Fynes, although a good many people seemed
to fancy that we were kind of bosom friends. That newspaper man, for
instance, met me at the station and stuck to me like a leech; drove down
here with me, and was willing to stand all the liquor I could drink.
Then there was a gentleman from Scotland Yard, who was in such a hurry
that he came to see me in my bedroom. _He_ had a sort of an idea that I
had been brought up from infancy with Hamilton Fynes and could answer
a sheaf of questions a yard long. As soon as I got rid of him, up comes
that page boy and brings your card.”

“It does seem too bad, Mr. Coulson,” Penelope declared, raising her
wonderful eyes to his and smiling sympathetically. “You have really
brought it upon yourself, though, to some extent, haven’t you, by
answering so many questions for this Comet man?”

“Those newspaper fellows,” Mr. Coulson remarked, “are wonders. Before
that youngster had finished with me, I began to feel that poor old Fynes
and I had been like brothers all our lives. As a matter of fact, Miss
Morse, I expect you knew him at least as well as I did.”

She nodded her head thoughtfully.

“Hamilton Fynes came from the village in Massachusetts where I was
brought up. I’ve known him all my life.”

Mr. Coulson seemed a little startled.

“I didn’t understand,” he said thoughtfully, “that Fynes had any very
intimate friends over this side.”

Penelope shook her head.

“I don’t mean to imply that we have been intimate lately,” she said.
“I came to Europe nine years ago, and since then, of course, I have not
seen him often. Perhaps it was the fact that he should have thought
of me, and that I was actually expecting to have lunch with him today,
which made me feel this thing so acutely.”

“Why, that’s quite natural,” Mr. Coulson declared, leaning back a little
and crossing his legs. “Somehow we seem to read about these things in
the papers and they don’t amount to such a lot, but when you know the
man and were expecting to see him, as you were, why, then it comes right
home to you. There’s something about a murder,” Mr. Coulson concluded,
“which kind of takes hold of you if you’ve ever even shaken hands with
either of the parties concerned in it.”

“Did you see much of the poor fellow during the voyage?” Sir Charles
asked.

“No, nor any one else,” Mr. Coulson replied. “I don’t think he was
seasick, but he was miserably unsociable, and he seldom left his cabin.
I doubt whether there were half a dozen people on board who would have
recognized him afterwards as a fellow-passenger.”

“He seems to have been a secretive sort of person,” Sir Charles
remarked.

“He was that,” Mr. Coulson admitted. “Never seemed to care to talk about
himself or his own business. Not that he had much to talk about,” he
added reflectively. “Dull sort of life, his. So many hours of work, so
many hours of play; so many dollars a month, and after it’s all over, so
many dollars pension. Wouldn’t suit all of us, Sir Charles, eh?”

“I fancy not,” Somerfield admitted. “Perhaps he kicked over the traces
a bit when he was over this side. You Americans generally seem to find
your way about--in Paris, especially.”

Mr. Coulson shook his head doubtfully.

“There wasn’t much kicking over the traces with poor old Fynes,” he
said. “He hadn’t got it in him.”

Somerfield scratched his chin thoughtfully and looked at Penelope.

“Scarcely seems possible, does it,” he remarked, “that a man leading
such a quiet sort of life should make enemies.”

“I don’t believe he had any,” Mr. Coulson asserted.

“He didn’t seem nervous on the way over, did he?” Penelope asked,--“as
though he were afraid of something happening?”

Mr. Coulson shook his head.

“No more than usual,” he answered. “I guess your police over here aren’t
quite so smart as ours, or they’d have been on the track of this thing
before now. But you can take it from me that when the truth comes out
you’ll find that our poor friend has paid the penalty of going about the
world like a crank.”

“A what?” Somerfield asked doubtfully.

“A crank,” Mr. Coulson repeated vigorously. “It wasn’t much I knew
of Hamilton Fynes, but I knew that much. He was one of those nervous,
stand-off sort of persons who hated to have people talk to him and
yet was always doing things to make them talk about him. I was over in
Europe with him not so long ago, and he went on in the same way. Took
a special train to Dover when there wasn’t any earthly reason for it;
travelled with a valet and a courier, when he had no clothes for the
valet to look after, and spoke every European language better than
his courier. This time the poor fellow’s paid for his bit of vanity.
Naturally, any one would think he was a millionaire, travelling like
that. I guess they boarded the train somehow, or lay hidden in it when
it started, and relieved him of a good bit of his savings.”

“But his money was found upon him,” Somerfield objected.

“Some of it,” Mr. Coulson answered,--“some of it. That’s just about
the only thing that I do know of my own. I happened to see him take his
pocketbook back from the purser, and I guess he’d got a sight more money
there than was found upon him. I told the smooth-spoken gentleman from
Scotland Yard so--Mr. Inspector Jacks he called himself--when he came to
see me an hour or so ago.”

Penelope sighed gently. She found it hard to make up her mind concerning
this quondam acquaintance of her deceased friend.

“Did you see much of Mr. Fynes on the other side, Mr. Coulson?” she
asked him.

“Not I,” Mr. Coulson answered. “He wasn’t particularly anxious to make
acquaintances over here, but he was even worse at home. The way he went
on, you’d think he’d never had any friends and never wanted any. I met
him once in the streets of Washington last year, and had a cocktail
with him at the Atlantic House. I had to almost drag him in there. I was
pretty well a stranger in Washington, but he didn’t do a thing for me.
Never asked me to look him up, or introduced me to his club. He just
drank his cocktail, mumbled something about being in a hurry, and made
off.

“I tell you, sir,” Mr. Coulson continued, turning to Somerfield, “that
man hadn’t a thing to say for himself. I guess his work had something to
do with it. You must get kind of out of touch with things, shut up in an
office from nine o’clock in the morning till five in the afternoon. Just
saving up, he was, for his trip to Europe. Then we happened on the same
steamer, but, bless you, he scarcely even shook hands when he saw me.
He wouldn’t play bridge, didn’t care about chess, hadn’t even a chair on
the deck, and never came in to meals.”

Penelope nodded her head thoughtfully.

“You are destroying all my illusions, Mr. Coulson,” she said. “Do you
know that I was building up quite a romance about poor Mr. Fynes’ life?
It seemed to me that he must have enemies; that there must have been
something in his life, or his manner of living, which accounted for such
a terrible crime.”

“Why, sure not!” Mr. Coulson declared heartily. “It was a cleverly
worked job, but there was no mystery about it. Some chap went for him
because he got riding about like a millionaire. A more unromantic figure
than Hamilton Fynes never breathed. Call him a crank and you’ve finished
with him.”

Penelope sighed once more and looked at the tips of her patent shoes.

“It has been so kind of you,” she murmured, “to talk to us. And yet, do
you know, I am a little disappointed. I was hoping that you might have
been able to tell us something more about the poor fellow.”

“He was no talker,” Mr. Coulson declared. “It was little enough he had
to say to me, and less to any one else.”

“It seems strange,” she remarked innocently, “that he should have
been so shy. He didn’t strike me that way when I knew him at home in
Massachusetts, you know. He travelled about so much in later years, too,
didn’t he?”

Penelope’s eyes were suddenly upraised. For the first time Mr. Coulson’s
ready answers failed him. Not a muscle of his face moved under the
girl’s scrutiny, but he hesitated for a short time before he answered
her.

“Not that I know of,” he said at length. “No, I shouldn’t have called
him much of a traveller.”

Penelope rose to her feet and held out her hand.

“It has been very nice indeed of you to see us, Mr. Coulson,” she said,
“especially after all these other people have been bothering you. Of
course, I am sorry that you haven’t anything more to tell us than we
knew already. Still, I felt that I couldn’t rest until we had been.”

“It’s a sad affair, anyhow,” Mr. Coulson declared, walking with them to
the door. “Don’t you get worrying your head, young lady, though, with
any notion of his having had enemies, or anything of that sort. The poor
fellow was no hero of romance. I don’t fancy even your halfpenny papers
could drag any out of his life. It was just a commonplace robbery, with
a bad ending for poor Fynes. Good evening, miss! Good night, sir! Glad
to have met you, Sir Charles.”

Mr. Coulson’s two visitors left and got into a small electric brougham
which was waiting for them. Mr. Coulson himself watched them drive off
and glanced at the clock. It was already a quarter past six. He went
into the cafe and ordered a light dinner, which he consumed with much
obvious enjoyment. Then he lit a cigar and went into the smoking room.
Selecting a pile of newspapers, he drew up an easy chair to the fire and
made himself comfortable.

“Seems to me I may have a longish wait,” he said to himself.

As a matter of fact, he was disappointed. At precisely seven o’clock,
Mr. Richard Vanderpole strolled into the room and, after a casual glance
around, approached his chair and touched him on the shoulder. In his
evening clothes the newcomer was no longer obtrusively American. He was
dressed in severely English fashion, from the cut of his white waistcoat
to the admirable poise of his white tie. He smiled as he patted Coulson
upon the shoulder.

“This is Mr. Coulson, I’m sure,” he declared,--“Mr. James B. Coulson
from New York?”

“You’re dead right,” Mr. Coulson admitted, laying down his newspaper and
favoring his visitor with a quick upward glance.

“This is great!” the young man continued. “Just off the boat, eh? Well,
I am glad to see you,--very glad indeed to make your acquaintance, I
should say.”

Mr. Coulson replied in similar terms. A waiter who was passing through
the room hesitated, for it was a greeting which generally ended in a
summons for him.

“What shall it be?” the newcomer asked.

“I’ve just taken dinner,” Mr. Coulson said. “Coffee and cognac’ll do me
all right.”

“And a Martini cocktail for me,” the young man ordered. “I am dining
down in the restaurant with some friends later on. Come over to this
corner, Mr. Coulson. Why, you’re looking first-rate. Great boat, the
Lusitania, isn’t she? What sort of a trip did you have?”

So they talked till the drinks had been brought and paid for, till
another little party had quitted the room and they sat in their
lonely corner, secure from observation or from any possibility of
eavesdropping. Then Mr. Richard Vanderpole leaned forward in his chair
and dropped his voice.

“Coulson,” he said, “the chief is anxious. We don’t understand this
affair. Do you know anything?”

“Not a d----d thing!” Coulson answered.

“Were you shadowed on the boat?” the young man asked.

“Not to my knowledge,” Coulson answered. “Fynes was in his stateroom six
hours before we started. I can’t make head nor tail of it.”

“He had the papers, of course?”

“Sewn in the lining of his coat,” Coulson muttered. “You read about that
in tonight’s papers. The lining was torn and the space empty. He had
them all right when he left the steamer.”

The young man looked around; the room was still empty.

“I’m fresh in this,” he said. “I got some information this afternoon,
and the chief sent me over to see you on account of it. We had better
not discuss possibilities, I suppose? The thing’s too big. The chief’s
almost off his head. Is there any chance, do you think, Coulson, that
this was an ordinary robbery? I am not sure that the special train
wasn’t a mistake.”

“None whatever,” Coulson declared.

“How do you know?” his companion asked quickly.

“Well, I’ve lied to those reporters and chaps,” Coulson admitted,--“lied
with a purpose, of course, as you people can understand. The money found
upon Fynes was every penny he had when he left Liverpool.”

The young man set his teeth.

“It’s something to know this, at any rate,” he declared. “You did right,
Coulson, to put up that bluff. Now about the duplicates?”

“They are in my suitcase,” Coulson answered, “and according to the way
things are going, I shan’t be over sorry to get rid of them. Will you
take them with you?”

“Why, sure!” Vanderpole answered. “That’s what I’m here for.”

“You had better wait right here, then,” Coulson said, “I’ll fetch them.”

He made his way up to his room, undid his dressing bag, which was
fastened only with an ordinary lock, and from between two shirts drew
out a small folded packet, no bigger than an ordinary letter. It was a
curious circumstance that he used only one hand for the search and with
the other gripped the butt of a small revolver. There was no one around,
however, nor was he disturbed in any way. In a few minutes he returned
to the bar smoking room, where the young man was still waiting, and
handed him the letter.

“Tell me,” the latter asked, “have you been shadowed at all?”

“Not that I know of,” Coulson answered.

“Men with quick instincts,” Vanderpole continued, “can always tell when
they are being watched. Have you felt anything of the sort?”

Coulson hesitated for one moment.

“No,” he said. “I had a caller whose manner I did not quite understand.
She seemed to have something at the back of her head about me.”

“She! Was it a woman?” the young man asked quickly.

Coulson nodded.

“A young lady,” he said,--“Miss Penelope Morse, she called herself.”

Mr. Richard Vanderpole stood quite still for a moment.

“Ah!” he said softly. “She might have been interested.”

“Does the chief want me at all?” Coulson asked.

“No!” Vanderpole answered. “Go about your business as usual. Leave here
for Paris, say, in ten days. There will probably be a letter for you at
the Grand Hotel by that time.”

They walked together toward the main exit. The young man’s face had lost
some of its grimness. Once more his features wore that look of pleasant
and genial good-fellowship which seems characteristic of his race after
business hours.

“Say, Mr. Coulson,” he declared, as they passed across the hall, “you
and I must have a night together. This isn’t New York, by any manner of
means, or Paris, but there’s some fun to be had here, in a quiet way.
I’ll phone you tomorrow or the day after.”

“Sure!” Mr. Coulson declared. “I’d like it above all things.”

“I must find a taxicab,” the young man remarked. “I’ve a busy hour
before me. I’ve got to go down and see the chief, who is dining
somewhere in Kensington, and get back again to dine here at half past
seven in the restaurant.”

“I guess you’ll have to look sharp, then.” Mr. Coulson remarked. “Do you
see the time?”

Vanderpole glanced at the clock and whistled softly to himself.

“Tell you what!” he exclaimed, “I’ll write a note to one of the friends
I’ve got to meet, and leave it here. Boy,” he added, turning to a page
boy, “get me a taxi as quick as you can.”

The boy ran out into the Strand, and Vanderpole, sitting down at the
table, wrote a few lines, which he sealed and addressed and handed to
one of the reception clerks. Then he shook hands with Coulson and threw
himself into a corner of the cab which was waiting.

“Drive down the Brompton Road,” he said to the man. “I’ll direct you
later.”

It was a quarter past seven when he left the hotel. At half past a
policeman held up his hand and stopped the taxi, to the driver’s
great astonishment, as he was driving slowly across Melbourne Square,
Kensington.

“What’s the matter?” the man asked. “You can’t say I was exceeding my
speed limit.”

The policeman scarcely noticed him. His head was already through the cab
window.

“Where did you take your fare up?” he asked quickly.

“Savoy Hotel,” the man answered. “What’s wrong with him?”

The policeman opened the door of the cab and stepped in.

“Never you mind about that,” he said. “Drive to the South Kensington
police station as quick as you can.”



CHAPTER VIII. AN INTERRUPTED THEATRE PARTY

Seated upon a roomy lounge in the foyer of the Savoy were three
women who attracted more than an average amount of attention from the
passers-by. In the middle was the Duchess of Devenham, erect, stately,
and with a figure which was still irreproachable notwithstanding her
white hair. On one side sat her daughter, Lady Grace Redford, tall,
fair, and comely; on the other, Miss Penelope Morse. The two girls were
amusing themselves, watching the people; their chaperon had her eye upon
the clock.

“To dine at half-past seven,” the Duchess remarked, as she looked around
the _entresol_ of the great restaurant through her lorgnettes, “is
certainly a little trying for one’s temper and for one’s digestion, but
so long as those men accepted, I certainly think they ought to have been
here. They know that the play begins at a quarter to nine.”

“It isn’t like Dicky Vanderpole in the least,” Penelope said. “Since he
began to tread the devious paths of diplomacy, he has brought exactness
in the small things of life down to a fine art.”

“He isn’t half so much fun as he used to be,” Lady Grace declared.

“Fun!” Penelope exclaimed. “Sometimes I think that I never knew a more
trying person.”

“I have never known the Prince unpunctual,” the Duchess murmured. “I
consider him absolutely the best-mannered young man I know.”

Lady Grace smiled, and glanced at Penelope.

“I don’t think you’ll get Penelope to agree with you, mother,” she said.

“Why not, my dear?” the Duchess asked. “I heard that you were quite rude
to him the other evening. We others all find him so charming.”

Penelope’s lip curled slightly.

“He has so many admirers,” she remarked, “that I dare say he will not
notice my absence from the ranks. Perhaps I am a little prejudiced.
At home, you know, we have rather strong opinions about this fusion of
races.”

The Duchess raised her eyebrows.

“But a Prince of Japan, my dear Penelope!” she said. “A cousin of the
Emperor, and a member of an aristocracy which was old before we were
thought of! Surely you cannot class Prince Maiyo amongst those to whom
any of your country people could take exception.”

Penelope shrugged her shoulders slightly.

“Perhaps,” she said, “my feeling is the result of hearing you all praise
him so much and so often. Besides, apart from that, you must remember
that I am a patriotic daughter of the Stars and Stripes, and there isn’t
much friendship lost between Washington and Tokio just now.”

The Duchess turned away to greet a man who had paused before their couch
on his way into the restaurant.

“My dear General,” she said, “it seems to me that one meets every one
here! Why was not restaurant dining the vogue when I was a girl!”

General Sherrif smiled. He was tall and thin, with grizzled hair and
worn features. Notwithstanding his civilian’s clothes, there was no
possibility of mistaking him anywhere, or under any circumstances, for
anything but a soldier.

“It is a delightful custom,” he admitted. “It keeps one always on the
_qui vive_; one never knows whom one may see. Incidentally, I find it
interferes very much with my digestion.”

“Digestion!” the Duchess murmured. “But then, you soldiers lead such
irregular lives.”

“Not always from choice,” the General reminded her. “The Russo-Japanese
war finished me off. They kept us far enough away from the fighting,
when they could, but, by Jove, they did make us move!”

“We are waiting now for Prince Maiyo,” the Duchess remarked. “You know
him?”

“Know him!” the General answered. “Duchess, if ever I have to write
my memoirs, and particularly my reminiscences of this war, I fancy you
would find the name of your friend appear there pretty frequently. There
wasn’t a more brilliant feat of arms in the whole campaign than his
flanking movement at Mukden. I met most of the Japanese leaders, and I
have always said that I consider him the most wonderful of them all.”

The Duchess turned to Penelope.

“Do you hear that?” she asked.

Penelope smiled.

“The Fates are against me,” she declared. “If I may not like, I shall at
least be driven to admire.”

“To talk of bravery when one speaks of that war,” the General remarked,
“seems invidious, for it is my belief that throughout the whole of the
Japanese army such a thing as fear did not exist. They simply did not
know what the word meant. But I shall never forget that the only piece
of hand-to-hand fighting I saw during the whole time was a cavalry
charge led by Prince Maiyo against an immensely superior force of
Russians. Duchess,” the General declared, “those Japanese on their queer
little horses went through the enemy like wind through a cornfield. That
young man must have borne a charmed life. I saw him riding and cheering
his men on when he must have had at least half a dozen wounds in his
body. You will pardon me, Duchess? I see that my party are waiting.”

The General hurried away. The Duchess shut up her lorgnettes with a
snap, and held out her hand to a newcomer who had come from behind the
palms.

“My dear Prince,” she exclaimed, “this is charming of you! Some one told
me that you were not well,--our wretched climate, of course--and I was
so afraid, every moment, that we should receive your excuses.”

The newcomer, who was bowing over her hand, was of medium height or a
trifle less, dark, and dressed with the quiet exactness of an English
gentleman. Only a slight narrowness of the eyes and a greater
alertness of movement seemed to distinguish him in any way, as regards
nationality, from the men by whom he was surrounded. His voice, when
he spoke, contained no trace of accent. It was soft and singularly
pleasant. It had, too, one somewhat rare quality--a delightful ring of
truth. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why Prince Maiyo was just
then, amongst certain circles, one of the most popular persons in
Society.

“My dear Duchess,” he said, “my indisposition was nothing. And as for
your climate, I am beginning to delight in it,--one never knows what
to expect, or when one may catch a glimpse of the sun. It is only the
grayness which is always the same.”

“And even that,” the Duchess remarked, smiling, “has been yellow for the
last few days. Prince, you know my daughter Grace, and I am sure that
you have met Miss Penelope Morse? We are waiting for two other men, Sir
Charles Somerfield and Mr. Vanderpole.”

The Prince bowed, and began to talk to his hostess’ daughter,--a tall,
fair girl, as yet only in her second season.

“Here comes Sir Charles, at any rate!” the Duchess exclaimed. “Really, I
think we shall have to go in. We can leave a message for Dicky; they all
know him at this place. I am afraid he is one of those shocking young
men who entertain the theatrical profession here to supper.”

A footman at that moment brought a note to the Duchess, which she tore
open.

“This is from Dicky!” she exclaimed, glancing it through
quickly,--“Savoy notepaper, too, so I suppose he has been here. He says
that he may be a few minutes late and that we are not to wait. He will
pick us up either here or at the theatre. Prince, shall we let these
young people follow us? I haven’t heard your excuses yet. Do you know
that you were a quarter of an hour late?”

He bent towards her with troubled face.

“Dear Duchess,” he said, “believe me, I am conscious of my fault. An
unexpected matter, which required my personal attention, presented
itself at the last moment. I think I can assure you that nothing of
its sort was ever accomplished so quickly. It would only weary you if I
tried to explain.”

“Please don’t,” the Duchess begged, “so long as you are here at last.
And after all, you see, you are not the worst sinner. Mr. Vanderpole has
not yet arrived.”

The Prince walked on, for a few steps, in silence.

“Mr. Vanderpole is a great friend of yours, Duchess?” he asked.

The Duchess shook her head.

“I do not know him very well,” she said. “I asked him for Penelope.”

The Prince looked puzzled.

“But I thought,” he said, “that Miss Morse and Sir Charles--”

The Duchess interrupted him with a smile.

“Sir Charles is very much in earnest,” she whispered, “but very very
slow. Dicky is just the sort of man to spur him on. He admires Penelope,
and does not mind showing it. She is such a dear girl that I should love
to have her comfortably settled over here.”

“She is very intelligent,” the Prince said. “She is a young lady,
indeed, for whom I have a great admiration. I am only sorry,” he
concluded, “that I do not seem able to interest her.”

“You must not believe that,” the Duchess said. “Penelope is a little
brusque sometimes, but it is only her manner.”

They made their way through the foyer to the round table which had been
reserved for them in the centre of the restaurant.

“I suppose I ought to apologize for giving you dinner at such an hour,”
 the Duchess remarked, “but it is our theatrical managers who are to
blame. Why they cannot understand that the best play in the world is
not worth more than two hours of our undivided attention, and begin
everything at nine or a quarter-past, I cannot imagine.”

The Prince smiled.

“Dear Duchess,” he said, “I think that you are a nation of sybarites.
Everything in the world must run for you so smoothly or you are not
content. For my part, I like to dine at this hour.”

“But then, you take no luncheon, Prince,” Lady Grace reminded him.

“I never lunch out,” the Prince answered, “but I have always what is
sufficient for me.”

“Tell me,” the Duchess asked, “is it true that you are thinking of
settling down amongst us? Your picture is in the new illustrated paper
this week, you know, with a little sketch of your career. We are given
to understand that you may possibly make your home in this country.”

The Prince smiled, and in his smile there seemed to be a certain
mysticism. One could not tell, indeed, whether it came from some
pleasant thought flitting through his brain, or whether it was that the
idea itself was so strange to him.

“I have no plans, Duchess,” he said. “Your country is very delightful,
and the hospitality of the friends I have made over here is too
wonderful a thing to be described; but one never knows.”

Lady Grace bent towards Sir Charles, who was sitting by her side.

“I can never understand the Prince,” she murmured. “Always he seems as
though he took life so earnestly. He has a look upon his face which I
never see in the faces of any of you other young men.”

“He is a bit on the serious side,” Sir Charles admitted.

“It isn’t only that,” she continued. “He reminds me of that man whom we
all used to go and hear preach at the Oratory. He was the same in
the pulpit and when one saw him in the street. His eyes seemed to see
through one; he seemed to be living in a world of his own.”

“He was a religious Johnny, of course,” Sir Charles remarked. “They do
walk about with their heads in the air.”

Lady Grace smiled.

“Perhaps it is religion with the Prince,” she said,--“religion of a
sort.”

“I tell you what I do think,” Sir Charles murmured. “I think his
pretence at having a good time over here is all a bluff. He doesn’t
really cotton to us, you know. Don’t see how he could. He’s never
touched a polo stick in his life, knows nothing about cricket, is
indifferent to games, and doesn’t even understand the meaning of the
word ‘Sportsman.’ There’s no place in this country for a man like that.”

Lady Grace nodded.

“I think,” she said, “that his visit to Europe and his stay amongst
us is, after all, in the nature of a pilgrimage. I suppose he wants to
carry back some of our civilization to his own people.”

Penelope, who overheard, laughed softly and leaned across the table.

“I fancy,” she murmured, “that the person you are speaking of would not
look at it in quite the same light.”

“Has any one seen the evening paper?” the Duchess asked. “It is there
any more news about that extraordinary murder?”

“Nothing fresh in the early editions,” Sir Charles answered.

“I think,” the Duchess declared, “that it is perfectly scandalous. Our
police system must be in a disgraceful state. Tell me, Prince,--could
anything like that happen in your country?”

“Without doubt,” the Prince answered, “life moves very much in the East
as with you here. Only with us,” he added a little thoughtfully, “there
is a difference, a difference of which one is reminded at a time like
this, when one reads your newspapers and hears the conversation of one’s
friends.”

“Tell us what you mean?” Penelope asked quickly.

He looked at her as one might have looked at a child,--kindly, even
tolerantly. He was scarcely so tall as she was, and Penelope’s attitude
towards him was marked all the time with a certain frigidity. Yet he
spoke to her with the quiet, courteous confidence of the philosopher who
unbends to talk to a child.

“In this country,” he said, “you place so high a value upon the gift of
life. Nothing moves you so greatly as the killing of one man by another,
or the death of a person whom you know.”

“There is no tragedy in the world so great!” Penelope declared.

The Prince shrugged his shoulders very slightly.

“My dear Miss Morse,” he said, “it is so that you think about life and
death here. Yet you call yourselves a Christian country--you have a very
beautiful faith. With us, perhaps, there is a little more philosophy and
something a little less definite in the trend of our religion. Yet we do
not dress Death in black clothes or fly from his outstretched hand. We
fear him no more that we do the night. It is a thing that comes--a thing
that must be.”

He spoke so softly, and yet with so much conviction, that it seemed hard
to answer him. Penelope, however, was conscious of an almost feverish
desire either to contradict him or to prolong the conversation by some
means or other.

“Your point of view,” she said, “is well enough, Prince, for those who
fall in battle, fighting for their country or for a great cause. Don’t
you think, though, that the horror of death is a more real thing in
a case like this, where a man is killed in cold blood for the sake of
robbery, or perhaps revenge?”

“One cannot tell,” the Prince answered thoughtfully. “The battlefields
of life are there for every one to cross. This mysterious gentleman who
seems to have met with his death so unexpectedly--he, too, may have been
the victim of a cause, knowing his dangers, facing them as a man should
face them.”

The Duchess sighed.

“I am quite sure, Prince,” she said, “that you are a romanticist. But,
apart from the sentimental side of it, do things like this happen in
your country?”

“Why not?” the Prince answered. “It is as I have been saying: for a
worthy cause, or a cause which he believed to be worthy, there is no
man of my country worthy of the name who would not accept death with
the same resignation that he lays his head upon the pillow and waits for
sleep.”

Sir Charles raised his glass and bowed across the table.

“To our great allies!” he said, smiling.

The Prince drank his glass of water thoughtfully. He drank wine only
on very rare occasions, and then under compulsion. He turned to the
Duchess.

“A few days ago,” he said, “I heard myself described as being much
too serious a person. Tonight I am afraid that I am living up to my
reputation. Our conversation seems to have drifted into somewhat gloomy
channels. We must ask Miss Morse, I think, to help us to forget. They
say,” he continued, “that it is the young ladies of your country who
hold open the gates of Paradise for their menkind.”

He was looking into her eyes. His tone was half bantering, half serious.
From across the table Penelope knew that Somerfield was watching her
closely. Somehow or other, she was irritated and nervous, and she
answered vaguely. Sir Charles intervened with a story about some of
their acquaintances, and the conversation drifted into more ordinary
channels.

“Some day, I suppose,” the Duchess remarked, as the service of dinner
drew toward a close, “you will have restaurants like this in Tokio?”

The Prince assented.

“Yes,” he said without enthusiasm, “they will come. Our heritage from
the West is a sure thing. Not in my days, perhaps, or in the days of
those that follow me, but they will come.”

“I think that it is absolutely wicked of Dicky,” the Duchess declared,
as they rose from the table. “I shall never rely upon him again.”

“After all, perhaps, it isn’t his fault,” Penelope said, breathing a
little sigh of relief as she rose to her feet. “Mr. Harvey is not always
considerate, and I know that several of the staff are away on leave.”

“That’s right, my dear,” the Duchess said, smiling, “stick up for your
countrymen. I suppose he’ll find us sometime during the evening. We can
all go to the theatre together; the omnibus is outside.”

The little party passed through the foyer and into the hall of the
hotel, where they waited while the Duchess’ carriage was called. Mr.
Coulson was there in an easy chair, smoking a cigar, and watching
the people coming and going. He studied the passers-by with ah air of
impersonal but pleased interest. Penelope and Lady Grace were certainly
admirable foils. The latter was fair, with beautiful complexion--a
trifle sunburnt, blue eyes, good-humored mouth, and features excellent
in their way, but a little lacking in expression. Her figure was good;
her movements slow but not ungraceful; her dress of white ivory satin a
little extravagant for the occasion. She looked exactly what she was,--a
well-bred, well-disposed, healthy young Englishwoman, of aristocratic
parentage. Penelope, on the other hand, more simply dressed, save
for the string of pearls which hung from her neck, had the look of a
creature from another world. She had plenty of animation; a certain
nervous energy seemed to keep her all the time restless. She talked
ceaselessly, sometimes to the Prince, more often to Sir Charles. Her
gray-green eyes were bright, her cheeks delicately flushed. She spoke
and looked and moved as one on fire with the joy of life. The Prince,
noticing that Lady Grace had been left to herself for the last
few moments, moved a little towards her and commenced a courteous
conversation. Sir Charles took the opportunity to bend over his
companion.

“Penelope,” he said, “you are queer tonight. Tell me what it is? You
don’t really dislike the Prince, do you?”

“Why, of course not,” she answered, looking back into the restaurant and
listening, as though interested in the music. “He is odd, though, isn’t
he? He is so serious and, in a way, so convincing. He is like a being
transplanted into an absolutely alien soil. One would like to laugh at
him, and one can’t.”

“He is rather an anomaly,” Sir Charles said, humming lightly to himself.
“I suppose, compared with us matter-of-fact people, he must seem to your
sex quite a romantic figure.”

“He makes no particular appeal to me at all,” Penelope declared.

Somerfield was suddenly thoughtful.

“Sometimes, Penelope,” he said, “I don’t quite understand you,
especially when we speak about the Prince. I have come to the conclusion
that you either like him very much, or you dislike him very much, or you
have some thoughts about him which you tell to no one.”

She lifted her skirts. The carriage had been called.

“I like your last suggestion,” she declared. “You may believe that that
is true.”

On their way out, the Prince was accosted by some friends and remained
talking for several moments. When he entered the omnibus, there seemed
to Penelope, who found herself constantly watching him closely, a
certain added gravity in his demeanor. The drive to the theatre was a
short one, and conversation consisted only of a few disjointed remarks.
In the lobby the Prince laid his hand upon Somerfield’s arm.

“Sir Charles,” he said, “if I were you, I would keep that evening paper
in your pocket. Don’t let the ladies see it.”

Somerfield looked at him in surprise.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“To me personally it is of no consequence,” the Prince answered, “but
your womenfolk feel these things so keenly, and Mr. Vanderpole is of the
same nationality, is he not, as Miss Morse? If you take my advice, you
will be sure that they do not see the paper until after they get home
this evening.”

“Has anything happened to Dicky?” Somerfield asked quickly.

The Prince’s face was impassive; he seemed not to have heard. Penelope
had turned to wait for them.

“The Duchess thinks that we had better all go into the box,” she said.
“We have two stalls as well, but as Dicky is not here there is really
room for five. Will you get some programmes, Sir Charles?”

Somerfield stopped for a minute, under pretence of seeking some change,
and tore open his paper. The Prince led Penelope down the carpeted way.

“I heard what you and Sir Charles were saying,” she declared quietly.
“Please tell me what it is that has happened to Dicky?”

The Prince’s face was grave.

“I am sorry,” he replied. “I did not know that our voices would travel
so far.”

“It was not yours,” she said. “It was Sir Charles’. Tell me quickly what
it is that has happened?”

“Mr. Vanderpole,” the Prince answered, “has met with an accident,--a
somewhat serious one, I fear. Perhaps,” he added, “it would be as well,
after all, to break this to the Duchess. I was forgetting the prejudices
of your country. She will doubtless wish that our party should be broken
up.”

Penelope was suddenly very white. He whispered in her ear.

“Be brave,” he said. “It is your part.”

She stood still for a moment, and then moved on. His words had had a
curious effect upon her. The buzzing in her ears had ceased; there was
something to be done--she must do it! She passed into the box, the door
of which the attendant was holding open.

“Duchess,” she said, “I am so sorry, but I am afraid that something has
happened to Dicky. If you do not mind, I am going to ask Sir Charles to
take me home.”

“But my dear child!” the Duchess exclaimed.

“Miss Morse is quite right,” the Prince said quietly. “I think it would
be better for her to leave at once. If you will allow me, I will explain
to you later.”

She left the box without another word, and took Somerfield’s arm.

“We two are to go,” she murmured. “The Prince will explain to the
Duchess.”

The Prince closed the box door behind them. He placed a chair for the
Duchess so that she was not in view of the house.

“A very sad thing has happened,” he said quietly. “Mr. Vanderpole met
with an accident in a taxicab this evening. From the latest reports, it
seems that he is dead!”



CHAPTER IX. INSPECTOR JACKS SCORES

There followed a few days of pleasurable interest to all Englishmen
who travelled in the tube and read their halfpenny papers. A great
and enlightened Press had already solved the problem of creating the
sensational without the aid of facts. This sudden deluge, therefore, of
undoubtedly tragical happenings became almost an embarrassment to
them. Black headlines, notes of exclamation, the use of superlative
adjectives, scarcely met the case. The murder of Mr. Hamilton Fynes was
strange enough. Here was an unknown man, holding a small position in his
own country,--a man apparently without friends or social position. He
travelled over from America, merely a unit amongst the host of other
passengers; yet his first action, on arriving at Liverpool, was to make
use of privileges which belonged to an altogether different class of
person, and culminated in his arrival at Euston in a special train with
a dagger driven through his heart! Here was material enough for a least
a fortnight of sensations and countersensations, of rumored arrests and
strange theories. Yet within the space of twenty-four hours the affair
of Mr. Hamilton Fynes had become a small thing, had shrunk almost into
insignificance by the side of the other still more dramatic, still more
wonderful happening. Somewhere between the Savoy Hotel and Melbourne
Square, Kensington, a young American gentleman of great strength, of
undoubted position, the nephew of a Minister, and himself secretary to
the Ambassador of his country in London, had met with his death in a
still more mysterious, still more amazing fashion. He had left the hotel
in an ordinary taxicab, which had stopped on the way to pick up no
other passenger. He had left the Savoy alone, and he was discovered
in Melbourne Square alone. Yet, somewhere between these two points,
notwithstanding the fact that the aggressor must have entered the cab
either with or without his consent, Mr. Richard Vanderpole, without
a struggle, without any cry sufficiently loud to reach the driver or
attract the attention of any passer-by, had been strangled to death by
a person who had disappeared as though from the face of the earth. The
facts seemed almost unbelievable, and yet they were facts. The driver
of the taxi knew only that three times during the course of his drive he
had been caught in a block and had had to wait for a few seconds--once
at the entrance to Trafalgar Square, again at the junction of Haymarket
and Pall Mall, and, for a third time, opposite the Hyde Park Hotel. At
neither of these halting places had he heard any one enter or leave the
taxi. He had heard no summons from his fare, even though a tube, which
was in perfect working order, was fixed close to the back of his head.
He had known nothing, in fact, until a policeman had stopped him, having
caught a glimpse of the ghastly face inside. There was no evidence which
served to throw a single gleam of light upon the affair. Mr. Vanderpole
had called at the Savoy Hotel upon a travelling American, who had
written to the Embassy asking for some advice as to introducing American
patents into Great Britain and France. He left there to meet his chief,
who was dining down in Kensington, with the intention of returning
at once to join the Duchess of Devenham’s theatre party. He was in no
manner of trouble. It was not suggested that any one had any cause for
enmity against him. Yet this attack upon him must have been carefully
planned and carried out by a person of great strength and wonderful
nerve. The newspaper-reading public in London love their thrills, and
they had one here which needed no artificial embellishments from the
pens of those trained in an atmosphere of imagination. The simple truth
was, in itself, horrifying. There was scarcely a man or woman who drove
in a taxicab about the west end of London during the next few days
without a little thrill of emotion.

The murder of Mr. Richard Vanderpole took place on a Thursday night.
On Monday morning a gentleman of middle age, fashionably but quietly
dressed, wearing a flower in his buttonhole, patent boots, and a
silk hat which he had carefully deposited upon the floor, was sitting
closeted with Miss Penelope Morse. It was obvious that that young lady
did not altogether appreciate the honor done to her by a visit from so
distinguished a person as Inspector Jacks!

“I am sorry,” he said, “that you should find my visit in the least
offensive, Miss Morse. I have approached you, so far as possible, as an
ordinary visitor, and no one connected with your household can have any
idea as to my identity or the nature of my business. I have done this
out of consideration to your feelings. At the same time I have my duty
to perform and it must be done.”

“What I cannot understand,” Penelope said coldly, “is why you should
bother me about your duty. When I saw you at the Carlton Hotel, I told
you exactly how much I knew of Mr. Hamilton Fynes.”

“My dear young lady,” Inspector Jacks said, “I will not ask for your
sympathy, for I am afraid I should ask in vain; but we are just now,
we people at Scotland Yard, up against one of the most extraordinary
problems which have ever been put before us. We have had two murders
occurring in two days, which have this much, at least, in common--that
they have been the work of so accomplished a criminal that at the
present moment, although I should not like to tell every one as much, we
have not in either case the ghost of a clue.”

“That sounds very stupid of you,” Penelope remarked, “but I still ask--”

“Don’t ask for a minute or two,” the Inspector interrupted. “I think
I remarked just now that these two crimes had one thing in common, and
that was the fact that they had both been perpetrated by a criminal of
unusual accomplishments. They also have one other point of similitude.”

“What is that?” Penelope asked.

“The victim in both cases was an American,” the Inspector said.

Penelope sat very still. She felt the steely eyes of the man who had
chosen his seat so carefully, fixed upon her face.

“You do not connect the two affairs in any way?” she asked.

“That is what we are asking ourselves,” Mr. Jacks continued. “In the
absence of any definite clue, coincidences such as this are always
interesting. In this case, as it happens, we can take them even a little
further. We find that you, for instance, Miss Penelope Morse, a young
American lady, celebrated for her wit and accomplishments, and well
known in London society, were to have lunched with Mr. Hamilton Fynes
on the day when he made his tragical arrival in London; we find too,
curiously enough, that you were one of the party with whom Mr. Richard
Vanderpole was to have dined and gone to the theatre on the night of his
decease.”

Penelope shivered, and half closed her eyes.

“Don’t you think,” she said, “that the shock of this coincidence, as
you call it, has been quite sufficient, without having you come here to
remind me of it?”

“Madam,” Mr. Jacks said, “I have not come here to gratify any personal
curiosity. I have come here in the cause of justice. You should find
me a welcome visitor, for both these men who have lost their lives were
friends of yours.”

“I should be very sorry indeed,” Penelope answered, “to stand in the
way of justice. No one can hope more fervently than I do that the
perpetrator of these deeds will be found and punished. But what I cannot
understand is your coming here and reopening the subject with me. I tell
you again that I have no possible information for you.”

“Perhaps not,” the Inspector declared, “but, on the other hand, there
are certain questions which you can answer me,--answer them, I mean, not
grudgingly and as though in duty bound,--answer them intelligently, and
with some apprehension of the things which lie behind.”

“And what is the thing that lies behind them?” she asked.

“A theory, madam,” the Inspector answered,--“no more. But in this case,
unfortunately, we have not passed the stage of theories. My theory, at
the present moment, is that the murderer of these two men was the same
person.”

“You have evidence to that effect,” she said, suddenly surprised to find
that her voice had sunk to a whisper.

“Very little,” Mr. Jacks admitted; “but, you see, in the case of
theories one must build them brick by brick. Then if, after all, as
we reach the end, the foundation was false, well, we must watch them
collapse and start again.”

“Supposing we leave these generalities,” Penelope remarked, “and get on
with those questions which you wish to ask me. My aunt, as you may have
heard, is an invalid, and although she seldom leaves her room, this is
one of the afternoons when she sometimes sits here for a short time. I
should not care to have her find you.”

The Inspector leaned back in his chair. It was a very pleasant drawing
room, looking out upon the Park. A little French clock, a masterpiece of
workmanship, was ticking gayly upon the mantelpiece. Two toy Pomeranians
were half hidden in the great rug. The walls were of light blue, soft,
yet full of color, and the carpet, of some plain material, was of the
same shade. The perfume of flowers--the faint sweetness of mimosa and
the sicklier fragrance of hyacinths--seemed almost overwhelming, for the
fire was warm and the windows closed. By the side of Penelope’s chair
were a new novel and a couple of illustrated papers, and Mr. Jacks
noticed that although a paper cutter was lying by their side the leaves
of all were uncut.

“These questions,” he said, “may seem to you irrelevant, yet please
answer them if you can. Mr. Hamilton Fynes, for instance,--was he, to
your knowledge, acquainted with Mr. Richard Vanderpole?”

“I have never heard them speak of one another,” Penelope answered. “I
should think it very unlikely.”

“You have no knowledge of any common pursuit or interest in life
which the two men may have shared?” the Inspector asked. “A hobby, for
instance,--a collection of postage stamps, china, any common aim of any
sort?”

She shook her head.

“I knew little of Mr. Fynes’ tastes. Dicky--I mean Mr. Vanderpole--had
none at all except an enthusiasm for his profession and a love of polo.”

“His profession,” the Inspector repeated. “Mr. Vanderpole was attached
to the American Embassy, was he not?”

“I believe so,” Penelope answered.

“Mr. Hamilton Fynes,” the Inspector continued, “might almost have been
said to have followed the same occupation.”

“Surely not!” Penelope objected. “I always understood that Mr. Fynes was
employed in a Government office at Washington,--something to do with the
Customs, I thought, or forest duties.”

Mr. Jacks nodded thoughtfully.

“I am not aware, as yet,” he said, “of the precise nature of Mr. Fynes’
occupation. I only knew that it was, in some shape or form, Government
work.”

“You know as much about it,” she answered, “as I do.”

“We have sent,” the Inspector continued smoothly, “a special man out
to Washington to make all inquiries that are possible on the spot, and
incidentally, to go through the effects of the deceased, with a view
to tracing any complications in which he may have been involved in this
country.”

Penelope opened her lips, but closed them again.

“I am not, however,” the Inspector continued, “very sanguine of success.
In the case of Mr. Vanderpole, for instance, there could have been
nothing of the sort. He was too young, altogether too much of a boy,
to have had enemies so bitterly disposed towards him. There is another
explanation somewhere, I feel convinced, at the root of the matter.”

“You do not believe, then,” asked Penelope, “that robbery was really the
motive?”

“Not ordinary robbery,” Mr. Jacks answered. “A man who was capable of
these two crimes is capable of easier and greater things. I mean,”
 he explained, “that he could have attempted enterprises of a far more
remunerative character, with a prospect of complete success.”

“Will you forgive me,” she said, “if I ask you to go on with your
questions, providing you have any more to ask me? Notwithstanding the
excellence of your disguise,” she remarked with a faint curl of the
lips, “I might find it somewhat difficult to explain your presence if my
aunt or any visitors should come in.”

“I am sorry, Miss Morse,” the Inspector said quietly, “to find you so
unsympathetic. Had I found you differently disposed, I was going to ask
you to put yourself in my place. I was going to ask you to look at these
two tragedies from my point of view and from your own at the same time,
and I was going to ask you whether any possible motive suggested itself
to you, any possible person or cause, which might be benefited by the
removal of these two men.”

“If you think, Mr. Jacks,” Penelope said, “that I am keeping anything
from you, you are very much mistaken. Such sympathy as I have would
certainly be with those who are attempting to bring to justice the
perpetrator of such unmentionable crimes. What I object to is the
unpleasantness of being associated with your inquiries when I am
absolutely unable to give you the least help, or to supply you with any
information which is not equally attainable to you.”

“As, for instance?” the Inspector asked.

“You are a detective,” Penelope said coldly. “You do not need me to
point out certain things to you. Mr. Hamilton Fynes was robbed and
murdered--an American citizen on his way to London. Mr. Richard
Vanderpole is also murdered, after a call upon Mr. James B. Coulson,
the only acquaintance whom Mr. Fynes is known to have possessed in this
country. Did Mr. Fynes share secrets with Mr. Coulson? If so, did Mr.
Coulson pass them on to Mr. Vanderpole, and for that reason did Mr.
Vanderpole meet with the same death, at the same hands, as had befallen
Mr. Fynes?”

Inspector Jacks moved his head thoughtfully.

“It is admirably put,” he assented, “and to continue?”

“It is not my place to make suggestions to you,” Penelope said. “If you
are able to connect Mr. Fynes with the American Government, you arrive
at the possibility of these murders having been committed for some
political end. I presume you read your newspapers?”

Inspector Jacks smiled, picked up his hat and bowed, while Penelope,
with a sigh of relief, moved over to the bell.

“My dear young lady,” he said, “you do not understand how important even
the point of view of another person is to a man who is struggling to
build up a theory. Whether you have helped me as much as you could,”
 he added, looking her in the face, “you only can tell, but you have
certainly helped me a little.”

The footman had entered. The Inspector turned to follow him. Penelope
remained as she had been standing, the hand which had touched the bell
fallen to her side, her eyes fixed upon him with a new light stirring
their quiet depths.

“One moment, Morton,” she said. “Wait outside. Mr. Jacks,” she added, as
the door closed, “what do you mean? What can I have told you? How can I
have helped you?”

The Inspector stood very still for a brief space of time, very still and
very silent. His face, too, was quite expressionless. Yet his tone, when
he spoke, seemed to have taken to itself a note of sternness.

“If you had chosen,” he said slowly, “to have become my ally in this
matter, to have ranged yourself altogether on the side of the law, my
answer would have been ready enough. What you have told me, however, you
have told me against your will and not in actual words. You have told
me in such a way, too,” he added, “that it is impossible for me to doubt
your intention to mislead me. I am forced to conclude that we stand
on opposite sides of the way. I shall not trouble you any more, Miss
Morse.”

He turned to the door. Penelope remained motionless for several moments,
listening to his retreating footsteps.



CHAPTER X. MR. COULSON OUTMATCHED

Mr. James B. Coulson settled down to live what was, to all appearance,
a very inoffensive and ordinary life. He rose a little earlier than was
customary for an Englishman of business of his own standing, but he made
up for this by a somewhat prolonged visit to the barber, a breakfast
which bespoke an unimpaired digestion, and a cigar of more than ordinary
length over his newspaper. At about eleven o’clock he went down to the
city, and returned sometimes to luncheon, sometimes at varying hours,
never later, however, than four or five o’clock. From that time until
seven, he was generally to be found in the American bar, meeting old
friends or making new ones.

On the sixth day of his stay at the Savoy Hotel the waiter who looked
after the bar smoking room accosted him as he entered at his usual time,
a little after half past four.

“There’s a gentleman here, Mr. Coulson, been asking after you,” he
announced. “I told him that you generally came in about this time.
You’ll find him sitting over there.”

Mr. Coulson glanced in the direction indicated. It was Mr. Jacks who
awaited him in the cushioned easy chair. For a single moment, perhaps,
his lips tightened and the light of battle flashed in his face. Then
he crossed the room apparently himself again,--an undistinguished,
perfectly natural figure.

“It’s Mr. Jacks, isn’t it?” he asked, holding out his hand. “I thought I
recognized you.”

The Inspector rose to his feet.

“I am sorry to trouble you again, Mr. Coulson,” he said, “but if you
could spare me just a minute or two, I should be very much obliged.”

Mr. Coulson laughed pleasantly.

“You can have all you want of me from now till midnight,” he declared.
“My business doesn’t take very long, and I can only see the people I
want to see in the middle of the day. After that, I don’t mind telling
you that I find time hangs a bit on my hands. Try one of these,” he
added, producing a cigar case.

The Inspector thanked him and helped himself. Mr. Coulson summoned the
waiter.

“Highball for me,” he directed. “What’s yours, Mr. Jacks?”

“Thank you very much,” the Inspector said. “I will take a little Scotch
whiskey and soda.”

The two men sat down. The corner was a retired one, and there was no one
within earshot.

“Say, are you still on this Hamilton Fynes business?” Mr. Coulson asked.

“Partly,” the Inspector replied.

“You know, I’m not making reflections,” Mr. Coulson said, sticking
his cigar in a corner of his mouth and leaning back in a comfortable
attitude, “but it does seem to me that you are none too rapid on this
side in clearing up these matters. Why, a little affair of that sort
wouldn’t take the police twenty minutes in New York. We have a big
city, full of alien quarters, full of hiding places, and chock full of
criminals, but our police catch em, all the same. There’s no one going
to commit murder in the streets of New York without finding himself in
the Tombs before he’s a week older. No offence, Mr. Jacks.”

“I am not taking any, Mr. Coulson,” the Inspector answered. “I must
admit that there’s a great deal of truth in what you say. It is rather
a reflection upon us that we have not as yet even made an arrest, but I
think you will also admit that the circumstances of those murders were
exceedingly curious.”

Mr. Coulson knocked the ash from his cigar.

“Well, as to that,” he said, “and if we are to judge only by what we
read in the papers, they are curious, without a doubt. But I am not
supposing for one moment that you fellows at Scotland Yard don’t know
more than you’ve let on to the newspapers. You keep your discoveries out
of the Press over here, and a good job, too, but you wouldn’t persuade
me that you haven’t some very distinct theory as to how that crime was
worked, and the sort of person who did it. Eh, Mr. Jacks?”

“We are perhaps not quite so ignorant as we seem,” the Inspector
answered, “and of course you are right when you say that we have a few
more facts to go by than have appeared in the newspapers. Still, the
affair is an extremely puzzling one,--as puzzling, in its way,” Mr.
Jacks continued, “as the murder on the very next evening of this young
American gentleman.”

Mr. Coulson nodded sympathetically. The drinks were brought, and he
raised his glass to his guest.

“Here’s luck!” he said--“luck to you with your game of human chess, and
luck to me with my woollen machinery patents! You were speaking of that
second murder,” he remarked, setting down his glass. “I haven’t noticed
the papers much this morning. Has any arrest been made yet?”

“Not yet,” the Inspector admitted. “To tell you the truth, we find it
almost as puzzling an affair as the one in which Mr. Hamilton Fynes was
concerned.”

Mr. Coulson nodded. He seemed content, at this stage in their
conversation, to assume the role of listener.

“You read the particulars of the murder of Mr. Vanderpole, I suppose?”
 the Inspector asked.

“Every word,” Mr. Coulson answered. “Most interesting thing I’ve seen in
an English newspaper since I landed. Didn’t sound like London somehow.
Gray old law-abiding place, my partner always calls it.”

“I am going to be quite frank with you, Mr. Coulson,” the Inspector
continued. “I am going to tell you exactly why I have come to see you
again tonight.”

“Why, that’s good,” Mr. Coulson declared. “I like to know everything a
man’s got in his mind.”

“I have come to you,” the Inspector said, “because, by a somewhat
curious coincidence, I find that, besides your slight acquaintance with
and knowledge of Mr. Hamilton Fynes, you were also acquainted with this
Mr. Richard Vanderpole,--that you were,” he continued, knocking the
ash off his cigar and speaking a little more slowly, “the last person,
except the driver of the taxicab, to have seen him alive.”

Mr. Coulson turned slowly around and faced his companion.

“Now, how the devil do you know that?” he asked.

The Inspector smiled tolerantly.

“Well,” he said, “that is very simple. The taxicab started from here.
Mr. Vanderpole had been visiting some one in the hotel. There was not
the slightest difficulty in ascertaining that the person for whom he
asked, and with whom he spent some twenty minutes in this very room, was
Mr. James B. Coulson of New York.”

“Seated on this very couch, sir!” Mr. Coulson declared, striking the arm
of it with the flat of his hand,--“seated within a few feet of where you
yourself are at this present moment.”

The Inspector nodded.

“Naturally,” he continued, “when I became aware of so singular an
occurrence, I felt that I must lose no time in coming and having a few
more words with you.”

Mr. Coulson became meditative.

“Upon my word, when you come to think of it,” he said, “it is a
coincidence, sure! Two men murdered within twenty-four hours, and I seem
to have been the last person who knew them, to speak to either. Tell
you what, Mr. Jacks, if this goes on I shall get a bit scared. I think I
shall let the London business alone and go on over to Paris.”

The Inspector smiled.

“I fancy your nerves,” he remarked, “are quite strong enough to bear the
strain. However, I am sure you will not mind telling me exactly why Mr.
Richard Vanderpole, Secretary to the American Embassy here, should have
come to see you on Thursday night.”

“Why, that’s easy,” Mr. Coulson replied. “You may have heard of my
firm, The Coulson & Bruce Company of Jersey City. I’m at the head of a
syndicate that’s controlling some very valuable patents which we want to
exploit on this side and in Paris. Now my people don’t exactly know how
we stand under this new patent bill of Mr. Lloyd George’s. Accordingly
they wrote across to Mr. Blaine-Harvey, putting the matter to him, and
asking him to give me his opinion the moment I arrived on this side. You
see, it was no use our entering into contracts if we had to build the
plant and make the stuff over here. We didn’t stand any earthly show of
making it pay that way. Well, Mr. Harvey cabled out that I was just to
let him know the moment I landed, and before I opened up any business.
Sure enough, I called him up on the telephone, an hour or so after I got
here, and this young man came round. I can tell you he was all right,
too,--a fine, upstanding young fellow, and as bright as they make em.
He brought a written opinion with him as to how the law would affect our
proceedings. I’ve got it in my room if you’d care to see it?”

Mr. Jacks listened to his companion’s words with unchanged face.

“If it isn’t troubling you,” he said, “it would be of some interest to
me.”

Mr. Coulson rose to his feet.

“You sit right here,” he declared. “I’ll be back in less than five
minutes.”

Mr. Coulson was as good as his word. In less than the time mentioned he
was seated again by his companion’s side with a square sheet of foolscap
spread out upon the round table. The Inspector ran it through hurriedly.
The paper was stamped American Embassy,’ and it was the digest of
several opinions as to the effect of the new patent law upon the import
of articles manufactured under processes controlled by the Coulson &
Bruce syndicate. At the end there were a few lines in the Ambassador’s
own handwriting, summing up the situation. Mr. Coulson produced another
packet of letters and documents.

“If you’ve an hour or so to spare, Mr. Jacks,” he said, “I’d like to go
right into this with you, if it would interest you any. It’s my business
over here, so naturally I am glad enough of an opportunity to talk it
over.”

Mr. Jacks passed back the paper promptly.

“I am extremely obliged to you,” he said. “I am sure I should find it
most interesting. Another time I should be very glad indeed to look
through those specifications, but just now I have this affair of my
own rather on my mind. About this Mr. Richard Vanderpole, Mr. Coulson,
then,” he added. “Do I understand that this young man came to you as a
complete stranger?”

“Absolutely,” Mr. Coulson answered. “I never saw him before in my life.
As decent a young chap as ever I met with, all the same,” he went on,
“and comes of a good American stock, too. They tell me there’s going to
be an inquest and that I shall be summoned, but I know nothing more than
what I’ve told you. If I did, you’d be welcome to it.”

Mr. Jacks leaned back in his chair. Certainly the situation increased in
perplexity! The man by his side was talking now of the adaptation of
one of his patents to some existing machinery, and Jacks watched him
covertly. He considered himself, to some extent, a physiognomist. He
told himself it was not possible that this man was playing a part. Mr.
James B. Coulson sat there, the absolute incarnation of the genial man
of affairs, interested in his business, interested in the great subject
of dollar-getting, content with himself and his position,--a person
apparently of little imagination, for the shock of this matter
concerning which they had been talking had already passed away. He was
doing his best to explain with a pencil on the back of an illustrated
paper some new system of wool-bleaching.

“Mr. Coulson,” the Inspector said suddenly, “do you know a young lady
named Miss Penelope Morse?”

It was here, perhaps, that Mr. Coulson sank a little from the heights of
complete success. He repeated the name, and obviously took time to think
before he answered.

“Miss Penelope Morse,” the Inspector continued. “She is a young American
lady, who lives with an invalid aunt in Park Lane, and who is taken
everywhere by the Duchess of Devenham, another aunt, I believe.”

“I suppose I may say that I am acquainted with her,” Mr. Coulson
admitted. “She came here the other evening with a young man--Sir Charles
Somerfield.”

“Ah!” the Inspector murmured.

“She’d read that interview of mine with the Comet man,” Mr. Coulson
said, “and she fancied that perhaps I could tell her something about
Hamilton Fynes.”

“First time you’d met her, I suppose?” the Inspector remarked.

“Sure!” Mr. Coulson answered. “As a matter of fact, I know very few of
my compatriots over here. I am an American citizen myself, and I haven’t
too much sympathy with any one, man or woman, who doesn’t find America
good enough for them to live in.”

The Inspector nodded.

“Quite so,” he agreed. “So you hadn’t anything to tell this young lady?”

“Not a thing that she hadn’t read in the Comet,” Mr. Coulson replied.
“What brought her into your mind, anyway?”

“Nothing particular,” the Inspector answered carelessly. “Well, Mr.
Coulson, I won’t take up any more of your time. I am convinced that you
have told me all that you know, and I am afraid that I shall have to
look elsewhere to find the loose end of this little tangle.”

“Stay and have another drink,” Mr. Coulson begged. “I’ve nothing to do.
There are one or two boys coming in later who’ll like to meet you.”

The Inspector shook his head.

“I must be off,” he said. “I want to get into my office before six
o’clock. I dare say I shall be running across you again before you go
back.”

He shook hands and turned away. Then Mr. Coulson made what was, perhaps,
his second slight mistake.

“Say, Mr. Jacks,” he exclaimed, “what made you mention that young lady’s
name, anyway? I’m curious to know.”

The Inspector looked thoughtfully at the end of the fresh cigar which he
had just lit.

“Well,” he said, “I don’t know that there was anything definite in my
mind, only it seems a little strange that you and Miss Penelope Morse
should both have been acquainted with the murdered man and that you
should have come across one another.”

“Sort of bond between us, eh?” Mr. Coulson replied. “She seemed a very
charming young lady. Cut above Fynes, I should think.”

The detective smiled.

“All your American young ladies who come over here are charming,” he
said. “Goodbye, Mr. Coulson, and many thanks!”

The Inspector passed out, and the man whom he had come to visit, after a
moment’s hesitation, resumed his seat.

“These aren’t American methods,” he muttered to himself. “I don’t
understand them. That man Jacks is either a simpleton or he is too
cunning for me.”

He crossed to a writing table and scribbled an unnecessary note,
addressing it to a firm in the city. Then he rang for a messenger boy
and handed it to him for delivery. A few minutes afterwards he strolled
out into the hall. The boy was in the act of handing the note to one of
the head porters, who carefully copied the address. Mr. Coulson returned
to the smoking room, whistling softly to himself.



CHAPTER XI. A COMMISSION

Mr. Robert Blaine-Harvey, American Ambassador and Plenipotentiary
Extraordinary to England, was a man of great culture, surprising
personal gifts, and with a diplomatic instinct which amounted almost to
genius. And yet there were times when he was puzzled. For at least half
an hour he had been sitting in his great library, looking across the
Park, and trying to make up his mind on a very important matter. It
seemed to him that he was face to face with what amounted almost to a
crisis in his career. His two years at the Court of St. James had been
pleasant and uneventful enough. The small questions which had presented
themselves for adjustment between the two countries were, after all, of
no particular importance and were easily arranged. The days seemed to
have gone by for that over-strained sensitiveness which was continually
giving rise to senseless bickerings, when every trilling breeze seemed
to fan the smouldering fires of jealousy. The two great English-speaking
nations appeared finally to have realized the absolute folly of
continual disputes between countries whose destiny and ideals were so
completely in accord and whose interests were, in the main, identical. A
period of absolute friendliness had ensued. And now there had come this
little cloud. It was small enough at present, but Mr. Harvey was not the
one to overlook its sinister possibilities. Two citizens of his country
had been barbarously murdered within the space of a few hours, one in
the heart of the most thickly populated capital in the world, and there
was a certain significance attached to this fact which the Ambassador
himself and those others at Washington perfectly well realized. He
glanced once more at the most recent letter on the top of this pile
of correspondence and away again out into the Park. It was a difficult
matter, this. His friends at Washington did not cultivate the art of
obscurity in the words which they used, and it had been suggested to
him in black and white that the murder of these two men, under the
particular circumstances existing, was a matter concerning which he
should speak very plainly indeed to certain August personages. Mr.
Harvey, who was a born diplomatist, understood the difficulties of such
a proceeding a good deal more than those who had propounded it.

There was a knock at the door, and a footman entered, ushering in a
visitor.

“The young lady whom you were expecting, sir,” he announced discreetly.

Mr. Harvey rose at once to his feet.

“My dear Penelope,” he said, shaking hands with her, “this is charming
of you.”

Penelope smiled.

“It seems quite like old times to feel myself at home here once more,”
 she declared.

Mr. Harvey did not pursue the subject. He was perfectly well aware
that Penelope, who had been his first wife’s greatest friend, had never
altogether forgiven him for his somewhat brief period of mourning. He
drew an easy chair up to the side of his desk and placed a footstool for
her.

“I should not have sent for you,” he said, “but I am really and honestly
in a dilemma. Do you know that, apart from endless cables, Washington
has favored me with one hundred and forty pages of foolscap all about
the events of the week before last?”

Penelope shivered a little.

“Poor Dicky!” she murmured, looking away into the fire. “And to think
that it was I who sent him to his death!”

Mr. Harvey shook his head.

“No,” he said, “I do not think that you need reproach yourself with
that. As a matter of fact, I think that I should have sent Dicky in
any case. He is not so well known as the others, or rather he wasn’t
associated so closely with the Embassy, and he was constantly at the
Savoy on his own account. If I had believed that there was any danger in
the enterprise,” he continued, “I should still have sent him. He was as
strong as a young Hercules. The hand which twisted that noose around his
neck must have been the hand of a magician with fingers of steel.”

Penelope shivered again. Her face showed signs of distress.

“I do not think,” she said, “that I am a nervous person, but I cannot
bear to think of it even now.”

“Naturally,” Mr. Harvey answered. “We were all fond of Dicky, and such a
thing has never happened, so far as I am aware, in any European country.
My own private secretary murdered in broad daylight and with apparent
impunity!”

“Murdered--and robbed!” she whispered, looking up at him with a white
face.

The frown on the Ambassador’s forehead darkened.

“Not only that,” he declared, “but the secrets of which he was robbed
have gone to the one country interested in the knowledge of them.”

“You are sure of that?” she asked hoarsely.

“I am sure of it,” Mr. Harvey answered.

Penelope drew a little breath between her teeth. Her thoughts flashed
back to a recent dinner party. The Prince was once more at her side.
Almost she could hear his voice--low, clear, and yet with that note of
inexpressible, convincing finality. She heard him speak of his country
reverently, almost prayerfully; of the sacrifices which true patriotism
must always demand. What had been in his mind, she wondered, at the back
of his inscrutable eyes, gazing, even at that moment, past the banks
of flowers, across the crowded room with all its splendor of light and
color, through the walls,--whither! She brushed the thought away. It was
absurd, incredible! She was allowing herself to be led away by her old
distrust of this man.

“I remarked just now,” Mr. Harvey continued, “that such a thing had
never happened, so far as I was aware, in any European country. My own
words seem to suggest something to me. These methods are not European.
They savor more of the East.”

“I think you had better go on,” she said quietly. “There is something in
your mind. I can see that. You have told me so much that you had better
tell me the rest.”

“The contents of those despatches,” Mr. Harvey continued, “intrusted
in duplicate, as you have doubtless surmised, to Fynes and to Coulson,
contained an assurance that the sending of our fleet to the Pacific
was in fact, as well as in appearance, an errand of peace. It was a
demonstration, pure and simple. Behind it there may have lain, indeed,
a masterful purpose, the determination of a great country to affirm
her strenuous existence in a manner most likely to impress the nations
unused to seeing her in such a role. It became necessary, in view of
certain suspicions, for me to be able to prove to the Government here
the absolutely pacific nature of our great enterprise. Those despatches
contained such proof. And now listen, Penelope. Before the murder
of poor Dicky Vanderpole, we know for a fact that a great nation who
chooses to consider herself our enemy in Eastern waters was straining
every nerve to prepare for war. Today those preparations have slackened.
A great loan has been withdrawn in Paris, an invitation cabled to our
fleet to visit Yokohama. These things have a plain reading.”

“Plain, indeed,” Penelope assented, and she spoke in a low tone because
there was fear in her heart. “Why have you told me about them? They
throw a new light upon everything,--an awful light!”

“I have known you,” the Ambassador said quietly, “since you were a baby.
Every member of your family has been a friend of mine. You come of a
silent race. I know very well that you are a person of discretion. There
are certain small ways in which a government can occasionally be served
by the help of some one outside its diplomatic service altogether, some
one who could not possibly be connected with it. You know this very
well, Penelope, because you have already been of service to us on more
than one occasion.”

“It was a long time ago,” she murmured.

“Not so very long,” he reminded her. “But for the first of these
tragedies, Fynes’ despatches would have reached me through you. I am
going to ask your help even once more.”

In the somewhat cold spring sunlight which came streaming through the
large window, Penelope seemed a little pallid, as though, indeed, the
fatigue of the season, even in this its earlier stages, were leaving
its mark upon her. There were violet rims under her eyes. A certain
alertness seemed to have deserted her usually piquant face. She sat
listening with the air of one half afraid, who has no hope of hearing
pleasant things.

“It has been remarked,” Mr. Harvey continued, “or rather I may say that
I myself have noticed, that you are on exceedingly friendly terms with
a very distinguished nobleman who is at present visiting this country--I
mean, of course, Prince Maiyo.”

Her eyebrows were slowly elevated. Was that really the impression people
had! Her lips just moved.

“Well?” she asked.

“I have met Prince Maiyo myself,” Mr. Harvey continued, “and I have
found him a charming representative of his race. I am not going to say a
word against him. If he were an American, we should be proud of him. If
he belonged to any other country, we should accept him at once for what
he appears to be. Unfortunately, however, he belongs to a country
which we have some reason to mistrust. He belongs to a country in whose
national character we have not absolute confidence. For that reason, my
dear Penelope, we mistrust Prince Maiyo.”

“I do not know him so well as you seem to imagine,” Penelope said
slowly. “We are not even friends, in the ordinary acceptation of the
word. I am, to some extent, prejudiced against him. Yet I do not believe
that he is capable of a dishonorable action.”

“Nor do I,” the Ambassador declared smoothly. “Yet in every country,
almost in every man, the exact standard of dishonor varies. A man will
lie for a woman’s sake, and even in the law courts, certainly at
his clubs and amongst his friends, it will be accounted to his
righteousness. A patriot will lie and intrigue for his country’s sake.
Now I believe that to Prince Maiyo Japan stands far above the whole
world of womankind. I believe that for her sake he would go to very
great lengths indeed.”

“Go on, please,” Penelope murmured.

“The Prince is over here on some sort of an errand which it isn’t our
business to understand,” Mr. Harvey said. “I have heard it rumored
that it is a special mission entirely concerned with the renewal of the
treaty between England and Japan. However that may be, I have sat here,
and I have thought, and I have come to this conclusion, ridiculous
though it may seem to you at first. I believe that somewhere behind the
hand which killed and robbed Hamilton Fynes and poor Dicky stood the
benevolent shadow of our friend Prince Maiyo.”

“You have no proof?” she asked breathlessly.

“No proof at all,” the Ambassador admitted. “I am scarcely in a position
to search for any. The conclusion I have come to has been simply arrived
at through putting a few facts together and considering them in the
light of certain events. In the first place, we cannot doubt that the
secret of those despatches reached at once the very people whom we
should have preferred to remain in ignorance of them. Haven’t I told
you of the sudden cessation of the war alarm in Japan, when once she
was assured, by means which she could not mistrust, that it was not the
intention of the American nation to make war upon her? The subtlety of
those murders, and the knowledge by which they were inspired, must have
come from some one in an altogether unique position. You may be sure
that no one connected with the Japanese Embassy here would be permitted
for one single second to take part in any such illegal act. They know
better than that, these wily Orientals. They will play the game from
Grosvenor Place right enough. But Prince Maiyo is here, and stands apart
from any accredited institution, although he has the confidence of
his Ambassador and can command the entire devotion of his own secret
service. I have not come to this conclusion hastily. I have thought it
out, step by step, and in my own mind I am now absolutely convinced that
both these murders were inspired by Prince Maiyo.”

“Even if this were so,” Penelope said, “what can I do? Why have you sent
for me? The Prince and I are not on especially friendly terms. It is
only just lately that we have been decently civil to one another.”

The Ambassador looked at her with some surprise.

“My dear Penelope,” he said, “I have seen you together the last three or
four evenings. The Prince looks at no one else while you are there. He
talks to you, I know, more freely than to any other woman.”

“It is by chance,” Penelope protested. “I have tried to avoid him.”

“Then I cannot congratulate you upon your success,” Mr. Harvey said
grimly.

“Things have changed a little between us, perhaps,” Penelope said. “What
is it that you really want?”

“I want to know this,” the Ambassador said slowly. “I want to know how
Japan became assured that America had no intention of going to war with
her. In other words, I want to know whether those papers which were
stolen from Fynes and poor Dicky found their way to the Japanese Embassy
or into the hands of Prince Maiyo himself.”

“Anything else?” she asked with a faint note of sarcasm in her tone.

“Yes,” Mr. Harvey replied, “there is something else. I should like to
know what attitude Prince Maiyo takes towards the proposed renewal of
the treaty between his country and Great Britain.”

She shook her head.

“Even if we were friends,” she said, “the very closest of friends, he
would never tell me. He is far too clever.”

“Do not be too sure,” Mr. Harvey said. “Sometimes a man, especially an
Oriental, who does not understand the significance of your sex in these
matters, can be drawn on to speak more freely to a woman than he would
ever dream of doing to his best friend. He would not tell you in as many
words, of course. On the other hand, he might show you what was in his
mind.”

“He is going back very shortly,” Penelope remarked.

Mr. Harvey nodded.

“That is why I sent for you to come immediately. You will see him
tonight at Devenham House.”

“With all the rest of the world,” she answered, “but a man is not likely
to talk confidentially under such conditions.”

Mr. Harvey rose to his feet.

“It is only a chance, of course,” he admitted, “but remember that you
know more than any other person in this country except myself. It would
be impossible for the Prince to give you credit for such knowledge. A
casual remark, a word, perhaps, may be sufficient.”

Penelope held out her hand. The servant for whom the Ambassador had rung
was already in the room.

“I will try,” she promised. “Ask Mrs. Harvey to excuse my going up to
see her this afternoon. I have another call to make, and I want to rest
before the function tonight.”

The Ambassador bowed, and escorted her to the door.

“I have confidence in you, Penelope,” he said. “You will try your best?”

“Oh, yes!” she answered with a queer little laugh, “I shall do that. But
I don’t think that even you quite understand Prince Maiyo!”



CHAPTER XII. PENELOPE INTERVENES

The perfume of countless roses, the music of the finest band in Europe,
floated through the famous white ballroom of Devenham House. Electric
lights sparkled from the ceiling, through the pillared way the ceaseless
splashing of water from the fountains in the winter garden seemed like
a soft undernote to the murmur of voices, the musical peals of laughter,
the swirl of skirts, and the rhythm of flying feet.

Penelope stood upon the edge of the ballroom, her hand resting still
upon her partner’s arm. She wore a dress of dull rose-color, a soft,
clinging silk, which floated about her as she danced, a creation of
Paquin’s, daring but delightful. Her eyes were very full and soft. She
was looking her best, and knew it. Nevertheless, she was just at the
moment, a little _distrait_. She was watching the brilliant scene with a
certain air of abstraction, as though her interest in it was, after all,
an impersonal thing.

“Jolly well every one looks tonight,” her partner, who was Sir Charles,
remarked. “All the women seem to be wearing smart frocks, and some of
those foreign uniforms are gorgeous.”

“Even the Prince,” Penelope said thoughtfully, “must find some
reflection of the philosophy of his own country in such a scene as this.
For the last fortnight we have been surfeited with horrors. We have
had to go through all sorts of nameless things,” she added, shivering
slightly, “and tonight we dance at Devenham House. We dance, and drink
champagne, and marvel at the flowers, as though we had not a care in the
world, as though life moved always to music.”

Sir Charles frowned a little.

“The Prince again!” he said, half protesting. “He seems to be a great
deal in your thoughts lately, Penelope.”

“Why not?” she answered. “It is something to meet a person whom one is
able to dislike. Nowadays the whole world is so amiable.”

“I wonder how much you really do dislike him,” he said.

She looked at him with a mysterious smile.

“Sometimes,” she murmured softly, “I wonder that myself.”

“Leaving the Prince out of the question,” he continued, “what you say is
true enough. Only a few days ago, you had to attend that awful inquest,
and the last time I saw dear old Dicky Vanderpole, he was looking
forward to this very dance.”

“It seems callous of us to have come,” Penelope declared. “And yet, if
we hadn’t, what difference would it have made? Every one else would have
been here. Our absence would never have been noticed, and we should have
sat at home and had the blues. But all the same, life is cruel.”

“Can’t say I find much to grumble at myself,” Sir Charles said
cheerfully. “I’m frightfully sorry about poor old Dicky, of course, and
every other decent fellow who doesn’t get his show. But, after all, it’s
no good being morbid. Sackcloth and ashes benefit no one. Shall we have
another turn?”

“Not yet,” Penelope replied. “Wait till the crowd thins a little. Tell
me what you have been doing today?”

“Pretty strenuous time,” Sir Charles remarked. “Up at nine, played
golf at Ranelagh all morning, lunched down there, back to my rooms and
changed, called on my tailor, went round to the club, had one game of
billiards and four rubbers of bridge.”

“Is that all?” Penelope asked.

The faint sarcasm which lurked beneath her question passed unnoticed.
Sir Charles smiled good-humoredly.

“Not quite,” he answered. “I dined at the Carlton with Bellairs and some
men from Woolwich and we had a box at the Empire to see the new ballet.
Jolly good it was, too. Will you come one night, if I get up a party?”

“Oh, perhaps!” she answered. “Come and dance.”

They passed into the great ballroom, the finest in London, brilliant
with its magnificent decorations of real flowers, its crowd of uniformed
men and beautiful women, its soft yet ever-present throbbing of
wonderful music. At the further end of the room, on a slightly raised
dais, still receiving her guests, stood the Duchess of Devenham.
Penelope gave a little start as they saw who was bowing over her hand.

“The Prince!” she exclaimed.

Sir Charles whispered something a little under his breath.

“I wonder,” she remarked with apparent irrelevance, “whether he dances.”

“Shall I go and find out for you?” Sir Charles asked.

She had suddenly grown absent. She had the air of scarcely hearing what
he said.

“Let us stop,” she said. “I am out of breath.”

He led her toward the winter garden. They sat by a fountain, listening
to the cool play of the water.

“Penelope,” Somerfield said a little awkwardly, “I don’t want to
presume, you know, nor to have you think that I am foolishly jealous,
but you have changed towards me the last few weeks, haven’t you?”

“The last few weeks,” she answered, “have been enough to change me
toward any one. All the same, I wasn’t conscious of anything particular
so far as you are concerned.”

“I always thought,” he continued after a moment’s hesitation, “that
there was so much prejudice in your country against--against all Asiatic
races.”

She looked at him steadfastly for a minute.

“So there is,” she answered. “What of it?”

“Nothing, except that it is a prejudice which you do not seem to share,”
 he remarked.

“In a way I do share it,” she declared, “but there are exceptions,
sometimes very wonderful exceptions.”

“Prince Maiyo, for instance,” he said bitterly. “Yet a fortnight ago I
could have sworn that you hated him.”

“I think that I do hate him,” Penelope affirmed. “I try to. I want to.
I honestly believe that he deserves my hatred. I have more reason for
feeling this way than you know of, Sir Charles.”

“If he has dared--” Somerfield began.

“He has dared nothing that he ought not to,” Penelope interrupted. “His
manners are altogether too perfect. It is the chill faultlessness of the
man which is so depressing. Can’t you understand,” she added, speaking
in a tone of greater intensity, “that that is why I hate him? Hush!”

She gripped his sleeve warningly. There was suddenly the murmur of
voices and the trailing of skirts. A little party seemed to have invaded
the winter garden--a little party of the principal guests. The Duchess
herself came first, and her fingers were resting upon the arm of Prince
Maiyo. She stopped to speak to Penelope, and turned afterwards to
Somerfield. Prince Maiyo held out his hand for Penelope’s programme.

“You will spare me some dances?” he pleaded. “I come late, but it is not
my fault.”

She yielded the programme to him without a word.

“Those with an X,’” she said, “are free. One has to protect oneself.”

He smiled as he wrote his own name, unrebuked, in four places.

“Our first dance, then, is number 10,” he said. “It is the next but one.
I shall find you here, perhaps?”

“Here or amongst the chaperons,” she answered, as they passed on.

“You admire Miss Morse?” the Duchess asked him.

“Greatly,” the Prince answered. “She is natural, she has grace, and she
has what I do not find so much in this country--would you say charm?”

“It is an excellent word,” the Duchess answered. “I am inclined to agree
with you. Her aunt, with whom she lives, is a confirmed invalid, so she
is a good deal with me. Her mother was my half-sister.”

The Prince bowed.

“She will marry, I suppose?” he said.

“Naturally,” the Duchess answered. “Sir Charles, poor fellow, is a
hopeless victim. I should not be surprised if she married him, some day
or other.”

The Prince looked behind for a moment; then he stopped to admire a
magnificent orchid.

“It will be great good fortune for Sir Charles Somerfield,” he said.

Somerfield scarcely waited until the little party were out of sight.

“Penelope,” he exclaimed, “you’ve given that man four dances!”

“I am afraid,” she answered, “that I should have given him eight if he
had asked for them.”

He rose to his feet.

“Will you allow me to take you back to your aunt?” he asked.

“No!” she answered. “My aunt is quite happy without me, and I should
prefer to remain here.”

He sat down, fuming.

“Penelope, what do you mean by it?” he demanded.

“And what do you mean by asking me what I mean by it?” she replied. “You
haven’t any especial right that I know of.”

“I wish to Heaven I had!” he answered with a noticeable break in his
voice.

There was a short silence. She turned away; she felt that she was
suddenly surrounded by a cloud of passion.

“Penelope,” he pleaded,--

She stopped him.

“You must not say another word,” she declared. “I mean it,--you must
not.”

“I have waited for some time,” he reminded her.

“All the more reason why you should wait until the right time,” she
insisted. “Be patient for a little longer, do. Just now I feel that I
need a friend more than I have ever needed one before. Don’t let me lose
the one I value most. In a few weeks’ time you shall say whatever you
like, and, at any rate, I will listen to you. Will you be content with
that?”

“Yes!” he answered.

She laid her fingers upon his arm.

“I am dancing this with Captain Wilmot,” she said. “Will you come and
bring me back here afterwards, unless you are engaged?”

The Prince found her alone in the winter garden, for Somerfield, when he
had seen him coming, had stolen away. He came towards her quickly,
with the smooth yet impetuous step which singled him out at once as
un-English. He had the whole room to cross to come to her, and she
watched him all the way. The corners of his lips were already curved in
a slight smile. His eyes were bright, as one who looks upon something
which he greatly desires. Slender though his figure was, his frame was
splendidly knit, and he carried himself as one of the aristocrats of
the world. As he approached, she scanned his face curiously. She became
critical, anxiously but ineffectively. There was not a feature in his
face with which a physiognomist could have found fault.

“Dear young lady,” he said, bowing low, “I come to you very humbly, for
I am afraid that I am a deceiver. I shall rob you of your pleasure,
I fear. I have put my name down for four dances, and, alas! I do not
dance.”

She made room for him by her side.

“And I,” she said, “am weary of dancing. One does nothing else, night
after night. We will talk.”

“Talk or be silent,” he answered softly. “Myself I believe that you
are in need of silence. To be silent together is a proof of great
friendship, is it not?”

She nodded.

“It seems to me that I have been through so much the last fortnight.”
 she said.

“You have suffered where you should not have suffered,” he assented
gravely. “I do not like your laws at all. At what they called the
inquest your presence was surely not necessary! You were a woman and had
no place there. You had,” he added calmly, “so little to tell.”

“Nothing,” she murmured.

“Life to me just now,” he continued, “is so much a matter of comparison.
It is for that, indeed, that I am here. You see, I have lived nearly all
my life in my own country and only a very short time in Europe. Then my
mother was an English lady, and my father a Japanese nobleman. Always
I seem to be pulled two different ways, to be struggling to see things
from two different points of view. But there is one subject in which I
think I am wholly with my own country.”

“And that?” she asked.

“I do not think,” he said, “that the rougher and more strenuous paths of
life were meant to be trodden by your sex. Please do not misunderstand
me,” he went on earnestly. “I am not thinking of the paths of literature
and of art, for there the perceptions of your sex are so marvellously
acute that you indeed may often lead where we must follow. I am speaking
of the more material things of life.”

She was suddenly conscious of a shiver which seemed to spread from her
heart throughout her limbs. She sat quite still, gripping her little
lace handkerchief in her fingers.

“I mean,” he continued, “the paths which a man must tread who seeks
to serve his country or his household,--the every-day life in which
sometimes intrigue or force is necessary. Do you agree with me, Miss
Morse?”

“I suppose so,” she faltered.

“That is why,” he added, “it was painful to me to see you stand there
before those men, answering their questions,--men whose walk in life was
different, of an order removed from yours, who should not even have
been permitted to approach you upon bended knees. Do not think that I
am suggesting any fault to you--do not think that I am forcing your
confidence in any way. But these are the thoughts which came to me only
a little time ago.”

She was silent. They listened together to the splashing of the water.
What was the special gift, she wondered, which gave this man such
insight? She felt her heart beating; she was conscious that he was
looking at her. He knew already that it was through her medium that
those despatches which never reached London were to have been handed on
to their destination! He must know that she was to some extent in the
confidence of her country’s Ambassador! Perhaps he knew, too, those
other thoughts which were in her mind,--knew that it had been her
deliberate intent to deceive him, to pluck those secrets which he
carried with him, even from his heart! What a fool she had been to
dream, for a moment, of measuring her wits against his!

He began to speak again, and his voice seemed pitched in lighter key.

“After all,” he said, “you must think it strange of me to be so
egotistical--to speak all the time so much of my likes and dislikes. To
you I have been a little more outspoken than to others.”

“You have found me an interesting subject for investigation perhaps?”
 she asked, looking up suddenly.

“You possess gifts,” he admitted calmly, “which one does not find
amongst the womenfolk of my country, nor can I say that I have found
them to any extent amongst the ladies of the English Court.”

“Gifts of which you do not approve when possessed by my sex,” she
suggested.

“You are a law to yourself, Miss Morse,” he said. “What one would not
admire in others seems natural enough in you. You have brains and
you have insight. For that reason I have been with you a little
outspoken,--for that reason and another which I think you know of. You
see, my time over here grows nearer to an end with every day. Soon I
must carry away with me, over the seas, all the delightful memories,
the friendships, the affections, which have made this country such a
pleasant place for me.”

“You are going soon?” she asked quickly.

“Very soon,” he answered. “My work is nearly finished, if indeed I may
dignify it by the name of work. Then I must go back.”

She shrank a little away from him, as though the word were distasteful
to her.

“Do you mean that you will go back for always?” she asked.

“There are many chances in life,” he answered. “I am the servant of the
Emperor and my country.”

“There is no hope, then,” she continued, “of your settling down here
altogether?”

For once the marble immobility of his features seemed disturbed. He
looked at her in honest amazement.

“Here!” he exclaimed. “But I am a son of Japan!”

“There are many of your race who do live here,” she reminded him.

He smiled with the air of one who is forced to humor a person of limited
vision.

“With them it is, alas! a matter of necessity,” he said. “It is very
hard indeed to make you understand over here how we feel about such
things,--there seems to be a different spirit amongst you Western races,
a different spirit or a lack of spirit--I do not know which I should
say. But in Japan the love of our country is a passion which seems to
throb with every beat of our hearts. If we leave her, it is for her
good. When we go back, it is our reward.”

“Then you are here now for her good?” she asked.

“Assuredly,” he answered.

“Tell me in what way?” she begged. “You have been studying English
customs, their methods of education, their political life, perhaps?”

He turned his head slowly and looked into her eyes. She bore the ordeal
well, but she never forgot it. It seemed to her afterwards that he must
have read every thought which had flashed through her brain. She felt
like a little child in the presence of some mysterious being, thoughts
of whom had haunted her dreams, now visible in bodily shape for the
first time.

“My dear young lady,” he said, “please do not ask me too much, for I
love to speak the truth, and there are many things which I may not tell.
Only you must understand that the country I love--my own country--must
enter soon upon a new phase of her history. We who look into the future
can see the great clouds gathering. Some of us must needs be pioneers,
must go forward a little to learn our safest, and best course. May I
tell you that much?”

“Of course,” she answered softly.

“And now,” he added, leaving his seat as though with reluctance, “the
Duchess reminded me, above all things, that directly I found you I was
to take you to supper. One of your royal princes has been good enough to
signify his desire that we should sit at the same table.”

She rose at once.

“Does the Duchess know that you are taking me?” she asked.

“I arranged it with her,” he answered. “My time draws soon to an end and
I am to be spoilt a little.”

They crossed the ballroom together and mounted the great stairs.
Something--she never knew quite what it was--prompted her to detain him
as they paused on the threshold of the supper room.

“You do not often read the papers, Prince,” she said. “Perhaps you
have not seen that, after all, the police have discovered a clue to the
Hamilton Fynes murder.”

The Prince looked down upon her for a moment without reply.

“Yes?” he murmured softly.

She understood that she was to go on--that he was anxious for her to go
on.

“Some little doctor in a village near Willington, where the line passes,
has come forward with a story about attending to a wounded man on the
night of the murder,” she said.

He was very silent. It seemed to her that there was something strange
about the immovability of his features. She looked at him wonderingly.
Then it suddenly flashed upon her that this was his way of showing
emotion. Her lips parted. The color seemed drawn from her cheeks. The
majordomo of the Duchess stood before them with a bow.

“Her Grace desires me to show your Highness to your seats,” he
announced.

Prince Maiyo turned to his companion.

“Will you allow me to precede you through the crush?” he said. “We are
to go this way.”



CHAPTER XIII. EAST AND WEST

After the supper there were obligations which the Prince, whose sense of
etiquette was always strong, could not avoid. He took Penelope back to
her aunt, reminding her that the next dance but one belonged to him.
Miss Morse, who was an invalid and was making one of her very rare
appearances in Society, watched him curiously as he disappeared.

“I wonder what they’d think of your new admirer in New York, Penelope,”
 she remarked.

“I imagine,” Penelope answered, “that they would envy me very much.”

Miss Morse, who was a New Englander of the old-fashioned type, opened
her lips, but something in her niece’s face restrained her.

“Well, at any rate,” she said, “I hope we don’t go to war with them.
The Admiral wrote me, a few weeks ago, that he saw no hope for anything
else.”

“It would be a terrible complication,” the Duchess sighed, “especially
considering our own alliance with Japan. I don’t think we need consider
it seriously, however. Over in America you people have too much common
sense.”

“The Government have, very likely,” Miss Morse admitted, “but it isn’t
always the Government who decide things or who even rule the country.
We have an omnipotent Press, you know. All that’s wanted is a weak
President, and Heaven knows where we should be!”

“Of course,” the Duchess remarked, “Prince Maiyo is half an Englishman.
His mother was a Stretton-Wynne. One of the first intermarriages, I
should think. Lord Stretton-Wynne was Ambassador to Japan.”

“I think,” said Penelope, “that if you could look into Prince Maiyo’s
heart you would not find him half an Englishman. I think that he is more
than seven-eighths a Japanese.”

“I have heard it whispered,” the Duchess remarked, leaning forward,
“that he is over here on an exceedingly serious mission. One thing is
quite certain. No one from his country, or from any other country, for
that matter, has ever been so entirely popular amongst us. He has the
most delightful manners of any man I ever knew of any race.”

Sir Charles came up, with gloomy face, to claim a dance. After it was
over, he led Penelope back to her aunt almost in silence.

“You are dancing again with the Prince?” he asked.

“Certainly,” she answered. “Here he comes.”

The Prince smiled pleasantly at the young man, who towered like a giant
above him, and noticed at once his lack of cordiality.

“I am selfish!” he exclaimed, pausing with Penelope’s hand upon his coat
sleeve. “I am taking you too much away from your friends, and spoiling
your pleasure, perhaps, because I do not dance. Is it not so? It is your
kindness to a stranger, and they do not all appreciate it.”

“We will go into the winter garden and talk it over,” she answered,
smiling.

They found their old seats unoccupied. Once more they sat and listened
to the fall of the water.

“Prince,” said Penelope, “there is one thing I have learned about you
this evening, and that is that you do not love questions. And yet there
is one other which I should like to ask you.”

“If you please,” the Prince murmured.

“You spoke, a little time ago,” she continued, “of some great crisis
with which your country might soon come face to face. Might I ask you
this: were you thinking of war with the United States?”

He looked at her in silence for several moments.

“Dear Miss Penelope,” he said,--“may I call you that? Forgive me if I am
too forward, but I hear so many of our friends--”

“You may call me that,” she interrupted softly.

“Let me remind you, then, of what we were saying a little time ago,”
 he went on. “You will not take offence? You will understand, I am sure.
Those things that lie nearest to my heart concerning my country are the
things of which I cannot speak.”

“Not even to me?” she pleaded. “I am so insignificant. Surely I do not
count?”

“Miss Penelope,” he said, “you yourself are a daughter of that country
of which we have been speaking.”

She was silent.

“You think, then,” she asked, “that I put my country before everything
else in the world?”

“I believe,” he answered, “that you would. Your country is too young to
be wholly degenerate. It is true that you are a nation of fused races--a
strange medley of people, but still you are a nation. I believe that in
time of stress you would place your country before everything else.”

“And therefore?” she murmured.

“And therefore,” he continued with a delightful smile, “I shall not
discuss my hopes or fears with you. Or if we do discuss them,” he went
on, “let us weave them into a fairy tale. Let us say that you are indeed
the Daughter of All America and that I am the Son of All Japan. You know
what happens in fairyland when two great nations rise up to fight?”

“Tell me,” she begged.

“Why, the Daughter of All America and the Son of All Japan stand hand
in hand before their people, and as they plight their troth, all bitter
feelings pass away, the shouts of anger cease, and there is no more talk
of war.”

She sighed, and leaned a little towards him. Her eyes were soft and
dusky, her red lips a little parted.

“But I,” she whispered, “am not the Daughter of All America.”

“Nor am I,” he answered with a sigh, “the Son of all Japan.”

There was a breathless silence. The water splashed into the basin, the
music came throbbing in through the flower-hung doorways. It seemed to
Penelope that she could almost hear her heart beat. The blood in her
veins was dancing to the one perfect waltz. The moments passed. She
drew a little breath and ventured to look at him. His face was still and
white, as though, indeed, it had been carved out of marble, but the fire
in his eyes was a living thing.

“We have actually been talking nonsense,” she said, “and I thought that
you, Prince, were far too serious.”

“We were talking fairy tales,” he answered, “and they are not nonsense.
Do not you ever read the history of your country as it was many hundreds
of years ago, before this ugly thing they call civilization weakened the
sinews of our race and besmirched the very face of duty? Do you not like
to read of the times when life was simpler and more natural, and there
was space for every man to live and grow and stretch out his hands
to the skies,--every man and every woman? They call them, in your
literature, the days of romance. They existed, too, in my country. It
is not nonsense to imagine for a little time that the ages between have
rolled away and that those days are with us?”

“No,” she answered, “it is not nonsense. But if they were?”

He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them. The touch of his
hand, the absolute delicacy of the salute itself, made it unlike any
other caress she had ever known or imagined.

“The world might have been happier for both of us,” he whispered.

Somerfield, sullen and discontented, came and looked at them, moved
away, and then hesitatingly returned.

“Willmott is waiting for you,” he said. “The last was my dance, and this
is his.”

She rose at once and turned to the Prince.

“I think that we should go back,” she said. “Will you take me to my
aunt?”

“If it must be so,” he answered. “Tell me, Miss Penelope,” he added,
“may I ask your aunt or the Duchess to bring you one day to my house to
see my treasures? I cannot say how long I shall remain in this country.
I would like you so much to come before I break up my little home.”

“Of course we will,” she answered. “My aunt goes nowhere, but the
Duchess will bring me, I am sure. Ask her when I am there, and we can
agree about the day.”

He leaned a little towards her.

“Tomorrow?” he whispered.

She nodded. There were three engagements for the next day of which she
took no heed.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “Come and let us arrange it with the Duchess.”

Prince Maiyo left Devenham House to find the stars paling in the
sky, and the light of an April dawn breaking through the black clouds
eastwards. He dismissed his electric brougham with a little wave of
the hand, and turned to walk to his house in St. James’s Square. As he
walked, he bared his head. After the long hours of artificially heated
rooms, there was something particularly soothing about the fresh
sweetness of the early spring morning. There was something, it seemed
to him, which reminded him, however faintly, of the mornings in his own
land,--the perfume of the flowers from the window-boxes, perhaps, the
absence of that hideous roar of traffic, or the faint aromatic scent
from the lime trees in the Park, heavy from recent rain. It was the
quietest hour of the twenty-four,--the hour almost of dawn. The night
wayfarers had passed away, the great army of toilers as yet slumbered.
One sad-eyed woman stumbled against him as he walked slowly up
Piccadilly. He lifted his hat with an involuntary gesture, and her laugh
changed into a sob. He turned round, and emptied his pockets of silver
into her hand, hurrying away quickly that his eyes might not dwell upon
her face.

“A coward always,” he murmured to himself, a little wearily, for he knew
where his weakness lay,--an invincible repugnance to the ugly things
of life. As he passed on, however, his spirits rose again. He caught a
breath of lilac scent from a closed florist’s shop. He looked up to the
skies, over the housetops, faintly blue, growing clearer every moment.
Almost he fancied that he looked again into the eyes of this strange
girl, recalled her unexpected yet delightful frankness, which to him,
with his love of abstract truth, was, after all, so fascinating. Oh,
there was much to be said for this Western world!--much to be said for
those whose part it was to live in it! Yet, never so much as during
that brief night walk through the silent streets, did he realize how
absolutely unfitted he was to be even a temporary sojourner in this vast
city. What would they say of him if they knew,--of him, a breaker of
their laws, a guest, and yet a sinner against all their conventions; a
guest, and yet one whose hand it was which would strike them, some
day or other, the great blow! What would she think of him? He wondered
whether she would realize the truth, whether she would understand.
Almost as he asked himself the question, he smiled. To him it seemed a
strange proof of the danger in which a weaker man would stand of
passing under the yoke of this hateful Western civilization. To dream of
her--yes! To see her face shining upon him from every beautiful place,
to feel the delight of her presence with every delicious sensation,--the
warmth of the sunlight, the perfume of the blossoms he loved! There was
joy in this, the joy of the artist and the lover. But to find her in his
life, a real person, a daughter of this new world, whose every instinct
would be at war with his--that way lay slavery! He brushed the very
thought from him.

As he reached the door of his house in St. James’ Square, it opened
slowly before him. He had brought his own servants from his own country,
and in their master’s absence sleep was not for them. His butler spoke
to him in his own language. The Prince nodded and passed on. On his
study table--a curious note of modernism where everything seemed to
belong to a bygone world--was a cablegram. He tore it open. It consisted
of one word only. He let the thin paper fall fluttering from his
fingers. So the time was fixed!

Then Soto came gliding noiselessly into the room, fully dressed, with
tireless eyes but wan face,--Soto, the prototype of his master, the most
perfect secretary and servant evolved through all the years.

“Master,” he said, “there has been trouble here. An Englishman came with
this card.”

The Prince took it, and read the name of Inspector Jacks.

“Well?” he murmured.

“The man asked questions,” Soto continued. “We spoke English so badly
that he was puzzled. He went away, but he will come again.”

The Prince smiled, and laid his hand almost caressingly upon the other’s
shoulder.

“It is of no consequence, Soto,” he said,--“no consequence whatever.”



CHAPTER XIV. AN ENGAGEMENT

“Your rooms, Prince, are wonderful,” Penelope said to him. “I knew
that you were a man of taste, but I did not know that you were also a
millionaire.”

He laughed softly.

“In my country,” he answered, “there are no millionaires. The money
which we have, however, we spend, perhaps a little differently. But,
indeed, none of my treasures here have cost me anything. They have come
to me through more generations than I should care to reckon up. The
bronze idol, for instance, upon my writing case is four hundred years
old, to my certain knowledge, and my tapestries were woven when in this
country your walls went bare.”

“What I admire more than anything,” the Duchess declared, “is your
beautiful violet tone.”

“I am glad,” he answered, “that you like my coloring. Some people have
thought it sombre. To me dark colors indoors are restful.”

“Everything about the whole place is restful,” Penelope said,--“your
servants with their quaint dresses and slippered feet, your thick
carpets, the smell of those strange burning leaves, and, forgive me if I
say so, your closed windows. I suppose in time I should have a headache.
For a little while it is delicious.”

The Prince sighed.

“Fresh air is good,” he said, “but the air that comes from your streets
does not seem to me to be fresh, nor do I like the roar of your great
city always in my ears. Here I cut myself off, and I feel that I can
think. Duchess, you must try those preserved fruits. They come to me
from my own land. I think that the secret of preserving them is not
known here. You see, they are packed with rose leaves and lemon plant.
There is a golden fig, Miss Penelope,--the fruit of great knowledge, the
magical fruit, too, they say. Eat that and close your eyes and you can
look back and tell us all the wonders of the past. That is to say,” he
added with a faint smile, “if the magic works.”

“But the magic never does work,” she protested with a little sigh, “and
I am not in the least interested in the past. Tell me something about
the future?”

“Surely that is easier,” he answered. “Over the past we have lost our
control,--what has been must remain to the end of time. The future is
ours to do what we will with.”

“That sounds so reasonable,” the Duchess declared, “and it is so
absolutely false. No one can do what they will with the future. It is
the future which does what it will with us.”

The Prince smiled tolerantly.

“It depends a good deal, does it not,” he said, “upon ourselves? Miss
Penelope is the daughter of a country which is still young, which has
all its future before it, and which, has proclaimed to the world its
fixed intention of controlling its own destinies. She, at any rate,
should have imbibed the national spirit. You are looking at my
curtains,” he added, turning to Penelope. “Let me show you the figures
upon them, and I will tell you the allegory.”

He led her to the window, and explained to her for some moments the
story of the faded images which represented one chapter out of the
mythology of his country. And then she stopped him.

“Always,” she said, “you and I seem to be talking of things that are
dead and past, or of a future which is out of our reach. Isn’t it
possible to speak now and then of the present?”

“Of the actual present?” he asked softly. “Of this very moment?”

“Of this very moment, if you will,” she answered. “Your fairy tale the
other night was wonderful, but it was a long way off.”

The Prince was summoned away somewhat abruptly to bid farewell to a
little stream of departing guests. Today, more than ever, he seemed to
belong, indeed to the world of real and actual things, for a cousin
of his mother’s, a Lady Stretton-Wynne, was helping him receive
his guests--his own aunt, as Penelope told herself more than once,
struggling all the time with a vague incredulity. When he was able to
rejoin her, she was examining a curious little coffer which stood upon
an ivory table.

“Show me the mystery of this lock,” she begged. “I have been trying to
open it ever since you went away. One could imagine that the secrets of
a nation might be hidden here.”

He smiled, and taking the box from her hands, touched a little spring.
Almost at once the lid flew open.

“I am afraid,” he said, “that it is empty.”

She peered in.

“No,” she exclaimed, “there is something there! See!” She thrust in her
hand and drew out a small, curiously shaped dagger of fine blue steel
and a roll of silken cord. She held them up to him.

“What are these?” she asked. “Are they symbols--the cord and the knife
of destiny?”

He took them gently from her hand and replaced them in the box. She
heard the lock go with a little click, and looked into his face,
surprised at his silence.

“Is there anything the matter?” she asked. “Ought I not to have taken
them up?”

Almost as the words left her lips, she understood. His face was
inscrutable, but his very silence was ominous. She remembered a drawing
in one of the halfpenny papers, the drawing of a dagger found in a
horrible place. She remembered the description of that thin silken cord,
and she began to tremble.

“I did not know that anything was in the box,” he said calmly. “I am
sorry if its contents have alarmed you.”

She scarcely heard his words. The room seemed wheeling round with her,
the floor unsteady beneath her feet. The atmosphere of the place
had suddenly become horrible,--the faint odor of burning leaves, the
pictures, almost like caricatures, which mocked her from the walls, the
grinning idols, the strangely shaped weapons in their cases of black
oak. She faltered as she crossed the room, but recovered herself.

“Aunt,” she said, “if you are ready, I think that we ought to go.”

The Duchess was more than ready. She rose promptly. The Prince walked
with them to the door and handed them over to his majordomo.

“It has been so nice of you,” he said to the Duchess, “to honor my
bachelor abode. I shall often think of your visit.”

“My dear Prince,” the Duchess declared, “it has been most interesting.
Really, I found it hard to believe, in that charming room of yours, that
we had not actually been transported to your wonderful country.”

“You are very gracious,” the Prince answered, bowing low.

Penelope’s hands were within her muff. She was talking some
nonsense--she scarcely knew what, but her eyes rested everywhere save
on the face of her host. Somehow or other she reached the door, ran down
the steps and threw herself into a corner of the brougham. Then, for
the first time, she allowed herself to look behind. The door was already
closed, but between the curtains which his hands had drawn apart, Prince
Maiyo was standing in the room which they had just quitted, and there
was something in the calm impassivity of his white, stern face which
seemed to madden her. She clenched her hands and looked away.

“Really, I was not so much bored as I had feared,” the Duchess remarked
composedly. “That Stretton-Wynne woman generally gets on my nerves, but
her nephew seemed to have a restraining effect upon her. She didn’t tell
me more than once about her husband’s bad luck in not getting Canada,
and she never even mentioned her girls. But I do think, Penelope,” she
continued, “that I shall have to talk to you a little seriously. There’s
the best-looking and richest young bachelor in London dying to marry
you, and you won’t have a word to say to him. On the other hand, after
starting by disliking him heartily, you are making yourself almost
conspicuous with this fascinating young Oriental. I admit that he
is delightful, my dear Penelope, but I think you should ask yourself
whether it is quite worth while. Prince Maiyo may take home with him
many Western treasures, but I do not think that he will take home a
wife.”

“If you say another word to me, aunt,” Penelope exclaimed, “I shall
shriek!”

The Duchess, being a woman of tact, laughed the subject away and
pretended not to notice Penelope’s real distress. But when they
had reached Devenham House, she went to the telephone and called up
Somerfield.

“Charlie,” she said,--

“Right o’!” he interrupted. “Who is it?”

“Be careful what you are saying,” she continued, “because it isn’t any
one who wants you to take them out to supper.”

“I only wish you did,” he answered. “It’s the Duchess, isn’t it?”

“The worst of having a distinctive voice,” she sighed. “Listen. I want
to speak to you.”

“I am listening hard,” Somerfield answered. “Hold the instrument a
little further away from you,--that’s better.”


“We have been to the Prince’s for tea this afternoon--Penelope and I,”
 she said.

“I know,” he assented. “I was asked, but I didn’t see the fun of it. It
puts my back up to see Penelope monopolized by that fellow,” he added
gloomily.

“Well, listen to what I have to say,” the Duchess went on. “Something
happened there--I don’t know what--to upset Penelope very much. She
never spoke a word coming home, and she has gone straight up to her room
and locked herself in. Somehow or other the Prince managed to offend
her. I am sure of that, Charlie!”

“I’m beastly sorry,” Somerfield answered. “I meant to say that I was
jolly glad to hear it.”

The Duchess coughed.

“I didn’t quite hear what you said before,” she said severely. “Perhaps
it is just as well. I rang up to say that you had better come round
and dine with us tonight. You will probably find Penelope in a more
reasonable frame of mind.”

“Awfully good of you,” Somerfield declared heartily. “I’ll come with
pleasure.”

Dinner at Devenham House that evening was certainly a domestic meal.
Even the Duke was away, attending a political gathering. Penelope was
pale, but otherwise entirely her accustomed self. She talked even
more than usual, and though she spoke of a headache, she declined all
remedies. To Somerfield’s surprise, she made not the slightest objection
when he followed her into the library after dinner.

“Penelope,” he said, “something has gone wrong. Won’t you tell me what
it is? You look worried.”

She returned his anxious gaze, dry-eyed but speechless.

“Has that fellow, Prince Maiyo, done or said anything--”

She interrupted him.

“No!” she cried. “No! don’t mention his name, please! I don’t want to
hear his name again just now.”

“For my part,” Somerfield said bitterly, “I never want to hear it again
as long as I live!”

There was a short silence. Suddenly she turned towards him.

“Charlie,” she said, “you have asked me to marry you six times.”

“Seven,” he corrected. “I ask you again now--that makes eight.”

“Very well,” she answered, “I accept--on one condition.”

“On any,” he exclaimed, his voice trembling with joy. “Penelope, it
sounds too good to be true. You can’t be in earnest.”

“I am,” she declared. “I will marry you if you will see that our
engagement is announced everywhere tomorrow, and that you do not ask
me for anything at all, mind, not even--not anything--for three months’
time, at least. Promise that until then you will not let me hear the
sound of the word marriage?”

“I promise,” he said firmly. “Penelope, you mean it? You mean this
seriously?”

She gave him her hands and a very sad little smile.

“I mean it, Charlie,” she answered. “I will keep my word.”



CHAPTER XV. PENELOPE EXPLAINS

Once more Penelope found herself in the library of the great house in
Park Lane, where Mr. Blaine-Harvey presided over the interests of his
country. This time she came as an uninvited, even an unexpected guest.
The Ambassador, indeed, had been fetched away by her urgent message
from the reception rooms, where his wife was entertaining a stream of
callers. Penelope refused to sit down.

“I have not much to say to you, Mr. Harvey,” she said. “There is just
something which I have discovered and which you ought to know. I want to
tell it you as quickly as possible and get away.”

“A propos of our last conversation?” he asked eagerly.

She bowed her head.

“It concerns Prince Maiyo,” she admitted.

“You are sure that you will not sit down?” he persisted. “You know how
interesting this is to me.”

She smiled faintly.

“To me,” she said, “it is terrible. My only desire is to tell you and
have finished with it. You remember, when I was here last, you told
me that it was your firm belief that somewhere behind the hand which
murdered Hamilton Fynes and poor Dicky stood the shadow of Prince
Maiyo.”

“I remember it perfectly,” he answered.

“You were right,” Penelope said.

The Ambassador drew a little breath. It was staggering, this, even if
expected.

“I have talked with the Prince several times since our conversation,”
 Penelope continued. “So far as any information which he gave me or
seemed likely to give me, I might as well have talked in a foreign
language. But in his house, the day before yesterday, in his own
library, hidden in a casket which opened only with a secret lock, I
found two things.”

“What were they?” the Ambassador asked quickly.

“A roll of silken cord,” Penelope said, “such as was used to strangle
poor Dicky, and a strangely shaped dagger exactly like the picture of
the one with which Hamilton Fynes was stabbed.”

“Did he know that you found them?” Mr. Blaine-Harvey asked.

“He was with me,” Penelope answered. “He even, at my request, opened the
casket. He must have forgotten that they were there.”

“Perhaps,” the Ambassador said thoughtfully, “he never knew.”

“One cannot tell,” Penelope answered.

“Did he say anything when you discovered them?” the Ambassador asked.

“Nothing,” Penelope declared. “It was not necessary. I saw his face. He
knows that I understand. It may have been some one else connected with
the house, of course, but the main fact is beyond all doubt. Those
murders were instigated, if they were not committed, by the Prince.”

The Ambassador walked to the window and back again.

“Penelope,” he said, “you have only confirmed what I felt must be so,
but even then the certainty of it is rather a shock.”

She gave him her hand.

“I have told you the truth,” she said. “Make what use of it you will.
There is one other thing, perhaps, which I ought to tell you. The Prince
is going back to his own country very shortly.”

Mr. Harvey nodded.

“I have just been given to understand as much,” he said. “At present he
is to be met with every day. I believe that he is even now in my drawing
rooms.”

“Where I ought to be,” Penelope said, turning toward the door, “only I
felt that I must see you first.”

“I will not come with you,” Mr. Harvey said. “There is no need for our
little conference to become the subject of comment. By the bye,” he
added, “let me take this opportunity of wishing you every happiness. I
haven’t seen Somerfield yet, but he is a lucky fellow. As an American,
however, I cannot help grudging another of our most popular daughters to
even the best of Englishmen.”

Penelope’s smile was a little forced.

“Thank you very much,” she said. “It is all rather in the air, at
present, you know. We are not going to be married for some time.”

“When it comes off,” the Ambassador said, “I am going to talk to the
Duchess and Miss Morse. I think that I ought to give you away.”

Penelope made her way into Mrs. Blaine-Harvey’s reception rooms, crowded
with a stream of guests, who were sitting about, drinking tea and
listening to the music, passing in and out all the time. Curiously
enough, almost the first person whom she saw was the Prince. He detached
himself from a little group and came at once towards her. He took her
hand in his and for a moment said nothing. Notwithstanding the hours of
strenuous consideration, the hours which she had devoted to anticipating
and preparing for this meeting, she felt her courage suddenly leaving
her, a sinking at the knees, a wild desire to escape, at any cost. The
color which had been so long denied her streamed into her cheeks. There
was something baffling, yet curiously disturbing, in the manner of his
greeting.

“Is it true?” he asked.

She did not pretend to misunderstand him. It was amazing that he should
ignore that other tragical incident, that he should think of nothing but
this! Yet, in a way, she accepted it as a natural thing.

“It is true that I am engaged to Sir Charles Somerfield,” she answered.

“I must wish you every happiness,” he said slowly. “Indeed, that wish
comes from my heart, and I think that you know it. As for Sir Charles
Somerfield, I cannot imagine that he has anything left in the world to
wish for.”

“You are a born courtier, Prince,” she murmured. “Please remember that
in my democratic country one has never had a chance of getting used to
such speeches.”

“Your country,” he remarked, “prides itself upon being the country
where truth prevails. If so, you should have become accustomed by now
to hearing pleasant things about yourself. So you are going to marry Sir
Charles Somerfield!”

“Why do you say that over to yourself so doubtfully?” she asked. “You
know who he is, do you not? He is rich, of old family, popular with
everybody, a great sportsman, a mighty hunter. These are the things
which go to the making of a man, are they not?”

“Beyond a doubt,” the Prince answered gravely. “They go to the making of
a man. It is as you say.”

“You like him personally, don’t you?” she asked.

“Sir Charles Somerfield and I are almost strangers,” the Prince replied.
“I have not seen much of him, and he has so many tastes which I cannot
share that it is hard for us to come very near together. But if you have
chosen him, it is sufficient. I am quite sure that he is all that a man
should be.”

“Tell me in what respect your tastes are so far apart?” she asked. “You
say that as though there were something in the manner of his life of
which you disapproved.”

“We are sons of different countries, Miss Penelope,” the Prince said.
“We look out upon life differently, and the things which seem good
to him may well seem idle to me. Before I go,” he added a little
hesitatingly, “we may speak of this again. But not now.”

“I shall remind you of that promise, Prince,” she declared.

“I will not fail to keep it,” he replied. “You have, at least,” he added
after a moment’s pause, “one great claim upon happiness. You are the son
and the daughter of kindred races.”

She looked at him as though not quite understanding.

“I was thinking,” he continued simply, “of my own father and mother. My
father was a Japanese nobleman, with the home call of all the centuries
strong in his blood. He was an enlightened man, but he saw nothing in
the manner of living or the ideals of other countries to compare with
those of the country of his own birth. I sometimes think that my mother
and father might have been happier had one of them been a little more
disposed to yield to the other I think, perhaps, that their union would
have been a more successful one. They were married, and they lived
together, but they lived apart.”

“It was not well for you, this,” she remarked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Do not mistake me,” he begged. “So far as I am concerned, I am content.
I am Japanese. The English blood that is in my veins is but as a drop
of water compared to the call of my own country. And yet there are some
things which have come to me from my mother--things which come most to
the surface when I am in this, her own country--which make life at times
a little sad. Forgive me if I have been led on to speak too much
of myself. Today one should think of nothing but of you and of your
happiness.”

He turned to accept the greeting of an older woman who had lingered
for a moment, in passing, evidently anxious to speak to him. Penelope
watched his kindly air, listened to the courteous words which flowed
from his lips, the interest in his manner, which his whole bearing
denoted, notwithstanding the fact that the woman was elderly and
plain, and had outlived the friends of her day and received but scanty
consideration from the present generation. It was typical of him, too,
she realized. It was never to the great women of the world that he
unbent most thoroughly. Gray hairs seemed to inspire his respect, to
command his attentions in a way that youth and beauty utterly failed to
do. These things seemed suddenly clear to Penelope as she stood there
watching him. A hundred little acts of graceful kindness, which she had
noticed and admired, returned to her memory. It was this man whom she
had lifted her hand to betray! It was this man who was to be accounted
guilty, even of crime! There came a sudden revulsion of feeling. The
whole mechanical outlook upon life, as she had known it, seemed, even in
those few seconds, to become a false and meretricious thing. Whatever
he had done or countenanced was right. She had betrayed his hospitality.
She had committed an infamous breach of trust. An overwhelming desire
came over her to tell him everything. She took a quick step forward and
found herself face to face with Somerfield. The Prince was buttonholed
by some friends and led away. The moment had passed.

“Come and talk to the Duchess,” Somerfield said. “She has something
delightful to propose.”



CHAPTER XVI. CONCERNING PRINCE MAIYO

The Duchess looked up from her writing table and nodded to her husband,
who had just entered.

“Good morning, Ambrose!” she said. “Do you want to talk to me?”

“If you can spare me five minutes,” the Duke suggested. “I don’t think
that I need keep you longer.”

The Duchess handed her notebook to her secretary, who hastened from the
room. The Duke seated himself in her vacant chair.

“About our little party down in Hampshire next week,” he began.

“I am waiting to hear from you before I send out any invitations,” the
Duchess answered.

“Quite so,” the Duke assented. “To tell you the truth, I don’t want
anything in the nature of a house party. What I should really like would
be to get Maiyo there almost to ourselves.”

His wife looked at him in some surprise.

“You seem particularly anxious to make things pleasant for this young
man,” she remarked. “If he were the son of the Emperor himself, no one
could do more for him than you people have been doing these last few
weeks.”

The Duke of Devenham, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, whose wife
entertained for his party, and whose immense income, derived mostly from
her American relations, was always at its disposal, was a person almost
as important in the councils of his country as the Prime Minister
himself. It sometimes occurred to him that the person who most signally
failed to realize this fact was the lady who did him the honor to
preside over his household.

“My dear Margaret,” he said, “you can take my word for it that we know
what we are about. It is very important indeed that we should keep on
friendly terms with this young man,--I don’t mean as a personal matter.
It’s a matter of politics--perhaps of something greater, even, than
that.”

The Duchess liked to understand everything, and her husband’s reticence
annoyed her.

“But we have the Japanese Ambassador always with us,” she remarked. “A
most delightful person I call the Baron Hesho, and I am sure he loves us
all.”

“That is not exactly the point, my dear,” the Duke explained. “Prince
Maiyo is over here on a special mission. We ourselves have only been
able to surmise its object with the aid of our secret service in Tokio.
You can rest assured of one thing, however. It is of vast importance to
the interests of this country that we secure his goodwill.”

The Duchess smiled good humoredly.

“Well, my dear Ambrose,” she said, “I don’t know what more we can do
than feed him properly and give him pleasant people to talk to. He
doesn’t go in for sports, does he? All I can promise is that we will do
our best to be agreeable to him.”

“I am sure of it, my dear,” the Duke said. “You haven’t committed
yourself to asking any one, by the bye?”

“Not a soul,” his wife answered, “except Sir Charles. I had to ask him,
of course, for Penelope.”

“Naturally,” the Duke assented. “I am glad Penelope will be there. I
only wish that she were English instead of American, and that Maiyo
would take a serious fancy to her.”

“Perhaps,” the Duchess said dryly, “you would like him to take a fancy
to Grace?”

“I shouldn’t mind in the least,” her husband declared. “I never met a
young man whom I respected and admired more.”

“Nor I, for that matter,” the Duchess agreed. “And yet, somehow or
other--”

“Somehow or other?” the Duke repeated courteously.

“Well, I never altogether trust these paragons,” his wife said. “In all
the ordinary affairs of life the Prince seems to reach an almost perfect
standard. I sometimes wonder whether he would be as trustworthy in the
big things. Nothing else you want to talk about, Ambrose?”

“Nothing at all,” the Duke said, rising to his feet. “I only wanted to
make it plain that we don’t require a house party next week.”

“I shan’t ask a soul,” the Duchess answered. “Do you mind ringing the
bell as you pass? I’ll have Miss Smith back again and send these letters
off.”

“Good!” the Duke declared. “I’m going down to the House, but I don’t
suppose there’ll be anything doing. By the bye, we shall have to be a
little feudal next week. Japan is a country of many ceremonies, and,
after all, Maiyo is one of the Royal Family. I have written Perkins, to
stir him up a little.”

The Duke drove down to the House, but called first in Downing Street. He
found the Prime Minister anxious to see him.

“You’ve arranged about Maiyo coming down to you next week?” he asked.

“That’s all right,” the Duke answered. “He is coming, for certain. One
good thing about that young man--he never breaks an engagement.”

The Prime Minister consulted a calendar which lay open before him.

“Do you mind,” he asked, “if I come, too, and Bransome?”

“Why, of course not,” the Duke replied. “We shall be delighted. We have
seventy bedrooms, and only half a dozen or so of us. But tell me--is
this young man as important as all that?”

“We shall have to have a serious talk,” the Prime Minister said, “in a
few days’ time. I don’t think that even you grasp the exact position of
affairs as they stand today. Just now I am bothered to death about other
things. Heseltine has just been in from the Home Office. He is simply
inundated with correspondence from America about those two murders.”

The Duke nodded.

“It’s an odd thing,” he remarked, “that they should both have been
Americans.”

“Heseltine thinks there’s something behind this correspondence,” the
Prime Minister said slowly. “Washington was very secretive about the man
Fynes’ identity. I found that out from Scotland Yard. Do you know, I’m
half inclined to think, although I can’t get a word out of Harvey, that
this man Fynes--”

The Prime Minister hesitated.

“Well?” the Duke asked a little impatiently.

“I don’t want to go too far,” his chief said. “I am making some fresh
inquiries, and I am hoping to get at the bottom of the matter very
shortly. One thing is very certain, though, and that is that no two
murders have ever been committed in this city with more cold-blooded
deliberation, and with more of what I should call diabolical cleverness.
Take the affair of poor young Vanderpole, for instance. The person who
entered his taxi and killed him must have done so while the vehicle was
standing in the middle of the road at one of the three blocks. Not
only that, but he must have been a friend, or some one posing as a
friend--some one, at any rate, of his own order. Vanderpole was over six
feet high, and as muscular as a young bull. He could have thrown any one
out into the street who had attempted to assault him openly.”

“It is the most remarkable case I ever heard of in my life,” the Duke
admitted, helping himself to a cigarette from a box which he had just
discovered.

“There is another point,” the Prime Minister continued. “There are
features in common about both these murders. Not only were they both the
work of a most accomplished criminal, but he must have been possessed of
an iron nerve and amazing strength. The dagger by which Hamilton Fynes
was stabbed was driven through the middle of his heart. The cord with
which Vanderpole was strangled must have been turned by a wrist
of steel. No time for a word afterwards, mind, or before. It was a
wonderful feat. I am not surprised that the Americans can’t understand
it.”

“They don’t suggest, I suppose,” the Duke asked, “that we are not trying
to clear the matter up?”

“They don’t suggest it,” his chief answered, “but I can’t quite make
out what’s at the back of their heads. However, I won’t bother you about
that now. If I were to propound Heseltine’s theory to you, you would
think that he had been reading the works of some of our enterprising
young novelists. Things will have cleared up, I dare say, by next week.
I am coming round to the House for a moment if you’re not in a hurry.”

The Duke assented, and waited while the secretary locked up the papers
which the Prime Minister had been examining, and prepared others to be
carried into the House. The two men left the place together, and the
Duke pointed toward his brougham.

“Do you mind walking?” the Prime Minister said. “There is another matter
I’d like to talk to you about, and there’s nowhere better than the
streets for a little conversation. Besides, I need the air.”

“With pleasure,” the Duke answered, who loathed walking.

He directed his coachman to precede them, and they started off, arm in
arm.

“Devenham,” the Prime Minister said, “we were speaking, a few minutes
ago, of Prince Maiyo. I want you to understand this, that upon that
young man depends entirely the success or failure of my administration.”

“You are serious?” the Duke exclaimed.

“Absolutely,” the Prime Minister answered. “I know quite well what he
is here for. He is here to make up his mind whether it will pay Japan to
renew her treaty with us, or whether it would be more to her advantage
to enter into an alliance with any other European power. He has been to
most of the capitals in Europe. He has been here with us. By this time
he has made up his mind. He knows quite well what his report will be.
Yet you can’t get a word out of him. He is a delightful young fellow,
I know, but he is as clever as any trained diplomatist I have ever come
across. I’ve had him to dine with me alone, and I’ve done all that I
could to make him talk. When he went away, I knew just exactly as much
as I did before he came.”

“He seems pleased enough with us,” the Duke remarked.

“I am not so sure,” the Prime Minister answered. “He has travelled about
a good deal in England. I heard of him in Manchester and Sheffield,
Newcastle and Leicester, absolutely unattended. I wonder what he was
doing there.”

“From my experience of him,” the Duke said, “I don’t think we shall know
until he chooses to tell us.”

“I am afraid you are right,” the Prime Minister declared. “At the same
time you might just drop a hint to your wife, and to that remarkably
clever young niece of hers, Miss Penelope Morse. Of course, I don’t
expect that he would unbosom himself to any one, but, to tell you
the truth, as we are situated now, the faintest hint as regards his
inclinations, or lack of inclinations, towards certain things would
be of immense service. If he criticised any of our institutions, for
instance, his remarks would be most interesting. Then he has been
spending several months in various capitals. He would not be likely to
tell any one his whole impressions of those few months, but a phrase,
a word, even a gesture, to a clever woman might mean a great deal. It
might also mean a great deal to us.”

“I’ll mention it,” the Duke promised, “but I am afraid my womenfolk are
scarcely up to this sort of thing. The best plan would be to tackle him
ourselves down at Devenham.”

“I thought of that,” the Prime Minister assented. “That is why I am
coming down myself and bringing Bransome. If he will have nothing to say
to us within a week or so of his departure, we shall know what to think.
Remember my words, Devenham,--when our chronicler dips his pen into the
ink and writes of our government, our foreign policy, at least, will
be judged by our position in the far East. Exactly what that will be
depends upon Prince Maiyo. With a renewal of our treaty we could go to
the country tomorrow. Without it, especially if the refusal should come
from them, there will be some very ugly writing across the page.”

The Duke threw away his cigarette.

“Well,” he said, “we can only do our best. The young man seems friendly
enough.”

The Prime Minister nodded.

“It is precisely his friendliness which I fear,” he said.



CHAPTER XVII. A GAY NIGHT IN PARIS

Mr. James B. Coulson was almost as much at home at the Grand Hotel,
Paris, as he had been at the Savoy in London. His headquarters were at
the American Bar, where he approved of the cocktails, patronized the
highballs, and continually met fellow-countrymen with whom he gossiped
and visited various places of amusement. His business during the daytime
he kept to himself, but he certainly was possessed of a bagful of
documents and drawings relating to sundry patents connected with the
manufacture of woollen goods, the praises of which he was always ready
to sing in a most enthusiastic fashion.

Mr. Coulson was not a man whose acquaintance it was difficult to make.
From five to seven every afternoon, scorning the attractions of the
band outside and the generally festive air which pervaded the great
tea rooms, he sat at the corner of the bar upon an article of furniture
which resembled more than anything else an office stool, dividing his
attention between desultory conversation with any other gentleman who
might be indulging in a drink, and watching the billiards in which some
of his compatriots were usually competing. It was not, so far as one
might judge, a strenuous life which Mr. Coulson was leading. He had been
known once or twice to yawn, and he had somewhat the appearance of a man
engaged in an earnest but at times not altogether successful attempt to
kill time. Perhaps for that reason he made acquaintances with a little
more than his customary freedom. There was a young Englishman, for
instance, whose name, it appeared, was Gaynsforth, with whom, after a
drink or two at the bar, he speedily became on almost intimate terms.

Mr. Gaynsforth was a young man, apparently of good breeding and some
means. He was well dressed, of cheerful disposition, knew something
about the woollen trade, and appeared to take a distinct liking to his
new friend. The two men, after having talked business together for some
time, arranged to dine together and have what they called a gay evening.
They retired to their various apartments to change, Mr. Gaynsforth
perfectly well satisfied with his progress, Mr. James B. Coulson with a
broad grin upon his face.

After a very excellent dinner, for which Mr. Gaynsforth insisted upon
paying, they went to the Folies Bergeres, where the Englishman developed
a thirst which, considering the coolness of the evening, was nothing
short of amazing. Mr. Coulson, however, kept pace with him steadily, and
toward midnight their acquaintance had steadily progressed until they
were certainly on friendly if not affectionate terms. A round of the
supper places, proposed by the Englishman, was assented to by Mr.
Coulson with enthusiasm. About three o’clock in the morning Mr. Coulson
had the appearance of a man for whom the troubles of this world are
over, and who was realizing the ecstatic bliss of a temporary Nirvana.
Mr. Gaynsforth, on the other hand, although half an hour ago he had been
boisterous and unsteady, seemed suddenly to have become once more the
quiet, discreet-looking young Englishman who had first bowed to Mr.
Coulson in the bar of the Grand Hotel and accepted with some diffidence
his offer of a drink. To prevent his friend being jostled by the
somewhat mixed crowd in which they then were, Mr. Gaynsforth drew nearer
and nearer to him. He even let his hand stray over his person, as though
to be sure that he was not carrying too much in his pockets.

“Say, old man,” he whispered in his ear,--they were sitting side by side
now in the Bal Tabarin,--“if you are going on like this, Heaven knows
where you’ll land at the end of it all! I’ll look after you as well as
I can,--where you go, I’ll go--but we can’t be together every second
of the time. Don’t you think you’d be safer if you handed over your
pocketbook to me?”

“Right you are!” Mr. Coulson declared, falling a little over on one
side. “Take it out of my pocket. Be careful of it now. There’s five
hundred francs there, and the plans of a loom which I wouldn’t sell for
a good many thousands.”

Mr. Gaynsforth possessed himself quickly of the pocketbook, and
satisfied himself that his friend’s description of its contents was
fairly correct.

“You’ve nothing else upon you worth taking care of?” he whispered. “You
can trust me, you know. You haven’t any papers, or anything of that
sort?”

Then Mr. James B. Coulson, who was getting tired of his part, suddenly
sat up, and a soberer man had never occupied that particular chair in
the Bal Tabarin.

“And if I have, my young friend,” he said calmly, “what the devil
business is it of yours?”

Mr. Gaynsforth was taken aback and showed it. He recovered himself as
quickly as possible, and realized that he had been living in a fool’s
paradise so far as the condition of his companion was concerned. He
realized, also, that the first move in the game between them had been
made and that he had lost.

“You are too good an actor for me, Mr. Coulson,” he said. “Suppose we
get to business.”

“That’s all right,” Mr. Coulson answered. “Let’s go somewhere where we
can get some supper. We’ll go to the Abbaye Theleme, and you shall have
the pleasure of entertaining me.”

Mr. Gaynsforth handed back the pocketbook and led the way out of the
place without a word. It was only a few steps up the hill, and they
found themselves then in a supper place of a very different class.
Here Mr. Coulson, after a brief visit to the lavatory, during which he
obliterated all traces of his recent condition, seated himself at one of
the small flower-decked tables and offered the menu to his new friend.

“It’s up to you to pay,” he said, “so you shall choose the supper.
Personally, I’m for a few oysters, a hot bird, and a cold bottle.”

Mr. Gaynsforth, who was still somewhat subdued, commanded the best
supper procurable on these lines. Mr. Coulson, having waved his hand to
a few acquaintances and chaffed the Spanish dancing girls in their own
language,--not a little to his companion’s astonishment,--at last turned
to business.

“Come,” he said, “you and I ought to understand one another. You are
over here from London either to pump me or to rob me. You are either a
detective or a political spy or a secret service agent of some sort, or
you are on a lay of your own. Now, put it in a business form, what can I
do for you? Make your offer, and let’s see where we are.”

Mr. Gaynsforth began to recover himself. It did not follow, because he
had made one mistake, that he was to lose the game.

“I am neither a detective, Mr. Coulson,” he said, “nor a secret service
agent,--in fact, I am nothing of that sort at all. I have a friend,
however, who for certain reasons does not care to approach you himself,
but who is nevertheless very much interested in a particular event, or
rather incident, in which you are concerned.”

“Good!” Mr. Coulson declared. “Get right on.”

“That friend,” Mr. Gaynsforth continued calmly, “is prepared to pay a
thousand pounds for full information and proof as to the nature of those
papers which were stolen from Mr. Hamilton Fynes on the night of March
22nd.”

“A thousand pounds,” Mr. Coulson repeated. “Gee whiz!”

“He is also,” the Englishman continued, “prepared to pay another
thousand for a satisfactory explanation of the murder of Mr. Richard
Vanderpole on the following day.”

“Say, your friend’s got the stuff!” Mr. Coulson remarked admiringly.

“My friend is not a poor man,” Mr. Gaynsforth admitted. “You see,
there’s a sort of feeling abroad that these two things are connected.
I am not working on behalf of the police. I am not working on behalf of
any one who desires the least publicity. But I am working for some one
who wants to know and is prepared to pay.”

“That’s a very interesting job you’re on, and no mistake,” Mr. Coulson
declared. “I wonder you waste time coming over here on the spree when
you’ve got a piece of business like that to look after.”

“I came over here,” Mr. Gaynsforth replied, “entirely on the matter I
have mentioned to you.”

“What, over here to Paris?” Mr. Coulson exclaimed.

“Not only to Paris,” the other replied dryly, “but to discover one Mr.
James B. Coulson, whose health I now have the pleasure of drinking.”

Mr. Coulson drained the glass which the waiter had just filled.

“Well, this licks me!” he exclaimed. “How any one in their senses could
believe that there was any connection between me and Hamilton Fynes or
that other young swell, I can’t imagine.”

“You knew Hamilton Fynes,” Mr. Gaynsforth remarked. “That fact came out
at the inquest. You appeared to have known him better than most men. Mr.
Vanderpole had just left you when he was murdered,--that also came out
at the inquest.”

“Kind of queer, wasn’t it,” Mr. Coulson remarked meditatively, “how I
seemed to get hung up with both of them? You may also remember that at
the inquest Mr. Vanderpole’s business with me was testified to by the
chief of his department.”

“Certainly,” Mr. Gaynsforth answered. “However, that’s neither here nor
there. Everything was properly arranged, so far as you were concerned,
of course. That doesn’t alter my friend’s convictions. This is a
business matter with me, and if the two thousand pounds don’t sound
attractive enough, well, the amount must be revised, that’s all. But
I want you to understand this, Mr. Coulson, I represent a man or a
syndicate, or call it what you will.”

“Call it a Government,” Mr. Coulson muttered under his breath.

“Call it what you will,” Mr. Gaynsforth continued, with an air of
not having heard the interruption, “we have the money and we want the
information. You can give it to us if you like. We don’t ask for too
much. We don’t even ask for the name of the man who committed these
crimes. But we do want to know the nature of those papers, exactly
what position Mr. Hamilton Fynes occupied in the Stamp and Excise Duty
department at Washington, and, finally, what the mischief you are doing
over here in Paris.”

“Have you ordered the supper?” Mr. Coulson inquired anxiously.

“I have ordered everything you suggested,” Mr. Gaynsforth
answered,--“some oysters, a chicken en casserole, lettuce salad, some
cheese, and a magnum of Pommery.”

“It is understood that you are my host?” Mr. Coulson insisted.

“Absolutely,” his companion declared. “I consider it an honor.”

“Then,” Mr. Coulson said, pointing out his empty glass to the
_sommelier_, “we may as well understand one another. To you I am Mr.
James B. Coulson, travelling in patents for woollen machinery. If you
put a quarter of a million of francs upon that table, I am still Mr.
James B. Coulson, travelling in woollen machinery. And if you add a
million to that, and pile up the notes so high that they touch the
ceiling, I remain Mr. James B. Coulson, travelling in patents for
woollen machinery. Now, if you’ll get that firmly into your head and
stick to it and believe it, there’s no reason why you and I shouldn’t
have a pleasant evening.”

Mr. Gaynsforth, although he was an Englishman and young, showed himself
to be possessed of a sense of humor. He leaned back in his seat and
roared with laughter.

“Mr. Coulson,” he said, “I congratulate you and your employers. To the
lower regions with business! Help yourself to the oysters and pass the
wine.”



CHAPTER XVIII. MR. COULSON IS INDISCREET

On the following morning Mr. Coulson received what he termed his mail
from America. Locked in his room on the fifth floor of the hotel, he
carefully perused the contents of several letters. A little later he
rang and ordered his bill. At four o’clock he left the Gare du Nord for
London.

Like many other great men, Mr. Coulson was not without his weakness. He
was brave, shrewd, and far-seeing. He enjoyed excellent health, and he
scarcely knew the meaning of the word nerves. Nevertheless he suffered
from seasickness. The first thing he did, therefore, when aboard the
boat at Boulogne, was to bespeak a private cabin. The steward to whom he
made his application shook his head with regret. The last two had just
been engaged. Mr. Coulson tried a tip, and then a larger tip, with equal
lack of success. He was about to abandon the effort and retire gloomily
to the saloon, when a man who had been standing by, wrapped in a heavy
fur overcoat, intervened.

“I am afraid, sir,” he said, “that it is I who have just secured
the last cabin. If you care to share it with me, however, I shall be
delighted. As a matter of fact, I use it very little myself. The night
has turned out so fine that I shall probably promenade all the time.”

“If you will allow me to divide the expense,” Mr. Coulson replied, “I
shall be exceedingly obliged to you, and will accept your offer. I am,
unfortunately, a bad sailor.”

“That is as you will, sir,” the gentleman answered. “The amount is only
trifling.”

The night was a bright one, but there was a heavy sea running, and even
in the harbor the boat was rocking. Mr. Coulson groaned as he made his
way across the threshold of the cabin.

“I am going to have a horrible time,” he said frankly. “I am afraid
you’ll repent your offer before you’ve done with me.”

His new friend smiled.

“I have never been seasick in my life,” he said, “and I only engage
a cabin for fear of wet weather. A fine night like this I shall not
trouble you, so pray be as ill as you like.”

“It’s nothing to laugh at,” Mr. Coulson remarked gloomily.

“Let me give you a little advice,” his friend said, “and I can assure
you that I know something of these matters, for I have been on the sea
a great deal. Let me mix you a stiff brandy and soda. Drink it down and
eat only a dry biscuit. I have some brandy of my own here.”

“Nothing does me any good,” Mr. Coulson groaned.

“This,” the stranger remarked, producing a flask from his case and
dividing the liquor into equal parts, “may send you to sleep. If so,
you’ll be across before you wake up. Here’s luck!”

Mr. Coulson drained his glass. His companion was in the act of raising
his to his lips when the ship gave a roll, his elbow caught the back of
a chair, and the tumbler slipped from his fingers.

“It’s of no consequence,” he declared, ringing for the steward. “I’ll go
into the smoking room and get a drink. I was only going to have some to
keep you company. As a matter of fact, I prefer whiskey.”

Mr. Coulson sat down upon the berth. He seemed indisposed for speech.

“I’ll leave you now, then,” his friend said, buttoning his coat around
him. “You lie flat down on your back, and I think you’ll find yourself
all right.”

“That brandy,” Mr. Coulson muttered, “was infernally--- strong.”

His companion smiled and went out. In a quarter of an hour he returned
and locked the door. They were out in the Channel now, and the boat was
pitching heavily. Mr. James B. Coulson, however, knew nothing of it. He
was sleeping like one who wakes only for the Judgment Day. Over his coat
and waistcoat the other man’s fingers travelled with curious dexterity.
The oilskin case in which Mr. Coulson was in the habit of keeping his
private correspondence was reached in a very few minutes. The stranger
turned out the letters and read them, one by one, until he came to the
one he sought. He held it for a short time in his hand, looked at the
address with a faint smile, and slipped his fingers lightly along the
gummed edge of the envelope.

“No seal,” he said softly to himself. “My friend Mr. Coulson plays the
game of travelling agent to perfection.”

He glided out of the cabin with the letter in his hand. In about ten
minutes he returned. Mr. Coulson was still sleeping. He replaced the
letter, pressing down the envelope carefully.

“My friend,” he whispered, looking down upon Mr. Coulson’s uneasy
figure, “on the whole, I have been perhaps a little premature. I think
you had better deliver this document to its proper destination. If only
there was to have been a written answer, we might have met again! It
would have been most interesting.”

He slipped the oilskin case back into the exact position in which he had
found it, and watched his companion for several minutes in silence. Then
he went to his dressing bag and from a phial mixed a little draught.
Lifting the sleeping man’s head, he forced it down his throat.

“I think,” he said, “I think, Mr. Coulson, that you had better wake up.”

He unlocked the door and resumed his promenade of the deck. In the bows
he stood for some time, leaning with folded arms against a pillar, his
eyes fixed upon the line of lights ahead. The great waves now leaped
into the moonlight, the wind sang in the rigging and came booming across
the waters, the salt spray stung his cheeks. High above his head, the
slender mast, with its Marconi attachment, swang and dived, reached out
for the stars, and fell away with a shudder. The man who watched, stood
and dreamed until the voyage was almost over. Then he turned on his heel
and went back to see how his cabin companion was faring.

Mr. Coulson was sitting on the edge of his bunk. He had awakened with a
terrible headache and a sense of some hideous indiscretion. It was not
until he had examined every paper in his pocket and all his money
that he had begun to feel more comfortable. And in the meantime he had
forgotten altogether to be seasick.

“Well, how has the remedy worked?” the stranger inquired.

Mr. Coulson looked him in the face. Then he drew a short breath
of relief. He had been indiscreet, but he had alarmed himself
unnecessarily. There was nothing about the appearance of the quiet, dark
little man, with the amiable eyes and slightly foreign manner, in the
least suspicious.

“It’s given me a brute of a headache,” he declared, “but I certainly
haven’t been seasick up till now, and I must say I’ve never crossed
before without being ill.”

The stranger laughed soothingly.

“That brandy and soda would keep you right.” He said. “When we get to
Folkestone, you’ll be wanting a supper basket. Make yourself at home.
I don’t need the cabin. It’s a glorious night outside. I shouldn’t have
come in at all except to see how you were getting on.”

“How long before we are in?” Mr. Coulson asked.

“About a quarter of an hour,” was the answer. “I’ll come for you, if you
like. Have a few minute’s nap if you feel sleepy.”

Mr. Coulson got up.

“Not I!” he said. “I am going to douse my head in some cold water. That
must have been the strongest brandy and soda that was ever brewed, to
send me off like that.”

His friend laughed as he helped him out on to the deck.

“I shouldn’t grumble at it, if I were you,” he said carelessly. “It
saved you from a bad crossing.”

Mr. Coulson washed his face and hands in the smoking room lavatory,
and was so far recovered, even, as to be able to drink a cup of coffee
before they reached the harbor. At Folkestone he looked everywhere for
his friend, but in vain. At Charing Cross he searched once more. The
little dark gentleman, with the distinguished air and the easy, correct
speech, who had mixed his brandy and soda, had disappeared.

“And I owe the little beggar for half that cabin,” Mr. Coulson thought
with a sensation of annoyance. “I wonder where he’s hidden himself!”



CHAPTER XIX. A MOMENTOUS QUESTION

The Duke paused, in his way across the crowded reception rooms, to
speak to his host, Sir Edward Bransome, Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs.

“I have just written you a line, Bransome,” he said, as they shook
hands. “The chief tells me that he is going to honor us down at Devenham
for a few days, and that we may expect you also.”

“You are very kind, Duke,” Bransome answered. “I suppose Haviland
explained the matter to you.”

The Duke nodded.

“You are going to help me entertain my other distinguished visitor,” he
remarked. “I fancy we shall be quite an interesting party.”

Bransome glanced around.

“I hope most earnestly,” he said, “that we shall induce our young friend
to be a little more candid with us than he has been. One can’t get a
word out of Hesho, but I’m bound to say that I don’t altogether like
the look of things. The Press are beginning to smell a rat. Two leading
articles this morning, I see, upon our Eastern relations.”

The Duke nodded.

“I read them,” he said. “We are informed that the prestige and success
of our ministry will entirely depend upon whether or not we are able to
arrange for the renewal of our treaty with Japan. I remember the same
papers shrieking themselves hoarse with indignation when we first joined
hands with our little friends across the sea!”

His secretary approached Bransome and touched him on the shoulder.

“There is a person in the anteroom, sir,” he said, “whom I think that
you ought to see.”

The Duke nodded and passed on. The Secretary drew his chief on one side.

“This man has just arrived from Paris, sir,” he continued, “and is the
bearer of a letter which he is instructed to deliver into your hands
only.”

Bransome nodded.

“Is he known to us at all?” he asked. “From whom does the letter come?”

The young man hesitated.

“The letter itself, sir, has nothing to do with France, I imagine,”
 he said. “The person I refer to is an American, and although I have no
positive information, I believe that he is sometimes intrusted with the
carrying of despatches from Washington to his Embassy. Once or twice
lately I have had it reported to me that communications from the other
side to Mr. Harvey have been sent by hand. It seems as though they had
some objection to committing important documents to the post.”

Bransome walked through the crowded rooms by the side of his secretary,
stopping for a moment to exchange greetings here and there with his
friends. His wife was giving her third reception of the session to the
diplomatic world.

“Washington has certainly shown signs of mistrust lately,” he remarked,
“but if communications from them are ever tampered with, it is
more likely to be on their side than ours. They have a particularly
unscrupulous Press to deal with, besides political intriguers. If this
person you speak of is really the bearer of a letter from there,” he
added, “I think we can both guess what it is about.”

The secretary nodded.

“Shall I ring up Mr. Haviland, sir?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Bransome answered. “It is just possible that this person
requires an immediate reply, in which case it may be convenient for me
not to be able to get at the Prime Minister. Bring him along into my
private room, Sidney.”

Sir Edward Bransome made his way to his study, opened the door with
a Yale key, turned on the electric lights, and crossed slowly to the
hearthrug. He stood there, for several moments, with his elbow upon
the mantelpiece, looking down into the fire. A darker shadow had
stolen across his face as soon as he was alone. In his court dress and
brilliant array of orders, he was certainly a very distinguished-looking
figure. Yet the last few years had branded lines into his face which it
was doubtful if he would ever lose. To be Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs to the greatest power which the world had as yet known must
certainly seem, on paper, to be as brilliant a post as a man’s ambition
could covet. Many years ago it had seemed so to Bransome himself. It was
a post which he had deliberately coveted, worked for, and strived for.
And now, when in sight of the end, with two years of office only to run,
he was appalled at the ever-growing responsibilities thrust upon his
shoulders. There was never, perhaps, a time when, on paper, things
had seemed smoother, when the distant mutterings of disaster were less
audible. It was only those who were behind the curtain who realized how
deceptive appearances were.

In a few minutes his secretary reappeared, ushering in Mr. James B.
Coulson. Mr. Coulson was still a little pale from the effects of his
crossing, and he wore a long, thick ulster to conceal the deficiencies
of his attire. Nevertheless his usual breeziness of manner had not
altogether deserted him. Sir Edward looked him up and down, and
finding him look exactly as Mr. James B. Coulson of the Coulson & Bruce
Syndicate should look, was inclined to wonder whether his secretary had
made a mistake.

“I was told that you wished to see me,” he said. “I am Sir Edward
Bransome.”

Mr. James B. Coulson nodded appreciatively.

“Very good of you, Sir Edward,” he said, “to put yourself out at this
time of night to have a word or two with me. I am sorry to have troubled
you, anyway, but the matter was sort of urgent.”

Sir Edward bent his head.

“I understand, Mr. Coulson,” he said, “that you come from the United
States.”

“That is so, sir,” Mr. Coulson replied. “I am at the head of a
syndicate, the Coulson & Bruce Syndicate, which in course of time hope
to revolutionize the machinery used for spinning wool all over the
world. Likewise we have patents for other machinery connected with
the manufacture of all varieties of woollen goods. I am over here on a
business trip, which I have just concluded.”

“Satisfactorily, I trust?” Sir Edward remarked.

“Well, I’m not grumbling, sir,” Mr. Coulson assented. “Here and there I
may have missed a thing, and the old fashioned way of doing business on
this side bothers me a bit, but on the whole I’m not grumbling.”

Bransome bowed. Perhaps, after all, the man was not a fool!

“I have a good many friends round about Washington,” Mr. Coulson
continued, “and sometimes, when they know I am coming across, one or
the other of them finds it convenient to hand me a letter. It isn’t the
postage stamp that worries them,” he added with a little laugh, “but
they sort of feel that anything committed to me is fairly safe to reach
its right destination.”

“Without disputing that fact for one moment, Mr. Coulson,” Sir Edward
remarked, “I might also suggest that the ordinary mail service between
our countries has reached a marvellous degree of perfection.”

“The Post Office,” Mr. Coulson continued meditatively, “is a great
institution, both on your side and ours, but a letter posted in
Washington has to go through a good many hands before it is delivered in
London.”

Sir Edward smiled.

“It is a fact, sir,” he said, “which the various Governments of Europe
have realized for many years, in connection with the exchange of
communications one with the other. Your own great country, as it grows
and expands, becomes, of necessity, more in touch with our methods. Did
I understand that you have a letter for me, Mr. Coulson?”

Mr. Coulson produced it.

“Friend of mine you may have heard of,” he said, “asked me to leave this
with you. I am catching the Princess Cecilia from Southampton tomorrow.
I thought, perhaps, if I waited an hour or so, I might take the answer
back with me.”

“It is getting late, Mr. Coulson,” Sir Edward reminded him, glancing at
the clock.

Mr. Coulson smiled.

“I think, Sir Edward,” he said, “that in your line of business time
counts for little.”

Sir Edward motioned his visitor to a chair and touched the bell.

“I shall require the A3X cipher, Sidney,” he said to his secretary.

Mr. Coulson looked up.

“Why,” he said, “I don’t think you’ll need that. The letter you’ve got
in your hand is just a personal one, and what my friend has to say to
you is written out there in black and white.”

Sir Edward withdrew the enclosure from its envelope and raised his
eyebrows.

“Isn’t this a trifle indiscreet?” he asked.

“Why, I should say not,” Mr. Coulson answered. “My friend--Mr. Jones
we’ll call him--knew me and, I presume, knew what he was about. Besides,
that is a plain letter from the head of a business firm to--shall we say
a client? There’s nothing in it to conceal.”

“At the same time,” Sir Edward remarked, “it might have been as well to
have fastened the flap of the envelope.”

Mr. Coulson held out his hand.

“Let me look,” he said.

Sir Edward gave it into his hands. Mr. Coulson held it under the
electric light. There was no indication in his face of any surprise or
disturbance.

“Bit short of gum in our stationery office,” he remarked.

Sir Edward was looking at him steadily.

“My impressions were,” he said, “when I opened this letter, that I was
not the first person who had done so. The envelope flew apart in my
fingers.”

Mr. Coulson shook his head.

“The document has never been out of my possession, sir,” he said. “It
has not even left my person. My friend Mr. Jones does not believe in
too much secrecy in matters of this sort. I have had a good deal
of experience now and am inclined to agree with him. A letter in a
double-ended envelope, stuck all over with sealing wax, is pretty
certain to be opened in case of any accident to the bearer. This one,
as you may not have noticed, is written in the same handwriting
and addressed in the same manner as the remainder of my letters of
introduction to various London and Paris houses of business.”

Sir Edward said no more. He read the few lines written on a single sheet
of notepaper, starting a little at the signature. Then he read them
again and placed the document beneath a paper weight in front of him.
When he leaned across the table, his folded arms formed a semicircle
around it.

“This letter, Mr. Coulson,” he said, “is not an official communication.”

“It is not,” Mr. Coulson admitted. “I fancy it occurred to my friend
Jones that anything official would be hardly in place and might be
easier to evade. The matter has already cropped up in negotiations
between Mr. Harvey and your Cabinet, but so far we are without any
definite pronouncement,--at least, that is how my friend Mr. Jones looks
at it.”

Sir Edward smiled.

“The only answer your friend asks for is a verbal one,” he remarked.

“A verbal one,” Mr. Coulson assented, “delivered to me in the presence
of one other person, whose name you will find mentioned in that letter.”

Sir Edward bowed his head. When he spoke again, his manner had somehow
changed. It had become at once more official,--a trifle more stilted.

“This is a great subject, Mr. Coulson,” he said. “It is a subject which
has occupied the attention of His Majesty’s Ministers for many months.
I shall take the opinion of the other person whose name is mentioned in
this letter, as to whether we can grant Mr. Jones’ request. If we should
do so, it will not, I am sure, be necessary to say to you that any
communication we may make on the subject tonight will be from men to a
man of honor, and must be accepted as such. It will be our honest and
sincere conviction, but it must also be understood that it does not bind
the Government of this country to any course of action.”

Mr. Coulson smiled and nodded his head.

“That is what I call diplomacy, Sir Edward,” he remarked. “I always tell
our people that they are too bullheaded. They don’t use enough words.
What about that other friend of yours?”

Sir Edward glanced at his watch.

“It is possible,” he said, “that by this time Mr.----- Mr. Smith, shall
we call him, to match your Mr. Jones?--is attending my wife’s reception,
from which your message called me. If he has not yet arrived, my
secretary shall telephone for him.”

Mr. Coulson indicated his approval.

“Seems to me,” he remarked, “that I have struck a fortunate evening for
my visit.”

Sir Edward touched the bell and his secretary appeared.

“Sidney,” he said, “I want you to find the gentleman whose name I am
writing upon this piece of paper. If he is not in the reception rooms
and has not arrived, telephone for him. Say that I shall be glad if he
would come this way at once. He will understand that it is a matter of
some importance.”

The secretary bowed and withdrew, after a glance at the piece of paper
which he held in his hand. Sir Edward turned toward his visitor.

“Mr. Coulson,” he said, “will you allow me the privilege of offering you
some refreshment?”

“I thank you, sir,” Mr. Coulson answered. “I am in want of nothing but a
smoke.”

Sir Edward turned to the bell, but his visitor promptly stopped him.

“If you will allow me, sir,” he said, “I will smoke one of my own.
Home-made article, five dollars a hundred, but I can’t stand these
strong Havanas. Try one.”

Sir Edward waved them away.

“If you will excuse me,” he said, “I will smoke a cigarette. Since you
are here, Mr. Coulson, I may say that I am very glad to meet you. I am
very glad, also, of this opportunity for a few minutes’ conversation
upon another matter.”

Mr. Coulson showed some signs of surprise.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“There is another subject,” Sir Edward said, “which I should like to
discuss with you while we are waiting for Mr. Smith.”



CHAPTER XX. THE ANSWER

Mr. Coulson moved his cigar into a corner of his mouth, as though to
obtain a clear view of his questioner’s face. His expression was one of
bland interest.

“Well, I guess you’ve got me puzzled, Sir Edward,” he said. “You aren’t
thinking of doing anything in woollen machinery, are you?”

Sir Edward smiled.

“I think not, Mr. Coulson,” he answered. “At any rate, my question had
nothing to do with your other very interesting avocation. What I wanted
to ask you was whether you could tell me anything about a compatriot of
yours--a Mr. Hamilton Fynes?”

“Hamilton Fynes!” Mr. Coulson repeated thoughtfully. “Why, that’s the
man who got murdered on the cars, going from Liverpool to London.”

“That is so,” Sir Edward admitted.

Mr. Coulson shook his head.

“I told that reporter fellow all I knew about him,” he said. “He was an
unsociable sort of chap, you know, Sir Edward, and he wasn’t in any line
of business.”

“H’m! I thought he might have been,” the Minister answered, glancing
keenly for a moment at his visitor. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Coulson,
we have been a great deal bothered about that unfortunate incident,
and by the subsequent murder of the young man who was attached to your
Embassy here. Scotland Yard has strained every nerve to bring the guilty
people to justice, but so far unsuccessfully. It seems to me that
your friends on the other side scarcely seem to give us credit for our
exertions. They do not help us in the least. They assure us that they
had no knowledge of Mr. Fynes other than has appeared in the papers.
They recognize him only as an American citizen going about his
legitimate business. A little more confidence on their part would, I
think, render our task easier.”

Mr. Coulson scratched his chin for a moment thoughtfully.

“Well,” he said, “I can understand their feeling a bit sore about it.
I’m not exactly given to brag when I’m away from my own country--one
hears too much of that all the time--but between you and me, I shouldn’t
say that it was possible for two crimes like that to be committed in New
York City and for the murderer to get off scot free in either case.”

“The matter,” Sir Edward declared, “has given us a great deal of
anxiety, and I can assure you that the Home Secretary himself has taken
a strong personal interest in it, but at the same time, as I have just
pointed out to you, our investigations are rendered the more difficult
from the fact that we cannot learn anything definite concerning this
Mr. Hamilton Fynes or his visit to this country. Now, if we knew, for
instance,” Sir Edward continued, “that he was carrying documents, or
even a letter, similar to the one you have just handed to me, we might
at once discover a motive to the crime, and work backwards until we
reached the perpetrator.”

Mr. Coulson knocked the ash from his cigar.

“I see what you are driving at,” he said. “I am sorry I can be of no
assistance to you, Sir Edward.”

“Neither in the case of Mr. Hamilton Fynes or in the case of Mr. Richard
Vanderpole?” Sir Edward asked.

Mr. Coulson shook his head.

“Quite out of my line,” he declared.

“Notwithstanding the fact,” Sir Edward reminded him quietly, “that you
were probably the last person to see Vanderpole alive? He came to the
Savoy to call upon you before he got into the taxicab where he was
murdered. That is so, isn’t it?”

“Sure!” Mr. Coulson answered. “A nice young fellow he was, too. Well set
up, and real American manners,--Hail, fellow, well met!’ with you right
away.”

“I suppose, Mr. Coulson,” the Minister suggested smoothly, “it wouldn’t
answer your purpose to put aside that bluff about patents for the
development of the woollen trade for a few moments, and tell me exactly
what passed between you and Mr. Vanderpole at the Savoy Hotel, and the
object of his calling upon you? Whether, for instance, he took away with
him documents or papers intended for the Embassy and which you yourself
had brought from America?”

“You do think of things!” Mr. Coulson remarked admiringly. “You’re on
the wrong track this time, though, sure. Still, supposing I were able
to tell you that Mr. Vanderpole was carrying papers of importance to my
country, and that Mr. Hamilton Fynes was also in possession of the same
class of document, how would it help you? In what fresh direction should
you look then for the murderers of these two men?”

“Mr. Coulson,” Sir Edward said, “we should consider the nature of those
documents, and we should see to whose advantage it was that they were
suppressed.”

Mr. Coulson’s face seemed suddenly old and lined. He spoke with a new
vigor, and his eyes were very keen and bright under his bushy eyebrows.

“And supposing it was your country’s?” he asked. “Supposing they
contained instructions to our Ambassador which you might consider
inimical to your interests? Do you mean that you would look at home for
the murderer? You mean that you have men so devoted to their native land
that they were willing to run the risk of death by the hangman to aid
her? You mean that your Secret Service is perfected to that extent, and
that the scales of justice are held blindfolded? Or do you mean that
Scotland Yard would have its orders, and that these men would go free?”

“I was not thinking of my own country,” Sir Edward admitted. “I must
confess that my thoughts had turned elsewhere.”

“Let me tell you this, sir,” Mr. Coulson continued. “I should imagine
that the trouble with Washington, if there is any, is simply that
they will not believe that your police have a free hand. They will not
believe that you are honestly and genuinely anxious for the discovery
of the perpetrator of these crimes. I speak without authority, you
understand? I am no more in a position to discuss this affair than any
other tourist from my country who might happen to come along.”

Sir Edward shrugged his shoulders.

“Can you suggest any method,” he asked a little dryly, “by means of
which we might remove this unfortunate impression?”

Mr. Coulson flicked the ash once more from the end of his cigar and
looked at it thoughtfully.

“This isn’t my show,” he said, “and, you understand, I am giving the
views of Mr. James B. Coulson, and nobody but Mr. James B. Coulson, but
if I were in your position, and knew that a friendly country was
feeling a little bit sore at having two of her citizens disposed of so
unceremoniously, I’d do my best to prove, by the only possible means,
that I was taking the matter seriously.”

“The only possible means being?” Sir Edward asked.

“I guess I’d offer a reward,” Mr. Coulson admitted.

Sir Edward did not hesitate for a moment.

“Your idea is an excellent one, Mr. Coulson,” he said. “It has already
been mooted, but we will give it a little emphasis. Tomorrow we will
offer a reward of one thousand pounds for any information leading to the
apprehension of either murderer.”

“That sounds bully,” Mr. Coulson declared.

“You think that it will have a good effect upon your friends in
Washington?”

“Me?” Mr. Coulson asked. “I know nothing about it. I’ve given you my
personal opinion only. Seems to me, though, it’s the best way of showing
that you’re in earnest.”

“Before we quit this subject finally, Mr. Coulson,” Sir Edward said, “I
am going to ask you a question which you have been asked before.”

“Referring to Hamilton Fynes?” Mr. Coulson asked.

“Yes!”

“Get your young man to lay his hand on that copy of the Comet,” Mr.
Coulson begged earnestly. “I told that pushing young journalist all I
knew and a bit more. I assure you, my information isn’t worth anything.”

“Was it meant to be worth anything?” Sir Edward asked.

Mr. Coulson remained imperturbable.

“If you don’t mind, Sir Edward,” he said, “I guess we’ll drop the
subject of Mr. Hamilton Fynes. We can’t get any forwarder. Let it go at
that.”

There was a knock at the door. Sir Edward’s secretary ushered in a tall,
plainly dressed gentleman, who had the slightly aggrieved air of a man
who has been kept out of his bed beyond the usual time.

“My dear Bransome,” he said, shaking hands, “isn’t this a little
unreasonable of you? Business at this hour of the night! I was in the
midst of a most amusing conversation with a delightful acquaintance
of your wife’s, a young lady who turned up her nose at Hegel and had
developed a philosophy of her own. I was just beginning to grasp its
first principles. Nothing else, I am quite sure, would have kept me
awake.”

Sir Edward leaned across the table towards Mr. Coulson. Mr. Coulson had
risen to his feet.

“This gentleman,” he said, “is Mr. Smith.”

The newcomer opened his lips to protest, but Sir Edward held out his
hand.

“One moment,” he begged. “Our friend here--Mr. J. B. Coulson from
New York--has brought a letter from America. He is sailing
tomorrow,--leaving London somewhere about eight o’clock in the morning,
I imagine. He wishes to take back a verbal reply. The letter, you will
understand, comes from a Mr. Jones, and the reply is delivered in the
presence of--Mr. Smith. Our friend here is not personally concerned
in these affairs. As a matter of fact, I believe he has been on the
Continent exploiting some patents of his own invention.”

The newcomer accepted the burden of his altered nomenclature and took up
the letter. He glanced at the signature, and his manner became at once
more interested. He accepted the chair which Sir Edward had placed by
his side, and, drawing the electric light a little nearer, read the
document through, word by word. Then he folded it up, and glanced first
at his colleague and afterwards at Mr. Coulson.

“I understand,” he said, “that this is a private inquiry from a private
gentleman, who is entitled, however, to as much courtesy as it is
possible for us to show him.”

“That is exactly the position, sir,” Mr. Coulson replied. “Negotiations
of a more formal character are naturally conducted between your Foreign
Office and the Foreign Office of my country. These few lines come from
man to man. I think that it occurred to my friend that it might save a
great deal of trouble, a great deal of specious diplomacy, and a great
many hundred pages of labored despatches, if, at the bottom of it all,
he knew your true feelings concerning this question. It is, after all,
a simple matter,” Mr. Coulson continued, “and yet it is a matter with
so many ramifications that after much discussion it might become a
veritable chaos.”

Mr. Smith inclined his head gently.

“I appreciate the situation,” he said. “My friend here--Sir Edward
Bransome--and I have already discussed the matter at great length. We
have also had the benefit of the advice and help of a greater Foreign
Minister than either of us could ever hope to become. I see no objection
to giving you the verbal reply you ask for. Do you, Bransome?”

“None whatever, sir.”

“I leave it to you to put it in your own words,” Mr. Smith continued.
“The affair is within your province, and the policy of His Majesty’s
Ministers is absolutely fixed.”

Sir Edward turned toward their visitor.

“Mr. Coulson,” he said, “we are asked by your friend, in a few plain
words, what the attitude of Great Britain would be in the event of a war
between Japan and America. My answer--our answer--to you is this,--no
war between Japan and America is likely to take place unless your
Cabinet should go to unreasonable and uncalled-for extremes. We have
ascertained, beyond any measure of doubt, the sincere feeling of our
ally in this matter. Japan does not desire war, is not preparing for it,
is unwilling even to entertain the possibility of it. At the same time
she feels that her sons should receive the same consideration from every
nation in the world as the sons of other people. Personally it is our
profound conviction that the good sense, the fairness, and the generous
instincts of your great country will recognize this and act accordingly.
War between your country and Japan is an impossible thing. The thought
of it exists only in the frothy vaporings of cheap newspapers, and the
sensational utterances of the catch politician who must find an audience
and a hearing by any methods. The sober possibility of such a conflict
does not exist.”

Mr. Coulson listened attentively to every word. When Sir Edward had
finished, he withdrew his cigar from his mouth and knocked the ash on to
a corner of the writing table.

“That’s all very interesting indeed, Sir Edward,” he declared. “I am
very pleased to have heard what you have said, and I shall repeat it to
my friend on the other side, who, I am sure, will be exceedingly
obliged to you for such a frank exposition of your views. And now,” he
continued, “I don’t want to keep you gentlemen up too late, so perhaps
you will be coming to the answer of my question.”

“The answer!” Sir Edward exclaimed. “Surely I made myself clear?”

“All that you have said,” Mr. Coulson admitted, “has been remarkably
clear, but the question I asked you was this,--what is to be the
position of your country in the event of war between Japan and America?”

“And I have told you,” Sir Edward declared, “that war between Japan and
America is not a subject within the scope of practical politics.”

“We may consider ourselves--my friend Mr. Jones would certainly consider
himself,” Mr. Coulson affirmed,--“as good a judge as you, Sir Edward, so
far as regards that matter. I am not asking you whether it is probable
or improbable. You may know the feelings of your ally. You do not know
ours. We may look into the future, and we may see that, sooner or later,
war between our country and Japan is a necessity. We may decide that
it is better for us to fight now than later. These things are in the
clouds. They only enter into the present discussion to this extent, but
it is not for you to sit here and say whether war between the United
States and Japan is possible or impossible. What Mr. Jones asks you
is--what would be your position if it should take place? The little
diatribe with which you have just favored me is exactly the reply we
should have expected to receive formally from Downing Street. It isn’t
that sort of reply I want to take back to Mr. Jones.”

Mr. Smith and his colleague exchanged glances, and the latter drew his
chief on one side.

“You will excuse me for a moment, I know, Mr. Coulson,” he said.

“Why, by all means,” Mr. Coulson declared. “My time is my own, and it
is entirely at your service. If you say the word, I’ll go outside and
wait.”

“It is not necessary,” Sir Edward answered.

The room was a large one, and the two men walked slowly up and down, Mr.
Smith leaning all the time upon his colleague’s shoulder. They spoke in
an undertone, and what they said was inaudible to Mr. Coulson. During
his period of waiting he drew another cigar from his pocket, and lit
it from the stump of the old one. Then he made himself a little
more comfortable in his chair, and looked around at the walls of the
handsomely furnished but rather sombre apartment with an air of pleased
curiosity. It was scarcely, perhaps, what he should have expected from
a man in a similar position in his own country, but it was, at any rate,
impressive. Presently they came back to him. This time it was Mr. Smith
who spoke.

“Mr. Coulson,” he said, “we need not beat about the bush. You ask us a
plain question and you want a plain answer. Then I must tell you this.
The matter is not one concerning which I can give you any definite
information. I appreciate the position of your friend Mr. Jones, and I
should like to have met him in the same spirit as he has shown in his
inquiry, but I may tell you that, being utterly convinced that Japan
does not seek war with you, and that therefore no war is likely, my
Government is not prepared to answer a question which they consider
based upon an impossibility. If this war should come, the position of
our country would depend entirely upon the rights of the dispute. As a
corollary to that, I would mention two things. You read your newspapers,
Mr. Coulson?”

“Sure!” that gentleman answered.

“You are aware, then,” Mr. Smith continued, “of the present position
of your fleet. You know how many months must pass before it can reach
Eastern waters. It is not within the traditions of this country to evade
fulfillment of its obligations, however severe and unnatural they may
seem, but in three months’ time, Mr. Coulson, our treaty with Japan will
have expired.”

“You are seeking to renew it!” Mr. Coulson declared quickly.

Mr. Smith raised his eyebrows.

“The renewal of that treaty,” he said, “is on the knees of the gods. One
cannot tell. I go so far only as to tell you that in three months the
present treaty will have expired.”

Mr. Coulson rose slowly to his feet and took up his hat.

“Gentlemen both,” he said, “that’s what I call plain speaking. I suppose
it’s up to us to read between the lines. I can assure you that my friend
Mr. Jones will appreciate it. It isn’t my place to say a word outside
the letter which I have handed to you. I am a plain business man,
and these things don’t come in my way. That is why I feel I can
criticize,--I am unprejudiced. You are Britishers, and you’ve got one
eternal fault. You seem to think the whole world must see a matter as
you see it. If Japan has convinced you that she doesn’t seek a war with
us, it doesn’t follow that she’s convinced us. As to the rights of
our dispute, don’t rely so much upon hearing one side only. Don’t be
dogmatic about it, and say this thing is and that thing isn’t. You may
bet your last dollar that America isn’t going to war about trifles. We
are the same flesh and blood, you know. We have the same traditions to
uphold. What we do is what we should expect you to do if you were in our
place. That’s all, gentlemen. Now I wish you both good night! Mr. Smith,
I am proud to shake hands with you. Sir Edward, I say the same to you.”

Bransome touched the bell and summoned his secretary.

“Sidney, will you see this gentleman out?” he said. “You are quite sure
there is nothing further we can do for you, Mr. Coulson?”

“Nothing at all, I thank you, sir,” that gentleman answered. “I
have only got to thank you once more for the pleasure of this brief
interview. Good night!”

“Good night, and bon voyage!” Sir Edward answered.

The door was closed. The two men looked at one another for a moment. Mr.
Smith shrugged his shoulders and helped himself to a cigarette.

“I wonder,” he remarked thoughtfully, “how our friends in Japan
convinced themselves so thoroughly that Mr. Jones was only playing
ships!”

Sir Edward shook his head.

“It makes one wonder,” he said.



CHAPTER XXI. A CLUE

By midday on the following morning London was placarded with notices,
the heading of which was sensational enough to attract observation from
every passer-by, young or old, rich or poor. One thousand pounds’ reward
for the apprehension of the murderer of either Hamilton Fynes or Richard
Vanderpole! Inspector Jacks, who was amongst the first to hear the news,
after a brief interview with his chief put on his hat and walked round
to the Home Office. He sought out one of the underlings with whom he
had some acquaintance, and whom he found ready enough, even eager, to
discuss the matter.

“There wasn’t a word about any reward,” Inspector Jacks was told, “until
this morning. We had a telephone message from the chief’s bedroom and
phoned you up at once. It’s a pretty stiff amount, isn’t it?”

“It is,” the Inspector admitted. “Our chief seems to be taking quite a
personal interest in the matter all at once.”

“I’ll lay two to one that some one was on to him at Sir Edward
Bransome’s reception last night,” the other remarked. “I know very well
that there was no idea of offering a reward yesterday afternoon. We
might have come out with a hundred pounds or so, a little later on,
perhaps, but there was nothing of this sort in the air. I’ve no desire
to seem censorious, you know, Jacks,” the young man went on, leaning
back in his chair and lighting a cigarette, “but it does seem a
dashed queer thing that you can’t put your finger upon either of these
fellows.”

Inspector Jacks nodded gloomily.

“No doubt it seems so to you,” he admitted. “You forget that we have
to have a reasonable amount of proof before we can tap a man on the
shoulder and ask him to come with us. It isn’t so abroad or in America.
There they can hand a man up with less than half the evidence we have
to be prepared with, and, of course, they get the reputation of being
smarter on the job. We may learn enough to satisfy ourselves easily, but
to get up a case which we can put before a magistrate and be sure of not
losing our man, takes time.”

“So you’ve got your eye on some one?” The young man asked curiously.

“I did not say so,” the Inspector answered warily. “By the bye, do you
think there would be any chance of five minutes’ interview with your
chief?”

The young man shook his head slowly.

“What a cheek you’ve got, Jacks!” he declared. “You’re not serious, are
you?”

“Perfectly,” Inspector Jacks answered. “And to tell you the truth,
my young friend, I am half inclined to think that when he is given to
understand, as he will be by you, if he doesn’t know it already, that I
am in charge of the investigations concerning these two murders, he will
see me.”

The young man was disposed to consider the point.

“Well,” he remarked, “the chief does seem plaguy interested, all of a
sudden. I’ll pass your name in. If you take a seat, it’s just possible
that he may spare you a minute or two in about an hour’s time. He won’t
be able to before then, I’m sure. There’s a deputation almost due, and
two other appointments before luncheon time.”

The Inspector accepted a newspaper and an easy chair. His young friend
disappeared and returned almost immediately, looking a little surprised.

“I’ve managed it for you,” he explained. “The chief is going to spare
you five minutes at once. Come along and I’ll show you in.”

Inspector Jacks took up his hat and followed his acquaintance to the
private room of the Home Secretary. That personage nodded to him upon
his entrance and continued to dictate a letter. When he had finished, he
sent his clerk out of the room and, motioning Mr. Jacks to take a seat
by his side, leaned back in his own chair with the air of one prepared
to relax for a moment. He was a man of somewhat insignificant presence,
but he had keen gray eyes, half the time concealed under thick eyebrows,
and flashing out upon you now and then at least expected moments.

“From Scotland Yard, I understand, Mr. Jacks?” he remarked.

“At your service, sir,” the Inspector answered. “I am in charge of the
investigations concerning these two recent murders.”

“Quite so,” the Home Secretary remarked. “I am very glad to meet
you, Mr. Jacks. So far, I suppose, you are willing to admit that
you gentlemen down at Scotland Yard have not exactly distinguished
yourselves.”

“We are willing to admit that,” Inspector Jacks said.

“I do not know whether the reward will help you very much,” the Home
Secretary continued. “So far as you people personally are concerned, I
imagine that it will make no difference. The only point seems to be
that it may bring you outside help which at the present time is being
withheld.”

“The offering of the reward, sir,” Inspector Jacks said, “can do no
harm, and it may possibly assist us very materially.”

“I am glad to have your opinion, Mr. Jacks,” the Home Secretary said.

There was a moment’s pause. The Minister trifled with some papers lying
on the desk before him. Then he turned to his visitor and continued,--

“You will forgive my reminding you, Mr. Jacks, that I am a busy man and
that this is a busy morning. You had some reason, I presume, for wishing
to see me?”

“I had, sir,” the Inspector answered. “I took the liberty of waiting
upon you, sir, to ask whether the idea of a reward for so large a sum
came spontaneously from your department?”

The Home Secretary raised his eyebrows.

“Really, Mr. Jacks,” he began,--

“I hope, sir,” the Inspector protested, “that you will not think I am
asking this question through any irrelevant curiosity. I am beginning to
form a theory of my own as to these two murders, but it needs building
up. The offering of a reward like this, if it emanates from the source
which I suspect that it does, gives a solid foundation to my theories.
I am here, sir, in the interests of justice only, and I should be
exceedingly obliged to you if you would tell me whether the suggestion
of this large reward did not come from the Foreign Office?”

The Minister considered for several moments, and then slowly inclined
his head.

“Mr. Jacks,” he said, “your question appears to me to be a pertinent
one. I see not the slightest reason to conceal from you the fact that
your surmise is perfectly accurate.”

A flash of satisfaction illuminated for a moment the detective’s
inexpressive features. He rose and took up his hat.

“I am very much obliged to you, sir,” he said. “The information which
you have given me is extremely valuable.”

“I am glad to hear you say so,” the Home Secretary declared. “You
understand, of course, that it is within the province of my department
to assist at all times and in any possible way the course of justice. Is
there anything more I can do for you?”

Inspector Jacks hesitated.

“If you would not think it a liberty, sir,” he said, “I should be
very glad indeed if you would give me a note which would insure me an
interview with Sir Edward Bransome.”

“I will give it you with pleasure,” the Secretary answered, “although I
imagine that he would be quite willing to see you on your own request.”

He wrote a few lines and passed them over. Inspector Jacks saluted, and
turned towards the door.

“You’ll let me know if anything turns up?” the Home Secretary said.

“You shall be informed at once, sir,” the Inspector assured him, a as he
left the room.

Sir Edward Bransome was just leaving his house when Inspector Jacks
entered the gate. The latter, who knew him by sight, saluted and
hesitated for a moment.

“Did you wish to speak to me?” Sir Edward asked, drawing back from the
step of his electric brougham.

The Inspector held out his letter. Sir Edward tore it open and glanced
through the few lines which it contained. Then he looked keenly for a
moment at the man who stood respectfully by his side.

“So you are Inspector Jacks from Scotland Yard,” he remarked.

“At your service, sir,” the detective answered.

“You can get in with me, if you like,” Sir Edward continued, motioning
toward the interior of his brougham. “I am due in Downing Street now,
but I dare say you could say what you wish to on the way there.”

“Certainly, sir,” Inspector Jacks answered. “It will be very good of you
indeed if you can spare me those few minutes.”

The brougham glided away.

“Now, Mr. Jacks,” Sir Edward said, “what can I do for you? If you want
to arrest me, I shall claim privilege.”

The Inspector smiled.

“I am in charge, sir,” he said, “of the investigations concerning the
murder of Mr. Hamilton Fynes and Mr. Richard Vanderpole. The news of the
reward came to us at Scotland Yard this morning. Its unusual amount led
me to make some injuries at the Home Office. I found that what I partly
expected was true. I found, sir, that your department has shown some
interest in the apprehension of these two men.”

Sir Edward inclined his head slowly.

“Well?” he said.

“Sir Edward Bransome,” the Inspector continued, “I have a theory of my
own as to these murders, and though it may take me some time to work it
out, I feel myself day by day growing nearer the truth. These were not
ordinary crimes. Any one can see that. They were not even crimes for
the purpose of robbery--not, that is to say, for robbery in the ordinary
sense of the word. That is apparent even to those who write for the
Press. It has been apparent to us from the first. It is beginning
to dawn upon me now what the nature of the motive must be which was
responsible for them. I have in my possession a slight, a very slight
clue. The beginning of it is there, and the end. It is the way between
which is tangled.”

Sir Edward lit a cigarette and leaned back amongst the cushions. With
a little gesture he indicated his desire that Inspector Jacks should
proceed.

“My object in seeking for a personal interview with you, sir,” Inspector
Jacks continued, “is to ask you a somewhat peculiar question. If I find
that my investigations lead me in the direction which at present seems
probable, it is no ordinary person whom I shall have to arrest when the
time comes. The reward which has been offered is a large one, and it is
not for me to question the bona fide nature of it. I would not presume,
sir, even to ask you whether it was offered by reason of any outside
pressure, but there is one question which I must ask. Do you really
wish, sir, that the murderer or murderers of these two men shall be
brought to justice?”

Sir Edward looked at his companion in steadfast amazement.

“My dear Inspector,” he said, “what is this that you have in your
mind? I hold no brief for any man capable of such crimes as these.
Representations have been made to us by the American Government that the
murder of two of her citizens within the course of twenty-four hours,
and the absence of any arrest, is somewhat of a reflection upon our
police service. It is for your assistance, and in compliment to our
friends across the Atlantic, that the reward was offered.”

Inspector Jacks seemed a little at a loss.

“It is your wish, then, sir,” he said slowly, “that the guilty person or
persons be arrested without warning, whoever they may be?”

“By all means,” Sir Edward affirmed. “I cannot conceive, Inspector, what
you have in your mind which could have led you for a moment to suspect
the contrary.”

The brougham had come to a standstill in front of a house in Downing
Street. Inspector Jacks descended slowly. It was hard for him to decide
on the spot how far to take into his confidence a person whose attitude
was so unsympathetic.

“I am exceedingly obliged to you for your answer to my question, sir,”
 he said, saluting. “I hope that in a few days we shall have some news
for you.”

Sir Edward watched him disappear as he mounted the steps of the Prime
Minister’s house.

“I wonder,” he said to himself thoughtfully, “what that fellow can have
in his mind!”

Inspector Jacks did not at once return to Scotland Yard. On his way
there he turned into St. James’ Square, and stood for several moments
looking at the corner house on the far side. Finally, after a hesitation
which seldom characterized his movements, he crossed the road and rang
the bell. The door was opened almost at once by a Japanese butler.

“Is your master at home?” the Inspector asked.

“His Highness does not see strangers,” the man replied coldly.

“Will you take him my card?” the Inspector asked.

The man bowed, and showed him into an apartment on the ground floor.
Then with the card in his hand, he turned reluctantly away.

“His Highness shall be informed that you are here,” he said. “I fear,
however, that you waste your time. I go to see.”

Inspector Jacks subsided into a bamboo chair and looked out of the
window with a frown upon his forehead. It was certain that he was not
proceeding with altogether his usual caution. As a matter of tactics,
this visit of his might very well be fatal!



CHAPTER XXII. A BREATH FROM THE EAST

Inspector Jacks was a man who had succeeded in his profession chiefly on
account of an average amount of natural astuteness, and also because he
was one of those favored persons whose nervous system was a whole and
perfect thing. Yet, curiously enough, as he sat in this large, gloomy
apartment into which he had been shown, a room filled with art treasures
whose appearance and significance were entirely strange to him, he felt
a certain uneasiness which he was absolutely unable to understand. He
was somewhat instinctive in his likes and dislikes, and from the first
he most heartily disliked the room itself,--its vague perfumes, its
subdued violet coloring, the faces of the grinning idols, which
seemed to meet his gaze in every direction, the pictures of those
fierce-looking warriors who brandished two-edged swords at him from the
walls. They belonged to the period when Japanese art was perhaps in
its crudest state, and yet in this uncertain atmosphere they seemed to
possess an extraordinary vitality, as though indeed they were prepared
at a moment’s notice to leap from their frames and annihilate this
mysterious product of modern days, who in black clothes and silk hat,
unarmed and without physical strength, yet wielded the powers of life
and death as surely as they in their time had done.

The detective rose from his seat and walked around the room. He made a
show of examining the arms against the walls, the brocaded hangings with
their wonderful design of faded gold, the ivory statuettes, the black
god who sat on his haunches and into whose face seemed carved some dumb
but eternal power. Movement was in some respects a solace, but the sound
of a hansom bell tinkling outside was a much greater relief. He crossed
to the windows and looked out over the somewhat silent square. A
hurdy-gurdy was playing in the corner opposite the club, just
visible from where he stood. The members were passing in and out. The
commissionaire stood stolidly in his place, raising every now and
then his cab whistle to his lips. A flickering sunlight fell upon the
wind-shaken lilac trees in the square enclosure. Inspector Jacks found
himself wishing that the perfume of those lilacs might reach even to
where he stood, and help him to forget for a moment that subtler and to
him curiously unpleasant odor which all the time became more and more
apparent. So overpowering did he feel it that he tried even to open the
window, but found it an impossible task. The atmosphere seemed to him to
be becoming absolutely stifling.

He turned around and walked uneasily toward the door. He decided
then that this was some sort of gruesome nightmare with which he was
afflicted. He was quite certain that in a few minutes he would wake
in his little iron bedstead with the sweat upon his forehead and a
reproachful consciousness of having eaten an indiscreet supper. It could
not possibly be a happening in real life! It could not be true that his
knees were sinking beneath the weight of his body, that the clanging of
iron hammers was really smiting the drums of his ears, that the purple
of the room was growing red, and that his veins were strained to
bursting! He threw out his arms in a momentary instinct of fiercely
struggling consciousness. The idols on the walls jeered at him. Those
strangely clad warriors seemed to him now to be looking down upon his
discomfiture with a satanic smile, mocking the pygmy who had dared to
raise his hand against one so jealously guarded. Clang once more went
the blacksmith’s hammers, and then chaos!...

The end of the nightmare was not altogether according to Inspector
Jacks’ expectations. He found himself in a small back room, stretched
upon a sofa before the open French-windows, through which came a
pleasant vision of waving green trees and a pleasanter stream of fresh
air. His first instinct was to sniff, and a sense of relief crept
through him when he realized that this room, at any rate, was free from
abnormal odors. He sat up on the couch. A pale-faced Japanese servant
stood by his side with a glass in his hand. A few feet away, the man
whom he had come to visit was looking down upon him with an expression
of grave concern in his kindly face.

“You are better, I trust, sir?” Prince Maiyo said.

“I am better,” Inspector Jacks muttered. “I don’t know--I can’t imagine
what happened to me.”

“You were not feeling quite well, perhaps, this morning,” the Prince
said soothingly. “A little run down, no doubt. Your profession--I gather
from your card that you come from Scotland Yard--is an arduous one.
I came into the room and found you lying upon your back, gasping for
breath.”

Inspector Jacks was making a swift recovery. He noticed that the glass
which the man-servant was holding was empty. He had a dim recollection
of something having been forced through his lips. Already he was
beginning to feel himself again.

“I was absolutely and entirely well,” he declared stoutly, “both when I
left home this morning and when I entered that room to wait for you. I
don’t know what it was that came over me,” he continued doubtfully, “but
the atmosphere seemed suddenly to become unbearable.”

Prince Maiyo nodded understandingly.

“People often complain,” he admitted. “So many of my hangings in the
room have been wrapped in spices to preserve them, and my people burn
dead blossoms there occasionally. Some of us, too,” he concluded, “are
very susceptible to strange odors. I should imagine, perhaps, that you
are one of them.”

Inspector Jacks shook his head.

“I call myself a strong man,” he said, “and I couldn’t have believed
that anything of the sort would have happened to me.”

“I shouldn’t worry about it,” the Prince said gently. “Go and see your
doctor, if you like, but I have known many people, perfectly healthy,
affected in the same way. I understood that you wished to have a word
with me. Do you feel well enough to enter upon your business now, or
would you prefer to make another appointment?”

“I am feeling quite well again, thank you,” the Inspector said slowly.
“If you could spare me a few minutes, I should be glad to explain the
matter which brought me here.”

The Prince merely glanced at his servant, who bowed and glided
noiselessly from the room. Then he drew an easy chair to the side of the
couch where Mr. Jacks was still sitting.

“I am very much interested to meet you, Mr. Inspector Jacks,” he
remarked, with a glance at the card which he was still holding in his
fingers. “I have studied very many of your English institutions during
my stay over here with much interest, but it has not been my good
fortune to have come into touch at all with your police system. Sir
Goreham Briggs--your chief, I believe--has invited me several times to
Scotland Yard, and I have always meant to avail myself of his kindness.
You come to me, perhaps, from him?”

The Inspector shook his head.

“My business, Prince,” he said, “is a little more personal.”

Prince Maiyo raised his eyebrows.

“Indeed?” he said. “Well, whatever it is, let us hear it. I trust that I
have not unconsciously transgressed against your laws?”

Inspector Jacks hesitated. After all, his was not so easy a task.

“Prince,” he said, “my errand is not in any way a pleasant one, and I
should be very sorry indeed to find myself in the position of bringing
any annoyance upon a stranger and a gentleman who is so highly esteemed.
At the same time there are certain duties in connection with my
every-day life which I cannot ignore. In England, as I dare say you
know, sir, the law is a great leveller. I have heard that it is not
quite so in your country, but over here we all stand equal in its
sight.”

“That is excellent,” the Prince said. “Please believe, Mr. Inspector
Jacks, that I do not wish to stand for a single moment between you and
your duty, whatever it may be. Let me hear just what you have to say,
as though I were an ordinary dweller here. While I am in England, at any
rate,” he added with a smile, “I am subject to your laws, and I do my
best to obey them.”

“It has fallen to my lot,” Inspector Jacks said, “to take charge of the
investigations following upon the murder of a man named Hamilton Fynes,
who was killed on his way from Liverpool to London about a fortnight
ago.”

The Prince inclined his head.

“I believe,” he said amiably, “that I remember hearing the matter spoken
of. It was the foundation of a debate, I recollect, at a recent dinner
party, as to the extraordinarily exaggerated value people in your
country seem to claim for human life, as compared to us Orientals. But
pray proceed, Mr. Inspector Jacks,” the Prince continued courteously.
“The investigation, I am sure, is in most able hands.”

“You are very kind, sir,” said the Inspector. “I do my best, but I might
admit to you that I have never found a case so difficult to grasp.
Our methods perhaps are slow, but they are, in a sense, sure. We are
building up our case, and we hope before long to secure the criminal,
but it is not an easy task.”

The Prince bowed. This time he made no remark.

“The evidence which I have collected from various sources,” Inspector
Jacks continued, “leads me to believe that the person who committed this
murder was a foreigner.”

“What you call an alien,” the Prince suggested. “There is much
discussion, I gather, concerning their presence in this country
nowadays.”

“The evidence which I possess,” the detective proceeded, “points to the
murderer belonging to the same nationality as Your Highness.”

The Prince raised his eyebrows.

“A Japanese?” he asked.

The Inspector assented.

“I am sorry,” the Prince said, with a touch of added gravity in his
manner, “that one of my race should have committed a misdemeanor in
this country, but if that is so, your way, of course, is clear. You must
arrest him and deal with him as an ordinary English criminal. He is here
to live your life, and he must obey your laws.”

“In time, sir,” Inspector Jacks said slowly, “we hope to do so, but over
here we may not arrest upon suspicion. We have to collect evidence, and
build and build until we can satisfy any reasonable individual that the
accused person is guilty.”

The Prince sighed sympathetically.

“It is not for me,” he said, “to criticize your methods.”

“I come now,” Inspector Jacks said slowly, “to the object of my call
upon Your Highness. Following upon what I have just told you, certain
other information has come into my possession to this effect--that not
only was this murderer a Japanese, but we have evidence which seems to
suggest that he was attached in some way to your household.”

“To my household!” the Prince repeated.

“To this household, Your Highness,” the detective repeated.

The Prince shook his head slowly.

“Mr. Jacks,” he said, “you are, I am sure, a very clever man. Let me ask
you one question. Has it ever fallen to your lot to make a mistake?”

“Very often indeed,” the Inspector admitted frankly.

“Then I am afraid,” the Prince said, “that you are once more in that
position. I have attached to my household fourteen Japanese servants, a
secretary, a majordomo, and a butler. It may interest you, perhaps, to
know that during my residence in this country not one of my retinue,
with the exception of my secretary, who has been in Paris for some
weeks, has left this house.”

The Inspector stared at the Prince incredulously.

“Never left the house?” he repeated. “Do you mean, sir, that they do not
go out for holidays, for exercise, to the theatre?”

The Prince shook his head.

“Such things are not the custom with us,” he said. “They are my
servants. The duty of their life is service. London is a world unknown
to them--London and all these Western cities. They have no desire to be
made mock of in your streets. Their life is given to my interests. They
do not need distractions.”

Inspector Jacks was dumfounded. Such a state of affairs seemed to him
impossible.

“Do you mean that they do not take exercise,” he asked, “that they never
breathe the fresh air?”

The Prince smiled.

“Such fresh air as your city can afford them,” he said, “is to be found
in the garden there, into which I never penetrate and which is for their
use. I see that you look amazed, Mr. Inspector Jacks. This thing which
I have told you seems strange, no doubt, but you must not confuse the
servants of my country with the servants of yours. I make no comment
upon the latter. You know quite well what they are; so do I. With us,
service is a religion,--service to country and service to master. These
men who perform the duties of my household would give their lives for
me as cheerfully as they would for their country, should the occasion
arise.”

“But their health?” the Inspector protested. “It is not, surely, well
for them to be herded together like this?”

The Prince smiled.

“I am not what is called a sportsman in this country, Mr. Inspector
Jacks,” he said, “but you shall go to the house of any nobleman you
choose, and if you will bring me an equal number of your valets or
footmen or chefs, who can compete with mine in running or jumping or
wrestling, then I will give you a prize what you will--a hundred pounds,
or more. You see, my servants have learned the secret of diet. They
drink nothing save water. Sickness is unknown to them.”

The Inspector was silent for some time. Then he rose to his feet.

“Prince,” he said, “what should you declare, then, if I told you that a
man of obvious Japanese extraction was seen to enter your house on
the morning after the murder, and that he was a person to whom certain
circumstances pointed as being concerned in that deed?”

“Mr. Inspector Jacks,” the Prince said calmly, “I was the only person of
my race who entered my house that morning.”

The Inspector moved toward the door.

“Your Highness,” he said gravely, “I am exceedingly obliged to you for
your courteous attention, and for your kindness after my unfortunate
indisposition.”

The Prince smiled graciously.

“Mr. Inspector Jacks,” he said, “your visit has been of great interest
to me. If I can be of any further assistance, pray do not hesitate to
call upon me.”



CHAPTER XXIII. ON THE TRAIL

Inspector Jacks studied the brass plate for a moment, and then rang
the patients’ bell. The former, he noticed was very much in want of
cleaning, and for a doctor’s residence there was a certain lack of
smartness about the house and its appointments which betokened a limited
practice. The railing in front was broken, and no pretence had been made
at keeping the garden in order. Inspector Jacks had time to notice these
things, for it was not until after his second summons that the door was
opened by Dr. Whiles himself.

“Good morning!” the latter said tentatively. Then, with a slight air of
disappointment, he recognized his visitor.

“Good morning, doctor!” Inspector Jacks replied. “You haven’t forgotten
me, I hope? I came down to see you a short time ago, respecting the
man who was knocked down by a motor car and treated by you on a certain
evening.”

The doctor nodded.

“Will you come in?” he asked.

He led the way into a somewhat dingy waiting room. A copy of _The
Field_, a month old, a dog-eared magazine, and a bound volume of _Good
Words_ were spread upon the table. The room itself, except for a few
chairs, was practically bare.

“I do not wish to take up too much of your time, Dr. Whiles,” the
Inspector began,--

The doctor laughed shortly.

“You needn’t bother about that,” he said. “I’m tired of making a bluff.
My time isn’t any too well occupied.”

The Inspector glanced at his watch,--it was a few minutes past twelve.

“If you are really not busy,” he said, “I was about to suggest to you
that you should come back to town with me and lunch. I do not expect,
of course, to take up your day for nothing,” he continued. “You will
understand, as a professional man, that when your services are required
by the authorities, they expect and are willing to pay for them.”

“But what use can I be to you?” the doctor asked. “You know all about
the man whom I fixed up on the night of the murder. There’s nothing more
to tell you about that. I’d as soon go up to town and lunch with you as
not, but if you think that I’ve anything more to tell you, you’ll only
be disappointed.”

The Inspector nodded.

“I’m quite content to run the risk of that,” he said. “Of course,” he
continued, “it does not follow in the least that this person was in any
way connected with the murder. In fact, so far as I can tell at present,
the chances are very much against it. But at the same time it would
interest my chief if you were able to identify him.”

The doctor nodded.

“I begin to understand,” he said.

“If you will consider a day spent up in town equivalent to the treatment
of twenty-five patients at your ordinary scale,” Inspector Jacks said,
“I shall be glad if you would accompany me there by the next train.
We will lunch together first, and look for our friend later in the
afternoon.”

The doctor did not attempt to conceal the fact that he found this
suggestion entirely satisfactory. In less than half an hour, the two men
were on their way to town.

Curiously enough, Penelope and Prince Maiyo met that morning for the
first time in several days. They were both guests of the Duchess of
Devenham at a large luncheon party at the Savoy Restaurant. Penelope
felt a little shiver when she saw him coming down the stairs. Somehow or
other, she had dreaded this meeting, yet when it came, she knew that it
was a relief. There was no change in his manner, no trace of anxiety
in his smooth, unruffled face. He seemed, if possible, to have grown
younger, to walk more buoyantly. His eyes met hers frankly, his smile
was wholly unembarrassed. It was not possible for a man to bear himself
thus who stood beneath the great shadow!

So far from avoiding her, he came over to her side directly he had
greeted his hostess.

“This morning,” he said, “I heard some good news. You are to be a fellow
guest at Devenham.”

“I am afraid,” she admitted, “that of my two aunts I impose most
frequently upon the one where my claims are the slightest. The Duchess
is so good-natured.”

“She is charming,” the Prince declared. “I am looking forward to my
visit immensely. I think I am a little weary of London. A visit to the
country seems to me most delightful. They tell me, too, that your spring
gardens are wonderful. What London suffers from, I think, at this time
of the year, is a lack of flowers. We want something to remind us that
the spring is coming, besides these occasional gleams of blue sky and
very occasional bursts of sunshine.”

“You are a sentimentalist, Prince,” she declared, smiling.

“No, I think not,” he answered seriously. “I love all beautiful things.
I think that there are many men as well as women who are like that.
Shall I be very rude and say that in the matter of climate and flowers
one grows, perhaps, to expect a little more in my own country.”

An uncontrollable impulse moved her. She leaned a little towards him.

“Climate and flowers only?” she murmured. “What about the third
essential?”

“Miss Penelope,” he said under his breath, “I have to admit that one
must travel further afield for Heaven’s greatest gift. Even then one can
only worship. The stars are denied to us.”

The Duchess came sailing over to them.

“Every one is here,” she said. “I hope that you are all hungry. After
lunch, Prince, I want you to speak to General Sherrif. He has been dying
to meet you, to talk over your campaign together in Manchuria. There’s
another man who is anxious to meet you, too,--Professor Spenlove. He
has been to Japan for a month, and thinks about writing a book on your
customs. I believe he looks to you to correct his impressions.”

“So long as he does not ask me to correct his proofs!” the Prince
murmured.

“That is positively the most unkind thing I have ever heard you say,”
 the Duchess declared. “Come along, you good people. Jules has promised
me a new omelet, on condition that we sit down at precisely half-past
one. If we are five minutes late, he declines to send it up.”

They took their places at the round table which had been reserved for
the Duchess of Devenham,--not very far, Penelope remembered, from the
table at which they had sat for dinner a little more than a fortnight
ago. The recollection of that evening brought her a sudden realization
of the tragedy which seemed to have taken her life into its grip. Again
the Prince sat by her side. She watched him with eyes in which there was
a gleam sometimes almost of horror. Easy and natural as usual, with his
pleasant smile and simple speech, he was making himself agreeable to
one of the older ladies of the party, to whom, by chance, no one had
addressed more than a word or so. It was always the same--always like
this, she realized, with a sudden keen apprehension of this part of the
man’s nature. If there was a kindness to be done, a thoughtful action,
it was not only he who did it but it was he who first thought of it. The
papers during the last few days had been making public an incident which
he had done his best to keep secret. He had signalized his arrival in
London, some months ago, by going overboard from a police boat into the
Thames to rescue a half-drunken lighterman, and when the Humane Society
had voted him their medal, he had accepted it only on condition that the
presentation was private and kept out of the papers. It was not one but
fifty kindly deeds which stood to his credit. Always with the manners of
a Prince--gracious, courteous, and genial--never a word had passed his
lips of evil towards any human being. The barriers today between the
smoking room and the drawing room are shadowy things, and she knew very
well that he was held in a somewhat curious respect by men, as a person
to whom it was impossible to tell a story in which there was any shadow
of indelicacy. The ways of the so-called man of world seemed in his
presence as though they must be the ways of some creature of a different
and a lower stage of existence. A young man whom he had once corrected
had christened him, half jestingly, Sir Galahad, and certainly his
life in London, a life which had to bear all the while the test of the
limelight, had appeared to merit some such title. These thoughts chased
one another through her mind as she looked at him and marvelled. Surely
those other things must be part of a bad nightmare! It was not possible
that such a man could be associated with wrong-doing--such manner of
wrong-doing!

Even while these thoughts passed through her brain, he turned to talk to
her, and she felt at once that little glow of pleasure which the sound
of his voice nearly always evoked.

“I am looking forward so much,” he said, “to my stay at Devenham. You
know, it will not be very much longer that I shall have the opportunity
of accepting such invitations.”

“You mean that the time is really coming when we shall lose you?” she
asked suddenly.

“When my work is finished, I return home,” he answered. “I fancy that it
will not be very long now.”

“When you do leave England,” she asked after a moment’s pause, “do you
go straight to Japan?”

He bowed.

“With the Continent I have finished,” he said. “The cruiser which His
Majesty has sent to fetch me waits even now at Southampton.”

“You speak of your work,” she remarked, “as though you had been
collecting material for a book.”

He smiled.

“I have been busy collecting information in many ways,” he
said,--“trying to live your life and feel as you feel, trying to
understand those things in your country, and in other countries too,
which seem at first so strange to us who come from the other side of the
East.”

“And the end of it all?” she asked.

His eyes gleamed for a moment with a light which she did not understand.
His smile was tolerant, even genial, but his face remained like the face
of a sphinx.

“It is for the good of Japan I came,” he said, “for her good that I have
stayed here so long. At the same time it has been very pleasant. I have
met with great kindness.”

She leaned a little forward so as to look into his face. The impassivity
of his features was like a wall before her.

“After all,” she said, “I suppose it is a period of probation. You are
like a schoolboy already who is looking forward to his holidays. You
will be very happy when you return.”

“I shall be very happy indeed,” he admitted simply. “Why not? I am a
true son of Japan, and, for every true son of his country, absence from
her is as hard a thing to be borne as absence from one’s own family.”

Somerfield, who was sitting on her other side, insisted at last upon
diverting her attention.

“Penelope,” he declared, lowering his voice a little, “it isn’t fair.
You never have a word to say to me when the Prince is here.”

She smiled.

“You must remember that he is going away very soon, Charlie,” she
reminded him.

“Good job, too!” Somerfield muttered, sotto voce.

“And then,” Penelope continued, with the air of not having heard her
companion’s last remark, “he possesses also a very great attraction. He
is absolutely unlike any other human being I ever met or heard of.”

Somerfield glanced across at his rival with lowering brows.

“I’ve nothing to say against the fellow,” he remarked, “except that it
seems queer nowadays to run up against a man of his birth who is not a
sportsman,--in the sense of being fond of sport, I mean,” he corrected
himself quickly.

“Sometimes I wonder,” Penelope said thoughtfully, “whether such speeches
as the one which you have just made do not indicate something totally
wrong in our modern life. You, for instance, have no profession,
Charlie, and you devote your life to a systematic course of what is
nothing more or less than pleasure-seeking. You hunt or you shoot, you
play polo or golf, you come to town or you live in the country, entirely
according to the seasons. If any one asked you why you had not chosen a
profession, you would as good as tell them that it was because you were
a rich man and had no need to work for your living. That is practically
what it comes to. You Englishmen work only if you need money. If you do
not need money, you play. The Prince is wealthy, but his profession was
ordained for him from the moment when he left the cradle. The end and
aim of his life is to serve his country, and I believe that he would
consider it sacrilege if he allowed any slighter things to divert at any
time his mind from its main purpose. He would feel like a priest who has
broken his ordination vows.”

“That’s all very well,” Somerfield said coolly, “but there’s nothing in
life nowadays to make us quite so strenuous as that.”

“Isn’t there?” Penelope answered. “You are an Englishman, and you should
know. Are you convinced, then, that your country today is at the
height of her prosperity, safe and sound, bound to go on triumphant,
prosperous, without the constant care of her men?”

Somerfield looked up at her in growing amazement.

“What on earth’s got hold of you, Penelope?” he asked. “Have you been
reading the sensational papers, or stuffing yourself up with jingoism,
or what?”

She laughed.

“None of those things, I can assure you,” she said. “A man like the
Prince makes one think, because, you see, every standard of life we have
is a standard of comparison. When one sees the sort of man he is, one
wonders. When one sees how far apart he is from you Englishmen in his
ideals and the way he spends his life, one wonders again.”

Somerfield shrugged his shoulders.

“We do well enough,” he said. “Japan is the youngest of the nations. She
has a long way to go to catch us up.”

“We do well enough!” she repeated under her breath. “There was a great
city once which adopted that as her motto,--people dig up mementoes of
her sometimes from under the sands.”

Somerfield looked at her in an aggrieved fashion.

“Well,” he said, “I thought that this was to be an amusing luncheon
party.”

“You should have talked more to Lady Grace,” she answered. “I am sure
that she is quite ready to believe that you are perfection, and the
English army the one invincible institution in the world. You mustn’t
take me too seriously today, Charlie. I have a headache, and I think
that it has made me dull.”...

They trooped out into the foyer in irregular fashion to take their
coffee. The Prince and Penelope were side by side.

“What I like about your restaurant life,” the Prince said, “is the
strange mixture of classes which it everywhere reveals.”

“Those two, for instance,” Penelope said, and then stopped short.

The Prince followed her slight gesture. Inspector Jacks and Dr.
Spencer Whiles were certainly just a little out of accord with their
surroundings. The detective’s clothes were too new and his companion’s
too old. The doctor’s clothes indeed were as shabby as his waiting room,
and he sat where the sunlight was merciless.

“How singular,” the Prince remarked with a smile, “that you should have
pointed those two men out! One of them I know, and, if you will excuse
me for a moment, I should like to speak to him.”

Penelope was not capable of any immediate answer. The Prince, with a
kindly and yet gracious smile, walked over to Inspector Jacks, who rose
at once to his feet.

“I hope you have quite recovered, Mr. Inspector,” the Prince said,
holding out his hand in friendly fashion. “I have felt very guilty over
your indisposition. I am sure that I keep my rooms too close for English
people.”

“Thank you, Prince,” the Inspector answered, “I am perfectly well again.
In fact, I have not felt anything of my little attack since.”

The Prince smiled.

“I am glad,” he said. “Next time you are good enough to pay me a visit,
I will see that you do not suffer in the same way.”

He nodded kindly and rejoined his friends. The Inspector resumed his
seat and busied himself with relighting his cigar. He purposely did not
even glance at his companion.

“Who was that?” the doctor asked curiously. “Did you call him Prince?”

Inspector Jacks sighed. This was a disappointment to him!

“His name is Prince Maiyo,” he said slowly. “He is a Japanese.”

The doctor looked across the restaurant with puzzled face.

“It’s queer,” he said, “how all these Japanese seem to one to look so
much alike, and yet--”

He broke off in the middle of his sentence.

“You are thinking of your friend of the other night?” the Inspector
remarked.

“I was,” the doctor admitted. “For a moment it seemed to me like the
same man with a different manner.”

Inspector Jacks was silent. He puffed steadily at his cigar.

“You don’t suppose,” he asked quietly, “that it could have been the same
man?”

The doctor was still looking across the room.

“I could not tell,” he said. “I should like to see him again. I wasn’t
prepared, and there was something so altered in his tone and the way he
carried himself. And yet--”

The pause was expressive. Inspector Jacks’ eyes brightened. He hated to
feel that his day had been altogether wasted.



CHAPTER XXIV. PRINCE MAIYO BIDS HIGH

Inspector Jacks was in luck at last. Eleven times he had called at St.
Thomas’s Hospital and received the same reply. Today he was asked to
wait. The patient was better--would be able to see him. Soon a nurse in
neat uniform came quietly down the corridor and took charge of him.

“Ten minutes, no more,” she insisted good-humoredly.

The Inspector nodded.

“One question, if you please, nurse,” he asked. “Is the man going to
live?”

“Not a doubt about it,” she declared. “Why?”

“A matter of depositions,” the Inspector exclaimed. “I’d rather let it
go, though, if he’s sure to recover.”

“It’s a simple case,” she answered, “and his constitution is excellent.
There isn’t the least need for your to think about depositions. Here he
is. Don’t talk too long.”

The Inspector sat down by the bedside. The patient, a young man,
welcomed him a little shyly.

“You have come to ask me about what I saw in Pall Mall and opposite
the Hyde Park Hotel?” he said, speaking slowly and in a voice scarcely
raised above a whisper. “I told them all before the operation, but they
couldn’t send for you then. There wasn’t time.”

The Inspector nodded.

“Tell me your own way,” he said. “Don’t hurry. We can get the
particulars later on. Glad you’re going to be mended.”

“It was touch and go,” the young man declared with a note of awe in his
tone. “If the omnibus wheel had turned a foot more, I should have lost
both my legs. It was all through watching that chap hop out of the
taxicab, too.”

The Inspector inclined his head gravely.

“You saw him get in, didn’t you?” he asked.

“That’s so,” the patient admitted. “I was on my way--Charing Cross to
the Kensington Palace Hotel, on a bicycle. There was a block--corner of
Pall Mall and Haymarket. I caught hold--taxi in front--to steady me.”

The nurse bent over him with a glass in her hand. She raised him a
little with the other arm.

“Not too much of this, you know, young man,” she said with a pleasant
smile. “Here’s something to make you strong.”

“Right you are!”

He drained the contents of the glass and smacked his lips.

“Jolly good stuff,” he declared. “Where was I, Mr. Inspector?”

“Holding the back of a taxicab, corner of Regent Street and Haymarket,”
 Inspector Jacks reminded him.

The patient nodded.

“There was an electric brougham,” he continued, “drawn up alongside the
taxi. While we were there, waiting, I saw a chap get out, speak to some
one through the window of the taxi, open the door, and step in. When we
moved on, he stayed in the taxi. Dark, slim chap he was,” the patient
continued, “a regular howling swell,--silk hat, white muffler, white kid
gloves,--all the rest of it.”

“And afterwards?” the Inspector asked.

“I kept behind the taxi,” the youth continued. “We got blocked again at
Hyde Park Corner. I saw him step out of the taxi and disappear amongst
the vehicles. A moment or two later, I passed the taxi and looked
in--saw something had happened--the fellow was lying side-ways. It gave
me a bit of a start. I skidded, and over I went. Sort of had an idea
that every one in the world had started shouting to me, and felt that I
was half underneath an omnibus. Woke up to find myself here.”

“Should you know the man again?” the Inspector asked. “I mean the man
whom you saw enter and leave the taxi?”

“I think so--pretty sure!”

The nurse came up, shaking her head. Inspector Jacks rose from his seat.

“Right, nurse,” he said. “I’m off. Take care of our young friend. He
is going to be very useful to us as soon as he can use his feet and get
about. I’ll come and sit with you for half an hour next visiting day, if
I may?” he added, turning to the patient.

“Glad to see you,” the youth answered. “My people live down in the
country, and I haven’t many pals.”

Inspector Jacks left the hospital thoughtfully. The smell of
anaesthetics somehow reminded him of the library in the house at the
corner of St. James’ Square. It was not altogether by chance, perhaps,
that he found himself walking in that direction. He was in Pall Mall, in
fact, before he realized where he was, and at the corner of St. James’
Square and Pall Mall he came face to face with Prince Maiyo, walking
slowly westwards.

The meeting between the two men was a characteristic one. The Inspector
suffered no signs of surprise or even interest to creep into his
expressionless face. The Prince, on the other hand, did not attempt to
conceal his pleasure at this unexpected encounter. His lips parted in a
delightful smile. He ignored the Inspector’s somewhat stiff salute, and
insisted upon shaking him cordially by the hand.

“Mr. Inspector Jacks,” he said, “you are the one person whom I desired
to see. You are not busy, I hope? You can talk with me for five
minutes?”

The Inspector hesitated for a moment. He was versed in every form
of duplicity, and yet he felt that in the presence of this young
aristocrat, who was smiling upon him so delightfully, he was little more
than a babe in wisdom, an amateur pure and simple. He was conscious,
too, of a sentiment which rarely intruded itself into his affairs. He
was conscious of a strong liking for this debonair, pleasant-faced young
man, who treated him not only as an equal, but as an equal in whose
society he found an especial pleasure.

“I have the time to spare, sir, certainly,” he admitted.

The Prince smiled gayly.

“Inspector Jacks,” he said, “you are a wonderful man. Even now you are
asking yourself, ‘What does he want to say to me--Prince Maiyo? Is he
going to ask me questions, or will he tell me things which I should like
to hear?’ You know, Mr. Inspector Jacks, between ourselves, you are just
a little interested in me, is it not so?”

The detective was dumb. He stood there patiently waiting. He had the air
of a man who declines to commit himself.

“Just a little interested in me, I think,” the Prince murmured, smiling
at his companion. “Ah, well, many of the things I do over here, perhaps,
must seem very strange. And that reminds me. Only a short time ago you
were asking questions about the man who travelled from Liverpool to
London and reached his destination with a dagger through his heart. Tell
me, Mr. Inspector Jacks, have you discovered the murderer yet?”

“Not yet,” the detective answered.

“I have heard you speak of this affair,” the Prince continued, “and
before now I expected to read in the papers that you had put your hand
upon the guilty one. If you have not done so, I am very sure that there
is some explanation.”

“It is better sometimes to wait,” the detective said quietly.

The Prince bowed as one who understands.

“I think so,” he assented, “I think I follow you. On the very next day
there was another tragedy which seemed to me even more terrible. I mean
the murder of that young fellow Vanderpole, of the American Embassy. Mr.
Inspector Jacks, has it ever occurred to you, I wonder, that it might be
as well to let the solution of one await the solution of the other?”

Inspector Jacks shrugged his shoulders.

“Occasionally,” he admitted reluctantly, “when one is following up a
clue, one discovers things.”

“You are wonderful!” the Prince declared. “You are, indeed! I know what
is in your mind. You have said to yourself, ‘Between these two murders
there is some connection. They were both done by the hand of a master
criminal. The victims in both cases were Americans.’ You said to
yourself, ‘First of all, I will discover the motive; then, perhaps,
a clue which seems to belong to the one will lead me to the other, or
both?’ You are not sure which way to turn. There is nothing there upon
which you can lay your hand. You say to yourself, ‘I will make a bluff.’
That is the word, is it not? You come to me. You tell me gravely that
you have reason to suspect some one in my household. That is because you
believe that the crimes were perpetrated by some one of my country. You
do not ask for information. You think, perhaps, that I would not give
it. You confront me with a statement. It was very clever of you, Mr.
Inspector Jacks.”

“I had reason for what I did, sir,” the detective said.

“No doubt,” the Prince agreed. “And now, tell me, when are you going to
electrify us all? When is the great arrest to take place?”

The detective coughed discreetly.

“I am not yet in a position, sir,” he said, “to make any definite
announcement.”

“Cautious, Mr. Jacks, cautious!” the Prince remarked smilingly. “It is a
great quality,--a quality which I, too, have learned how to appreciate.
And now for our five minutes’ talk. If I say to you, ‘Return home with
me,’ I think you will remember that unpleasant room of mine, and you
will recollect an important engagement at Scotland Yard. In the clubs
one is always overheard. Walk with me a little way, Mr. Jacks, in St.
James’ Park. We can speak there without fear of interruption. Come!”

He thrust his arm through the detective’s and led him across the street.
Mr. Inspector Jacks was only human, and he yielded without protest. They
passed St. James’ Palace and on to the broad promenade, where there were
few passers-by and no listeners.

“You see, my dear Inspector,” the Prince said, “I am really a sojourner
in your marvellous city not altogether for pleasure. My stay over here
is more in the light of a mission. I have certain arrangements which
I wish to effect for the good of my country. Amongst them is one
concerning which I should like to speak to you.”

“To me, sir?” Inspector Jacks repeated.

The Prince twirled his cane and nodded his head.

“It is a very important matter, Mr. Jacks,” he said. “It is nothing less
than a desire on the part of the city government of Tokio to perfect
thoroughly their police system on the model of yours over here. We are a
progressive nation, you know, Mr. Jacks, but we are also a young nation,
and though I think that we advance all the time, we are still in many
respects a long way behind you. We have no Scotland Yard in Tokio. To be
frank with you, the necessity for such an institution has become a real
thing with us only during the last few years. Do you read history, Mr.
Jacks?”

The Inspector was doubtful.

“I can’t say, sir,” he admitted, “that I have done much reading since I
left school, and that was many years ago.”

“Well,” the Prince said, “it is one of the axioms of history, Mr. Jacks,
that as a country becomes civilized and consequently more prosperous,
there is a corresponding growth in her criminal classes, a corresponding
need for a different state of laws by which to judge them, a different
machinery for checking their growth. We have arrived at that position in
Japan, and in my latest despatches from home comes to me a request that
I send them out a man who shall reorganize our entire police system. I
am a judge of character, Mr. Jacks, and if I can get the man I want,
I do not need to ask my friends at Downing Street to help me. I should
like you to accept that post.”

The Inspector was scarcely prepared for this. He allowed himself to show
some surprise.

“I am very much obliged to you, Prince, for the offer,” he said. “I am
afraid, however, that I should not be competent.”

“That,” the Prince reminded him, “is a risk which we are willing to
take.”

“I do not think, either,” the detective continued, “that at my time
of life I should care to go so far from home to settle down in an
altogether strange country.”

“It must be as you will, of course,” the Prince declared. “Only
remember, Mr. Jacks, that a great nation like mine which wants a
particular man for a particular purpose is not afraid to pay for him.
Your work out there would certainly take you no more than three years.
For that three years’ work you would receive the sum of thirty thousand
pounds.”

The detective gasped.

“It is a great sum,” he said.

The Prince shrugged his shoulders.

“You could hardly call it that,” he said. “Still, it would enable you to
live in comfort for the rest of your life.”

“And when should I be required to start, sir?” the Inspector asked.

“That, perhaps,” the Prince replied, “would seem the hardest part of
all. You would be required to start tomorrow afternoon from Southampton
at four o’clock.”

The Inspector started. Then a new light dawned suddenly in his face.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” he murmured.

The Prince assented.

“So far as regards your position at Scotland Yard,” he said, “I have
influential friends in your Government who will put that right for
you. You need not be afraid of any unpleasantness in that direction.
Remember, Mr. Inspector, thirty thousand pounds, and a free hand while
you are in my country. You are a man, I should judge, of fifty-two or
fifty-three years of age. You can spend your fifty-sixth birthday in
England, then, and be a man of means for the remainder of your days.”

“And this sum of money,” the detective said, “is for my services in
building up the police force of Tokio?”

“Broadly speaking, yes!” the Prince answered.

“And incidentally,” the detective continued, glancing cautiously at his
companion, “it is the price of my leaving unsuspected the murderer of
two innocent men!”

The Prince walked on in silence. Every line in his face seemed slowly
to have hardened. His brows had contracted. He was looking steadfastly
forward at the great front of Buckingham Palace.

“I am disappointed in you, Mr. Jacks,” he said a little stiffly. “I do
not understand your allusion. The money I have mentioned is to be paid
to you for certain well-defined services. The other matter you speak of
does not interest me. It is no concern of mine whether this man of whom
you are in search is brought to justice or not. All that I wish to hear
from you is whether or not you accept my offer.”

The Inspector shook his head.

“Prince,” he said, “there can be no question about that. I thank you
very much for it, but I must decline.”

“Your mind is quite made up?” the Prince asked regretfully.

“Quite,” the Inspector said firmly.

“Japan,” the Prince said thoughtfully, “is a pleasant country.”

“London suits me moderately well,” Inspector Jacks declared.

“Under certain conditions,” the Prince continued, “I should have
imagined that the climate here might prove most unhealthy for you. You
must remember that I was a witness of your slight indisposition the
other day.”

“In my profession, sir,” the detective said, “we must take our risks.”

The Prince came to a standstill. They were at the parting of the ways.

“I am very sorry,” he said simply. “It was a great post, and it was one
which you would have filled well. It is not for me, however, to press
the matter.”

“It would make no difference, sir,” the detective answered.

The Prince was on the point of moving away.

“I shall not seek in any case to persuade you,” he said. “My offer
remains open if you should change your mind. Think, too, over what I
have said about our climate. At your time of life, Mr. Inspector Jacks,
and particularly at this season of the year, one should be careful. A
sea voyage now would, I am convinced, be the very thing for you. Good
day, Mr. Jacks!”

The Prince turned towards Buckingham Palace, and the Inspector slowly
retraced his steps.

“It is a bribe!” he muttered to himself slowly,--“a cleverly offered
bribe! Thirty thousand pounds to forget the little I have learned!
Thirty thousand pounds for silence!”



CHAPTER XXV. HOBSON’S CHOICE

There were some days when the absence of patients seemed to Dr. Spencer
Whiles a thing almost insupportable. Too late he began to realize that
he had set up in the wrong neighborhood. In years to come, he reflected
gloomily, when the great building estate which was to have been
developed more than a year ago was really opened up, there might be an
opportunity where he was, a very excellent opportunity, too, for a young
doctor of ability. Just now, however, the outlook was almost hopeless.
He found himself even looking eagerly forward every day for another
visit from Mr. Inspector Jacks. Another trip to town would mean a peep
into the world of luxury, whose doors were so closely barred against
him, and, what was more important still, it would mean a fee which would
keep the wolf from the door for another week. It had come to that with
Dr. Whiles. His little stock of savings was exhausted. Unless something
turned up within the course of the next few weeks, he knew very well
that there was nothing left for him to do but to slip away quietly
into the embrace of the more shady parts of the great city, to find
a situation somewhere, somehow, beyond the ken of the disappointed
creditors whom he would leave behind.

Mr. Inspector Jacks, however, had apparently no further use, for the
present at any rate, for his medical friend. On the other hand, Dr.
Spencer Whiles was not left wholly to himself. On the fourth day after
his visit to London a motor car drew up outside his modest surgery door,
and with an excitement which he found it almost impossible to conceal,
he saw a plainly dressed young man, evidently a foreigner and, he
believed, a Japanese, descend and ring the patients’ bell. The doctor
had dismissed his boy a week ago, from sheer inability to pay his modest
wages, and he did not hesitate for a moment about opening the door
himself. The man outside raised his hat and made him a sweeping bow.

“It is Dr. Spencer Whiles?” he asked.

The doctor admitted the fact and invited his visitor to enter.

“It is here, perhaps,” the latter continued, “that a gentleman who was
riding a bicycle and was run into by a motor car, was brought after the
accident and treated so skilfully?”

“That is so,” Dr. Whiles admitted. “There was nothing much the matter
with him. He had rather a narrow escape.”

“I am that gentleman’s servant,” the visitor continued with a bland
smile. “He has sent me down here to see you. The leg which was injured
is perfectly well, but there was a pain in the side of which he spoke
to you, which has not disappeared. This morning, in fact, it is
worse,--much worse. My master, therefore, has sent me to you. He begs
that if it is not inconvenient you will return with me at once and
examine him.”

The doctor drew a little breath. This might mean another week or so of
respite!

“Where does your master live?” he asked the man.

“In the West end of London, sir,” was the reply. “The Square of St.
James it is called.”

Dr. Whiles glanced at his watch.

“It will take me some time to go there with you,” he said, “and I shall
have to arrange with a friend to treat any other patients. Do you think
your master will understand that I shall need an increased fee?”

“My master desired me to say,” the other answered, “that he would be
prepared to pay any fee you cared to mention. Money is not of account
with him. He has not had occasion to seek medical advice in London,
and as he is leaving very soon, he did not wish to send for a strange
physician. He remembered with gratitude your care of him, and he sends
for you.”

“That’s all right,” Dr. Whiles declared, “so long as it’s understood.
You’ll excuse me for a moment while I write a note, and I’ll come
along.”

Dr. Whiles had no note to write, but he made a few changes in his toilet
which somewhat improved his appearance. In due course he reappeared and
was rapidly whirled up to London, the sole passenger in the magnificent
car. The man who had brought him the message from his quondam patient
was sitting in front, next the chauffeur, so Dr. Whiles had no
opportunity of asking him for any information concerning his master. Nor
did the car itself slacken speed until it drew up before the door of the
large corner house in St. James’ Square. A footman in dark livery came
running out; a butler bowed upon the steps. Dr. Spencer Whiles was
immensely impressed. The servants were all Japanese, but their livery
and manners were faultless. He made his way into the hall and followed
the butler up the broad stairs.

“My master,” the latter explained, “will receive you very shortly. He is
but partly dressed at present.”

Dr. Spencer Whiles came of a family of successful tradespeople, and he
was not used to such quiet magnificence as was everywhere displayed.
Yet, with it all, there seemed to him to be an air of gloom about the
place, something almost mysterious in the silence of the thick carpets,
the subdued voices, and the absence of maidservants. The house itself
was apparently an old one. He noticed that the doors were very heavy and
thick, the corridors roomy, the absence of light almost remarkable. The
apartment into which he was shown, however, came as a pleasant surprise.
It was small, but delightfully furnished in the most modern fashion. Its
only drawback was that it looked out upon a blank wall.

“My master will come to you in a few minutes,” the butler announced.
“What refreshments may I have the honor of serving?”

Dr. Whiles waved aside the invitation,--he would at any rate remain
professional. The man withdrew, and almost immediately afterwards Prince
Maiyo entered the room. The doctor rose to his feet with a little thrill
of excitement. The Prince held out his hand.

“I am very pleased to see you again, doctor,” he said. “You looked
after me so well last time that I was afraid I should have no excuse for
sending for you.”

“I am glad to find that you are not suffering,” the doctor answered. “I
understood from your servant that you were feeling a good deal of pain
in the side.”

“It troubles me at times,” the Prince admitted, drawing a chair up
towards his visitor,--“just sufficiently, perhaps, to give me the excuse
of seeking a little conversation with you. You must let me offer you
something after your ride.”

“You are very good,” the doctor answered. “Perhaps I had better examine
you first.”

The Prince rang the bell and waved aside the suggestion.

“That,” he said, “can wait. In my country, you know, we do not consider
that a guest is properly treated unless he partakes of our hospitality
the moment he crosses the threshold. The whiskey and soda water,” he
ordered of the butler who appeared at the door. “We will talk of my
ailments,” the Prince continued, “in a moment or two. Tell me what
you thought of that marvellous restaurant where I saw you the other
morning?”

The doctor drew a little breath.

“It was you, then!” he exclaimed.

“But naturally,” the Prince murmured. “I took it for granted that you
would recognize me.”

The doctor found some difficulty in proceeding. He was trying to
imagine the cousin of an Emperor riding a bicycle along a country
road, staggering into his surgery at midnight, covered with dust,
inarticulate, pointing only to the wounds beneath his cheap clothes!

“Nothing,” the Prince continued easily, “has impressed me more in your
country than the splendor of your restaurants. You see, that side of
your life represents something we are altogether ignorant of in Japan.”

“It is a very wonderful place,” the doctor admitted. “We had luncheon,
my friend and I, in the grillroom, but we came for a few minutes into
the foyer to watch the people from the restaurant.”

The Prince nodded genially.

“By the bye,” he remarked, “it is strange that my very good friend--Mr.
Inspector Jacks--should also be a friend of yours.”

“He is scarcely that,” the doctor objected. “I have known him for a very
short time.”

The Prince raised his eyebrows. The whiskey and soda were brought, and
the doctor helped himself. How curiously deficient these Westerners
were, the Prince thought, in every instinct of duplicity! As clearly
as possible the doctor had revealed the fact that his acquaintance
with Inspector Jacks was of precisely that nature which might have been
expected.

The Prince sighed. There was but one course open to him.

“Now, Dr. Whiles,” he said, “I will tell you something. You must listen
to me very carefully, please. I sent for you not so much on account of
any immediate pain but because my general health has been giving me a
little trouble lately. I have come to the conclusion that I require the
services of a medical attendant always at hand.”

The doctor looked at his prospective patient skeptically.

“You have not the appearance,” he remarked, “of being in ill health.”

“Perhaps not,” the Prince answered. “Perhaps even, there is not for the
moment very much the matter with me. One has humors, you know, my dear
doctor. I have a somewhat large suite here with me in England, but I do
not number amongst them a physician. I wanted to ask you to accept that
position in my household for two months.”

“Do you mean come and live here?” the doctor asked.

“That is exactly what I do mean,” the Prince answered. “I am thankful to
observe that your apprehensions are so acute. I warn you that I am going
to make some very curious conditions. I do not know whether money is an
object to you. If not, I am powerless. If it is, I propose to make it
worth your while.”

The doctor did not hesitate.

“Money,” he said, “is the greatest object in life to me. I have none,
and I want some very badly.”

The Prince smiled.

“I find your candor delightful,” he declared. “Now tell me, Dr. Whiles,
how many patients have you in your neighborhood absolutely dependent
upon your services?”

The doctor hesitated, opened his mouth and closed it again.

“Not one!” he declared.

Once more the Prince’s lips parted. His smile this time was definite,
transfiguring.

“I find you, Dr. Whiles,” he announced, “a most charmingly reasonable
person. I make you my offer, then, with every confidence, although I
warn you that there will be some strange conditions attached to it. I
ask you to accept the post of private physician to this household for
the space of one--it may be two months, and I offer you also, as an
honorarium, the fee of one thousand guineas.”

The doctor sat quite still for a moment. He was in a condition when
speech was difficult. Then his eyes fell upon his tumbler of whiskey and
soda still half filled. He emptied it at a draught.

“A thousand guineas!” he repeated hoarsely.

“I trust that you will find the sum attractive,” the Prince said
smoothly, “because, as I have warned you before, there are one or two
curious conditions coupled with the post.”

“I don’t care what the conditions are,” the doctor said slowly. “I
accept!”

The Prince nodded.

“You are the man I thought you were, doctor,” he said. “The first
condition, then, is this. You see the sitting room we are now in--a
pleasant little apartment, I think,--books, you see, papers, a smoking
cabinet in which I can assure you that you will find the finest Havana
cigars and the best cigarettes to be procured in London. Through
here”--the Prince threw open an inner door--“is a small sleeping
apartment. It has, as you see, the same outlook. It is comfortable if
not luxurious.”

The doctor sighed.

“I am not used to luxury,” he said.

“These two rooms will be yours,” the Prince announced, “and the first
condition of our arrangement is that until two months are up, or our
engagement is finished, you do not leave them.”

The doctor stared at him blankly.

“Are you in earnest, sir?” he asked.

“In absolute earnest,” the Prince assured him. “Not only that, but I
require you to keep your whereabouts, until after the period of time I
have mentioned, an entire secret from every one. I gather that you are
not married, and that there is no one living in your house to whom it
would seem necessary to disclose your movements. In any case, this
is another of my conditions. You are neither to write nor receive any
letters whilst here. You are to figure in the neighborhood from which
you came as a man who has disappeared,--as a man, in short, who has
found it impossible to pay his way and has preferred simply to slip out
of his place. At the end of two months you can reappear or not, as you
choose. That rests with yourself.”

The doctor smiled faintly. To make some sort of disappearance had been
his precise intention, but to disappear in this fashion and make his
return to the world with a thousand guineas in his pocket, had not
exactly come within the scope of his imagination. It was a situation
full of allurements. Nevertheless he was bewildered.

“I am to live in these two rooms?” he demanded. “I am to let no one know
where I am, to write no letters, to receive none? My duties are to be
simply to treat you?”

“When required,” the Prince remarked dryly.

“I suppose,” the doctor asked, “my friend Mr. Jacks was speaking the
truth when he told me your name?”

“My name is Prince Maiyo,” the Prince said.

Mechanically the doctor helped himself to another whiskey and soda.

“You are to be my only patient,” he said thoughtfully. “May I take the
liberty of feeling your pulse, Prince?”

The Prince extended his hand. The doctor felt it and resumed his seat.

“There is, of course, nothing whatever the matter with you,” he
declared. “You are, I should say, in absolutely perfect health. You have
no need of a physician.”

“On the contrary,” the Prince protested, smiling, “I need you, Dr.
Whiles, so much that I am paying you a thousand guineas--”

“To remain in these two rooms,” the doctor remarked quietly.

“It is not your business to think that or to know that,” the Prince
said. “Do you accept my offer?”

“If I should refuse?” the doctor asked.

The Prince hesitated.

“Do not let us suppose that,” he said. “It is not a pleasant suggestion.
I do not think that you mean to refuse.”

“Frankly, I do not,” the doctor answered. “And yet treat it as a whim of
mine and answer my question. Supposing I should?”

“The matter would arrange itself in precisely the same way,” the Prince
answered. “You would not leave these rooms for two months.”

The doctor leaned back in his chair and laughed shortly.

“This is rather hard luck on Inspector Jacks,” he said. “He paid me ten
guineas the other day to lunch with him.”

“Mr. Inspector Jacks,” the Prince remarked, “is scarcely in a position
to bid you an adequate sum for your services.”

“It appears to me,” the doctor continued, “that I am kidnapped.”

“An admirable word,” the Prince declared. “At what time do you usually
lunch?”

The doctor smiled.

“I am not used to motoring,” he said, “or interviews of this exciting
character. I lunch, as a rule, when I can get anything to eat. The
present seems to me to be a most suitable hour.”

The Prince nodded, and rose to his feet.

“I will send my servant,” he said, “to take your orders. My cook is very
highly esteemed here, and I can assure you that you will not be starved.
Please also make out a list of the newspapers, magazines, and books with
which you would like to be supplied. I fear that, for obvious reasons,
my people would hardly be able to anticipate your wants.”

“And about that examination?” the doctor remarked.

“I shall do myself the pleasure of seeing you every day,” the Prince
answered. “There will be time enough for that.”

With an amiable word of farewell the Prince departed. The doctor threw
himself into an easy chair. His single exclamation was laconic but
forcible.



CHAPTER XXVI. SOME FAREWELLS

Never did Prince Maiyo show fewer signs of his Japanese origin than
when in the company of other men of his own race. Side by side with His
Excellency the Baron Hesho, the contrasts in feature and expression
were so marked as to make it hard, indeed, to believe that these two men
could belong to the same nation. The Baron Hesho had high cheekbones, a
yellow skin, close-cropped black hair, and wore gold-rimmed spectacles
through which he beamed upon the whole world. The Prince, as he lounged
in his wicker chair and watched the blue smoke of his cigarette curl
upwards, looked more like an Italian--perhaps a Spaniard. The shape of
his head was perfectly Western, perfectly and typically Romanesque. The
carriage of his body must have been inherited from his mother, of whom
it was said that no more graceful woman ever walked. Yet between
these two men, so different in all externals, there was the strongest
sympathy, although they met but seldom.

“So we are to lose you soon, Prince,” the Baron was saying.

“Very soon indeed,” Prince Maiyo answered. “Next week I go down to
Devenham. I understand that the Prime Minister and Sir Edward
Bransome will be there. If so, that, I think, will be practically my
leave-taking. There is no object in my staying any longer over here.”

The Baron blinked his eyes meditatively.

“I have seen very little of you, Maiyo,” he said, “since your last visit
to the Continent. I take it that your views are unchanged?”

The Prince assented.

“Unchanged indeed,” he answered,--“unchangeable, I think almost that
I might now say. They have been wonderful months, these last months,
Baron,” he continued. “I have seen some of those things which we in
Japan have heard about and wondered about all our lives. I have seen
the German army at manoeuvres. I have talked to their officers. Where
I could, I have talked to the men. I have been to some of their great
socialist meetings. I have heard them talk about their country and their
Emperor, and what would happen to their officers if war should come. I
have seen the French artillery. I have been the guest of the President.
I have tried to understand the peculiar attitude which that country has
always adopted toward us. I have been, unrecognized, in St. Petersburg.
I have tried to understand a little the resources of that marvellous
country. I came back here in time for the great review in the Solent.
I have seen the most magnificent ships and the most splendid naval
discipline the world has ever known. Then I have explored the interior
of this island as few of our race have explored it before, not for
the purpose of studying the manufactures, the trades, the immense
shipbuilding industries,--simply to study the people themselves.”

The Baron nodded gravely.

“I ask no questions,” he said. “It is the Emperor’s desire, I know, that
you go straight to him. I take it that your mind is made up,--you have
arrived at definite conclusions?”

“Absolutely.” Prince Maiyo answered. “I shall make no great secret of
them. You already, my dear Baron, know, I think, whither they lead. I
shall be unpopular for a time, I suppose, and your own position may be
made a little difficult. After that, things will go on pretty much the
same. Of one thing, though, I am assured. I see it as clearly as the
shepherd who has lain the night upon the hillside sees the coming day.
It may be twelve months, it may be two years, it may even be three, but
before that time has passed the clouds will have gathered, the storm
will have burst. Then, I think, Hesho, our master will be glad that we
are free.”

The Baron agreed.

“Only a few nights ago,” he said, “Captain Koki and the other attaches
spent an evening with me. We have charts and pieces, and with locked
doors we played a war game of our own invention. It should all be over
in three weeks.”

Prince Maiyo laughed softly.

“You are right,” he said. “I have gone over the ground myself. It could
be done in even less time. You should ask a few of our friends to that
war game, Baron. How they would smile! You read the newspapers of the
country?”

“Invariably,” the Ambassador answered.

“There is an undercurrent of feeling somewhere,” the Prince
continued,--“one of the cheaper organs is shrieking all the time a
brazen warning. Patriotism, as you and I understand it, dear friend, is
long since dead, but if one strikes hard enough at the flint, some fire
may come. Hesho, how short our life is! How little we can understand!
We have only the written words of those who have gone before, to show us
the cities and the empires that have been, to teach us the reasons why
they decayed and crumbled away. We have only our own imagination to help
us to look forward into the future and see the empires that may rise,
the kingdoms that shall stand, the kingdoms that shall fall. Amongst
them all, Hesho, there is but this much of truth. It is our own dear
country and our one great rival across the Pacific who, in the years to
come, must fight for the supremacy of the world.”

“It will be no fight, that,” the Ambassador answered slowly,--“no fight
unless a new prophet is born to them. The money-poison is sucking the
very blood from their body. The country is slowly but surely becoming
honey-combed with corruption. The voices of its children are like the
voices from the tower of Babel. If their strong man should arise, then
the fight will be the fiercest the world has ever known. Even then the
end is not doubtful. The victory will be ours. When the universe is left
for them and for us, it will be our sons who shall rule. Listen, Maiyo.”

“I listen,” the Prince answered.

The Baron Hesho had laid aside his spectacles. He leaned a little
towards his companion. His voice had fallen to a whisper, his hand fell
almost caressingly upon his friend’s shoulder.

“I would speak of something else,” he continued. “Soon you go to the
Duke’s house. You will meet there the people who are in authority over
this country. When you leave it, everything is finished. Tell me, is the
way homeward safe for you?”

“Wonderful person!” Prince Maiyo said, smiling.

“No, I am not wonderful,” the Ambassador declared. “All the time I have
had my fears. Why not? A month ago I sought your aid. I knew from our
friends in New York that a man was on his way to England with letters
which made clear, beyond a doubt, the purpose of this world journey
of the American fleet. I sent for you. We both agreed that it was an
absolute necessity for us to know the contents of those letters.”

“We discovered them,” the Prince answered. “It was well that we did.”

“You discovered them,” the Ambassador interrupted. “I have taken no
credit for it. The credit is yours. But in this land there are so
many things which one may not do. The bowstring and the knife are
unrecognized. Civilization has set an unwholesome value upon human life.
It is the maudlin sentiment which creeps like corruption through the
body of a dying country.”

“I know it,” the Prince declared, sighing. “I know it very well indeed.”

“Dear Maiyo,” the Ambassador asked, “how well do you know it?”

“My friend,” the Prince answered, “it were better for you not to ask
that question.”

“Here under this roof,” the Baron continued, “is sanctuary, but in the
streets and squares beyond, it seems to me--and I have thought this over
many times,--it seems to me that even the person of the great Prince,
cousin of the Emperor, holy son of Japan, would not be safe.”

Prince Maiyo shrugged his shoulders. There was gravity in his face, but
it was the gravity of a man who has learnt to look upon serious things
with a light heart.

“I, also,” he said, “have weighed this matter very carefully in my mind.
What I did was well done, and if the bill is thrust into my face, I must
pay. First of all, Baron, I promise you that I shall finish my work.
After that, what does it matter? You and I know better than this nation
of life-loving shopkeepers. A week, a year, a span of years,--of what
account are they to us who have sipped ever so lightly at the great cup?
If we died tomorrow for the glory of our country, should we not say to
one another, you and I, that it was well?”

The Baron rose to his feet and bowed. Into his voice there had crept a
note almost of reverence.

“Prince,” he said, “almost you take me back to the one mother country.
Almost your words persuade me that the strangeness of these Western
lands is a passing thing. We wonder, and as we wonder they shall crumble
away. The sun rises in the East.”

The Prince also rose. Servants came silently forward, bearing his hat
and gloves.

“Perhaps,” the Prince smiled, as he made his adieux--

“Perhaps,” the Ambassador echoed. “Who can tell?”

The Prince sent away his carriage and walked homeward, greeting every
now and then an acquaintance. He walked cheerfully and with a smile upon
his face. There was nothing in his appearance which could possibly have
indicated to the closest observer that this was a man who had taken
death by the hand. At the corner of Regent Street and Pall Mall he
overtook Inspector Jacks. He leaned forward at once and touched the
detective on the shoulder.

“Mr. Jacks,” he said, “it is pleasant to see you once more. I was afraid
that I should have to leave without bidding you farewell.”

The Inspector started. The Prince laughed to himself as he watched that
gesture. Indeed, a man who showed his feelings so easily would be very
much at a loss in Tokio!

“You are going away, Prince?” the Inspector asked quickly. “When?”

“The exact day is not fixed,” the Prince replied, “but it is true that
I am going home. I have finished my work, and, you see, there is nothing
to keep me over here any longer. Tell me, have you had any fortune yet?
I read the papers every day, hoping to see that you have cleared up
those two terrible affairs.”

Inspector Jacks shook his head.

“Not yet, Prince,” he said.

“Not yet,” the Prince echoed. “Dear me, that is very unfortunate!”

Inspector Jacks watched the people who were passing, for a moment, with
a fixed, unseeing gaze.

“I am afraid,” he said, “that we must seem to you very slow and very
stupid. Very likely we are. And yet, yet in time we generally reach our
goal. Sometimes we go a long way round. Sometimes we wait almost over
long, but sooner or later we strike.”

The Prince nodded sympathetically.

“The best of fortune to you, Mr. Jacks!” he said. “I wish you could have
cleared these matters up before I left for home. It is pure selfishness,
of course, but I have always felt a great interest in your work.”

“If we do not clear them up before you leave the country, Prince,” the
Inspector answered, “I fear that we shall never clear them up at all.”

The Prince passed on smiling. A conversation with Inspector Jacks
seemed always to inspire him. It was a fine afternoon and Pall Mall
was crowded. In a few moments he came face to face with Somerfield, who
greeted him a little gloomily.

“Sir Charles,” the Prince said, “I hope that I shall have the pleasure
of meeting you at Devenham?”

“I am not sure,” Somerfield answered. “I have been asked, but I promised
some time ago to go up to Scotland. I have a third share in a river
there, and the season for salmon is getting on.”

“I am sorry,” the Prince declared. “I have no doubt, however, but that
Miss Morse will induce you to change your mind. I should regret your
absence the more,” he continued, “because this, I fear, is the last
visit which I shall be paying in this country.”

Somerfield was genuinely interested.

“You are really going home?” he asked eagerly.

“Almost at once,” the Prince answered.

“Only for a time, I suppose?” Somerfield continued.

The Prince shook his head.

“On the contrary,” he said, “I imagine that this will be a long goodbye.
I think I can promise you that if ever I reach Japan I shall remain
there. My work in this hemisphere will be accomplished.”

Somerfield looked at him with the puzzled air of a man who is face to
face with a problem which he cannot solve.

“You’ll forgive my putting it so plainly, Prince,” he remarked, “but
do you mean to say that after having lived over here you could possibly
settle down again in Japan?”

The Prince returned for a moment his companion’s perplexed gaze. Then
his lips parted, his eyes shone. He laughed softly, gracefully, with
genuine mirth.

“Sir Charles,” he said, “I shall not forget that question. I think that
of all the Englishmen whom I have met you are the most English of all.
When I think of your great country, as I often shall do, of her sons and
her daughters, I will promise you that to me you shall always represent
the typical man of your race and fortune.”

The Prince left his companion loitering along Pall Mall, still a little
puzzled. He called a taxi and drove to Devenham House. The great drawing
rooms were almost empty. Lady Grace was just saying goodbye to some
parting guests. She welcomed the Prince with a little flush of pleasure.

“I find you alone?” he remarked.

“My mother is opening a bazaar somewhere,” Lady Grace said. “She will be
home very soon. Do let me give you some tea.”

“It is my excuse for coming,” the Prince admitted.

She called back the footman who had shown him in.

“China tea, very weak, in a china teapot with lemon and no sugar. Isn’t
that it?” she asked, smiling.

“Lady Grace,” he declared, “you spoil me. Perhaps it is because I am
going away. Every one is kind to the people who go away.”

She looked at him anxiously.

“Going away!” she exclaimed. “When? Do you mean back to Japan?”

“Back to my own country,” he answered. “Perhaps in two weeks, perhaps
three--who can tell?”

“But you are coming to Devenham first?” she asked eagerly.

“I am coming to Devenham first,” he assented. “I called this afternoon
to let your father know the date on which I could come. I promised that
he should hear from me today. He was good enough to say either Thursday
or Friday. Thursday, I find, will suit me admirably.”

She drew a little sigh.

“So you are going back,” she said softly. “I wonder why so many people
seem to have taken it for granted that you would settle down here. Even
I had begun to hope so.”

He smiled.

“Lady Grace,” he said, “I am not what you call a cosmopolitan. To live
over here in any of these Western countries would seem to denote that
one may change one’s dwelling place as easily as one changes one’s
clothes. The further east you go, the more reluctant one is, I think,
to leave the shadow of one’s own trees. The man who leaves my country
leaves it to go into exile. The man who returns, returns home.”

She was a little perplexed.

“I should have imagined,” she said, “that the people who leave your
country as emigrants to settle in American or even over here might have
felt like that. But you of the educated classes I should have thought
would have found more over here to attract you, more to induce you to
choose a new home.”

He shook his head.

“Lady Grace,” he said, “believe me that is not so. The traditions of our
race--the call of the blood, as you put it over here--is as powerful a
thing with our aristocratics as with our peasants. We find much here to
wonder at and admire, much that, however unwillingly, we are forced to
take back and adopt in our own country, but it is a strange atmosphere
for us, this. For my country-people there is but one real home, but one
motherland.”

“Yet you have seemed so contented over here,” she remarked. “You have
entered so easily into all our ways.”

He set down his teacup and smiled at her for a moment gravely.

“I came with a purpose,” he said. “I came in order to observe and to
study certain features of your life, but, believe me, I have felt the
strain--I have felt it sometimes very badly. These countries, yours
especially, are like what one of your great poets called the Lotus-Lands
for us. Much of your life here is given to pursuits which we do not
understand, to sports and games, to various forms of what we should call
idleness. In my country we know little of that. In one way or another,
from the Emperor to the poor runner in the streets, we work.”

“Is there nothing which you will regret?” she asked.

“I shall regret the friends I have made,--the very dear friends,” he
repeated, “who have been so very much kinder to me than I have deserved.
Life is a sad pilgrimage sometimes, because one may not linger for a
moment at any one spot, nor may one ever look back. But I know quite
well that when I leave here there will be many whom I would gladly see
again.”

“There will be many, Prince,” she said softly, “who will be sorry to see
you go.”

The Prince rose to his feet. Another little stream of callers had come
into the room. Presently he drank his tea and departed. When he
reached St. James’ Square, his majordomo came hurrying up and whispered
something in his own language.

The Prince smiled.

“I go to see him,” he said. “I will go at once.”



CHAPTER XXVII. A PRISONER

Dr. Spencer Whiles was sitting in a very comfortable easy chair, smoking
a particularly good cigar, with a pile of newspapers by his side. His
appearance certainly showed no signs of hardship. His linen, and the
details of his toilet generally, supplied from some mysterious source
into which he had not inquired, were much improved. Notwithstanding
his increased comfort, however, he was looking perplexed, even a
little worried, and the cause of it was there in front of him, in the
advertisement sheets of the various newspapers which had been duly laid
upon his table.

The Prince came in quietly and closed the door behind him.

“Good afternoon, my friend!” he said. “I understood that you wished to
see me.”

The doctor had made up his mind to adopt a firm attitude. Nevertheless
the genial courtesy of the Prince’s tone and manner had the same effect
upon him as it had upon most people. He half rose to his feet and became
at once apologetic.

“I hope that I have not disturbed you, Prince,” he said. “I thought that
I should like to have a word or two with you concerning something which
I have come across in these journals.”


He tapped them with his forefinger, and the Prince nodded thoughtfully.

“Your wonderful Press!” he exclaimed. “How much it is responsible for!
Well, Dr. Whiles, what have the newspapers to say to you?”

The doctor handed across a carefully folded journal and pointed to a
certain paragraph.

“Will you kindly read this?” he begged.

The Prince accepted the sheet and read the paragraph aloud:

“FIFTY POUNDS REWARD! Disappeared from his home in Long Whatton on
Wednesday morning last, Herbert Spencer Whiles, Surgeon. The above
reward will be paid to any one giving information which will lead to
the discovery of his present whereabouts. Was last seen in a motor
car, Limousine body, painted dark green, leaving Long Whatton in the
direction of London.”

The Prince laid down the paper, smiling.

“Well?” he asked. “That seems clear enough. Some one is willing to give
fifty pounds to know where you are.”

The doctor tapped the advertisement with his forefinger impressively.

“Fifty pounds!” he repeated. “There isn’t a person in the world to whom
the knowledge of my movements is worth fifty pounds--except--”

“Except?” the Prince murmured.

“Except Mr. Inspector Jacks,” Dr. Whiles said slowly.

The Prince seemed scarcely to grasp the situation.

“Well,” he said, “fifty pounds is not a great deal of money. Some
unknown person--possibly, as you suggest, Mr. Jacks--is willing to give
fifty pounds to discover your whereabouts. I, on the other hand, am
giving a thousand guineas to keep you here as my guest. The odds do not
seem even, do they?”

“Put in that way,” Dr. Whiles admitted, “they certainly do not. But
there is another thing which has come into my mind.”

The Prince smiled and helped himself to one of the very excellent
cigarettes which had been provided for the delectation of his visitor.

“Pray treat me with every confidence, Dr. Whiles,” he said. “Tell me
exactly what is in your thoughts.”

“Well, then, I will,” the doctor answered. “Sitting here with nothing
particular to do, one has plenty of leisure to think. For the first
time, I have seriously tried to puzzle out what Mr. Inspector Jacks
really wanted with me, why he came down to ask me about the person whom
I treated for injuries resulting from a bicycle accident one Wednesday
evening not long ago, why he took me up to London to see if I could
identify that person in a very different guise. I have tried to put the
pieces together and to ask myself what he meant by it all.”

“With so much time upon your hands, Dr. Whiles,” the Prince remarked,
“you can scarcely fail to have arrived at some reasonable explanation.”

“I don’t know whether it is reasonable or not,” the doctor answered,
“but the obvious explanation is getting on my nerves. There are two
things which I cannot get away from. One is that I cannot for the life
of me imagine your riding a bicycle twelve or fifteen miles north of
London between eleven o’clock and midnight; and the other--”

“Come, the other?” the Prince remarked encouragingly.

“The other,” the doctor continued, “is the fact that within half a mile
of my house runs the main London and North Western line.”

“The London and North Western Railway line,” the Prince repeated, “and
what has that to do with it?”

“This much,” the doctor answered, “that on that very night, about half
an hour before your--shall we call it bicycle accident?--the special
train from Liverpool to London passed along that line. You will remember
the tragic occurrence which took place before she reached London, the
murder of the man Hamilton Fynes. If you read the report of the evidence
at the inquest, you will notice the engine driver’s declaration that
the only time on the whole journey when he travelled at less than forty
miles an hour was when passing over the viaduct and before entering the
tunnel which is plainly visible from my house.”

“This is very interesting,” the Prince remarked, “but it is not new. We
have known all this before. Perhaps, though, some fresh thing has come
into your mind connected with these happenings. If so, please do not
hesitate. Let me hear it.”

“It is a fresh thing to me,” the doctor said,--“fresh, in a sense,
though all the time I have had an uneasy feeling at the back of my head.
I know now what it was which brought Inspector Jacks to see me. I know
now what it was he had at the back of his head concerning the man who
met with a bicycle accident at this psychological moment.”

“Inspector Jacks is a very shrewd fellow,” the Prince said. “I should
not be in the least surprised if you were entirely right.”

The doctor moved restlessly in his chair. His eyes remained on his
companion’s face, as though fascinated.

“Can’t you understand,” he said, “that Inspector Jacks is on your track?
Rightly or wrongly, he believes that you had something to do with the
murder on the train that night.”

The Prince nodded amiably. He seemed in no way discomposed.

“I feel convinced,” he said, “that you are right. I agree with you.
I believe that Inspector Jacks has had that idea for some little time
now.”

The doctor gripped the sides of his chair and stared at this man who
discussed a matter so terrible with calm and perfect ease.

“Yes, I have felt that more than once,” the Prince continued. “My
presence upon the spot at that precise moment with injuries which had to
be explained somehow or other, was, without doubt, unfortunate.”

The two men sat for several moments without further speech. The doctor’s
features seemed to reflect something of the horror which he undoubtedly
felt. The Prince appeared only a trifle bored.

“So that is why,” the former exclaimed hoarsely, “I have been appointed
your physician in chief!”

“I had given you the credit, my dear doctor,” the Prince said smoothly,
“of having arrived at that decision some time ago. To a man of your
perceptions there can scarcely have been any question about it at all.
Besides, even Princes, you know, do not give fees of a thousand guineas
for nothing.”

Dr. Whiles rose slowly to his feet.

“You know the secret of that murder!” he declared.

“Why ask me?” the Prince answered. “If I tell you that I do, you may
find conscientious scruples about remaining here. A man is not bound,
you know, to give himself away. Make the best of things, and do not try
to see too far.”

The doctor was looking a little shaken.

“If you were mixed up in that affair,” he said, “and if I remain here
when my evidence is needed, I become an accomplice.”

“Only if you remain here voluntarily,” the Prince reminded him
cheerfully. “Remember that and be comforted. No effort that you could
make now would bring you into touch with Mr. Inspector Jacks until I am
quite prepared. So you see, my dear doctor, that you have nothing with
which to reproach yourself. I will not insult you,” he continued, “by
suggesting that a reward of fifty pounds could possibly have influenced
your attitude. If you have suffered your mind to dwell upon it for a
single moment, try and remember the relative unimportance of such an
amount when compared with a thousand guineas.”

The doctor moved to the window and back again.

“Supposing,” he said, “I decline to remain here? Supposing I say that,
believing you now to have a guilty knowledge of this murder, I repudiate
our bargain? Supposing I say that I will have nothing more to do with
your thousand guineas,--that I will leave this house?”

“Then we come to close quarters,” the Prince answered, “and you force me
to tell you in plain words that, until I am ready for you to leave
it, you are as much a prisoner in this room as though the keys of the
strongest fortress in Europe were turned upon you. I have told you this
before. I thought that we perfectly understood one another.”

“I did not understand,” the doctor protested. “I knew that there was
trouble, but I did not know that it was this!”

“The fact of your knowing or not knowing makes no difference,” the
Prince answered. “You are no longer a free agent. The only question for
you to decide is whether you remain here willingly or whether you will
force me to remind you of our bargain.”

The doctor was sitting down again now. All the time he watched the
Prince with a gleam in his eyes, partly of horror, partly of fear. He no
longer doubted but that he was in the presence of a criminal.

“I am sorry,” the Prince continued, “that you have allowed this little
matter to disturb you. I thought that we had arranged it all at our last
interview. If you did not surmise my reasons for keeping you here, then
I am afraid I gave you credit for more intelligence than you possess.
You will excuse me now, I am sure,” he added, rising. “I have some
letters to send off before I change. By the bye, do you care to give me
your parole? It might, perhaps, lessen the inconvenience to which you
are unfortunately subject.”

The doctor shook his head.

“No,” he said, “I will not give my parole!”

Late that night, he tried the handle of his door and found it open. The
corridor outside was in thick darkness. He felt his way along by the
wall. Suddenly, from behind, a pair of large soft hands gripped him by
the throat. Slowly he was drawn back--almost strangled.

“Let me go!” he called out, struggling in vain to find a body upon which
he could gain a grip.

The grasp only tightened.

“Back to your rooms!” came a whisper through the darkness.

The doctor returned. When he staggered into his sitting room, he
turned up the electric light. There were red marks upon his throat and
perspiration upon his forehead. He opened the door once more and looked
out upon the landing, striking a match and holding it over his head.
There was no one in sight, yet all the time he had the uncomfortable
feeling that he was being watched. For the first time in his life he
wondered whether a thousand guineas was, after all, such a magnificent
fee!

Almost at the same time the Prince sat back in the shadows of the
Duchess of Devenham’s box at the Opera and talked quietly to Lady Grace.

“But tell me, Prince,” she begged, “I know that you are glad to go home,
but won’t you really miss this a little,--the music, the life, all these
things that make up existence here? Your own country is wonderful, I
know, but it has not progressed so far, has it?”

He shook his head.

“I think,” he said, “that the portion of our education which we have
most grievously neglected is the development of our recreations. But
then you must remember that we are to a certain extent without that
craving for amusement which makes these things necessary for you others.
We are perhaps too serious in my country, Lady Grace. We lack altogether
that delightful air of irresponsibility with which you Londoners seem to
make your effortless way through life.”

She was a little perplexed.

“I don’t believe,” she said, “that in your heart you approve of us at
all.”

“Do not say that, Lady Grace,” he begged. “It is simply that I have
been brought up in so different a school. This sort of thing is very
wonderful, and I shall surely miss it. Yet nowadays the world is being
linked together in marvellous fashion. Tokio and London are closer today
than ever they have been in the world’s history.”

“And our people?” she asked. “Do you really think that our people are so
far apart? Between you and me, for instance,” she added, meaning to
ask the question naturally enough, but suddenly losing confidence and
looking away from him,--“between you and me there seems no radical
difference of race. You might almost be an Englishman--not one of these
men of fashion, of course, but a statesman or a man of letters, some one
who had taken hold of the serious side of life.”

“You pay me a very delightful compliment,” he murmured.

“Please repay me, then, by being candid,” she answered. “Consider for
a moment that I am a typical English girl, and tell me whether I am so
very different from the Japanese women of your own class?”

He hesitated for a moment. The question was not without its
embarrassments.

“Men,” he said, “are very much the same, all the world over. They are
like the coarse grass which grows everywhere. But the flowers, you know,
are different in every country.”

Lady Grace sighed. Perhaps she had been a trifle too daring! She was
willing enough, at any rate, to let the subject drift away.

“Soon the curtain will go up,” she said, “and we can talk no longer.
I should like to tell you, though, how glad I am--how glad we all
are--that you can come to us next week.”

“I can assure you that I am looking forward to it,” he answered a little
gravely. “It is my farewell to all of you, you know, and it seems to me
that those who will be your father’s guests are just those with whom I
have been on the most intimate terms since I came to England.”

She nodded.

“Penelope is coming,” she said quickly,--“you know that?--Penelope and
Sir Charles Somerfield.”

“Yes,” he answered, “I heard so.”

The curtain went up. The faint murmur of the violins was suddenly caught
up and absorbed in the thunderous music of a march. Lady Grace moved
nearer to the front. Prince Maiyo remained where he was among the
shadows. The music was in his ears, but his eyes were half closed.



CHAPTER XXVIII. PATRIOTISM

The Duke’s chef had served an Emperor with honor--the billiard room at
Devenham Castle was the most comfortable room upon earth. The three
men who sat together upon a huge divan, the three men most powerful in
directing the councils of their country, felt a gentle wave of optimism
stealing through their quickened blood. Nevertheless this was a serious
matter which occupied their thoughts.

“We are becoming,” the Prime Minister said, “much too modern. We are
becoming over-civilized out of any similitude to a nation of men of
blood and brawn.”

“You are quoting some impossible person,” Sir Edward Bransome declared.

“One is always quoting unconsciously,” the Prime Minister admitted
with a sigh. “What I mean is that five hundred years ago we should have
locked this young man up in a room hung with black crape, and with
a pleasant array of unfortunately extinct instruments we should have
succeeded, beyond a doubt, in extorting the truth from him.”

“And if the truth were not satisfactory?” the Duke asked, lighting a
cigar.

“We should have endeavored to change his point of view,” the Prime
Minister continued, “even if we had to change at the same time the
outline of his particularly graceful figure. The age of thumbscrews and
the rack was, after all, a very virile age. Just consider for a moment
our positions--three of the greatest and most brilliant statesmen of our
day--and we can do very little save wait for this young man to declare
himself. We are the puppets with whom he plays. It rests with him
whether our names are written upon the scroll of fame or whether our
administration is dismissed in half a dozen contemptuous words by the
coming historian. It rests with him whether our friend Bransome here
shall be proclaimed the greatest Foreign Minister that ever breathed,
and whether I myself have a statue erected to me in Westminster Yard,
which shall be crowned with a laurel wreath by patriotic young ladies on
the morning of my anniversary.”

The Duke stretched himself out with a sigh of content. His cigar was
burning well, and the flavor of old Armignac lingered still upon his
palate.

“Come,” he protested, “I think you exaggerate Maiyo’s importance just
a little, Haviland. Hesho seems excellently disposed towards us, and,
after all, I should have thought his word would have had more weight in
Tokio than the word of a young man who is new to diplomacy, and whose
claims to distinction seem to rest rather upon his soldiering and the
fact that he is a cousin of the Emperor.”

The Prime Minister sighed.

“Dear Duke,” he said, “no one of us, not even myself, has ever done that
young man justice. To me he represents everything that is most strenuous
and intellectual in Japanese manhood. The spirit of that wonderful
country runs like the elixir of life itself through his veins. Since
the day he brought me his letter from the Emperor, I have watched him
carefully, and I believe I can honestly declare that not once in these
eighteen months has he looked away from his task, nor has he given to
one single person even an inkling of the thoughts which have passed
through his mind. He came back from the Continent, from Berlin, from
Paris, from Petersburg, with a mass of acquired information which would
have made some of our blue-books read like Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales.
He had made up his mind exactly what he thought of each country,
of their political systems, of their social life, of their military
importance. He had them all weighed up in the hollow of his hand. He was
willing to talk as long as I, for instance, was willing to listen. He
spoke of everybody whom he had met and every place which he had visited
without reserve, and yet I guarantee that there is no person in England
today, however much he may have talked with him, who knows in the least
what his true impressions are.”

“Haviland is right,” Bransome agreed. “Many a time I have caught myself
wondering, when he talks so easily about his travels, what the real
thoughts are which lie at the back of his brain. We know, of course,
what the object of those travels was. He went as no tourist. He went
with a deep and solemn purpose always before him. He went to find out
whether there was any other European Power whose alliance would be a
more advantageous thing for Japan than a continuation of their alliance
with us. Such a thing has never been mentioned or hinted at between us,
but we know it all the same.”

“I wonder,” the Duke remarked, “whether we shall really get the truth
out of him before he goes.”

The Prime Minister shook his head.

“Look at him now teaching old Lady Saunderson how to hold her cue. He
singled her out because she was the least attractive person playing,
because no one took any particular notice of her, and every one seemed
disposed to let her go her own way! Those girls were all buzzing around
him as though he were something holy, but you see how gently he eluded
them! Watch what an interest she is taking in the game now. He has been
encouraging the poor old lady until her last few shots have been quite
good. That is Maiyo all the world over. I will wager that he is thinking
of nothing on earth at this moment but of making that poor old lady feel
at her ease and enjoy her game. A stranger, looking on, would imagine
him to be just a kind-hearted, simple-minded fellow. Yet there is not
one of us three who has wit enough to get a single word from him against
his will. You shall see. There is an excellent opportunity here. I
suppose both of you read his speech at the Herrick Club last night?”

“I did,” the Duke answered.

“And I,” Bransome echoed. “It seemed to me that he spoke a little more
freely than usual.”

“He went as near to censure as I have ever heard him when speaking of
any of the institutions of our country,” the Prime Minister declared. “I
will ask him about it directly we get the chance. You shall see how he
will evade the point.”

“You will have to be quick if you mean to get hold of him,” the Duke
remarked. “See, the game is over and there he goes with Penelope.”

The Prime Minister rose to his feet and intercepted them on their way to
the door.

“Miss Morse,” he said, “may we ransom the Prince? We want to talk to
him.”

“Do you insinuate,” she laughed, “that he is a captive of mine?”

“We are all captives of Miss Morse’s,” Bransome said with a bow, “and
all enemies of Somerfield’s.”

Somerfield, hearing his name, came up to them. The Duchess, too,
strolled over to the fire. The Prime Minister and Bransome returned with
Maiyo towards the corner of the room where they had been sitting.

“Prince,” the Prime Minister said, “we have been talking about your
speech at the Herrick Club last night.”

The Prince smiled a little gravely.

“Did I say too much?” he asked. “It all came as a surprise to me--the
toast and everything connected with it. I saw my name down to reply,
and it seemed discourteous of me not to speak. But, as yet, I do not
altogether understand these functions. I did not altogether understand,
for instance, how much I might say and how much I ought to leave
unsaid.”

“We have read what you said,” Bransome remarked. “What we should like to
hear, if I may venture to say so, is what you left unsaid.”

The Prince for a moment was thoughtful. Perhaps he remembered that the
days had passed when it was necessary for him to keep so jealously his
own counsel. Perhaps his natural love of the truth triumphed. He felt a
sudden longing to tell these people who had been kind to him the things
which he had seen amongst them, the things which only a stranger coming
fresh to the country could perhaps fully comprehend.

“What I said was of little importance,” the Prince remarked, “but I
felt myself placed in a very difficult position. Before I knew what to
expect, I was listening to a glorification of the arms of my country at
the expense of Russia. I was being hailed as one of a nation who possess
military genius which had not been equalled since the days of Hannibal
and Caesar. Many things of that sort were said, many things much too
kind, many things which somehow it grieved me to listen to. And when
I stood up to reply, I felt that the few words which I must say would
sound, perhaps, ungracious, but they must be said. It was one of those
occasions which seemed to call for the naked truth.”

Penelope and the Duchess had joined the little group.

“May we stay?” the former asked. “I read every word of your speech,”
 she added, turning to the Prince. “Do tell us why you spoke so severely,
what it was that you objected to so strongly in General Ennison’s
remarks?”

The Prince turned earnestly towards her.

“My dear young lady,” he said, “all that I objected to was this
over-glorification of the feats of arms accomplished by us. People
over here did not understand. On the one side were the great armies of
Russia,--men drawn, all of them, from the ranks of the peasant, men of
low nerve force, men who were not many degrees better than animals. They
came to fight against us because it was their business to fight, because
for fighting they drew their scanty pay, their food, and their drink,
and the clothes they wore. They fought because if they refused they
faced the revolver bullets of their officers,--men like themselves,
who also fought because it was their profession, because it was in
the traditions of their family, but who would, I think, have very much
preferred disporting themselves in the dancing halls of their cities,
drinking champagne with the ladies of their choice, or gambling with
cards. I do not say that these were not brave men, all of them. I myself
saw them face death by the hundreds, but the lust of battle was in their
veins then, the taste of blood upon their palates. We do not claim to be
called world conquerors because we overcame these men. If one could have
seen into the hearts of our own soldiers as they marched into battle,
and seen also into the hearts of those others who lay there sullenly
waiting, one would not have wondered then. There was, indeed, nothing
to wonder at. What we cannot make you understand over here is that every
Japanese soldier who crept across the bare plains or lay stretched in
the trenches, who loaded his rifle and shot and killed and waited for
death,--every man felt something beating in his heart which those others
did not feel. We have no great army, Mr. Haviland, but what we have is
a great nation who have things beating in their heart the knowledge of
which seems somehow to have grown cold amongst you Western people. The
boy is born with it; it is there in his very soul, as dear to him as the
little home where he lives, the blossoming trees under which he plays.
It leads him to the rifle and the drill ground as naturally as the boys
of your country turn to the cricket fields and the football ground. Over
here you call that spirit patriotism. It was something which beat in
the heart of every one of those hundreds of thousands of men, something
which kept their eyes clear and bright as they marched into battle,
which made them look Death itself in the face, and fight even while
the blackness crept over them. You see, your own people have so many
interests, so many excitements, so much to distract. With us it is not
so. In the heart of the Japanese comes the love of his parents, the love
of his wife and children, and, deepest, perhaps, of all the emotions he
knows, the strong magnificent background to his life, the love of the
country which bore him, which shelters them. It is for his home he
fights, for his simple joys amongst those who are dear to him, for the
great mysterious love of the Motherland. Forgive me if I have expressed
myself badly, have repeated myself often. It is a matter which I find it
so hard to talk about, so hard here to make you understand.”

“But you must not think, Prince, that we over here are wholly lacking in
that same instinct,” the Duke said. “Remember our South African war, and
the men who came to arms and rallied round the flag when their services
were needed.”

“I do remember that,” the Prince answered. “I wish that I could speak
of it in other terms. Yet it seems to me that I must speak as I find
things. You say that the men came to arms. They did, but how? Untrained,
unskilled in carrying weapons, they rushed across the seas to be
the sport of the farmers who cut them off or shot them down, to be a
hindrance in the way of the mercenaries who fought for you. Yes, you
say they rallied to the call! What brought them? Excitement, necessity,
necessities of their social standing, bravado, cheap heroism--any one
of these. But I tell you that patriotism as we understand it is a deeper
thing. In the land where it flourishes there is no great pre-eminence in
what you call sports or games. It does not come like a whirlwind on the
wings of disaster. It grows with the limbs and the heart of the boy,
grows with his muscles and his brawn. It is part of his conscience,
part of his religion. As he realizes that he has a country of his own
to protect, a dear, precious heritage come down to him through countless
ages, so he learns that it is his sacred duty to know how to do his
share in defending it. The spare time of our youth, Mr. Haviland, is
spent learning to shoot, to scout, to bear hardships, to acquire the
arts of war. I tell you that there was not one general who went with our
troops to Manchuria, but a hundred thousand. We have no great army. We
are a nation of men whose religion it is to fight when their country’s
welfare is threatened.”

There was a short silence. The Prime Minister and Bransome exchanged
rapid glances.

“These, then,” Penelope said slowly, “were the things you left unsaid.”

The Prince raised his hand a little--a deprecatory gesture.

“Perhaps even now,” he said, “it was scarcely courteous of me to say
them, only I know that they come to you as no new thing. There are many
of your countrymen who are speaking to you now in the Press as I, a
stranger, have spoken. Sometimes it is harder to believe one of your own
family. That is why I have dared to say so much,--I, a foreigner, eager
and anxious only to observe and to learn. I think, perhaps, that it is
to such that the truth comes easiest.”

Of a purpose, the three men who were there said nothing. The Prince
offered Penelope his arm.

“I will not be disappointed,” he said. “You promised that you would show
me the palm garden. I have talked too much.”



CHAPTER XXIX. A RACE

The Prince, on his way back from his usual before-breakfast stroll,
lingered for a short time amongst the beds of hyacinths and yellow
crocuses. Somehow or other, these spring flowers, stiffly set out and
with shrivelled edges--a little reminiscent of the last east wind--still
seemed to him, in their perfume at any rate, to being him memories of
his own country. Pink and blue and yellow, in all manner of sizes and
shapes, the beds spread away along the great front below the terrace
of the castle. This morning the wind was coming from the west. The sun,
indeed, seemed already to have gained some strength. The Prince sat for
a moment or two upon the gray stone balustrade, looking to where the
level country took a sudden ascent and ended in a thick belt of pine
trees. Beyond lay the sea. As he sat there with folded arms, he was
surely a fatalist. The question as to whether or not he should ever
reach it, should ever find himself really bound for home, was one which
seemed to trouble him slightly enough. He thought with a faint, wistful
interest of the various ports of call, of the days which might pass,
each one bringing him nearer the end. He suffered himself, even, to
think of that faint blur upon the horizon, the breath of the spicy
winds, the strange home perfumes of the bay, as he drew nearer and
nearer to the outstretched arms of his country. Well, if not he,
another! It was something to have done one’s best.

The rustle of a woman’s garment disturbed him, and he turned his head.
Penelope stood there in her trim riding habit,--a garb in which he had
never seen her. She held her skirts in her hand and looked at him with a
curious little smile.

“It is too early in the morning, Prince,” she said, “for you to sit
there dreaming so long and so earnestly. Come in to breakfast. Every one
is down, for a wonder.”

“Breakfast, by all means,” he answered, coming blithely up the broad
steps. “You are going to ride this morning?”

“I suppose we all are, more or less,” she answered. “It is our hunt
steeplechases, you know. Poor Grace is in there nearly sobbing her
eyes out. Captain Chalmers has thrown her over. Lady Barbarity--that’s
Grace’s favorite mare, and her entry for the cup--turned awkward with
him yesterday, and he won’t have anything more to do with her.”

“From your tone,” he remarked, pushing open the French windows, “I
gather that this is a tragedy. I, unfortunately, do not understand.”

“You should ask Grace herself,” Penelope said. “There she is.”

Lady Grace looked round from her place at the head of the breakfast
table.

“Come and sympathize with me, Prince,” she cried. “For weeks I have been
fancying myself the proud possessor of the hunt cup. Now that horrid
man, Captain Chalmers, has thrown me over at the last moment. He refuses
to ride my mare because she was a little fractious yesterday.”

“It is a great misfortune,” the Prince said in a tone of polite regret,
“but surely it is not irreparable? There must be others--why not your
own groom?”

A smile went round the table. The Duke hastened to explain.

“The race is for gentlemen riders only,” he said. “The horses have to
be the property of members of the hunt. There would be no difficulty, of
course, in finding a substitute for Captain Chalmers, but the race
takes place this morning, and I am afraid, with all due respect to my
daughter, that her mare hasn’t the best of reputations.”

“I won’t have a word said against Lady Barbarity,” Lady Grace declared.
“Captain Chalmers is a good horseman, of course but for a lightweight he
has the worst hands I ever knew.”

“But surely amongst your immediate friends there must be many others,”
 the Prince said. “Sir Charles, for instance?”

“Charlie is riding his own horse,” Lady Grace answered. “He hasn’t the
ghost of a chance, but, of course, he won’t give it up.”

“Not I!” Somerfield answered, gorgeous in pink coat and riding breeches.
“My old horse may not be fast, but he can go the course, and I’m none
too certain of the others. Some of those hurdles’ll take a bit of
doing.”

“It is a shame,” the Prince remarked, “that you should be disappointed,
Lady Grace. Would they let me ride for you?”

Nothing the Prince could have said would have astonished the little
company more. Somerfield came to a standstill in the middle of the room,
with a cup of tea in one hand and a plate of ham in the other.

“You!” Lady Grace exclaimed.

“Do you really mean it, Prince?” Penelope cried.

“Well, why not?” he asked, himself, in turn, somewhat surprised. “If I
am eligible, and Lady Grace chooses, it seems to me very simple.”

“But,” the Duke intervened, “I did not know--we did not know that you
were a sportsman, Prince.”

“A sportsman?” the Prince repeated a little doubtfully. “Perhaps I
am not that according to your point of view, but when it comes to a
question of riding, why, that is easy enough.”

“Have you ever ridden in a steeplechase?” Somerfield asked him.

“Never in my life,” the Prince declared. “Frankly, I do not know what it
is.”

“There are jumps, for one thing,” Somerfield continued,--“pretty stiff
affairs, too.”

“If Lady Grace’s mare is a hunter,” the Prince remarked, “she can
probably jump them.”

“The question is whether--” Somerfield began, and stopped short.

The Prince looked up.

“Yes?” he asked.

Somerfield hesitated to complete his sentence, and the Duke once more
intervened.

“What Somerfield was thinking, my dear Prince,” he said, “was that a
steeplechase course, as they ride in this country, needs some knowing.
You have never been on my daughter’s mare before.”

The Prince smiled.

“So far as I am concerned,” he said, “that is of no account. There was
a day at Mukden--I do not like to talk of it, but it comes back to
me--when I rode twelve different horses in twenty-four hours, but
perhaps,” he added, turning to Lady Grace, “you would not care to trust
your horse with one who is a stranger to your--what is it you call
them?--steeplechases.”

“On the contrary, Prince,” Lady Grace exclaimed, “you shall ride her,
and I am going to back you for all I am worth.”

Bransome, who was also in riding clothes, although he was not taking
part in the steeplechases himself, glanced at the clock.

“You are running it rather fine,” he said. “You’ll scarcely have time to
hack round the course.”

“Some one must explain it to me,” the Prince said. “I need only to be
told where to go. If there is no time for that, I must stay with the
other horses until the finish. There is a flat finish perhaps?”

“About three hundred yards,” the Duke answered.

“Have you any riding clothes?” Penelope whispered to him.

“Without a doubt,” he answered. “I will go and change in a few minutes.”

“We start in half an hour,” Somerfield remarked. “Even that allows us
none too much time.”

“Perhaps,” the Duke suggested diffidently, “you would like to ride
over, Prince? It is a good eleven miles, and you would have a chance of
getting into your stride.”

The Prince shook his head.

“No,” he said, “I should like to motor with you others, if I may.”

“Just as you like, of course,” the Duke agreed. “Grace’s mare is over
there now. We shall be able to have a look at her before the race, at
any rate.”

The opinions, after the Prince had left the table, were a little divided
as to what was likely to happen.

“For a man who has never even hunted and knows nothing whatever about
the country,” Somerfield declared, “to attempt to ride in a steeplechase
of this sort is sheer folly. If you take my advice, Lady Grace, you will
get out of it. Lady Barbarity is far too good a mare to have her knees
broken.”

“I am perfectly content to take my risks,” Lady Grace answered
confidently. “If the Prince had never ridden before in his life, I would
trust him.”

Somerfield turned away, frowning.

“What do you think about it, Penelope?” he asked.

“I am afraid,” she answered, “that I agree with Grace.”

Two punctures and a leaking valve delayed them over an hour on the road.
When they reached their destination, the first race was already over.

“It’s shocking bad luck,” the Duke declared, “but there’s no earthly
chance of your seeing the course, Prince. Come on the top of the stand
with me, and bring your glasses. I think I can point out the way for
you.”

“That will do excellently,” the Prince answered. “There is no need to go
and look at every jump. Show me where we start and as near as possible
the way we have to go, and tell me where we finish.”

The course was a natural one, and the stand itself on a hill. The
greater part of it was clearly visible from where they stood. The Duke
pointed out the water jump with some trepidation, but the Prince’s
glasses rested on it only for a moment. He pointed to a clump of trees.

“Which side there?” he asked.

“To the left,” the Duke answered. “Remember to keep inside the red
flags.”

The Prince nodded.

“Where do we finish?” he asked.

The Duke showed him.

“That is all right,” he said. “I need not look any more.”

In the paddock some of the horses were being led around. The Prince
noted them approvingly.

“Very nice horses,” he said,--“light, but very nice. That one I like
best,” he added, pointing to a dark bay mare, who was already giving her
boy some trouble.

“That’s lucky,” the Duke answered, “for she’s your mount. I must go and
talk to the clerk about your entry. It is a little late, but I think
that it will be all right.”

The Prince glanced over Lady Grace’s mare and turned aside to join
Penelope and Somerfield.

“I like the look of my horse, Sir Charles,” he said. “I think that I
shall beat you today.”

“We both start at five to one,” Somerfield answered. “Shall we have a
bet?”

“With pleasure,” the Prince agreed. “Will you name the amount? I do not
know what is usual.”

“Anything you like,” Somerfield answered, “from ten pounds to a
hundred.”

“One hundred,--we will say one hundred, then,” the Prince declared. “My
mount against yours. So!”

He threw off his overcoat, and they saw for the first time that he
was dressed in English riding clothes of dark material, but absolutely
correct cut.

“I must go now and be introduced to the Clerk of the Course,” he said.
“Ah, here is Lady Grace!” he added. “Come with me, Lady Grace. Your
father is seeing about my entry. I think that in five minutes the bell
will ring.”

Everything was in order, and a few minutes later the Prince came out.
The mare was stripped, and the whole party gathered round to watch him
mount. He swung himself into the saddle without hesitation. The mare
suddenly reared. Prince Maiyo only smiled, and with loose reins stooped
and patted her neck. He seemed to whisper something in her ear, and
she stood for a moment afterwards quite still. Lady Grace drew a quick
breath.

“What did you say to her, Prince?” she asked. “She is behaving
beautifully except for that first start.”

“Your mare understands Japanese, Lady Grace,” the Prince answered,
smiling. “She and I are going to be great friends. Show me the way,
please. Ah, I follow that other horse! I see. Lady Grace, au revoir. You
shall have your cup.”

“Gad, I believe she will!” the Duke exclaimed. “Look at the fellow ride.
His body is like whalebone.”

The parade in front of the stand was a short one. The Prince rode by
in the merest canter. The mare made one wild plunge which would have
unseated any ordinary person, but her rider never even moved in his
saddle.

“I never saw a fellow sit so close in my life,” the Duke declared. “Do
you know, Grace, I believe, I really believe he’ll ride her!”

Lady Grace laughed scornfully.

“I have a year’s allowance on already,” she said, “so you had better
pray that he does. I think it is very absurd of you all,” she added,
“because the Prince cares nothing for games, to conclude that he is any
the less likely to be able to do the things that a man should do. He
perhaps cannot ride about on a trained pony with a long stick and knock
a small ball between two posts, but I think that if he had to ride for
his own life or the life of others he would show you all something.”

“They’re off!” the Duke exclaimed.

They watched the first jump breathlessly. The Prince, riding a little
apart, simply ignored the hurdle, and the mare took it in her stride.
They turned the corner and faced an awkward post and rails. The leading
horse took off too late and fell. The Prince, who was close behind,
steered his mare on one side like lightning. She jumped like a cat,--the
Prince never moved in his seat.

“He rides like an Italian,” Bransome declared, shutting up his glasses.
“There’s never a thing in this race to touch him. I am going to see if I
can get any money on.”

Another set of hurdles and then the field were out of sight. Soon they
were visible again in the valley. The Prince was riding second now.
Somerfield was leading, and there were only three other horses left.
They cleared a hedge and two ditches. At the second one Somerfield’s
horse stumbled, and there was a suppressed cry. He righted himself
almost at once, however, and came on. Then they reached the water jump.
There was a sudden silence on the stand and the hillside. Somerfield
took off first, the Prince lying well away from him. Both cleared it,
but whereas Lady Grace’s mare jumped wide and clear, and her rider never
even faltered in his saddle, Somerfield lost all his lead and only just
kept his seat. They were on the homeward way now, with only one more
jump, a double set of hurdles. Suddenly, in the flat, the Prince seemed
to stagger in his saddle. Lady Grace cried out.

“He’s over, by Jove!” the Duke exclaimed. “No, he’s righted himself!”

The Prince had lost ground, but he came on toward the last jump, gaining
with every stride. Somerfield was already riding his mount for all he
was worth, but the Prince as yet had not touched his whip. They drew
closer and closer to the jump. Once more the silence came. Then there
was a little cry,--both were over. They were turning the corner coming
into the straight. Somerfield was leaning forward now, using his whip
freely, but it was clear that his big chestnut was beaten. The Prince,
with merely a touch of the whip and riding absolutely upright, passed
him with ease, and rode in a winner by a dozen lengths. As he cantered
by the stand, they all saw the cause of his momentary stagger. One
stirrup had gone, and he was riding with his leg quite stiff.

“You’ve won your money, Grace,” the Duke declared, shutting up his
glass. “A finely ridden race, too. Did you see he’d lost his stirrup? He
must have taken the last jump without it. I’ll go and fetch him up.”

The Duke hurried down. The Prince was already in the weighing room
smoking a cigarette.

“It is all right,” he said smiling. “They have passed me. I have won. I
hope that Lady Grace will be pleased.”

“She is delighted!” the Duke exclaimed, shaking him by the hand. “We all
are. What happened to your stirrup?”

“You must ask your groom,” the Prince answered. “The leather snapped
right in the flat, but it made no difference. We have to ride like that
half the time. It is quite pleasant exercise,” he continued, “but I am
very dirty and very thirsty. I am sorry for Sir Charles, but his horse
was not nearly so good as your daughter’s mare.”

They made their way toward the stand, but met the rest of the party in
the paddock. Lady Grace went up to the Prince with outstretched hands.

“Prince,” she declared, “you rode superbly. It was a wonderful race. I
have never felt so grateful to any one in my life.”

The Prince smiled in a puzzled way.

“My dear young lady,” he said, “it was a great pleasure and a very
pleasant ride. You have nothing to thank me for because your horse is a
little better than those others.”

“It was not my mare alone,” she answered,--“it was your riding.”

The Prince laughed as one who does not understand.

“You make me ashamed, Lady Grace,” he declared. “Why, there is only one
way to ride. You did not think that because I was not English I should
fall off a horse?”

“I am afraid,” the Duke remarked smiling, “that several Englishmen have
fallen off!”

“It is a matter of the horse,” the Prince said. “Some are not trained
for jumping. What would you have, then? In my battalion we have nine
hundred horsemen. If I found one who did not ride so well as I do, he
would go back to the ranks. We would make an infantryman of him. Miss
Morse,” he added, turning suddenly to where Penelope was standing a
little apart. “I am so sorry that Sir Charles’ horse was not quite so
good as Lady Grace’s. You will not blame me?”

She looked at him curiously. She did not answer immediately. Somerfield
was coming towards them, his pink coat splashed with mud, his face
scratched, and a very distinct frown upon his forehead. She looked away
from him to the Prince. Their eyes met for a moment.

“No!” she said. “I do not blame you!”



CHAPTER XXX. INSPECTOR JACKS IMPORTUNATE

They were talking of the Prince during those few minutes before they
separated to dress for dinner. The whole of the house-party, with the
exception of the Prince himself, were gathered around the great open
fireplace at the north end of the hall. The weather had changed during
the afternoon, and a cold wind had blown in their faces on the homeward
drive. Every one had found comfortable seats here, watching the huge
logs burn, and there seemed to be a general indisposition to move. A
couple of young men from the neighborhood had joined the house-party,
and the conversation, naturally enough, was chiefly concerned with the
day’s sport. The young men, Somerfield especially, were inclined to
regard the Prince’s achievement from a somewhat critical standpoint.

“He rode the race well enough,” Somerfield admitted, “but the mare is
a topper, and no mistake. He had nothing to do but to sit tight and let
her do the work.”

“Of course, he hadn’t to finish either,” one of the newcomers, a Captain
Everard Wilmot, remarked. “That’s where you can tell if a fellow really
can ride or not. Anyhow, his style was rotten. To me he seemed to sit
his horse exactly like a groom.”

“You will, perhaps, not deny him,” the Duke remarked mildly, “a certain
amount of courage in riding a strange horse of uncertain temper, over a
strange country, in an enterprise which was entirely new to him.”

“I call it one of the most sporting things I ever heard of in my life,”
 Lady Grace declared warmly.

Somerfield shrugged his shoulders.

“One must admit that he has pluck,” he remarked critically. “At the same
time I cannot see that a single effort of this sort entitles a man to be
considered a sportsman. He doesn’t shoot, nor does he ever ride except
when he is on military service. He neither plays games nor has he the
instinct for them. A man without the instinct for games is a fellow
I cannot understand. He’d never get along in this country, would he,
Wilmot?”

“No, I’m shot if he would!” that young man replied. “There must be
something wrong about a man who hasn’t any taste whatever for sport.”

Penelope suddenly intervened--intervened, too, in somewhat startling
fashion.

“Charlie,” she said, “you are talking like a baby! I am ashamed of you!
I am ashamed of you all! You are talking like narrow-minded, ignorant
little squireens.”

Somerfield went slowly white. He looked across at Penelope, but the
angry flash in his eyes was met by an even brighter light in her own.

“I will tell you what I think!” she exclaimed. “I think that you are all
guilty of the most ridiculous presumption in criticising such a man as
the Prince. You would dare--you, Captain Wilmot, and you, Charlie, and
you, Mr. Hannaway,” she added, turning to the third young man, “to stand
there and tell us all in a lordly way that the Prince is no sportsman,
as though that mysterious phrase disposed of him altogether as a
creature inferior to you and your kind! If only you could realize the
absolute absurdity of any of you attempting to depreciate a person so
immeasurably above you! Prince Maiyo is a man, not an overgrown boy to
go through life shooting birds, playing games which belong properly to
your schooldays, and hanging round the stage doors of half the theatres
in London. You are satisfied with your lives and the Prince is satisfied
with his. He belongs to a race whom you do not understand. Let him
alone. Don’t presume to imagine yourselves his superior because he does
not conform to your pygmy standard of life.”

Penelope was standing now, her slim, elegant form throbbing with the
earnestness of her words, a spot of angry color burning in her cheeks.
During the moment’s silence which followed, Lady Grace too rose to her
feet and came to her friend’s side.

“I agree with every word Penelope has said,” she declared.

The Duchess smiled.

“Come,” she said soothingly, “we mustn’t take this little affair too
seriously. You are all right, all of you. Every one must live according
to his bringing up. The Prince, no doubt, is as faithful to his
training and instincts as the young men of our own country. It is more
interesting to compare than to criticise.”

Somerfield, who for a moment had been too angry to speak, had now
recovered himself.

“I think,” he said stiffly, “that we had better drop the subject. I had
no idea that Miss Morse felt so strongly about it or I should not have
presumed, even here and amongst ourselves, to criticise a person who
holds such a high place in her esteem. Everard, I’ll play you a game of
billiards before we go upstairs. There’s just time.”

Captain Wilmot hesitated. He was a peace-loving man, and, after all,
Penelope and his friend were engaged.

“Perhaps Miss Morse--” he began.

Penelope turned upon him.

“I should like you all to understand,” she declared, “that every word I
said came from my heart, and that I would say it again, and more, with
the same provocation.”

There was a finality about Penelope’s words which left no room for
further discussion. The little group was broken up. She and Lady Grace
went to their rooms together.

“Penelope, you’re a dear!” the latter said, as they mounted the stairs.
“I am afraid you’ve made Charlie very angry, though.”

“I hope I have,” Penelope answered. “I meant to make him angry. I think
that such self-sufficiency is absolutely stifling. It makes me sometimes
almost loathe young Englishmen of his class.”

“And you don’t dislike the Prince so much nowadays?” Lady Grace remarked
with transparent indifference.

“No!” Penelope answered. “That is finished. I misunderstood him at
first. It was entirely my own fault. I was prejudiced, and I hated to
feel that I was in the wrong. I do not see how any one could dislike him
unless they were enemies of his country. Then I fancy that they might
have cause.”

Lady Grace sighed.

“To tell you the truth, Penelope,” she said, “I almost wish that he were
not quite so devotedly attached to his country.”

Penelope was silent. They had reached Lady Grace’s room now, and were
standing together on the hearthrug in front of the fire.

“I am afraid he is like that,” Penelope said gently. “He seems to have
none of the ordinary weaknesses of men. I, too, wish sometimes that he
were a little different. One would like to think of him, for his own
sake, as being happy some day. He reminds me somehow of the men who
build and build, toiling always through youth unto old age. There seems
no limit to their strength, nor any respite. They build a palace which
those who come after them must inhabit.”

Once more Lady Grace sighed. She was looking into the heart of the fire.
Penelope took her hands.

“It is hard sometimes, dear,” she said, “to realize that a thing is
impossible, that it is absolutely out of our reach. Yet it is better to
bring one’s mind to it than to suffer all the days.”

Lady Grace looked up. At that moment she was more than pretty. Her eyes
were soft and bright, the color had flooded her cheeks.

“But I don’t see _why_ it should be impossible, Penelope,” she
protested. “We are equals in every way. Alliances between our two
countries are greatly to be desired. I have heard my father say so, and
Mr. Haviland. The trouble is, Pen,” she added with trembling lips, “that
he does not care for me.”

“You cannot tell,” Penelope answered. “He has never shown any signs of
caring for any woman. Remember, though, that he would want you to live
in Japan.”

“I’d live in Thibet if he asked me to,” Lady Grace declared, raising
her handkerchief to her eyes, “but he never will. He doesn’t care. He
doesn’t understand. I am very foolish, Penelope.”

Penelope kissed her gently.

“Dear,” she said, “you are not the only foolish woman in the world.”...

Conversation amongst the younger members of the house-party at Devenham
Castle was a little disjointed that evening. Perhaps Penelope, who came
down in a wonderful black velveteen gown, with a bunch of scarlet roses
in her corsage, was the only one who seemed successfully to ignore the
passage of arms which had taken place so short a while ago. She talked
pleasantly to Somerfield, who tried to be dignified and succeeded only
in remaining sulky. Chance had placed her at some distance from the
Prince, to whom Lady Grace was talking with a subdued softness in her
manner which puzzled Captain Wilmot, her neighbor on the other side.

“I saw you with all the evening papers as usual, Bransome,” the Prime
Minister remarked during the service of dinner. “Was there any news?”

“Nothing much,” the Foreign Secretary replied. “Consuls are down another
point and the Daily Comet says that you are like a drowning man clinging
to the raft of your majority. Excellent cartoon of you, by the bye. You
shall see it after dinner.”

“Thank you,” the Prime Minister said. “Was there anything about you in
the same paper by any chance?”

“Nothing particularly abusive,” Sir Edward answered blandly. “By the
bye, the police declare that they have a definite clue this time,
and are going to arrest the murderer of Hamilton Fynes and poor dicky
Vanderpole tonight or tomorrow.”

“Excellent!” the Duke declared. “It would have been a perfect disgrace
to our police system to have left two such crimes undetected. Our
respected friend at the Home Office will have a little peace now.”

“How about me?” Bransome grumbled. “Haven’t I been worried to death,
too?”

The Prince, who had just finished describing to Lady Grace a typical
landscape of his country, turned toward Bransome.

“I think that I heard you say something about a discovery in connection
with those wonderful murder cases,” he said. “Has any one actually been
arrested?”

“My paper was an early edition,” Bransome answered, “but it spoke of a
sensational denouement within the next few hours. I should imagine that
it is all over by now. At the same time it’s absurd how the Press give
these things away. It seems that some fellow who was bicycling saw a man
get in and out of poor Dicky’s taxi and is quite prepared to swear to
him.”

“Has he not been rather a long time in coming forward with his
evidence?” the Prince remarked. “I do not remember to have seen any
mention of such a person in the papers before.”

“He watched so well,” Bransome answered, “and was so startled that he
was knocked down and run over. The detective in charge of the case found
him in a hospital.”

“These things always come out sooner or later,” the Prime Minister
remarked. “As a matter of fact, I am inclined to think that our police
wait too long before they make an arrest. They play with their victim so
deliberately that sometimes he slips through their fingers. Very often,
too, they let a man go who would give himself away from sheer fright if
he felt the touch of a policeman upon his shoulder.”

“As a nation,” Bransome remarked, helping himself to the entree, “we
handle life amongst ourselves with perpetual kid gloves. We are always
afraid of molesting the liberty of the subject. A trifle more brutality
sometimes would make for strength. We are like a dentist whose work
suffers because he is afraid of hurting his patient.”

Somerfield was watching his fiancee curiously.

“Are you really very pale tonight, Penelope,” he asked, “or is it those
red flowers which have drawn all the color from your cheeks?”

“I believe that I am pale,” Penelope answered. “I am always pale when I
wear black and when people have disagreed with me. As a matter of fact,
I am trying to make the Prince feel homesick. Tell me,” she asked him
across the round table, “don’t you think that I remind you a little
tonight of the women of your country?”

The Prince returned her gaze as though, indeed, something were passing
between them of greater significance than that half-bantering question.

“Indeed,” he said, “I think that you do. You remind me of my country
itself--of the things that wait for me across the ocean.”

The Prince’s servant had entered the dining room and whispered in the
ear of the butler who was superintending the service of dinner. The
latter came over at once to the Prince.

“Your Highness,” he said, “some one is on the telephone, speaking from
London. They ask if you could spare half a minute.”

The Prince rose with an interrogative glance at his hostess, and the
Duchess smilingly motioned him to go. Even after he had left the room,
when he was altogether unobserved, his composed demeanor showed no signs
of any change. He took up the receiver almost blithely. It was Soto, his
secretary, who spoke to him.

“Highness,” he said, “the man Jacks with a policeman is here in the hall
at the present moment. He asks permission to search this house.”

“For what purpose?” the Prince asked.

“To discover some person whom he believes to be in hiding here,” the
secretary answered. “He explains that in any ordinary case he would have
applied for what they call a search warrant. Owing to your Highness’
position, however, he has attended here, hoping for your gracious
consent without having made any formal application.”

“I must think!” the Prince answered. “Tell me, Soto. You are sure that
the English doctor has had no opportunity of communicating with any
one?”

“He has had no opportunity,” was the firm reply. “If your Highness says
the word, he shall pass.”

“Let him alone,” the Prince answered. “Refuse this man Jacks permission
to search my house during my absence. Tell him that I shall be there at
three o’clock tomorrow afternoon and that at that hour he is welcome to
return.”

“It shall be done, Highness,” was the answer.

The Prince set down the receiver upon the instrument and stood for a
moment deep in thought. It was a strange country, this,--a strange end
which it seemed that he must prepare to face. He felt like the man who
had gone out to shoot lions and returning with great spoil had died of
the bite of a poisonous ant!



CHAPTER XXXI. GOODBYE!

The Prince on his return from the library intercepted Penelope on her
way across the hall.

“Forgive me,” he said, “but I could not help overhearing some sentences
of your conversation with Sir Charles Somerfield as we sat at dinner.
You are going to talk with him now, is it not so?”

“As soon as he comes out from the dining room.”

He saw the hardening of her lips, the flash in her eyes at the mention
of Somerfield’s name.

“Yes!” she continued, “Sir Charles and I are going to have a little
understanding.”

“Are you sure,” he asked softly, “that it will not be a
misunderstanding?”

She looked into his face.

“What does it matter to you?” she asked. “What do you care?”

“Come into the conservatory for a few minutes,” he begged. “You know
that I take no wine and I prefer not to return into the dining room. I
would like so much instead to talk to you before you see Sir Charles.”

She hesitated. He stood by her side patiently waiting.

“Remember,” he said, “that I am a somewhat privileged person just now.
My days here are numbered, you see.”

She turned toward the conservatories.

“Very well,” she said, “I must be like every one else, I suppose, and
spoil you. How dare you come and make us all so fond of you that we look
upon your departure almost as a tragedy!”

He smiled.

“Indeed,” he declared, “there is a note of tragedy even in these
simplest accidents of life. I have been very happy amongst you all, Miss
Penelope. You have been so much kinder to me than I have deserved. You
have thrown a bridge across the gulf which separates us people of alien
tongues and alien manners. Life has been a pleasant thing for me here.”

“Why do you go so soon?” she whispered.

“Miss Penelope,” he answered, “to those others who ask me that question,
I shall say that my mission is over, that my report has been sent to my
Emperor, and that there is nothing left for me to do but to follow it
home. I could add, and it would be true, that there is very much work
for me still to accomplish in my own country. To you alone I am going to
say something else.”

She was no longer pale. Her eyes were filled with an exceedingly soft
light. She leaned towards him, and her face shone as the face of a woman
who prays that she may hear the one thing in life a woman craves to hear
from the lips she loves best.

“Go on,” she murmured.

“I want to ask you, Miss Penelope,” he continued, “whether you remember
the day when you paid a visit to my house?”

“Very well,” she answered.

“I was showing you a casket,” he went on.

She gripped his arm.

“Don’t!” she begged. “Don’t, I can’t bear any more of that. You don’t
know how horrible it seems to me! You don’t know--what fears I have
had!”

He looked away from her.

“I have sometimes wondered,” he said, “what your thoughts were at that
moment, what you have thought of me since.”

She shivered a little, but did not answer him.

“Very soon,” he reminded her, “I shall have passed out of your life.”

He heard the sudden, half-stifled exclamation. He felt rather than saw
the eyes which pleaded with him, and he hastened on.

“You understand what is meant by the inevitable,” he continued.
“Whatever has happened in the matters with which I have been concerned
has been inevitable. I have had no choice--sometimes no choice in such
events is possible. Do not think,” he went on, “that I tell you this to
beg for your sympathy. I would not have a thing other than as it is.
But when we have said goodbye, I want you to believe the best of me, to
think as kindly as you can of the things which you may not be able to
comprehend. Remember that we are not so emotional a nation as that to
which you belong. Our affections are but seldom touched. We live without
feeling for many days, sometimes for longer, even, than many days. It
has not been so altogether with me. I have felt more than I dare, at
this moment, to speak of.”

“Yet you go,” she murmured.

“Yet I go,” he assented. “Nothing in the world is more certain than that
I must say farewell to you and all of my good friends here. In a sense
I want this to be our farewell. Leaving out of the question just now the
more serious dangers which threaten me, the result of my mission here
alone will make me unpopular in this country. As the years pass, I fear
that nothing can draw your own land and mine into any sort of accord.
That is why I asked you to come here with me and listen while I said
these few words to you, why I ask you now that, whatever the future may
bring, you will sometimes spare me a kindly thought.”

“I think you know,” she answered, “that you need not ask that.”

“You will marry Sir Charles Somerfield,” he continued, “and you will be
happy. In this country men develop late. Somerfield, too, will develop,
I am sure. He will become worthy even, I trust, to be your husband, Miss
Penelope. Something was said of his going into Parliament. When he is
Foreign Minister and I am the Counsellor of the Emperor, we may perhaps
send messages to one another, if not across the seas, through the
clouds.”

A man’s footstep approached them. Somerfield himself drew near and
hesitated. The Prince rose at once.

“Sir Charles,” he said, “I have been bidding farewell to Miss Penelope.
I have had news tonight over the telephone and I find that I must
curtail my visit.”

“The Duke will be disappointed,” Somerfield said. “Are you off at once?”

“Probably tomorrow,” the Prince answered. “May I leave Miss Penelope
in your charge?” he added with a little bow. “The Duke, I believe, is
awaiting me.”

He passed out of the conservatory. Penelope sat quite still.

“Well,” Somerfield said, “if he is really going--”

“Charlie,” she interrupted, “if ever you expect me to marry you, I make
one condition, and that is that you never say a single word against
Prince Maiyo.”

“The man whom a month ago,” he remarked curiously, “you hated!”

She shook her head.

“I was an idiot,” she said. “I did not understand him and I was
prejudiced against his country.”

“Well, as he actually is going away,” Sir Charles remarked with a sigh
of content, “I suppose it’s no use being jealous.”

“You haven’t any reason to be,” Penelope answered just a little
wistfully. “Prince Maiyo has no room in his life for such frivolous
creatures as women.”

The Prince found the rest of the party dispersed in various directions.
Lady Grace was playing billiards with Captain Wilmot. She showed every
disposition to lay down her cue when he entered the room.

“Do come and talk to us, Prince,” she begged. “I am so tired of this
stupid game, and I am sure Captain Wilmot is bored to tears.”

The Prince shook his head.

“Thank you,” he said, “but I must find the Duke. I have just received a
telephone message and I fear that I may have to leave tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” she cried in dismay.

The Prince sighed.

“If not tomorrow, the next day,” he answered. “I have had a summons--a
summons which I cannot disobey. Shall I find your father in the library,
Lady Grace?”

“Yes!” she answered. “He is there with Mr. Haviland and Sir Edward. Are
you really going to waste your last evening in talking about treaties
and such trifles?”

“I am afraid I must,” he answered regretfully.

“You are a hopelessly disappointing person,” she declared a little
pitifully.

“It is because you are all much too kind to me that you think so,” he
answered. “You make me welcome amongst you even as one of yourselves.
You forget--you would almost teach me to forget that I am only a
wayfarer here.”

“That is your own choice,” she said, coming a little nearer to him.

“Ah, no,” he answered. “There is no choice! I serve a great mistress,
and when she calls I come. There are no other voices in the world for
one of my race and faith. The library you said, Lady Grace? I must go
and find your father.”

He passed out, closing the door behind him. Captain Wilmot chalked his
cue carefully.

“That’s the queerest fellow I ever knew in my life,” he said. “He seems
all the time as though his head were in the clouds.”

Lady Grace sighed. She too was chalking her cue.

“I wonder,” she said, “what it would be like to live in the clouds.”



CHAPTER XXXII. PRINCE MAIYO SPEAKS

The library at Devenham Castle was a large and sombre apartment, with
high oriel windows and bookcases reaching to the ceiling. It had an
unused and somewhat austere air. Tonight especially an atmosphere of
gloom seemed to pervade it. The Prince, when he opened the door, found
the three men who were awaiting him seated at an oval table at the
further end of the room.

“I do not intrude, I trust?” the Prince said. “I understood that you
wished me to come here.”

“Certainly,” the Duke answered, “we were sitting here awaiting your
arrival. Will you take this easy chair? The cigarettes are at your
elbow.”

The Prince declined the easy chair and leaned for a moment against the
table.

“Perhaps later,” he said. “Just now I feel that you have something to
say to me. Is it not so? I talk better when I am standing.”

It was the Prime Minister who made the first plunge. He spoke without
circumlocution, and his tone was graver than usual.

“Prince,” he said, “this is perhaps the last time that we shall all
meet together in this way. You go from us direct to the seat of your
Government. So far there has been very little plain speaking between
us. It would perhaps be more in accord with etiquette if we let you go
without a word, and waited for a formal interchange of communications
between your Ambassador and ourselves. But we have a feeling, Sir Edward
and I, that we should like to talk to you directly. Before we go any
further, however, let me ask you this question. Have you any objection,
Prince, to discussing a certain matter here with us?”

The Prince for several moments made no reply. He was still standing
facing the fireplace, leaning slightly against the table behind him. On
his right was the Duke, seated in a library chair. On his left the Prime
Minister and Sir Edward Bransome. The Prince seemed somehow to have
become the central figure of the little group.

“Perhaps,” he said, “if you had asked me that question a month ago,
Mr. Haviland, I might have replied to you differently. Circumstances,
however, since then have changed. My departure will take place so
soon, and the kindness I have met here from all of you has been so
overwhelming, that if you will let me I should like to speak of certain
things concerning which no written communication could ever pass between
our two countries.”

“I can assure you, my dear Prince, that we shall very much appreciate
your doing so,” Mr. Haviland declared.

“I think,” the Prince continued, “that the greatest and the most subtle
of all policies is the policy of perfect truthfulness. Listen to me,
then. The thing which you have in your mind concerning me is true. Two
years I have spent in this country and in other countries of Europe.
These two years have not been spent in purposeless travel. On the
contrary, I have carried with me always a definite and very fixed
purpose.”

The Prime Minister and Bransome exchanged rapid glances.

“That has been our belief from the first,” Bransome remarked.

“I came to Europe,” the Prince continued gravely, “to make a report to
my cousin the Emperor of Japan as to whether I believed that a renewal
of our alliance with you would be advantageous to my country. I need not
shrink from discussing this matter with you now, for my report is made.
It is, even now, on its way to the Emperor.”

There was a moment’s silence, a silence which in this corner of the
great room seemed marked with a certain poignancy. It was the Prime
Minister who broke it.

“The report,” he said, “is out of your hands. The official decision of
your Government will reach us before long. Is there any reason why you
should not anticipate that decision, why you should not tell us frankly
what your advice was?”

“There is no reason,” the Prince answered. “I will tell you. I owe that
to you at least. I have advised the Emperor not to renew the treaty.”

“Not to renew,” the Prime Minister echoed.

This time the silence was portentous. It was a blow, and there was not
one of the three men who attempted to hide his dismay.

“I am afraid,” the Prince continued earnestly, “that to you I must
seem something of an ingrate. I have been treated by every one in this
country as the son of a dear friend. The way has been made smooth for me
everywhere. Nothing has been hidden. From all quarters I have received
hospitality which I shall never forget. But you are three just men. I
know you will realize that my duty was to my country and to my country
alone. No one else has any claims upon me. What I have seen I have
written of. What I believe I have spoken.”

“Prince,” Mr. Haviland said, “there is no one here who will gainsay your
honesty. You came to judge us as a nation and you have found us wanting.
At least we can ask you why?”

The Prince sighed.

“It is hard,” he said. “It is very hard. When I tell you of the things
which I have seen, remember, if you please, that I have seen them with
other eyes than yours. The conditions which you have grown up amongst
and lived amongst all your days pass almost outside the possibility of
your impartial judgment. You have lived with them too long. They have
become a part of you. Then, too, your national weakness bids your eyes
see what you would have them see.”

“Go on,” Mr. Haviland said, drumming idly with his fingers upon the
table.

“I have had to ask myself,” the Prince continued,--“it has been my
business to ask myself what is your position as a great military power,
and the answer I have found is that as a great military power it does
not exist. I have had to ask myself what would happen to your country
in the case of a European war, where your fleet was distributed to guard
your vast possessions in every quarter of the world, and the answer to
that is that you are, to all practical purposes, defenceless. In almost
any combination which could arrange itself, your country is at the mercy
of the invader.”

Bransome leaned forward in his chair.

“I can disprove it,” he declared firmly. “Come with me to Aldershot next
week, and I will show you that those who say that we have no army are
ignorant alarmists. The Secretary for War shall show you our new
scheme for defensive forces. You have gone to the wrong authorities for
information on these matters, Prince. You have been entirely and totally
misled.”

The Prince drew a little breath.

“Sir Edward,” he said, “I do not speak to you rashly. I have not looked
into these affairs as an amateur. You forget that I have spent a week at
Aldershot, that your Secretary for War gave me two days of his valuable
time. Every figure with which you could furnish me I am already
possessed of. I will be frank with you. What I saw at Aldershot counted
for nothing with me in my decision. Your standing army is good, beyond a
doubt,--a well-trained machine, an excellent plaything for a General
to move across the chessboard. It might even win battles, and yet your
standing army are mercenaries, and no great nation, from the days of
Babylon, has resisted invasion or held an empire by her mercenaries.”

“They are English soldiers,” Mr. Haviland declared. “I do not recognize
your use of the word.”

“They are paid soldiers,” the Prince said, “men who have adopted
soldiering as a profession. Come, I will not pause half-way. I will tell
you what is wrong with your country. You will not believe it. Some day
you will see the truth, and you will remember my words. It may be that
you will realize it a little sooner, or I would not have dared to speak
as I am speaking. This, then, is the curse which is eating the heart
out of your very existence. The love of his Motherland is no longer a
religion with your young man. Let me repeat that,--I will alter one word
only. The love of his Motherland is no longer _the_ religion or even
part of the religion of your young man. Soldiering is a profession for
those who embrace it. It is so that mercenaries are made. I have been
to every one of your great cities in the North. I have been there on a
Saturday afternoon, the national holiday. That is the day in Japan on
which our young men march and learn to shoot, form companies and attend
their drill. Feast days and holidays it is always the same. They do what
tradition has made a necessity for them. They do it without grumbling,
whole-heartedly, with an enthusiasm which has in it something almost
of passion. How do I find the youth of your country engaged? I have
discovered. It is for that purpose that I have toured through England.
They go to see a game played called football. They sit on seats and
smoke and shout. They watch a score of performers--one score, mind--and
the numbers who watch them are millions. From town to town I went, and
it was always the same. I see their white faces in a huge amphitheatre,
fifteen thousand here, twenty thousand there, thirty thousand at another
place. They watch and they shout while these men in the arena play with
great skill this wonderful game. When the match is over, they stream
into public houses. Their afternoon has been spent. They talk it over.
Again they smoke and drink. So it is in one town and another,--so it
is everywhere,--the strangest sight of all that I have seen in
Europe. These are your young men, the material out of which the coming
generation must be fashioned? How many of them can shoot? How many of
them can ride? How many of them have any sort of uniform in which they
could prepare to meet the enemy of their country? What do they know or
care for anything outside their little lives and what they call their
love of sport,--they who spend five days in your grim factories toiling
before machines,--their one afternoon, content to sit and watch the
prowess of others! I speak to these footballers themselves. They are
strong men and swift. They are paid to play this game. I do not find
that even one of them is competent to strike a blow for his country if
she needs him. It is because of your young men, then, Mr. Haviland, that
I cannot advise Japan to form a new alliance with you. It is because you
are not a serious people. It is because the units of your nation have
ceased to understand that behind the life of every great nation stands
the love of God, whatever god it may be, and the love of Motherland.
These things may not be your fault. They may, indeed, be the terrible
penalty of success. But no one who lives for ever so short a time
amongst you can fail to see the truth. You are commercialized out of all
the greatness of life. Forgive me, all of you, that I say it so plainly,
but you are a race who are on the downward grade, and Japan seeks for no
alliance save with those whose faces are lifted to the skies.”

The pause which followed was in itself significant. The Duke alone
remained impassive. Bransome’s face was dark with anger. Even the Prime
Minister was annoyed. Bransome would have spoken, but the former held
out his hand to check him.

“If that is really your opinion of us, Prince,” he said, “it is useless
to enter into argument with you, especially as you have already acted
upon your convictions. I should like to ask you this question, though.
A few weeks ago an appeal was made to our young men to bring up to its
full strength certain forces which have been organized for the defence
of the country. Do you know how many recruits we obtained in less than a
month?”

“Fourteen thousand four hundred and seventy-five,” the Prince answered
promptly, “out of nearly seven millions who were eligible. This pitiful
result of itself might have been included amongst my arguments if I had
felt that arguments were necessary. Mr. Haviland, you may drive some
of these young men to arms by persuasion, by appealing to them through
their womankind or their employers, but you cannot create a national
spirit. And I tell you, and I have proved it, that the national spirit
is not there. I will go further,” the Prince continued with increased
earnestness, “if you still are not weary of the subject. I will point
out to you how little encouragement the youth of this country receive
from those who are above them in social station. In every one of your
counties there is a hunt, cricket clubs, golf clubs in such numbers that
their statistics absolutely overwhelm me. Everywhere one meets young men
of leisure, well off, calmly proposing to settle down and spend the best
part of their lives in what they call country life. They will look after
their estates; they will hunt a little, shoot a little, go abroad for
two months in the winter, play golf a little, lawn tennis, perhaps, or
cricket. I tell you that there are hundreds and thousands of these
young men, with money to spare, who have no uniform which they could
wear,--no, I want to change that!” the Prince cried with an impressive
gesture,--“who have no uniform which they will be able to wear when the
evil time comes! How will they feel then, these young men of family,
whose life has been given to sports and to idle amusements, when their
womankind come shrieking to them for protection and they dare not even
handle a gun or strike a blow! They must stand by and see their lands
laid waste, their womankind insulted. They must see the land run
red with the blood of those who offer a futile resistance, but they
themselves must stand by inactive. They are not trained to fight as
soldiers,--they cannot fight as civilians.”

“The Prince forgets,” Bransome remarked dryly, “that an invasion of this
country--a practical invasion--is very nearly an impossible thing.”

The Prince laughed softly.

“My friend,” he said, “if I thought that you believed that, although
you are a Cabinet Minister of England I should think that you were
the biggest fool who ever breathed. Today, in warfare, nothing
is impossible. I will guarantee, I who have had only ten years of
soldiering, that if Japan were where Holland is today, I would halve
my strength in ships and I would halve my strength in men, and I would
overrun your country with ease at any time I chose. You need not agree
with me, of course. It is not a subject which we need discuss. It is,
perhaps, out of my province to allude to it. The feeling which I have in
my heart is this. The laws of history are incontrovertible. So surely as
a great nation has weakened with prosperity, so that her limbs have lost
their suppleness and her finger joints have stiffened, so surely does
the plunderer come in good time. The nation which loses its citizen army
drives the first nail into its own coffin. I do not say who will invade
you, or when, although, to my thinking, any one could do it. I simply
say that in your present state invasion from some one or other is a sure
thing.”

“Without admitting the truth of a single word you have said, my dear
Prince,” the Prime Minister remarked, “there is another aspect of the
whole subject which I think that you should consider. If you find us in
so parlous a state, it is surely scarcely dignified or gracious, on the
part of a great nation like yours, to leave us so abruptly to our fate.
Supposing it were true that we were suffering a little from a period
of too lengthened prosperity, from an attack of over-confidence. Still
think of the part we have played in the past. We kept the world at bay
while you fought with Russia.”

“That,” the Prince replied, “was one of the conditions of a treaty which
has expired. If by that treaty our country profited more than yours,
that is still no reason why we should renew it under altered conditions.
Gratitude is an admirable sentiment, but it has nothing to do with the
making of treaties.”

“We are, nevertheless,” Bransome declared, “justified in pointing out to
you some of the advantages which you have gained from your alliance with
us. You realize, I suppose, that save for our intervention the United
States would have declared war against you four months ago?”

“Your good offices were duly acknowledged by my Government,” the Prince
admitted. “Yet what you did was in itself of no consequence. It is as
sure as north is north and south is south that you and America would
never quarrel for the sake of Japan. That is another reason, if another
reason is needed, why a treaty between us would be valueless. You and
I--the whole world knows that before a cycle of years have passed Japan
and America must fight. When that time comes, it will not be you who
will help us.”

“An alliance duly concluded between this country--”

The Prince held out both his hands.

“Listen,” he said. “A fortnight ago a certain person in America wrote
and asked you in plain terms what your position would be if war between
Japan and America were declared. What was your reply?”

Bransome was on the point of exclaiming, but the Prime Minister
intervened.

“You appear to be a perfect Secret Service to yourself, Prince,” he said
smoothly. “Perhaps you can also tell us our reply?”

“I can tell you this much,” the Prince answered. “You did not send word
back to Washington that your alliance was a sacred charge upon your
honor and that its terms must be fulfilled to the uttermost letter. Your
reply, I fancy, was more in the nature of a compromise.”

“How do you know what our reply was?” Mr. Haviland asked.

“To tell you the truth, I do not,” the Prince answered, smiling. “I have
simply told you what I am assured that your answer must have been. Let
us leave this matter. We gain nothing by discussing it.”

“You have been very candid with us, Prince,” Mr. Haviland remarked. “We
gather that you are opposed to a renewal of our alliance chiefly for
two reasons,--first, that you have formed an unfavorable opinion of
our resources and capacity as a nation; and secondly, because you
are seeking an ally who would be of service to you in one particular
eventuality, namely, a war with the United States. You have spent some
time upon the Continent. May we inquire whether your present attitude
is the result of advances made to you by any other Power? If I am asking
too much, leave my question unanswered.”

The Prince shook his head slowly.

“Tonight,” he said, “I am speaking to you as one who is willing to show
everything that is in his heart. I will tell you, then. I have been to
Germany, and I can assure you of my own knowledge that Germany possesses
the mightiest fighting machine ever known in the world’s history. That
I do truthfully and honestly believe. Yet listen to me. I have talked to
the men and I have talked to the officers. I have seen them in barracks
and on the parade ground, and I tell you this. When the time arrives for
that machine to be set in motion, it is my profound conviction that the
result will be one of the greatest surprises of modern times. I say no
more, nor must you ask me any questions, but I tell you that we do not
need Germany as an ally. I have been to Russia, and although our hands
have crossed, there can be no real friendship between our countries till
time has wiped out the memory of our recent conflict. France hates us
because it does not understand us. The future of Japan is just as
clear as the disaster which hangs over Great Britain. There is only one
possible ally for us, only one possible combination. That is what I
have written home to my cousin the Emperor. That is what I pray that our
young professors will teach throughout Japan.. That is what it will be
my mission to teach my country people if the Fates will that I return
safely home. East and West are too far apart. We are well outside the
coming European struggle. Our strength will come to us from nearer
home.”

“China!” the Prime Minister exclaimed.

“The China of our own making,” the Prince declared, a note of tense
enthusiasm creeping into his tone,--“China recreated after its great
lapse of a thousand years. You and I in our lifetime shall not see
it, but there will come a day when the ancient conquests of Persia and
Greece and Rome will seem as nothing before the all-conquering armies of
China and Japan. Until those days we need no allies. We will have none.
We must accept the insults of America and the rough hand of Germany. We
must be strong enough to wait!”

A footman entered the room and made his way to the Duke’s chair.

“Your Grace,” he said, “a gentleman is ringing up from Downing Street
who says he is speaking from the Home Office.”

“Whom does he want?” the Duke asked.

“Both Your Grace and Mr. Haviland,” the man replied. “He wished me to
say that the matter was of the utmost importance.”

The Duke rose at once and glanced at the clock.

“It is an extraordinary hour,” he remarked, “for Heseltine to be wanting
us. Shall we go and see what it means, Haviland? You will excuse us,
Prince?”

The Prince bowed.

“I think that we have talked enough of serious affairs tonight,” he
said. “I shall challenge Sir Edward to a game of billiards.”



CHAPTER XXXIII. UNAFRAID

The Prince, still fully attired, save that in place of his dress coat he
wore a loose smoking jacket, stood at the windows of his sitting room
at Devenham Castle, looking across the park. In the somewhat fitful
moonlight the trees had taken to themselves grotesque shapes. Away
in the distance the glimmer of the sea shone like a thin belt of
quicksilver. The stable clock had struck two. The whole place seemed
at rest. Only one light was gleaming from a long low building which had
been added to the coach houses of recent years for a motor garage. That
one light, the Prince knew, was on his account. There his chauffeur
waited, untiring and sleepless, with his car always ready for that last
rush to the coast, the advisability of which the Prince had considered
more than once during the last twenty-four hours. The excitement of the
evening, the excitement of his unwonted outburst, was still troubling
him. It was not often that he had so far overstepped the bounds which
his natural caution, his ever-present self-restraint, imposed upon him.
He paced restlessly to and fro from the sitting room to the bedroom and
back again. He had told the truth,--the bare, simple truth. He had seen
the letters of fire in the sky, and he had read them to these people
because of their kindness, because of a certain affection which he bore
them. To them it must have sounded like a man speaking in a strange
tongue. They had not understood. Perhaps, even, they would not believe
in the absolute sincerity of his motives. Again he paused at the window
and looked over the park to that narrow, glittering stretch of sea.
Why should he not for once forget the traditions of his race, the pride
which kept him there to face the end! There was still time. The cruiser
which the Emperor had sent was waiting for him in Southampton Harbor.
In twenty-four hours he would be in foreign waters. He thought of these
things earnestly, even wistfully, and yet he knew that he could not go.
Perhaps they would be glad of an opportunity of getting rid of him now
that he had spoken his mind. In any case, right was on their side. The
end, if it must come, was simple enough!

He turned away from the window with a little shrug of the shoulders.
Even as he did so, there came a faint knocking at the door. His servant
had already retired. For a moment it seemed to him that it could mean
but one thing. While he hesitated, the handle was softly turned and
the door opened. To his amazement, it was Penelope who stood upon the
threshold.

“Miss Morse!” he exclaimed breathlessly.

She held out her hand as though to bid him remain silent. For several
seconds she seemed to be listening. Then very softly she closed the door
behind her.

“Miss Penelope,” he cried softly, “you must not come in here! Please!”

She ignored his outstretched hand, advancing a little further into the
room. There was tragedy in her white face. She seemed to be shaking in
every limb, but not with nervousness. Directly he looked into her eyes,
he knew very well that the thing was close at hand!

“Listen!” she whispered. “I had to come! You don’t know what is going
on! For the last half hour the telephone has been ringing continuously.
It is about you! The Home Office has been ringing up to speak to the
Prime Minister. The Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard has been to see
them. One of their detectives has collected evidence which justifies
them in issuing a warrant for your arrest.”

“For my arrest,” the Prince repeated.

“Don’t you understand?” she continued breathlessly. “Don’t you see how
horrible it is? They mean to arrest you for the murder of Hamilton Fynes
and Dicky Vanderpole!”

“If this must be so,” the Prince answered, “why do they not come? I am
here.”

“But you must not stay here!” she exclaimed. “You must escape! It is too
terrible to think that you should--oh, I can’t say it!--that you
should have to face these charges. If you are guilty, well, Heaven help
you!--If you are guilty, I want you to escape all the same!”

He looked at her with the puzzled air of one who tries to reason with a
child.

“Dear Miss Penelope,” he said, “this is kind of you, but, after all,
remember that I am a man, and I must not run away.”

“But you cannot meet these charges!” she interrupted. “You cannot meet
them! You know it! Oh, don’t think I can’t appreciate your point of
view! If you killed those men, you killed them to obtain papers which
you believed were necessary for the welfare of your country. Oh, it is
not I who judge you! You did not do it, I know, for your own gain. You
did it because you are, heart and soul, a patriot. But here, alas! they
do not understand. Their whole standpoint is different. They will judge
you as they would a common criminal. You must fly,--you must, indeed!”

“Dear Miss Penelope,” he said, “I cannot do that! I cannot run away like
a thief in the dark. If this thing is to come, it must come.”

“But you don’t understand!” she continued, wringing her hands. “You
think because you are a great prince and a prince of a friendly nation
that the law will treat you differently. It will not! They have talked
of it downstairs. You are not formally attached to any one in this
country. You are not even upon the staff of the Embassy. You are here on
a private mission as a private person, and there is no way in which the
Government can intervene, even if it would. You are subject to its laws
and you have broken them. For Heaven’s sake, fly! You have your motor
car here. Let your man drive you to Southampton and get on board the
Japanese cruiser. You mustn’t wait a single moment. I believe that
tomorrow morning will be too late!”

He took her hands in his very tenderly and yet with something of
reverence in his gesture. He looked into her eyes and he spoke very
earnestly. Every word seemed to come from his heart.

“Dear Miss Penelope,” he said, “it is very, very kind of you to have
come here and warned me. Only you cannot quite understand what this
thing means to me. Remember what I told you once. Life and death to your
people in this country seem to be the greatest things which the mind of
man can hold. It is not so with us. We are brought up differently. In a
worthy cause a true Japanese is ready to take death by the hand at any
moment. So it is with me now. I have no regret. Even if I had, even if
life were a garden of roses for me, what is ordained must come. A little
sooner or a little later, it makes no matter.”

She sank on her knees before him.

“Can’t you understand why I am here?” she cried passionately. “It was I
who told of the silken cord and knife!”

He was wholly unmoved. He even smiled, as though the thing were of no
moment.

“It was right that you should do so,” he declared. “You must not
reproach yourself with that.”

“But I do! I do!” she cried again. “I always shall! Don’t you understand
that if you stay here they will treat you--”

He interrupted, laying his hand gently upon her shoulder.

“Dear young lady,” he said, “you need never fear that I shall wait for
the touch of your men of law. Death is too easily won for that. If the
end which you have spoken of comes, there is another way--another house
of rest which I can reach.”

She rose slowly to her feet. The absolute serenity of his manner bespoke
an impregnability of purpose before which the words died away on her
lips. She realized that she might as well plead with the dead!

“You do not mind,” he whispered, “if I tell you that you must not stay
here any longer?”

He led her toward the door. Upon the threshold he took her cold fingers
into his hand and kissed them reverently.

“Do not be too despondent,” he said. “I have a star somewhere which
burns for me. Tonight I have been looking for it. It is there still,” he
added, pointing to the wide open window. “It is there, undimmed, clearer
and brighter than ever. I have no fear.”

She passed away without looking up again. The Prince listened to her
footsteps dying away in the corridor. Then he closed the door, and,
entering his bedroom, undressed himself and slept...

When Prince Maiyo awoke on the following morning, the sunshine was
streaming into the room, and his grave-faced valet was standing over his
bed.

“His Highness’ bath is ready,” he announced.

The Prince dressed quickly and was first in the pleasant morning room,
with its open windows leading on to the terrace. He strolled outside and
wandered amongst the flower beds. Here he was found, soon afterwards, by
the Duke’s valet.

“Your Highness,” the latter said, “His Grace has sent me to look for
you. He would be glad if you could spare him a moment or two in the
library.”

The Prince followed the man to the room where his host was waiting for
him. The Duke, with his hands behind his back, was pacing restlessly up
and down the apartment.

“Good morning, Duke,” the Prince said cheerfully. “Another of your
wonderful spring mornings. Upon the terrace the sun is almost hot. Soon
I shall begin to fancy that the perfume of your spring flowers is the
perfume of almond and cherry blossom.”

“Prince,” the Duke said quietly, “I have sent for you as your host. I
speak to you now unofficially, as an Englishman to his guest. I
have been besieged through the night, and even this morning, with
incomprehensible messages which come to me from those who administer the
law in this country. Prince, I want you to remember that however effete
you may find us as a nation from your somewhat romantic point of
view, we have at least realized the highest ideals any nation has ever
conceived in the administration of the law. Nobleman and pauper here are
judged alike. If their crime is the same, their punishment is the same.
There is no man in this country who is strong enough to arrest the hand
of justice.”

The Prince bowed.

“My dear Duke,” he said, “it has given me very much pleasure, in the
course of my investigations, to realize the truth of what you have just
said. I agree with you entirely. You could teach us in Japan a great
lesson on the fearless administration of the law. Now in some other
countries--”

“Never mind those other countries,” the Duke interrupted gravely. “I
did not send for you to enter into an academic discussion. I want you
clearly to understand how I am placed, supposing a distinguished member
of my household--supposing even you, Prince Maiyo--were to come within
the arm of the law. Even the great claims of hospitality would leave me
powerless.”

“This,” the Prince admitted, “I fully apprehend. It is surely reasonable
that the stranger in your country should be subject to your laws.”

“Very well, then,” the Duke continued. “Listen to me, Prince. This
morning a London magistrate will grant what is called a search warrant
which will enable the police to search, from attic to cellar, your house
in St. James’ Square. An Inspector from Scotland Yard will be there this
afternoon awaiting your return, and he believes that he has witnesses
who will be able to identify you as one who has broken the laws of this
country. I ask you no questions. There is the telephone on the table.
My eighty-horse-power Daimler is at the door and at your service. I
understand that your cruiser in Southampton Harbor is always under
steam. If there is anything more, in reason, that I can do, you have
only to speak.” The Prince shook his head slowly.

“Duke,” he said, “please send away your car, unless it will take me to
London quicker than my own. What I have done I have done, and for what I
have done I will pay.”

The Duke laid his hands upon the young man’s shoulders and looked down
into his face. The Duke was over six feet high, and broad in proportion.
Before him the Prince seemed almost like a boy.

“Maiyo,” he said, “we have grown fond of you,--my wife, my daughter,
all of us. We don’t want harm to come to you, but there is the American
Ambassador watching all the time. Already he more than half suspects.
For our sakes, Prince,--come, I will say for the sake of those who are
grateful to you for your candor and truthfulness, for the lessons you
have tried to teach us,--make use of my car. You will reach Southampton
in half an hour.”

The Prince shook his head. His lips had parted in what was certainly a
smile. At the corners they quivered, a little tremulous.

“My dear friend,” he said, and his voice had softened almost to
affection, “you do not quite understand. You look upon the things which
may come from your point of view and not from mine. Remember that, to
your philosophy, life itself is the greatest thing born into the world.
To us it is the least. If you would do me a service, please see that I
am able to start for London in half an hour.”



CHAPTER XXXIV. BANZAI!

It was curious how the Prince’s sudden departure seemed to affect almost
every member of the little house party. At first it had been arranged
that the Duke, Mr. Haviland, Sir Edward Bransome, and the Prince
should leave in the former’s car, the Prince’s following later with the
luggage. Then the Duchess, whose eyes had filled with tears more than
once after her whispered conversation with her husband, announced that
she, too, must go to town. Lady Grace insisted upon accompanying her,
and Penelope reminded them that she was already dressed for travelling
and that, in any case, she meant to be one of the party. Before ten
o’clock they were all on their way to London.

The Prince sat side by side with Lady Grace, the other two occupants of
the car being the Duke himself and Mr. Haviland. No one seemed in the
least inclined for conversation. The Duke and Mr. Haviland exchanged
a few remarks, but Lady Grace, leaning back in her seat, her features
completely obscured by a thick veil, declined to talk to any one. The
Prince seemed to be the only one who made any pretence at enjoying the
beauty of the spring morning, who seemed even to be aware of the warm
west wind, the occasional perfume of the hedgeside violets, and the
bluebells which stretched like a carpet in and out of the belts of wood.
Lady Grace’s eyes, from beneath her veil, scarcely once left his face.
Perhaps, she thought, these things were merely allegorical to him.
Perhaps his eyes, fixed so steadfastly upon the distant horizon, were
not, as it seemed, following the graceful outline of that grove of dark
green pine trees, but were indeed searching back into the corners of
his life, measuring up the good and evil of it, asking the eternal
question--was it worth while?

In the other car, too, silence reigned. Somerfield was the only one who
struggled against the general air of depression.

“After all,” he remarked to Bransome, “I don’t see what we’re all so
blue about. If Scotland Yard are right, and the Prince is really the
guilty person they imagine him, I cannot see what sympathy he deserves.
Of course, they look upon this sort of thing more lightly in his own
country, but, after all, he was no fool. He knew his risks.”

Penelope spoke for the first time since they had left Devenham.

“If you begin to talk like that, Charlie,” she said, “I shall ask the
Duchess to stop the car and put you down here in the road.”

Somerfield laughed, not altogether pleasantly.

“Seven miles from any railway station,” he remarked.

Penelope shrugged her shoulders.

“I should not care in the least what happened to you, today or at any
other time,” she declared.

After that, Somerfield held his peace, and a somewhat strained silence
followed. Soon they reached the outskirts of London. Long before midday
they slackened speed, after crossing Battersea Bridge, and the two
cars drew alongside. They had arranged to separate here, but, curiously
enough, no one seemed to care to start the leave taking.

“You see the time!” the Prince exclaimed. “It is barely eleven o’clock.
I want you all, if you will, to come with me for ten minutes only to my
house. Tomorrow it will be dismantled. Today I want you each to choose
a keepsake from amongst my treasures. There are so many ornaments over
here, engravings and bronzes which are called Japanese and which are
really only imitations. I want you to have something, if you will, to
remember me by, all of you, something which is really the handicraft of
my country people.”

The Duke looked for a moment doubtful.

“It wants an hour to midday,” the Prince said, softly. “There is time.”

They reached St. James’ Square in a few minutes. There were no signs
of disturbance. The door flew open at their approach. The same
solemn-faced, quietly moving butler admitted them. The Prince led the
way into the room upon the ground floor which he called his library.

“It is a fancy of mine,” he said, smiling, “to say goodbye to you all
here. You see that there is nothing in this room which is not really the
product of Japan. Here I feel, indeed, as though I had crossed the seas
and were back under the shadow of my own mountains. Here I feel, indeed,
your host, especially as I am going to distribute my treasures.”

He took a picture from the wall and turned with it to the Duke.

“Duke,” he said, “this engraving is a rude thing, but the hand which
guided the steel has been withered for two hundred years, and no other
example remains of its cunning. Mr. Haviland,” he added, stepping to his
writing table, “this lacquered shrine, with its pagoda roof, has been
attributed to Kobo-Daishi, and has stood upon the writing table of seven
emperors. Sir Edward, this sword, notwithstanding its strange shape and
gilded chasing, was wielded with marvellous effect, if history tells the
truth, a hundred and thirty years ago by my great-grandfather when
he fought his way to the throne. Sir Charles, you are to go into
Parliament. Some day you will become a diplomat. Some day, perhaps, you
will understand our language. Just now I am afraid,” he concluded, “this
will seem to you but a bundle of purple velvet and vellum, but it is
really a manuscript of great curiosity which comes from the oldest
monastery in Asia, the Monastery of Koya-San.”

He turned to the Duchess.

“Duchess,” he said, “you see that my tapestries have already gone. They
left yesterday for Devenham Castle. I hope that you will find a place
there where you may hang them. They are a little older than your French
ones, and time, as you may remember, has been kind to them. It may
interest you to know that they were executed some thirteen hundred and
fifty years ago, and are of a design which, alas, we borrowed from the
Chinese.”

The Prince paused for a moment. All were trying to express their thanks,
but no one was wholly successful. He waved their words gently aside.

“Lady Grace,” he said, turning to the statuette of Buddha in a corner
of the room and taking from its neck a string of strange blue stones, “I
will not ask you to wear these, for they have adorned the necks of idols
for many centuries, but if you will keep them for my sake, they may
remind you sometimes of the color of our skies.”

Once more he went to his writing table. From it he lifted, almost
reverently, a small bronze figure,--the figure of a woman, strongly
built, almost squat, without grace, whose eyes and head and arms reached
upwards.

“Miss Penelope,” he said, “to you I make my one worthless offering. This
statuette has no grace, no shapeliness, according to the canons of your
wonderful Western art. Yet for five generations of my family it has been
the symbol of our lives. We are not idol worshippers in Japan, yet one
by one the men of my race have bent their knee before this figure and
have left their homes to fight for the thing which she represents. She
is not beautiful, she does not stand for the joys and the great gifts
of life, but she represents the country which to us stands side by side
with our God, our parents, and our Emperor. Nothing in life has been
dearer to me than this, Miss Penelope. To no other person would I part
with it.”

She took it with a sudden hysterical sob, which seemed to ring out like
a strange note upon the unnatural stillness of the room. And then
there came a thing which happened before its time. The door was opened.
Inspector Jacks came in. With him were Dr. Spencer Whiles and the man
who a few days ago had been discharged from St. Thomas’ Hospital. Of the
very distinguished company who were gathered there, Inspector Jacks took
little notice. His eyes lit upon the form of the Prince, and he drew
a sigh of relief. The door was closed behind him, and he saw no way by
which he could be cheated of his victory. He took a step forward, and
the Prince advanced courteously, as though to meet him. The others, for
those few seconds, seemed as though they had lost the power of speech or
movement. Then before a word could be uttered by either the Inspector or
the Prince, the door was opened from the outside, and a man came running
in,--a man dressed in a shabby blue serge suit, dark and thin. He ran
past the Inspector and his companions, and he fell on his knees before
his master.

“I confess!” he cried. “It was I who climbed on to the railway car! It
was I who stabbed the American man in the tunnel and robbed him of his
papers! The others are innocent. Marki, who brought the car for me, knew
nothing. Those who saw me return to this house knew nothing. No man was
my confidant. I alone am guilty! I thought they could not discover
the truth, but they have hunted me down. He is there--the doctor who
bandaged my knee. I told him that it was a bicycle accident. Listen! It
was I who killed the young American Vanderpole. I followed him from
the Savoy Hotel. I dressed myself in the likeness of my master, and I
entered his taxi as a pleasant jest. Then I strangled him and I robbed
him too! He saw me--that man!” Soto cried, pointing to the youth who
stood at the Inspector’s left hand. “He was on his bicycle. He skidded
and fell through watching me. I told my master that I was in trouble,
and he has tried to shield me, but he did not know the truth. If he
had, he would have given me over as I give myself now. What I did I did
because I love Japan and because I hate America!”

His speech ended in a fit of breathlessness. He lay there, gasping. The
doctor bent forward, looking at him first in perplexity and afterwards
in amazement. Then very slowly, and with the remnants of doubt still in
his tone, he answered Inspector Jacks’ unspoken question.

“He is the image of the man who came to me that night,” he declared. “He
is wearing the same clothes, too.”

“What do you say?” the Inspector whispered hoarsely to the youth on his
other side. “Don’t hurry. Look at him carefully.”

The young man hesitated.

“He is the same height and figure as the man I saw enter the taxi,” he
said. “I believe that it is he.”

Inspector Jacks stepped forward, but the Prince held out his hand.

“Wait!” he ordered, and his voice was sterner than any there had ever
heard him use. There was a fire in his eyes from which the man at his
feet appeared to shrink.

“Soto,” the Prince said, and he spoke in his own language, so that no
person in that room understood him save the one whom he addressed,--“why
have you done this?”

The man lay there, resting now upon his side, and supporting himself by
the palm of his right hand. His upturned face seemed to have in it all
the passionate pleading of a dumb animal.

“Illustrious Prince,” he answered, speaking also in his own tongue, “I
did it for Japan! Who are you to blame me, who have offered his own life
so freely? I have no weight in the world. For you the future is big. You
will go back to Japan, you will sit at the right hand of the Emperor.
You will tell him of the follies and the wisdom of these strange
countries. You will guide him in difficulties. Your hand will be
upon his as he writes across the sheets of time, for the glory of the
Motherland. Banzai, illustrious Prince! I, too, am of the immortals!”

He suddenly collapsed. The doctor bent over him, but the Prince shook
his head slowly.

“It is useless,” he said. “The man has confessed his crime. He has told
me the whole truth. He has taken poison.”

Lady Grace began to cry softly. The air of the room seemed heavy with
pent-up emotions. The Prince moved slowly toward the door and threw it
open. He turned towards them all.

“Will you leave me?” he asked. “I wish to be alone.”

His eyes were like the eyes of a blind man.

One by one they left the room, Inspector Jacks amongst them. The only
person who spoke, even in the hall, was the Inspector.

“It was the Prince who brought the doctor here,” he muttered. “He must
have known! At least he must have known!”

Mr. Haviland touched him on the arm.

“Inspector Jacks!” he whispered.

Inspector Jacks saluted.

“The murderer is dead,” he continued, speaking still under his breath.
“Silence is a wonderful gift, Mr. Jacks. Sometimes its reward is greater
even than the reward of action.”

They passed from the house, and once more its air of deep silence was
unbroken. The Prince stood in the middle of that strange room, whose
furnishings and atmosphere seemed, indeed, so marvellously reminiscent
of some far distant land. He looked down upon the now lifeless figure,
raised the still, white fingers in his for a moment, and laid them
reverently down. Then his head went upward, and his eyes seemed to be
seeking the heavens.

“So do the great die,” he murmured. “Already the Gods of our fathers are
calling you Soto the Faithful. Banzai!”





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