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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1447 ***
+
+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!”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s The Illustrious Prince, by E. Phillips Oppenheim
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1447 ***
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+      The Illustrious Prince, by E. Phillips Oppenheim
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1447 ***</div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By E. Phillips Oppenheim
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MR. HAMILTON
+        FYNES, URGENT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        END OF THE JOURNEY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN
+        INCIDENT AND AN ACCIDENT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MISS PENELOPE MORSE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005">
+        CHAPTER V. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN AFFAIR OF STATE <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MR. COULSON
+        INTERVIEWED <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        FATAL DESPATCH <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN
+        INTERRUPTED THEATRE PARTY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER
+        IX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;INSPECTOR JACKS SCORES <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MR. COULSON OUTMATCHED
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        COMMISSION <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PENELOPE
+        INTERVENES <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;EAST
+        AND WEST <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN
+        ENGAGEMENT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PENELOPE
+        EXPLAINS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONCERNING
+        PRINCE MAIYO <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        GAY NIGHT IN PARIS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MR. COULSON IS INDISCREET <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A MOMENTOUS QUESTION
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        ANSWER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        CLUE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        BREATH FROM THE EAST <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ON THE TRAIL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER
+        XXIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PRINCE MAIYO BIDS HIGH <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOBSON&rsquo;S CHOICE <br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SOME FAREWELLS
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        PRISONER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PATRIOTISM
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A RACE
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;INSPECTOR
+        JACKS IMPORTUNATE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;GOODBYE!
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PRINCE
+        MAIYO SPEAKS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII. &nbsp;&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;UNAFRAID
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;BANZAI!
+        <br /><br />
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. MR. HAMILTON FYNES, URGENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Goodfellow,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I should be glad if you would glance at
+      the contents of that note.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain, who had just finished a long discussion with the pilot and
+      was not in the best of humor, looked a little surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, now?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please,&rdquo; was the quiet answer. &ldquo;The matter is urgent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; the captain asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; the other answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The contingency being?&rdquo; the captain asked, tearing open the envelope and
+      moving a little nearer the electric light which shone out from the smoking
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That the Lusitania did not land her passengers this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain read the note, examined the signature carefully, and whistled
+      softly to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know what is inside this?&rdquo; he asked, looking into his companion&rsquo;s
+      face with some curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; was the brief reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your name is Mr. Hamilton Fynes, the Mr. Hamilton Fynes mentioned in this
+      letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is so,&rdquo; the passenger admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you had better get down on the lower deck, port side. By
+      the bye, have you any friends with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite alone,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So much the better,&rdquo; the captain declared. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t tell any one that you
+      are going ashore if you can help it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I certainly will not, sir,&rdquo; the other answered. &ldquo;Thank you very much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, you know that you can&rsquo;t take your luggage with you?&rdquo; the
+      captain remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is of no consequence at all, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Hamilton Fynes answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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,&mdash;nothing, at any rate, to inspire an unusual amount of
+      respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wished to see me, sir?&rdquo; the official asked, merely glancing up from
+      the desk at which he was sitting with a pile of papers before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I require a special train to London as quickly as possible,&rdquo; he
+      announced. &ldquo;I should be glad if you could let me have one within half an
+      hour, at any rate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The station-master rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite impossible, sir,&rdquo; he declared a little brusquely. &ldquo;Absolutely out
+      of the question!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I ask why it is out of the question?&rdquo; Mr. Hamilton Fynes inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the first place,&rdquo; the station-master answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you will kindly read this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am perfectly willing to
+      pay the hundred and eighty pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will give this matter my personal attention at once, Mr. Fynes,&rdquo; he
+      said, lifting the flap of the counter and coming out. &ldquo;Do you care to come
+      inside and wait in my private office?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; Mr. Hamilton Fynes answered; &ldquo;I will walk up and down the
+      platform.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is a refreshment room just on the left,&rdquo; the station-master
+      remarked, ringing violently at a telephone. &ldquo;I dare say we shall get you
+      off in less than half an hour. We will do our best, at any rate. It&rsquo;s an
+      awkward time just now to command an absolutely clear line, but if we can
+      once get you past Crewe you&rsquo;ll be all right. Shall we fetch you from the
+      refreshment room when we are ready?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please,&rdquo; the intending passenger answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s brake behind and an engine in front, was waiting
+      there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve done our best, sir,&rdquo; the station-master remarked with a note of
+      self-congratulation in his tone. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s exactly twenty-two minutes since
+      you came into the office, and there she is. Finest engine we&rsquo;ve got on the
+      line, and the best driver. You&rsquo;ve a clear road ahead too. Wish you a
+      pleasant journey, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very good, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Hamilton Fynes declared. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The station-master glanced at the clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is now eight o&rsquo;clock, sir,&rdquo; he announced. &ldquo;If my orders down the line
+      are properly attended to, you should be there by twenty minutes to
+      twelve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Hamilton Fynes nodded gravely and took his seat in the car. He had
+      previously walked its entire length and back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The train consists only of this carriage?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;There is no other
+      passenger, for instance, travelling in the guard&rsquo;s brake?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly not, sir,&rdquo; the station-master declared. &ldquo;Such a thing would be
+      entirely against the regulations. There are five of you, all told, on
+      board,&mdash;driver, stoker, guard, saloon attendant, and yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Hamilton Fynes nodded, and appeared satisfied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more luggage, sir?&rdquo; the guard asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was obliged to leave what I had, excepting this suitcase, upon the
+      steamer,&rdquo; Mr. Hamilton Fynes explained. &ldquo;I could not very well expect them
+      to get my trunk up from the hold. It will follow me to the hotel
+      tomorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will find that the attendant has light refreshments on board, sir, if
+      you should be wanting anything,&rdquo; the station-master announced. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll
+      start you off now, then. Good-night, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Fynes nodded genially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night, Station-master!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Many thanks to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. THE END OF THE JOURNEY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What about this special?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Passenger brought off from the Lusitania in a private tug. Orders are to
+      let her through all the way to London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know all about that,&rdquo; the station-master grumbled. &ldquo;I have three locals
+      on my hands already,&mdash;been held up for half an hour. Old Glynn, the
+      director&rsquo;s, in one of them too. Might be General Manager to hear him
+      swear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she signalled yet?&rdquo; Liverpool asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just gone through at sixty miles an hour,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;She made our
+      old wooden sheds shake, I can tell you. Who&rsquo;s driving her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim Poynton,&rdquo; Liverpool answered. &ldquo;The guvnor took him off the mail
+      specially.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the fellow&rsquo;s name on board, anyhow?&rdquo; Crewe asked. &ldquo;Is it a
+      millionaire from the other side, trying to make records, or a member of
+      our bloated aristocracy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The name&rsquo;s Fynes, or something like it,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seems as though he was some one out of the common, anyway,&rdquo; he remarked.
+      &ldquo;The guvnor didn&rsquo;t let on who the note was from, I suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not he,&rdquo; Liverpool answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I suppose we shall read all about it in the papers tomorrow,&rdquo; Crewe
+      remarked. &ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t much that these reporters don&rsquo;t get hold of. He
+      must be some one out of the common&mdash;some one with a pull, I mean,&mdash;or
+      the captain of the Lusitania would never have let him off before the other
+      passengers. When are the rest of them coming through?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three specials leave here at nine o&rsquo;clock tomorrow morning,&rdquo; was the
+      reply. &ldquo;Good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rugby telephoned to Liverpool, and received very much the same answer as
+      Crewe. Euston followed suit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s this you&rsquo;re sending up tonight?&rdquo; the station-master asked.
+      &ldquo;Special&rsquo;s at Willington now, come through without a stop. Is some one
+      trying to make a record round the world?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His name is Mr. Hamilton Fynes, sir,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;That is all we know
+      about him. They have been ringing us up all down the line, ever since the
+      special left.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; Euston repeated. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know the name. Where did he come
+      from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Off the Lusitania, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we had a message three hours ago that the Lusitania was not landing
+      her passengers until tomorrow morning,&rdquo; Euston protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They let our man off in a tug, sir,&rdquo; was the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It went down the river to fetch him. The guvnor didn&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. AN INCIDENT AND AN ACCIDENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Smoothly the huge engine came gliding into the station&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Rice,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;If you please, sir, will you come this way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The station-master acceded at once to the man&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What on earth is the matter with you?&rdquo; the station-master asked
+      brusquely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s something wrong with my passenger, sir,&rdquo; the man declared in a
+      shaking voice. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t make him answer me. He won&rsquo;t look up, and I don&rsquo;t&mdash;I
+      don&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;s asleep. An hour ago I took him some whiskey. He told me
+      not to disturb him again&mdash;he had some papers to go through.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;something unnatural, too, in the drawn grayness of his
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Euston, sir,&rdquo; the station-master began,&mdash;&ldquo;the terminus&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pull down the blinds,&rdquo; he ordered, in a voice which he should never have
+      recognized as his own. &ldquo;Quick! Now turn out those porters, and tell the
+      inspector to stop anyone from coming into the car.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s warning. He had not the slightest doubt
+      but that the man who was seated at the table was dead!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he dead?&rdquo; the station-master asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stone-dead!&rdquo; was the brief answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; the station-master muttered. &ldquo;Good God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor had thrown his handkerchief over the dead man&rsquo;s face. He was
+      standing now looking at him thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he die in his sleep, I wonder?&rdquo; the station-master asked. &ldquo;It must
+      have been horribly sudden! Was it heart disease?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor did not reply for a moment. He seemed to be thinking out some
+      problem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The body had better be removed to the station mortuary,&rdquo; he said at last.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Scotland Yard?&rdquo; the station-master exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor nodded. He looked around as though to be sure that none of that
+      anxious crowd outside could overhear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question of heart disease here,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;The man has
+      been murdered!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The station-master was horrified,&mdash;horrified and blankly incredulous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murdered!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s impossible! There was no one else on
+      the train except the attendant&mdash;not a single other person. All my
+      advices said one passenger only.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor touched the man&rsquo;s coat with his finger, and the station-master
+      saw what he had not seen before,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no question about the man having been murdered,&rdquo; the doctor
+      said, and even his voice shook a little. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diabolical indeed!&rdquo; the station-master echoed hoarsely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better give orders for us to be shunted down on to a siding just
+      as we are,&rdquo; the doctor continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inspector Jacks from Scotland Yard, sir,&rdquo; he announced. &ldquo;I have another
+      man outside. If you don&rsquo;t mind, we&rsquo;ll have him in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By all means,&rdquo; the station-master answered. &ldquo;I am afraid that you will
+      find this rather a serious affair. We have left everything untouched so
+      far as we could.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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,&mdash;questions and
+      answers,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The doctor&rsquo;s!&rdquo; he muttered to himself, and, staggering out, rang the
+      bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to have met with an accident,&rdquo; the doctor remarked. &ldquo;How did it
+      happen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been run over by a motor car,&rdquo; his patient said, speaking slowly
+      and with something singularly agreeable in his voice notwithstanding its
+      slight accent of pain. &ldquo;Can you patch me up till I get to London?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor looked him over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What were you doing in the road?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was riding a bicycle,&rdquo; the other answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll do all right now,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a nasty cut on your leg, but
+      you&rsquo;ve no broken bones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel absolutely well again, thank you very much,&rdquo; the young man said.
+      &ldquo;I will smoke a cigarette, if I may. The brandy, I thank you, no!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just as you like,&rdquo; the doctor answered. &ldquo;I won&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; the patient answered. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor hesitated. Fees were a rare thing with him, and the evidences
+      of his patient&rsquo;s means were somewhat doubtful. The young man put his hand
+      into his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor summoned up his courage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will say a guinea, then,&rdquo; he remarked with studied indifference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must allow me to make it a little more than that,&rdquo; the patient
+      answered. &ldquo;Your treatment was worth it. I feel perfectly recovered
+      already. Good night, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor&rsquo;s eyes sparkled as he glanced at the gold which his visitor had
+      laid upon the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very good, I&rsquo;m sure,&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;I hope you will have a
+      comfortable journey. With a nerve like yours, you&rsquo;ll be all right in a day
+      or so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No bicycle there,&rdquo; he remarked to himself, as he closed the door. &ldquo;I
+      wonder what they did with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. MISS PENELOPE MORSE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you tell me,&rdquo; she asked, &ldquo;if Mr. Hamilton Fynes is staying here? He
+      should have arrived by the Lusitania last night or early this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Hamilton Fynes!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Did you say that you were expecting
+      him by the Lusitania, madam?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; the young lady answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you pardon my asking, madam, if you have seen the newspapers this
+      morning?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The newspapers!&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Why, no, I don&rsquo;t think that I have seen
+      them this morning. What have they to do with Mr. Hamilton Fynes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clerk pointed to the open door of a small private office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will step this way for one moment, madam,&rdquo; he begged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should I?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Cannot you answer my question here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If madam will be so good,&rdquo; he persisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrugged her shoulders and followed him. Something in the man&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her manner changed at once. She began to understand what it all meant. Her
+      lips parted, her eyes were wide open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An accident?&rdquo; she faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He gently rolled a chair up to her. She sank obediently into it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murdered!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Is this true?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It appears to be perfectly true, madam, I regret to say,&rdquo; the clerk
+      answered. &ldquo;Even the earlier editions were able to supply the man&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murdered!&rdquo; she repeated to herself with trembling lips. &ldquo;It seems such a
+      horrible death! Have they any idea who did it?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Has any one
+      been arrested?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At present, no, madam,&rdquo; the clerk answered. &ldquo;The affair, as you will see
+      if you read further, is an exceedingly mysterious one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where can I be alone and read this?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, if you please, madam,&rdquo; the clerk answered. &ldquo;I must go back to my
+      desk. There are many arrivals just now. Will you allow me to send you
+      something&mdash;a little brandy, perhaps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing, thank you,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I wish only to be alone while I read
+      this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That papers had been stolen from him&mdash;papers or money&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl opened her lips and closed them again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I regret to say that I have nothing whatever to tell them,&rdquo; she declared.
+      &ldquo;Will you kindly let them know that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clerk shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid you will find them quite persistent, madam,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot tell them things which I do not know myself,&rdquo; she answered,
+      frowning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; the clerk admitted; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it will help me to get rid of them,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I will speak to the
+      representative of Scotland Yard. I will have nothing whatever to say to
+      the reporters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I understand that Mr. Hamilton Fynes was a friend of
+      yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An acquaintance,&rdquo; she corrected him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your name?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Miss Morse,&rdquo; she replied,&mdash;&ldquo;Miss Penelope Morse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were to have lunched here with Mr. Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; the detective
+      continued. &ldquo;When, may I ask, did the invitation reach you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yesterday,&rdquo; she told him, &ldquo;by marconigram from Queenstown.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can tell us a few things about the deceased, without doubt,&rdquo; Mr.
+      Jacks said,&mdash;&ldquo;his profession, for instance, or his social standing?
+      Perhaps you know the reason for his coming to Europe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Fynes and I were not intimately acquainted,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;We met in
+      Paris some years ago, and when he was last in London, during the autumn, I
+      lunched with him twice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had no letter from him, then, previous to the marconigram?&rdquo; the
+      inspector asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have scarcely ever received a letter from him in my life,&rdquo; she
+      answered. &ldquo;He was as bad a correspondent as I am myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know nothing, then, of the object of his present visit to England?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing whatever,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When he was over here before,&rdquo; the inspector asked, &ldquo;do you know what his
+      business was then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in the least,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can tell us his address in the States?&rdquo; Inspector Jacks suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He never alluded to it in any way,&rdquo; the girl answered. &ldquo;I have not the
+      slightest idea how he passed his time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The inspector was a little nonplussed. He did not for a moment believe
+      that the girl was telling the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; he said tentatively, &ldquo;you do not care to have your name come
+      before the public in connection with a case so notorious as this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; the girl answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The detective was thoughtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you really cannot help us at all, madam?&rdquo; he said at length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid not,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; he suggested, &ldquo;after you have thought the matter over,
+      something may occur to you. Can I trouble you for your address?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am staying at Devenham House for the moment,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrote it down in his notebook.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall perhaps do myself the honor of waiting upon you a little later
+      on,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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&rsquo;s affairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned away from him to the clerk, and pointed to another door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I go out without seeing those others?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;I really have
+      nothing to say to them, and this has been quite a shock to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By all means, madam,&rdquo; the clerk answered. &ldquo;If you will allow me, I will
+      escort you to the entrance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two of the more enterprising of the journalists caught them up upon the
+      pavement. Miss Penelope Morse, however, had little to say to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not ask me any more questions about Mr. Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; she
+      declared. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This Mr. Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was certainly a man who knew how to keep his own counsel,&rdquo; he
+      admitted. &ldquo;Most Americans are ready enough to talk about themselves and
+      their affairs, even to comparative strangers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The hotel clerk nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Makes it difficult for you,&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It makes the case very interesting,&rdquo; the inspector declared, &ldquo;especially
+      when we find him engaged to lunch with a young lady of such remarkable
+      discretion as Miss Penelope Morse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know her?&rdquo; the clerk asked a little eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The inspector was engaged, apparently, in studying the pattern of the
+      carpet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;No, I have no absolute knowledge of Miss
+      Penelope Morse. By the bye, that was rather an interesting address that
+      she gave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Devenham House,&rdquo; the hotel clerk remarked. &ldquo;Do you know who lives there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duke of Devenham,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The hotel clerk looked dubious. He did not grasp the significance of the
+      question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. AN AFFAIR OF STATE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s Stores, her pursuers were out of sight. She
+      paid the driver quickly, a little over double his fare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If any one asks you questions,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t be coming back, then, miss?&rdquo; the man asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped in front of one of the big clubs and, scribbling a line on her
+      card, gave it to the door keeper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you find out if this gentleman is in?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;If he is, will you
+      kindly ask him to step out and speak to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Why, what on earth&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Dicky,&rdquo; she interrupted, laughing at his expression, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t
+      look so shocked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad to see you, anyway,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no bad news, I hope?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing that concerns us particularly,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am just in the middle of a rubber of bridge,&rdquo; he objected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It can&rsquo;t be helped,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;To tell you the truth, the matter I
+      want to talk to you about is of more importance than any game of cards.
+      Don&rsquo;t be foolish, Dicky. You have your hat in your hand. Step in here by
+      my side at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dicky,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;do you read the newspapers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I can&rsquo;t say that I do regularly,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I read the New York
+      Herald, but these London journals are a bit difficult, aren&rsquo;t they? One
+      has to dig the news out,&mdash;sort of treasure-hunt all the time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have read this murder case, at any rate,&rdquo; she asked, &ldquo;about the man
+      who was killed in a special train between Liverpool and London?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; he answered, with a sudden awakening of interest. &ldquo;What about
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A good deal,&rdquo; she answered slowly. &ldquo;In the first place, the man who was
+      murdered&mdash;Mr. Hamilton Fynes&mdash;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&rsquo;t very much, perhaps, but
+      it&rsquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man whistled softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Penelope!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Who was this fellow, anyhow, and what were
+      you doing lunching with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That doesn&rsquo;t matter,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t tell me all your secrets,
+      Mr. Dicky Vanderpole, and it isn&rsquo;t necessary for me to tell you all mine,
+      even if we are both foreigners in a strange country. The poor fellow isn&rsquo;t
+      going to lunch with any one else in this world. I suppose you are thinking
+      what an indiscreet person I am, as usual?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man considered the matter for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t understand that he was the sort of person you
+      would have been likely to have taken lunch with. But that isn&rsquo;t my affair.
+      Have you seen the second edition?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t I told you that I never read the papers? I only saw what they
+      showed me in at the Carlton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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 &lsquo;Mr. Hamilton Fynes&mdash;the gentleman bearing this communication.&rsquo; I
+      expect, after all, that you know more about him than any one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I know,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The dickens you did!&rdquo; he muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Penelope Morse laughed softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Dicky,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t pretend to be jealous. You&rsquo;re an
+      outrageous flirt, I know, but you and I are never likely to get
+      sentimental about one another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; he grumbled. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve always been pretty good pals, haven&rsquo;t we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;or I shouldn&rsquo;t be here. Do you want to hear
+      anything more about Mr. Hamilton Fynes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do,&rdquo; he declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, be quiet, then, and don&rsquo;t interrupt,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I knew London well
+      and he didn&rsquo;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&mdash;well, a hint.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was it?&rdquo; the young man asked eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t put it into so many words,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t expect you to tell me anything
+      which you feel that you oughtn&rsquo;t to. There is one thing, however, which I
+      must ask you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to know what the mischief my being in the diplomatic
+      service has to do with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I explained that,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;I should be telling you everything I
+      haven&rsquo;t quite made up my mind to do that yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me this?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Would that hint which he dropped when he was
+      here last help you to solve the mystery of his murder?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It might,&rdquo; she admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I think,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;apart from any other reason, you ought to tell
+      somebody. The police at present don&rsquo;t seem to have the ghost of a clue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are not likely to find one,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;unless I help them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Penelope,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;you are not in earnest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am,&rdquo; she assured him. &ldquo;It is exactly as I say. I believe I am one of
+      the few people who could put the police upon the right track.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there any reason why you shouldn&rsquo;t?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just what I can&rsquo;t make up my mind about,&rdquo; she told him. &ldquo;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&mdash;the time he went
+      to St. Petersburg and twice to Berlin&mdash;he came on government
+      business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man looked, for a moment, incredulous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you sure of that, Pen?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t sound like our people,
+      you know, does it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite sure,&rdquo; she declared confidently. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t care to put through their embassies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, that&rsquo;s so, of course, over on this side,&rdquo; he agreed. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not,&rdquo; she answered composedly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man was deeply interested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he admitted, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s a good deal in what you say, Penelope. You
+      talk about it all as though you were a diplomat yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I am,&rdquo; she answered calmly. &ldquo;A stray young woman like myself must
+      have something to occupy her thoughts, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not bad,&rdquo; he asserted, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrugged her shoulders scornfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just the sort of thing the New York Herald would say,&rdquo; she
+      remarked. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marry me, then,&rdquo; he suggested amiably. &ldquo;I shall have plenty of money some
+      day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll see about it when you&rsquo;re grown up,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;Just at present,
+      I think we&rsquo;d better return to the subject of Hamilton Fynes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Richard Vanderpole sighed, but seemed not disinclined to follow her
+      suggestion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harvey is a silent man, as you know,&rdquo; he said thoughtfully, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added after a moment&rsquo;s pause, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It accounts, also,&rdquo; Penelope remarked, &ldquo;for his murder!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her companion started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t any idea&mdash;&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing so definite as an idea,&rdquo; she interrupted. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; he admitted &ldquo;you&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to tell you now,&rdquo; she continued, leaning a little towards him,
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t understand!&rdquo; he protested. &ldquo;Why should he give you the letter
+      when he was in London himself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked him that question myself, naturally,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee whiz!&rdquo; the young man exclaimed. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re telling me things, and no
+      mistake! Why this fellow Fynes made a secret service messenger of you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was all very simple,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Richard Vanderpole was sitting bolt upright, gazing steadily ahead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; he said slowly, &ldquo;what has become of the letter which he was
+      going to give you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One thing is certain,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;It is in the hands of those whose
+      interests would have been affected by its delivery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much of this am I to tell the chief?&rdquo; the young man asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every word,&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;You see, I am trying to give you a start
+      in your career. What bothers me is an entirely different question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She laid her hand upon his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much of it I shall tell to a certain gentleman who calls himself
+      Inspector Jacks!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. MR. COULSON INTERVIEWED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Lusitania boat specials ran into Euston Station soon after three
+      o&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Mr. Coulson, I believe?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That gentlemen regarded his interlocutor with some surprise but without
+      unfriendliness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That happens to be my name, sir,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;You have the advantage of
+      me, though. You are not from my old friends Spencer &amp; Miles, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spencer &amp; Miles,&rdquo; the young man repeated thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Woollen firm in London Wall,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson added. &ldquo;I know they wanted to
+      see me directly I arrived, and they did say something about sending to the
+      station.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man shook his head, and assumed at the same time his most
+      engaging manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no, sir!&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;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&mdash;a mutual friend, I believe I may say,&rdquo; he explained&mdash;&ldquo;wired
+      me your description. I understand that you were acquainted with Mr.
+      Hamilton Fynes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson set down his suitcase for a moment, to light a cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if I did know the poor fellow just to nod to,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+      see that&rsquo;s any reason why I should talk about him to you newspaper
+      fellows. You&rsquo;d better get hold of his relations, if you can find them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the young man said, &ldquo;we haven&rsquo;t any idea where
+      they are to be found, and in the meantime you can&rsquo;t imagine what reports
+      are in circulation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guess I can figure them out pretty well,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked with a
+      smile. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got an evening press of our own in New York.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The reporter nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;They&rsquo;d be able to stretch themselves out a bit on a case
+      like this. You see,&rdquo; he continued confidentially, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; the
+      reporter concluded with a smile, &ldquo;and the money which was found upon him,
+      I imagine that he was certainly not the latter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson went on his way toward the exit from the station, puffing
+      contentedly at his big cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said to his companion, who showed not the slightest disposition
+      to leave his side, &ldquo;it don&rsquo;t seem to me that there&rsquo;s much worth repeating
+      about poor Fynes,&mdash;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&rsquo;ll tell you what I
+      can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a brick, sir,&rdquo; the young man declared. &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t you any luggage,
+      though?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I checked what I had through from Liverpool to the hotel,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson
+      answered. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t stand being fussed around by all these porters, and
+      having to go and take pot luck amongst a pile of other people&rsquo;s baggage.
+      We&rsquo;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&rsquo;t all have
+      cleared out if we look alive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; he remarked, removing his cigar to the corner of his mouth in order
+      to facilitate conversation, &ldquo;this old city of yours don&rsquo;t change any.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not up in this part, perhaps,&rdquo; the reporter agreed. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve some fine new
+      buildings down toward the Strand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I guess you don&rsquo;t want to be making conversation. You
+      want to know about Hamilton Fynes. I was just acquainted with him, and
+      that&rsquo;s a fact, but I reckon you&rsquo;ll have to find some one who knows a good
+      deal more than I do before you&rsquo;ll get the stuff you want for your paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The slightest particulars are of interest to us just now,&rdquo; the reporter
+      reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he do that for?&rdquo; the reporter asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, because he was a crank, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered confidentially.
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he had letters, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the reporter reminded him, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They were easy enough to get,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;He wasn&rsquo;t a
+      worrying sort of chap, Fynes wasn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s easier to get a pull over there than it is
+      here, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is all very interesting,&rdquo; the reporter said, &ldquo;and I am sure I&rsquo;m very
+      much obliged to you, Mr. Coulson. Now can you tell me of anything in the
+      man&rsquo;s life or way of living likely to provoke enmity on the part of any
+      one? This murder was such a cold-blooded affair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There I&rsquo;m stuck,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted. &ldquo;There&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t know&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      for your police to find out&mdash;but I reckon that whoever killed him did
+      it for his cash.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My first drink on English soil,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson said, as he handed his
+      suitcase to the hall-porter, &ldquo;is always&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s on me,&rdquo; the young man declared quickly. &ldquo;I owe you a good deal more
+      than drinks, Mr. Coulson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, come along, anyway,&rdquo; the latter remarked. &ldquo;I guess my room is all
+      right, porter?&rdquo;&mdash;turning to the man who stood by his side, bag in
+      hand. &ldquo;I am Mr. James B. Coulson of New York, and I wrote on ahead. I&rsquo;ll
+      come round to the office and register presently.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s odd manner
+      during the voyage, and the strange way he had of keeping to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, after all,&rdquo; he wound up, &ldquo;Fynes was a crank, when all&rsquo;s said and
+      done. We are all cranks, more or less,&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+      paid for it,&rdquo; he added with a sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the Inspector said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson sat down upon a trunk with his hairbrushes in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;you detectives do get to know things, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing so remarkable in that, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks remarked
+      pleasantly. &ldquo;A newspaper man had been before me, I see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;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&rsquo;s got it pat, word by word. Now, Mr. Jacks, if you&rsquo;ll
+      just invest a halfpenny in that newspaper, you don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just so, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the Inspector answered. &ldquo;At the same time nothing
+      that you told him throws any light at all upon the circumstances which led
+      to the poor fellow&rsquo;s death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared, &ldquo;is not my fault. What I don&rsquo;t know I can&rsquo;t
+      tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were acquainted with Mr. Fynes some years ago?&rdquo; the Inspector asked.
+      &ldquo;Can you tell me what business he was in then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Same as now, for anything I know,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;He was a clerk
+      in one of the Government offices at Washington.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Government offices,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks repeated. &ldquo;Have you any idea what
+      department?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson was not sure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may have been the Excise Office,&rdquo; he remarked thoughtfully. &ldquo;I did
+      hear, but I never took any particular notice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you ever form any idea as to the nature of his work?&rdquo; Inspector Jacks
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless you, no!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied, brushing his hair vigorously. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector was disappointed. He began to feel that he was wasting his
+      time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you know anything of the object of his journey to Europe?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nary a thing,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;He only came on deck once or twice,
+      and he had scarcely a civil word even for me. Why, I tell you, sir,&rdquo; Mr.
+      Coulson continued, &ldquo;if he saw me coming along on the promenade, he&rsquo;d turn
+      round and go the other way, for fear I&rsquo;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&rsquo;t be far out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He certainly seems to have been a queer lot,&rdquo; the Inspector declared. &ldquo;By
+      the bye,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;you said something, I believe, about his having
+      had more money with him than was found upon his person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t
+      seem to be anything of the sort upon him when he was found.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector made a note of this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You believe yourself, then, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, closing his
+      pocketbook, &ldquo;that the murder was committed for the purpose of robbery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seems to me it&rsquo;s common sense,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied. &ldquo;A man who goes and
+      takes a special train to London from the docks of a city like Liverpool&mdash;a
+      city filled with the scum of the world, mind you&mdash;kind of gives
+      himself away as a man worth robbing, doesn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s sensible talk, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he acknowledged. &ldquo;You never heard, I
+      suppose, of his having had a quarrel with any one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never in my life,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;He wasn&rsquo;t the sort to make
+      enemies, any more than he was the sort to make friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are making a long stay here, Mr. Coulson?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A week or so, maybe,&rdquo; that gentleman answered. &ldquo;I am in the machinery
+      patent line&mdash;machinery for the manufacture of woollen goods mostly&mdash;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&rsquo;s nothing further to be got out of me as regards Mr. Hamilton
+      Fynes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Mr. James B. Coulson from New York, landed this afternoon from the
+      Lusitania,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson said. &ldquo;I am at the Savoy Hotel, speaking from my
+      room&mdash;number 443.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a brief silence&mdash;then a reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better be in the bar smoking-room at seven o&rsquo;clock. If nothing
+      happens, don&rsquo;t leave the hotel this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson replaced the receiver and rang off. A page-boy knocked at the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Young lady downstairs wishes to see you, sir,&rdquo; he announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson took up the card from the tray.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Penelope Morse,&rdquo; he said softly to himself. &ldquo;Seems to me I&rsquo;m rather
+      popular this evening. Say I&rsquo;ll be down right away, my boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good, sir,&rdquo; the page answered. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a gentleman with her, sir.
+      His card&rsquo;s underneath the lady&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson examined the tray once more. A gentleman&rsquo;s visiting card
+      informed him that his other caller was Sir Charles Somerfield, Bart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bart,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked thoughtfully. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not quite catching on to
+      that, but I suppose he goes in with the young lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re both together, sir,&rdquo; the boy announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson completed his toilet and hurried downstairs
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. A FATAL DESPATCH
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;a well-bred, pleasant-mannered, exceedingly athletic
+      young Englishman, who was probably not such a fool as he looked,&mdash;that
+      is, from Mr. Coulson&rsquo;s standpoint, who was not used to the single eyeglass
+      and somewhat drawling enunciation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; the young man asked, accepting the other&rsquo;s
+      outstretched hand. &ldquo;We are awfully sorry to disturb you, so soon after
+      your arrival, too, but the fact is that this young lady, Miss Penelope
+      Morse,&rdquo;&mdash;Mr. Coulson bowed,&mdash;&ldquo;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&rsquo;t look you up at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope herself intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid you&rsquo;re going to think me a terrible nuisance, Mr. Coulson!&rdquo;
+       she exclaimed. Mr. Coulson, although he did not call himself a lady&rsquo;s man,
+      was nevertheless human enough to appreciate the fact that the young lady&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ll take my risks of that, Miss Morse,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;ll
+      only let me know what I can do for you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s about poor Mr. Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;I took up the
+      evening paper only half an hour ago, and read your interview with the
+      reporter. I simply couldn&rsquo;t help stopping to ask whether you could give me
+      any further particulars about that horrible affair. I didn&rsquo;t dare to come
+      here all alone, so I asked Sir Charles to come along with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson, being invited to do so, seated himself on the lounge by the
+      young lady&rsquo;s side. He leaned a little forward with a hand on either knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t exactly know what I can tell you,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;I take it, then,
+      that you were well acquainted with Mr. Fynes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to know him quite well,&rdquo; Penelope answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a very sensible young lady, Miss Morse, if you will allow me to
+      say so,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;You were expecting to see something of Mr.
+      Fynes over here, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had an appointment to lunch with him today,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;He sent me
+      a marconigram before he arrived at Queenstown.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that so?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson exclaimed. &ldquo;Well, well!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I actually went to the restaurant,&rdquo; Penelope continued, &ldquo;without knowing
+      anything of this. I can&rsquo;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&rsquo;t you think so, Mr. Coulson?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; that gentleman answered, &ldquo;to tell you the honest truth, Miss
+      Morse, I&rsquo;m afraid I am going to disappoint you a little. I wasn&rsquo;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. <i>He</i> 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does seem too bad, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; Penelope declared, raising her
+      wonderful eyes to his and smiling sympathetically. &ldquo;You have really
+      brought it upon yourself, though, to some extent, haven&rsquo;t you, by
+      answering so many questions for this Comet man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those newspaper fellows,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded her head thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hamilton Fynes came from the village in Massachusetts where I was brought
+      up. I&rsquo;ve known him all my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson seemed a little startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t understand,&rdquo; he said thoughtfully, &ldquo;that Fynes had any very
+      intimate friends over this side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mean to imply that we have been intimate lately,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, that&rsquo;s quite natural,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared, leaning back a little
+      and crossing his legs. &ldquo;Somehow we seem to read about these things in the
+      papers and they don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s something about a murder,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson concluded, &ldquo;which kind
+      of takes hold of you if you&rsquo;ve ever even shaken hands with either of the
+      parties concerned in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you see much of the poor fellow during the voyage?&rdquo; Sir Charles
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, nor any one else,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He seems to have been a secretive sort of person,&rdquo; Sir Charles remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was that,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted. &ldquo;Never seemed to care to talk about
+      himself or his own business. Not that he had much to talk about,&rdquo; he added
+      reflectively. &ldquo;Dull sort of life, his. So many hours of work, so many
+      hours of play; so many dollars a month, and after it&rsquo;s all over, so many
+      dollars pension. Wouldn&rsquo;t suit all of us, Sir Charles, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fancy not,&rdquo; Somerfield admitted. &ldquo;Perhaps he kicked over the traces a
+      bit when he was over this side. You Americans generally seem to find your
+      way about&mdash;in Paris, especially.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson shook his head doubtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There wasn&rsquo;t much kicking over the traces with poor old Fynes,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;He hadn&rsquo;t got it in him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield scratched his chin thoughtfully and looked at Penelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scarcely seems possible, does it,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;that a man leading such
+      a quiet sort of life should make enemies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe he had any,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson asserted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t seem nervous on the way over, did he?&rdquo; Penelope asked,&mdash;&ldquo;as
+      though he were afraid of something happening?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more than usual,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I guess your police over here aren&rsquo;t
+      quite so smart as ours, or they&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll find that our poor friend has paid the penalty of going about the
+      world like a crank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A what?&rdquo; Somerfield asked doubtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A crank,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson repeated vigorously. &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But his money was found upon him,&rdquo; Somerfield objected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some of it,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered,&mdash;&ldquo;some of it. That&rsquo;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&rsquo;d got a sight more money
+      there than was found upon him. I told the smooth-spoken gentleman from
+      Scotland Yard so&mdash;Mr. Inspector Jacks he called himself&mdash;when he
+      came to see me an hour or so ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope sighed gently. She found it hard to make up her mind concerning
+      this quondam acquaintance of her deceased friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you see much of Mr. Fynes on the other side, Mr. Coulson?&rdquo; she asked
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not I,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;He wasn&rsquo;t particularly anxious to make
+      acquaintances over here, but he was even worse at home. The way he went
+      on, you&rsquo;d think he&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson continued, turning to Somerfield, &ldquo;that man
+      hadn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t play bridge, didn&rsquo;t care about chess, hadn&rsquo;t even a chair on the
+      deck, and never came in to meals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope nodded her head thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are destroying all my illusions, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Do you know
+      that I was building up quite a romance about poor Mr. Fynes&rsquo; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, sure not!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared heartily. &ldquo;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&rsquo;ve finished with
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope sighed once more and looked at the tips of her patent shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has been so kind of you,&rdquo; she murmured, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was no talker,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;It was little enough he had to
+      say to me, and less to any one else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems strange,&rdquo; she remarked innocently, &ldquo;that he should have been so
+      shy. He didn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope&rsquo;s eyes were suddenly upraised. For the first time Mr. Coulson&rsquo;s
+      ready answers failed him. Not a muscle of his face moved under the girl&rsquo;s
+      scrutiny, but he hesitated for a short time before he answered her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that I know of,&rdquo; he said at length. &ldquo;No, I shouldn&rsquo;t have called him
+      much of a traveller.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope rose to her feet and held out her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has been very nice indeed of you to see us, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; she said,
+      &ldquo;especially after all these other people have been bothering you. Of
+      course, I am sorry that you haven&rsquo;t anything more to tell us than we knew
+      already. Still, I felt that I couldn&rsquo;t rest until we had been.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a sad affair, anyhow,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared, walking with them to
+      the door. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seems to me I may have a longish wait,&rdquo; he said to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, he was disappointed. At precisely seven o&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Mr. Coulson, I&rsquo;m sure,&rdquo; he declared,&mdash;&ldquo;Mr. James B. Coulson
+      from New York?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re dead right,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted, laying down his newspaper and
+      favoring his visitor with a quick upward glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is great!&rdquo; the young man continued. &ldquo;Just off the boat, eh? Well, I
+      am glad to see you,&mdash;very glad indeed to make your acquaintance, I
+      should say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall it be?&rdquo; the newcomer asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just taken dinner,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson said. &ldquo;Coffee and cognac&rsquo;ll do me
+      all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a Martini cocktail for me,&rdquo; the young man ordered. &ldquo;I am dining down
+      in the restaurant with some friends later on. Come over to this corner,
+      Mr. Coulson. Why, you&rsquo;re looking first-rate. Great boat, the Lusitania,
+      isn&rsquo;t she? What sort of a trip did you have?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the chief is anxious. We don&rsquo;t understand this
+      affair. Do you know anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a d&mdash;&mdash;d thing!&rdquo; Coulson answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you shadowed on the boat?&rdquo; the young man asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to my knowledge,&rdquo; Coulson answered. &ldquo;Fynes was in his stateroom six
+      hours before we started. I can&rsquo;t make head nor tail of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had the papers, of course?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sewn in the lining of his coat,&rdquo; Coulson muttered. &ldquo;You read about that
+      in tonight&rsquo;s papers. The lining was torn and the space empty. He had them
+      all right when he left the steamer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man looked around; the room was still empty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m fresh in this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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&rsquo;s too big. The chief&rsquo;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&rsquo;t a mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None whatever,&rdquo; Coulson declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know?&rdquo; his companion asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ve lied to those reporters and chaps,&rdquo; Coulson admitted,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man set his teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s something to know this, at any rate,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;You did right,
+      Coulson, to put up that bluff. Now about the duplicates?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are in my suitcase,&rdquo; Coulson answered, &ldquo;and according to the way
+      things are going, I shan&rsquo;t be over sorry to get rid of them. Will you take
+      them with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, sure!&rdquo; Vanderpole answered. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m here for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better wait right here, then,&rdquo; Coulson said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll fetch them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; the latter asked, &ldquo;have you been shadowed at all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that I know of,&rdquo; Coulson answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men with quick instincts,&rdquo; Vanderpole continued, &ldquo;can always tell when
+      they are being watched. Have you felt anything of the sort?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Coulson hesitated for one moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I had a caller whose manner I did not quite understand.
+      She seemed to have something at the back of her head about me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She! Was it a woman?&rdquo; the young man asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coulson nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A young lady,&rdquo; he said,&mdash;&ldquo;Miss Penelope Morse, she called herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Richard Vanderpole stood quite still for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he said softly. &ldquo;She might have been interested.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does the chief want me at all?&rdquo; Coulson asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; Vanderpole answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked together toward the main exit. The young man&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he declared, as they passed across the hall, &ldquo;you and
+      I must have a night together. This isn&rsquo;t New York, by any manner of means,
+      or Paris, but there&rsquo;s some fun to be had here, in a quiet way. I&rsquo;ll phone
+      you tomorrow or the day after.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like it above all things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must find a taxicab,&rdquo; the young man remarked. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a busy hour before
+      me. I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess you&rsquo;ll have to look sharp, then.&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked. &ldquo;Do you
+      see the time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vanderpole glanced at the clock and whistled softly to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell you what!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll write a note to one of the friends
+      I&rsquo;ve got to meet, and leave it here. Boy,&rdquo; he added, turning to a page
+      boy, &ldquo;get me a taxi as quick as you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drive down the Brompton Road,&rdquo; he said to the man. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll direct you
+      later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s great
+      astonishment, as he was driving slowly across Melbourne Square,
+      Kensington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter?&rdquo; the man asked. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t say I was exceeding my
+      speed limit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The policeman scarcely noticed him. His head was already through the cab
+      window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did you take your fare up?&rdquo; he asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Savoy Hotel,&rdquo; the man answered. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s wrong with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The policeman opened the door of the cab and stepped in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never you mind about that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Drive to the South Kensington
+      police station as quick as you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. AN INTERRUPTED THEATRE PARTY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To dine at half-past seven,&rdquo; the Duchess remarked, as she looked around
+      the <i>entresol</i> of the great restaurant through her lorgnettes, &ldquo;is
+      certainly a little trying for one&rsquo;s temper and for one&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t like Dicky Vanderpole in the least,&rdquo; Penelope said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He isn&rsquo;t half so much fun as he used to be,&rdquo; Lady Grace declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fun!&rdquo; Penelope exclaimed. &ldquo;Sometimes I think that I never knew a more
+      trying person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never known the Prince unpunctual,&rdquo; the Duchess murmured. &ldquo;I
+      consider him absolutely the best-mannered young man I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace smiled, and glanced at Penelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;ll get Penelope to agree with you, mother,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not, my dear?&rdquo; the Duchess asked. &ldquo;I heard that you were quite rude
+      to him the other evening. We others all find him so charming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope&rsquo;s lip curled slightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has so many admirers,&rdquo; she remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess raised her eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But a Prince of Japan, my dear Penelope!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope shrugged her shoulders slightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t much
+      friendship lost between Washington and Tokio just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess turned away to greet a man who had paused before their couch
+      on his way into the restaurant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear General,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;it seems to me that one meets every one
+      here! Why was not restaurant dining the vogue when I was a girl!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      General Sherrif smiled. He was tall and thin, with grizzled hair and worn
+      features. Notwithstanding his civilian&rsquo;s clothes, there was no possibility
+      of mistaking him anywhere, or under any circumstances, for anything but a
+      soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a delightful custom,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;It keeps one always on the <i>qui
+      vive</i>; one never knows whom one may see. Incidentally, I find it
+      interferes very much with my digestion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Digestion!&rdquo; the Duchess murmured. &ldquo;But then, you soldiers lead such
+      irregular lives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not always from choice,&rdquo; the General reminded her. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are waiting now for Prince Maiyo,&rdquo; the Duchess remarked. &ldquo;You know
+      him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Know him!&rdquo; the General answered. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess turned to Penelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you hear that?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Fates are against me,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;If I may not like, I shall at
+      least be driven to admire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To talk of bravery when one speaks of that war,&rdquo; the General remarked,
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo;
+       the General declared, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Prince,&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;this is charming of you! Some one told
+      me that you were not well,&mdash;our wretched climate, of course&mdash;and
+      I was so afraid, every moment, that we should receive your excuses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Duchess,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;my indisposition was nothing. And as for your
+      climate, I am beginning to delight in it,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And even that,&rdquo; the Duchess remarked, smiling, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince bowed, and began to talk to his hostess&rsquo; daughter,&mdash;a
+      tall, fair girl, as yet only in her second season.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here comes Sir Charles, at any rate!&rdquo; the Duchess exclaimed. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A footman at that moment brought a note to the Duchess, which she tore
+      open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is from Dicky!&rdquo; she exclaimed, glancing it through quickly,&mdash;&ldquo;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&rsquo;t heard your excuses yet. Do you know that you were a quarter of
+      an hour late?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He bent towards her with troubled face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Duchess,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; the Duchess begged, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince walked on, for a few steps, in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Vanderpole is a great friend of yours, Duchess?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know him very well,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I asked him for Penelope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince looked puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I thought,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that Miss Morse and Sir Charles&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess interrupted him with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Charles is very much in earnest,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is very intelligent,&rdquo; the Prince said. &ldquo;She is a young lady, indeed,
+      for whom I have a great admiration. I am only sorry,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;that
+      I do not seem able to interest her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not believe that,&rdquo; the Duchess said. &ldquo;Penelope is a little
+      brusque sometimes, but it is only her manner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They made their way through the foyer to the round table which had been
+      reserved for them in the centre of the restaurant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose I ought to apologize for giving you dinner at such an hour,&rdquo;
+       the Duchess remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Duchess,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But then, you take no luncheon, Prince,&rdquo; Lady Grace reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never lunch out,&rdquo; the Prince answered, &ldquo;but I have always what is
+      sufficient for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; the Duchess asked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no plans, Duchess,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace bent towards Sir Charles, who was sitting by her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can never understand the Prince,&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a bit on the serious side,&rdquo; Sir Charles admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t only that,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was a religious Johnny, of course,&rdquo; Sir Charles remarked. &ldquo;They do
+      walk about with their heads in the air.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it is religion with the Prince,&rdquo; she said,&mdash;&ldquo;religion of a
+      sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you what I do think,&rdquo; Sir Charles murmured. &ldquo;I think his pretence
+      at having a good time over here is all a bluff. He doesn&rsquo;t really cotton
+      to us, you know. Don&rsquo;t see how he could. He&rsquo;s never touched a polo stick
+      in his life, knows nothing about cricket, is indifferent to games, and
+      doesn&rsquo;t even understand the meaning of the word &lsquo;Sportsman.&rsquo; There&rsquo;s no
+      place in this country for a man like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope, who overheard, laughed softly and leaned across the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fancy,&rdquo; she murmured, &ldquo;that the person you are speaking of would not
+      look at it in quite the same light.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has any one seen the evening paper?&rdquo; the Duchess asked. &ldquo;It is there any
+      more news about that extraordinary murder?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing fresh in the early editions,&rdquo; Sir Charles answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; the Duchess declared, &ldquo;that it is perfectly scandalous. Our
+      police system must be in a disgraceful state. Tell me, Prince,&mdash;could
+      anything like that happen in your country?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Without doubt,&rdquo; the Prince answered, &ldquo;life moves very much in the East as
+      with you here. Only with us,&rdquo; he added a little thoughtfully, &ldquo;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&rsquo;s
+      friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell us what you mean?&rdquo; Penelope asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her as one might have looked at a child,&mdash;kindly, even
+      tolerantly. He was scarcely so tall as she was, and Penelope&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In this country,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no tragedy in the world so great!&rdquo; Penelope declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shrugged his shoulders very slightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Miss Morse,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it is so that you think about life and
+      death here. Yet you call yourselves a Christian country&mdash;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&mdash;a
+      thing that must be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your point of view,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;is well enough, Prince, for those who
+      fall in battle, fighting for their country or for a great cause. Don&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One cannot tell,&rdquo; the Prince answered thoughtfully. &ldquo;The battlefields of
+      life are there for every one to cross. This mysterious gentleman who seems
+      to have met with his death so unexpectedly&mdash;he, too, may have been
+      the victim of a cause, knowing his dangers, facing them as a man should
+      face them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite sure, Prince,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that you are a romanticist. But,
+      apart from the sentimental side of it, do things like this happen in your
+      country?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Charles raised his glass and bowed across the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To our great allies!&rdquo; he said, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A few days ago,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;that it is the young ladies of your country who hold
+      open the gates of Paradise for their menkind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some day, I suppose,&rdquo; the Duchess remarked, as the service of dinner drew
+      toward a close, &ldquo;you will have restaurants like this in Tokio?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said without enthusiasm, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that it is absolutely wicked of Dicky,&rdquo; the Duchess declared, as
+      they rose from the table. &ldquo;I shall never rely upon him again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all, perhaps, it isn&rsquo;t his fault,&rdquo; Penelope said, breathing a
+      little sigh of relief as she rose to her feet. &ldquo;Mr. Harvey is not always
+      considerate, and I know that several of the staff are away on leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s right, my dear,&rdquo; the Duchess said, smiling, &ldquo;stick up for your
+      countrymen. I suppose he&rsquo;ll find us sometime during the evening. We can
+      all go to the theatre together; the omnibus is outside.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The little party passed through the foyer and into the hall of the hotel,
+      where they waited while the Duchess&rsquo; 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&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you are queer tonight. Tell me what it is? You don&rsquo;t
+      really dislike the Prince, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, of course not,&rdquo; she answered, looking back into the restaurant and
+      listening, as though interested in the music. &ldquo;He is odd, though, isn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is rather an anomaly,&rdquo; Sir Charles said, humming lightly to himself.
+      &ldquo;I suppose, compared with us matter-of-fact people, he must seem to your
+      sex quite a romantic figure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He makes no particular appeal to me at all,&rdquo; Penelope declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield was suddenly thoughtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes, Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She lifted her skirts. The carriage had been called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like your last suggestion,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;You may believe that that is
+      true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Charles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if I were you, I would keep that evening paper in
+      your pocket. Don&rsquo;t let the ladies see it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield looked at him in surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To me personally it is of no consequence,&rdquo; the Prince answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has anything happened to Dicky?&rdquo; Somerfield asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince&rsquo;s face was impassive; he seemed not to have heard. Penelope had
+      turned to wait for them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duchess thinks that we had better all go into the box,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield stopped for a minute, under pretence of seeking some change,
+      and tore open his paper. The Prince led Penelope down the carpeted way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard what you and Sir Charles were saying,&rdquo; she declared quietly.
+      &ldquo;Please tell me what it is that has happened to Dicky?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince&rsquo;s face was grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;I did not know that our voices would travel so
+      far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not yours,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It was Sir Charles&rsquo;. Tell me quickly what
+      it is that has happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Vanderpole,&rdquo; the Prince answered, &ldquo;has met with an accident,&mdash;a
+      somewhat serious one, I fear. Perhaps,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope was suddenly very white. He whispered in her ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be brave,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is your part.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;she must do it! She passed into the box, the
+      door of which the attendant was holding open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duchess,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But my dear child!&rdquo; the Duchess exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morse is quite right,&rdquo; the Prince said quietly. &ldquo;I think it would be
+      better for her to leave at once. If you will allow me, I will explain to
+      you later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She left the box without another word, and took Somerfield&rsquo;s arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We two are to go,&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;The Prince will explain to the
+      Duchess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very sad thing has happened,&rdquo; he said quietly. &ldquo;Mr. Vanderpole met with
+      an accident in a taxicab this evening. From the latest reports, it seems
+      that he is dead!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. INSPECTOR JACKS SCORES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I cannot understand,&rdquo; Penelope said coldly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks said, &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That sounds very stupid of you,&rdquo; Penelope remarked, &ldquo;but I still ask&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ask for a minute or two,&rdquo; the Inspector interrupted. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that?&rdquo; Penelope asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The victim in both cases was an American,&rdquo; the Inspector said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope sat very still. She felt the steely eyes of the man who had
+      chosen his seat so carefully, fixed upon her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not connect the two affairs in any way?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is what we are asking ourselves,&rdquo; Mr. Jacks continued. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope shivered, and half closed her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that the shock of this coincidence, as you
+      call it, has been quite sufficient, without having you come here to remind
+      me of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; Mr. Jacks said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should be very sorry indeed,&rdquo; Penelope answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not,&rdquo; the Inspector declared, &ldquo;but, on the other hand, there are
+      certain questions which you can answer me,&mdash;answer them, I mean, not
+      grudgingly and as though in duty bound,&mdash;answer them intelligently,
+      and with some apprehension of the things which lie behind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what is the thing that lies behind them?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A theory, madam,&rdquo; the Inspector answered,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have evidence to that effect,&rdquo; she said, suddenly surprised to find
+      that her voice had sunk to a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very little,&rdquo; Mr. Jacks admitted; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Supposing we leave these generalities,&rdquo; Penelope remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the faint sweetness of mimosa and the
+      sicklier fragrance of hyacinths&mdash;seemed almost overwhelming, for the
+      fire was warm and the windows closed. By the side of Penelope&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These questions,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;may seem to you irrelevant, yet please answer
+      them if you can. Mr. Hamilton Fynes, for instance,&mdash;was he, to your
+      knowledge, acquainted with Mr. Richard Vanderpole?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never heard them speak of one another,&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;I
+      should think it very unlikely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have no knowledge of any common pursuit or interest in life which the
+      two men may have shared?&rdquo; the Inspector asked. &ldquo;A hobby, for instance,&mdash;a
+      collection of postage stamps, china, any common aim of any sort?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew little of Mr. Fynes&rsquo; tastes. Dicky&mdash;I mean Mr. Vanderpole&mdash;had
+      none at all except an enthusiasm for his profession and a love of polo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His profession,&rdquo; the Inspector repeated. &ldquo;Mr. Vanderpole was attached to
+      the American Embassy, was he not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe so,&rdquo; Penelope answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; the Inspector continued, &ldquo;might almost have been
+      said to have followed the same occupation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely not!&rdquo; Penelope objected. &ldquo;I always understood that Mr. Fynes was
+      employed in a Government office at Washington,&mdash;something to do with
+      the Customs, I thought, or forest duties.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jacks nodded thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not aware, as yet,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;of the precise nature of Mr. Fynes&rsquo; 
+      occupation. I only knew that it was, in some shape or form, Government
+      work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know as much about it,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;as I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have sent,&rdquo; the Inspector continued smoothly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope opened her lips, but closed them again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not, however,&rdquo; the Inspector continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not believe, then,&rdquo; asked Penelope, &ldquo;that robbery was really the
+      motive?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not ordinary robbery,&rdquo; Mr. Jacks answered. &ldquo;A man who was capable of
+      these two crimes is capable of easier and greater things. I mean,&rdquo; he
+      explained, &ldquo;that he could have attempted enterprises of a far more
+      remunerative character, with a prospect of complete success.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you forgive me,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if I ask you to go on with your
+      questions, providing you have any more to ask me? Notwithstanding the
+      excellence of your disguise,&rdquo; she remarked with a faint curl of the lips,
+      &ldquo;I might find it somewhat difficult to explain your presence if my aunt or
+      any visitors should come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry, Miss Morse,&rdquo; the Inspector said quietly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you think, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; Penelope said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As, for instance?&rdquo; the Inspector asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a detective,&rdquo; Penelope said coldly. &ldquo;You do not need me to point
+      out certain things to you. Mr. Hamilton Fynes was robbed and murdered&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks moved his head thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is admirably put,&rdquo; he assented, &ldquo;and to continue?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not my place to make suggestions to you,&rdquo; Penelope said. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks smiled, picked up his hat and bowed, while Penelope, with
+      a sigh of relief, moved over to the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added,
+      looking her in the face, &ldquo;you only can tell, but you have certainly helped
+      me a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One moment, Morton,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Wait outside. Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; she added, as
+      the door closed, &ldquo;what do you mean? What can I have told you? How can I
+      have helped you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you had chosen,&rdquo; he said slowly, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to the door. Penelope remained motionless for several moments,
+      listening to his retreating footsteps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. MR. COULSON OUTMATCHED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;clock he went down to the city, and
+      returned sometimes to luncheon, sometimes at varying hours, never later,
+      however, than four or five o&rsquo;clock. From that time until seven, he was
+      generally to be found in the American bar, meeting old friends or making
+      new ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a gentleman here, Mr. Coulson, been asking after you,&rdquo; he
+      announced. &ldquo;I told him that you generally came in about this time. You&rsquo;ll
+      find him sitting over there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;an undistinguished,
+      perfectly natural figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Mr. Jacks, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; he asked, holding out his hand. &ldquo;I thought I
+      recognized you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry to trouble you again, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but if you could
+      spare me just a minute or two, I should be very much obliged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson laughed pleasantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can have all you want of me from now till midnight,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;My
+      business doesn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t mind telling you that I
+      find time hangs a bit on my hands. Try one of these,&rdquo; he added, producing
+      a cigar case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector thanked him and helped himself. Mr. Coulson summoned the
+      waiter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Highball for me,&rdquo; he directed. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s yours, Mr. Jacks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you very much,&rdquo; the Inspector said. &ldquo;I will take a little Scotch
+      whiskey and soda.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two men sat down. The corner was a retired one, and there was no one
+      within earshot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, are you still on this Hamilton Fynes business?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Partly,&rdquo; the Inspector replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, I&rsquo;m not making reflections,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson said, sticking his
+      cigar in a corner of his mouth and leaning back in a comfortable attitude,
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s no one going to commit murder in
+      the streets of New York without finding himself in the Tombs before he&rsquo;s a
+      week older. No offence, Mr. Jacks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not taking any, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the Inspector answered. &ldquo;I must admit
+      that there&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson knocked the ash from his cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, as to that,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t know more than
+      you&rsquo;ve let on to the newspapers. You keep your discoveries out of the
+      Press over here, and a good job, too, but you wouldn&rsquo;t persuade me that
+      you haven&rsquo;t some very distinct theory as to how that crime was worked, and
+      the sort of person who did it. Eh, Mr. Jacks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are perhaps not quite so ignorant as we seem,&rdquo; the Inspector answered,
+      &ldquo;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,&mdash;as puzzling, in its way,&rdquo; Mr. Jacks
+      continued, &ldquo;as the murder on the very next evening of this young American
+      gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson nodded sympathetically. The drinks were brought, and he raised
+      his glass to his guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s luck!&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;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,&rdquo; he remarked, setting down his glass. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t
+      noticed the papers much this morning. Has any arrest been made yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; the Inspector admitted. &ldquo;To tell you the truth, we find it
+      almost as puzzling an affair as the one in which Mr. Hamilton Fynes was
+      concerned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson nodded. He seemed content, at this stage in their
+      conversation, to assume the role of listener.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You read the particulars of the murder of Mr. Vanderpole, I suppose?&rdquo; the
+      Inspector asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every word,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;Most interesting thing I&rsquo;ve seen in
+      an English newspaper since I landed. Didn&rsquo;t sound like London somehow.
+      Gray old law-abiding place, my partner always calls it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to be quite frank with you, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the Inspector
+      continued. &ldquo;I am going to tell you exactly why I have come to see you
+      again tonight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, that&rsquo;s good,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;I like to know everything a
+      man&rsquo;s got in his mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come to you,&rdquo; the Inspector said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;that you were,&rdquo; he continued, knocking the ash
+      off his cigar and speaking a little more slowly, &ldquo;the last person, except
+      the driver of the taxicab, to have seen him alive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson turned slowly around and faced his companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, how the devil do you know that?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector smiled tolerantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seated on this very couch, sir!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared, striking the arm
+      of it with the flat of his hand,&mdash;&ldquo;seated within a few feet of where
+      you yourself are at this present moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson became meditative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon my word, when you come to think of it,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fancy your nerves,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, that&rsquo;s easy,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied. &ldquo;You may have heard of my firm,
+      The Coulson &amp; Bruce Company of Jersey City. I&rsquo;m at the head of a
+      syndicate that&rsquo;s controlling some very valuable patents which we want to
+      exploit on this side and in Paris. Now my people don&rsquo;t exactly know how we
+      stand under this new patent bill of Mr. Lloyd George&rsquo;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&rsquo;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,&mdash;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&rsquo;ve got it in my room if you&rsquo;d care to see it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jacks listened to his companion&rsquo;s words with unchanged face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it isn&rsquo;t troubling you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it would be of some interest to
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You sit right here,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be back in less than five
+      minutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson was as good as his word. In less than the time mentioned he
+      was seated again by his companion&rsquo;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,&rsquo; 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 &amp;
+      Bruce syndicate. At the end there were a few lines in the Ambassador&rsquo;s own
+      handwriting, summing up the situation. Mr. Coulson produced another packet
+      of letters and documents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you&rsquo;ve an hour or so to spare, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to go
+      right into this with you, if it would interest you any. It&rsquo;s my business
+      over here, so naturally I am glad enough of an opportunity to talk it
+      over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jacks passed back the paper promptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am extremely obliged to you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added.
+      &ldquo;Do I understand that this young man came to you as a complete stranger?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Absolutely,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;I never saw him before in my life. As
+      decent a young chap as ever I met with, all the same,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;and
+      comes of a good American stock, too. They tell me there&rsquo;s going to be an
+      inquest and that I shall be summoned, but I know nothing more than what
+      I&rsquo;ve told you. If I did, you&rsquo;d be welcome to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the Inspector said suddenly, &ldquo;do you know a young lady
+      named Miss Penelope Morse?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Penelope Morse,&rdquo; the Inspector continued. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose I may say that I am acquainted with her,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted.
+      &ldquo;She came here the other evening with a young man&mdash;Sir Charles
+      Somerfield.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; the Inspector murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;d read that interview of mine with the Comet man,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson said,
+      &ldquo;and she fancied that perhaps I could tell her something about Hamilton
+      Fynes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First time you&rsquo;d met her, I suppose?&rdquo; the Inspector remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;As a matter of fact, I know very few of my
+      compatriots over here. I am an American citizen myself, and I haven&rsquo;t too
+      much sympathy with any one, man or woman, who doesn&rsquo;t find America good
+      enough for them to live in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite so,&rdquo; he agreed. &ldquo;So you hadn&rsquo;t anything to tell this young lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a thing that she hadn&rsquo;t read in the Comet,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied.
+      &ldquo;What brought her into your mind, anyway?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing particular,&rdquo; the Inspector answered carelessly. &ldquo;Well, Mr.
+      Coulson, I won&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay and have another drink,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson begged. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve nothing to do.
+      There are one or two boys coming in later who&rsquo;ll like to meet you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must be off,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I want to get into my office before six
+      o&rsquo;clock. I dare say I shall be running across you again before you go
+      back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook hands and turned away. Then Mr. Coulson made what was, perhaps,
+      his second slight mistake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;what made you mention that young lady&rsquo;s
+      name, anyway? I&rsquo;m curious to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector looked thoughtfully at the end of the fresh cigar which he
+      had just lit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sort of bond between us, eh?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied. &ldquo;She seemed a very
+      charming young lady. Cut above Fynes, I should think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The detective smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All your American young ladies who come over here are charming,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;Goodbye, Mr. Coulson, and many thanks!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector passed out, and the man whom he had come to visit, after a
+      moment&rsquo;s hesitation, resumed his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These aren&rsquo;t American methods,&rdquo; he muttered to himself. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+      understand them. That man Jacks is either a simpleton or he is too cunning
+      for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. A COMMISSION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a knock at the door, and a footman entered, ushering in a
+      visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The young lady whom you were expecting, sir,&rdquo; he announced discreetly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harvey rose at once to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Penelope,&rdquo; he said, shaking hands with her, &ldquo;this is charming of
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems quite like old times to feel myself at home here once more,&rdquo; she
+      declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harvey did not pursue the subject. He was perfectly well aware that
+      Penelope, who had been his first wife&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should not have sent for you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope shivered a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Dicky!&rdquo; she murmured, looking away into the fire. &ldquo;And to think that
+      it was I who sent him to his death!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harvey shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;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,&rdquo;
+       he continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope shivered again. Her face showed signs of distress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not think,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that I am a nervous person, but I cannot bear
+      to think of it even now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey answered. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murdered&mdash;and robbed!&rdquo; she whispered, looking up at him with a white
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The frown on the Ambassador&rsquo;s forehead darkened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not only that,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;but the secrets of which he was robbed have
+      gone to the one country interested in the knowledge of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are sure of that?&rdquo; she asked hoarsely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure of it,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remarked just now,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you had better go on,&rdquo; she said quietly. &ldquo;There is something in
+      your mind. I can see that. You have told me so much that you had better
+      tell me the rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The contents of those despatches,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plain, indeed,&rdquo; Penelope assented, and she spoke in a low tone because
+      there was fear in her heart. &ldquo;Why have you told me about them? They throw
+      a new light upon everything,&mdash;an awful light!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have known you,&rdquo; the Ambassador said quietly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a long time ago,&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so very long,&rdquo; he reminded her. &ldquo;But for the first of these
+      tragedies, Fynes&rsquo; despatches would have reached me through you. I am going
+      to ask your help even once more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has been remarked,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey continued, &ldquo;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&mdash;I
+      mean, of course, Prince Maiyo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyebrows were slowly elevated. Was that really the impression people
+      had! Her lips just moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have met Prince Maiyo myself,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know him so well as you seem to imagine,&rdquo; Penelope said slowly.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor do I,&rdquo; the Ambassador declared smoothly. &ldquo;Yet in every country,
+      almost in every man, the exact standard of dishonor varies. A man will lie
+      for a woman&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on, please,&rdquo; Penelope murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prince is over here on some sort of an errand which it isn&rsquo;t our
+      business to understand,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have no proof?&rdquo; she asked breathlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No proof at all,&rdquo; the Ambassador admitted. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even if this were so,&rdquo; Penelope said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Ambassador looked at her with some surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is by chance,&rdquo; Penelope protested. &ldquo;I have tried to avoid him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I cannot congratulate you upon your success,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey said
+      grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Things have changed a little between us, perhaps,&rdquo; Penelope said. &ldquo;What
+      is it that you really want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to know this,&rdquo; the Ambassador said slowly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything else?&rdquo; she asked with a faint note of sarcasm in her tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey replied, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even if we were friends,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;the very closest of friends, he
+      would never tell me. He is far too clever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not be too sure,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is going back very shortly,&rdquo; Penelope remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harvey nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is why I sent for you to come immediately. You will see him tonight
+      at Devenham House.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With all the rest of the world,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;but a man is not likely
+      to talk confidentially under such conditions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harvey rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is only a chance, of course,&rdquo; he admitted, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope held out her hand. The servant for whom the Ambassador had rung
+      was already in the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will try,&rdquo; she promised. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Ambassador bowed, and escorted her to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have confidence in you, Penelope,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You will try your best?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes!&rdquo; she answered with a queer little laugh, &ldquo;I shall do that. But I
+      don&rsquo;t think that even you quite understand Prince Maiyo!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII. PENELOPE INTERVENES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope stood upon the edge of the ballroom, her hand resting still upon
+      her partner&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+      <i>distrait</i>. She was watching the brilliant scene with a certain air
+      of abstraction, as though her interest in it was, after all, an impersonal
+      thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jolly well every one looks tonight,&rdquo; her partner, who was Sir Charles,
+      remarked. &ldquo;All the women seem to be wearing smart frocks, and some of
+      those foreign uniforms are gorgeous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even the Prince,&rdquo; Penelope said thoughtfully, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; she added, shivering slightly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Charles frowned a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prince again!&rdquo; he said, half protesting. &ldquo;He seems to be a great deal
+      in your thoughts lately, Penelope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;It is something to meet a person whom one is
+      able to dislike. Nowadays the whole world is so amiable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder how much you really do dislike him,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him with a mysterious smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes,&rdquo; she murmured softly, &ldquo;I wonder that myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leaving the Prince out of the question,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems callous of us to have come,&rdquo; Penelope declared. &ldquo;And yet, if we
+      hadn&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t say I find much to grumble at myself,&rdquo; Sir Charles said cheerfully.
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m frightfully sorry about poor old Dicky, of course, and every other
+      decent fellow who doesn&rsquo;t get his show. But, after all, it&rsquo;s no good being
+      morbid. Sackcloth and ashes benefit no one. Shall we have another turn?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; Penelope replied. &ldquo;Wait till the crowd thins a little. Tell me
+      what you have been doing today?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pretty strenuous time,&rdquo; Sir Charles remarked. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that all?&rdquo; Penelope asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The faint sarcasm which lurked beneath her question passed unnoticed. Sir
+      Charles smiled good-humoredly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not quite,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, perhaps!&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;Come and dance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prince!&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Charles whispered something a little under his breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; she remarked with apparent irrelevance, &ldquo;whether he dances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I go and find out for you?&rdquo; Sir Charles asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had suddenly grown absent. She had the air of scarcely hearing what he
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us stop,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am out of breath.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He led her toward the winter garden. They sat by a fountain, listening to
+      the cool play of the water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope,&rdquo; Somerfield said a little awkwardly, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The last few weeks,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;have been enough to change me toward
+      any one. All the same, I wasn&rsquo;t conscious of anything particular so far as
+      you are concerned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I always thought,&rdquo; he continued after a moment&rsquo;s hesitation, &ldquo;that there
+      was so much prejudice in your country against&mdash;against all Asiatic
+      races.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him steadfastly for a minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So there is,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;What of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing, except that it is a prejudice which you do not seem to share,&rdquo;
+       he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a way I do share it,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;but there are exceptions,
+      sometimes very wonderful exceptions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince Maiyo, for instance,&rdquo; he said bitterly. &ldquo;Yet a fortnight ago I
+      could have sworn that you hated him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that I do hate him,&rdquo; Penelope affirmed. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he has dared&mdash;&rdquo; Somerfield began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has dared nothing that he ought not to,&rdquo; Penelope interrupted. &ldquo;His
+      manners are altogether too perfect. It is the chill faultlessness of the
+      man which is so depressing. Can&rsquo;t you understand,&rdquo; she added, speaking in
+      a tone of greater intensity, &ldquo;that that is why I hate him? Hush!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&rsquo;s programme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will spare me some dances?&rdquo; he pleaded. &ldquo;I come late, but it is not
+      my fault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She yielded the programme to him without a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those with an X,&rsquo;&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;are free. One has to protect oneself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled as he wrote his own name, unrebuked, in four places.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our first dance, then, is number 10,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is the next but one. I
+      shall find you here, perhaps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here or amongst the chaperons,&rdquo; she answered, as they passed on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You admire Miss Morse?&rdquo; the Duchess asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Greatly,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;She is natural, she has grace, and she
+      has what I do not find so much in this country&mdash;would you say charm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is an excellent word,&rdquo; the Duchess answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince bowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will marry, I suppose?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; the Duchess answered. &ldquo;Sir Charles, poor fellow, is a
+      hopeless victim. I should not be surprised if she married him, some day or
+      other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince looked behind for a moment; then he stopped to admire a
+      magnificent orchid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be great good fortune for Sir Charles Somerfield,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield scarcely waited until the little party were out of sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve given that man four dances!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;that I should have given him eight if he had
+      asked for them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you allow me to take you back to your aunt?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;My aunt is quite happy without me, and I should
+      prefer to remain here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat down, fuming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope, what do you mean by it?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what do you mean by asking me what I mean by it?&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;You
+      haven&rsquo;t any especial right that I know of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to Heaven I had!&rdquo; he answered with a noticeable break in his
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a short silence. She turned away; she felt that she was suddenly
+      surrounded by a cloud of passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope,&rdquo; he pleaded,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not say another word,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I mean it,&mdash;you must
+      not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have waited for some time,&rdquo; he reminded her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the more reason why you should wait until the right time,&rdquo; she
+      insisted. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t let me lose the
+      one I value most. In a few weeks&rsquo; time you shall say whatever you like,
+      and, at any rate, I will listen to you. Will you be content with that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She laid her fingers upon his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am dancing this with Captain Wilmot,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Will you come and
+      bring me back here afterwards, unless you are engaged?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear young lady,&rdquo; he said, bowing low, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made room for him by her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;am weary of dancing. One does nothing else, night
+      after night. We will talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Talk or be silent,&rdquo; he answered softly. &ldquo;Myself I believe that you are in
+      need of silence. To be silent together is a proof of great friendship, is
+      it not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems to me that I have been through so much the last fortnight.&rdquo; she
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have suffered where you should not have suffered,&rdquo; he assented
+      gravely. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added calmly, &ldquo;so little to tell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Life to me just now,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not think,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that the rougher and more strenuous paths of
+      life were meant to be trodden by your sex. Please do not misunderstand
+      me,&rdquo; he went on earnestly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;the paths which a man must tread who seeks to
+      serve his country or his household,&mdash;the every-day life in which
+      sometimes intrigue or force is necessary. Do you agree with me, Miss
+      Morse?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so,&rdquo; she faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is why,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;it was painful to me to see you stand there
+      before those men, answering their questions,&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s
+      Ambassador! Perhaps he knew, too, those other thoughts which were in her
+      mind,&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He began to speak again, and his voice seemed pitched in lighter key.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you must think it strange of me to be so
+      egotistical&mdash;to speak all the time so much of my likes and dislikes.
+      To you I have been a little more outspoken than to others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have found me an interesting subject for investigation perhaps?&rdquo; she
+      asked, looking up suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You possess gifts,&rdquo; he admitted calmly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gifts of which you do not approve when possessed by my sex,&rdquo; she
+      suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a law to yourself, Miss Morse,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going soon?&rdquo; she asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very soon,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;My work is nearly finished, if indeed I may
+      dignify it by the name of work. Then I must go back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrank a little away from him, as though the word were distasteful to
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean that you will go back for always?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are many chances in life,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I am the servant of the
+      Emperor and my country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no hope, then,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;of your settling down here
+      altogether?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For once the marble immobility of his features seemed disturbed. He looked
+      at her in honest amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;But I am a son of Japan!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are many of your race who do live here,&rdquo; she reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled with the air of one who is forced to humor a person of limited
+      vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With them it is, alas! a matter of necessity,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is very hard
+      indeed to make you understand over here how we feel about such things,&mdash;there
+      seems to be a different spirit amongst you Western races, a different
+      spirit or a lack of spirit&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you are here now for her good?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Assuredly,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me in what way?&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;You have been studying English
+      customs, their methods of education, their political life, perhaps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&mdash;my own country&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; she answered softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; he added, leaving his seat as though with reluctance, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does the Duchess know that you are taking me?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I arranged it with her,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;My time draws soon to an end and I
+      am to be spoilt a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They crossed the ballroom together and mounted the great stairs. Something&mdash;she
+      never knew quite what it was&mdash;prompted her to detain him as they
+      paused on the threshold of the supper room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not often read the papers, Prince,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Perhaps you have
+      not seen that, after all, the police have discovered a clue to the
+      Hamilton Fynes murder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince looked down upon her for a moment without reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; he murmured softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She understood that she was to go on&mdash;that he was anxious for her to
+      go on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her Grace desires me to show your Highness to your seats,&rdquo; he announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Prince Maiyo turned to his companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you allow me to precede you through the crush?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We are to
+      go this way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII. EAST AND WEST
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder what they&rsquo;d think of your new admirer in New York, Penelope,&rdquo;
+       she remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I imagine,&rdquo; Penelope answered, &ldquo;that they would envy me very much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morse, who was a New Englander of the old-fashioned type, opened her
+      lips, but something in her niece&rsquo;s face restrained her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, at any rate,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I hope we don&rsquo;t go to war with them. The
+      Admiral wrote me, a few weeks ago, that he saw no hope for anything else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be a terrible complication,&rdquo; the Duchess sighed, &ldquo;especially
+      considering our own alliance with Japan. I don&rsquo;t think we need consider it
+      seriously, however. Over in America you people have too much common
+      sense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Government have, very likely,&rdquo; Miss Morse admitted, &ldquo;but it isn&rsquo;t
+      always the Government who decide things or who even rule the country. We
+      have an omnipotent Press, you know. All that&rsquo;s wanted is a weak President,
+      and Heaven knows where we should be!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; the Duchess remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Penelope, &ldquo;that if you could look into Prince Maiyo&rsquo;s
+      heart you would not find him half an Englishman. I think that he is more
+      than seven-eighths a Japanese.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard it whispered,&rdquo; the Duchess remarked, leaning forward, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are dancing again with the Prince?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;Here he comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled pleasantly at the young man, who towered like a giant
+      above him, and noticed at once his lack of cordiality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am selfish!&rdquo; he exclaimed, pausing with Penelope&rsquo;s hand upon his coat
+      sleeve. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will go into the winter garden and talk it over,&rdquo; she answered,
+      smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They found their old seats unoccupied. Once more they sat and listened to
+      the fall of the water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; said Penelope, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please,&rdquo; the Prince murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You spoke, a little time ago,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her in silence for several moments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he said,&mdash;&ldquo;may I call you that? Forgive me if I
+      am too forward, but I hear so many of our friends&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may call me that,&rdquo; she interrupted softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me remind you, then, of what we were saying a little time ago,&rdquo; he
+      went on. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not even to me?&rdquo; she pleaded. &ldquo;I am so insignificant. Surely I do not
+      count?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you yourself are a daughter of that country of
+      which we have been speaking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think, then,&rdquo; she asked, &ldquo;that I put my country before everything
+      else in the world?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;that you would. Your country is too young to be
+      wholly degenerate. It is true that you are a nation of fused races&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And therefore?&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And therefore,&rdquo; he continued with a delightful smile, &ldquo;I shall not
+      discuss my hopes or fears with you. Or if we do discuss them,&rdquo; he went on,
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; she begged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sighed, and leaned a little towards him. Her eyes were soft and dusky,
+      her red lips a little parted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;am not the Daughter of All America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor am I,&rdquo; he answered with a sigh, &ldquo;the Son of all Japan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have actually been talking nonsense,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and I thought that
+      you, Prince, were far too serious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were talking fairy tales,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;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,&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;it is not nonsense. But if they were?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The world might have been happier for both of us,&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield, sullen and discontented, came and looked at them, moved away,
+      and then hesitatingly returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Willmott is waiting for you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The last was my dance, and this
+      is his.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose at once and turned to the Prince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that we should go back,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Will you take me to my aunt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it must be so,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Tell me, Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course we will,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaned a little towards her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tomorrow?&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded. There were three engagements for the next day of which she
+      took no heed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tomorrow,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Come and let us arrange it with the Duchess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A coward always,&rdquo; he murmured to himself, a little wearily, for he knew
+      where his weakness lay,&mdash;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&rsquo;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!&mdash;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,&mdash;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&mdash;yes! To see her face shining
+      upon him from every beautiful place, to feel the delight of her presence
+      with every delicious sensation,&mdash;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&mdash;that
+      way lay slavery! He brushed the very thought from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he reached the door of his house in St. James&rsquo; Square, it opened slowly
+      before him. He had brought his own servants from his own country, and in
+      their master&rsquo;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&mdash;a
+      curious note of modernism where everything seemed to belong to a bygone
+      world&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Soto came gliding noiselessly into the room, fully dressed, with
+      tireless eyes but wan face,&mdash;Soto, the prototype of his master, the
+      most perfect secretary and servant evolved through all the years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Master,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;there has been trouble here. An Englishman came with
+      this card.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince took it, and read the name of Inspector Jacks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The man asked questions,&rdquo; Soto continued. &ldquo;We spoke English so badly that
+      he was puzzled. He went away, but he will come again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled, and laid his hand almost caressingly upon the other&rsquo;s
+      shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is of no consequence, Soto,&rdquo; he said,&mdash;&ldquo;no consequence whatever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV. AN ENGAGEMENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your rooms, Prince, are wonderful,&rdquo; Penelope said to him. &ldquo;I knew that
+      you were a man of taste, but I did not know that you were also a
+      millionaire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In my country,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I admire more than anything,&rdquo; the Duchess declared, &ldquo;is your
+      beautiful violet tone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;that you like my coloring. Some people have
+      thought it sombre. To me dark colors indoors are restful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything about the whole place is restful,&rdquo; Penelope said,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fresh air is good,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;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,&rdquo; he added with a faint
+      smile, &ldquo;if the magic works.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the magic never does work,&rdquo; she protested with a little sigh, &ldquo;and I
+      am not in the least interested in the past. Tell me something about the
+      future?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely that is easier,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Over the past we have lost our
+      control,&mdash;what has been must remain to the end of time. The future is
+      ours to do what we will with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That sounds so reasonable,&rdquo; the Duchess declared, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled tolerantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It depends a good deal, does it not,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added,
+      turning to Penelope. &ldquo;Let me show you the figures upon them, and I will
+      tell you the allegory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Always,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t it possible to
+      speak now and then of the present?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of the actual present?&rdquo; he asked softly. &ldquo;Of this very moment?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of this very moment, if you will,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;Your fairy tale the
+      other night was wonderful, but it was a long way off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s, a Lady Stretton-Wynne, was helping him receive his guests&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Show me the mystery of this lock,&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled, and taking the box from her hands, touched a little spring.
+      Almost at once the lid flew open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that it is empty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She peered in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;there is something there! See!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are these?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Are they symbols&mdash;the cord and the
+      knife of destiny?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there anything the matter?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Ought I not to have taken them
+      up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know that anything was in the box,&rdquo; he said calmly. &ldquo;I am sorry
+      if its contents have alarmed you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you are ready, I think that we ought to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess was more than ready. She rose promptly. The Prince walked with
+      them to the door and handed them over to his majordomo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has been so nice of you,&rdquo; he said to the Duchess, &ldquo;to honor my
+      bachelor abode. I shall often think of your visit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Prince,&rdquo; the Duchess declared, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very gracious,&rdquo; the Prince answered, bowing low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope&rsquo;s hands were within her muff. She was talking some nonsense&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really, I was not so much bored as I had feared,&rdquo; the Duchess remarked
+      composedly. &ldquo;That Stretton-Wynne woman generally gets on my nerves, but
+      her nephew seemed to have a restraining effect upon her. She didn&rsquo;t tell
+      me more than once about her husband&rsquo;s bad luck in not getting Canada, and
+      she never even mentioned her girls. But I do think, Penelope,&rdquo; she
+      continued, &ldquo;that I shall have to talk to you a little seriously. There&rsquo;s
+      the best-looking and richest young bachelor in London dying to marry you,
+      and you won&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you say another word to me, aunt,&rdquo; Penelope exclaimed, &ldquo;I shall
+      shriek!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess, being a woman of tact, laughed the subject away and pretended
+      not to notice Penelope&rsquo;s real distress. But when they had reached Devenham
+      House, she went to the telephone and called up Somerfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charlie,&rdquo; she said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right o&rsquo;!&rdquo; he interrupted. &ldquo;Who is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be careful what you are saying,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;because it isn&rsquo;t any one
+      who wants you to take them out to supper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I only wish you did,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the Duchess, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The worst of having a distinctive voice,&rdquo; she sighed. &ldquo;Listen. I want to
+      speak to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am listening hard,&rdquo; Somerfield answered. &ldquo;Hold the instrument a little
+      further away from you,&mdash;that&rsquo;s better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have been to the Prince&rsquo;s for tea this afternoon&mdash;Penelope and
+      I,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; he assented. &ldquo;I was asked, but I didn&rsquo;t see the fun of it. It
+      puts my back up to see Penelope monopolized by that fellow,&rdquo; he added
+      gloomily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, listen to what I have to say,&rdquo; the Duchess went on. &ldquo;Something
+      happened there&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know what&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m beastly sorry,&rdquo; Somerfield answered. &ldquo;I meant to say that I was jolly
+      glad to hear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess coughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t quite hear what you said before,&rdquo; she said severely. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Awfully good of you,&rdquo; Somerfield declared heartily. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll come with
+      pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s surprise, she made not the slightest objection when he
+      followed her into the library after dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;something has gone wrong. Won&rsquo;t you tell me what it
+      is? You look worried.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She returned his anxious gaze, dry-eyed but speechless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has that fellow, Prince Maiyo, done or said anything&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;No! don&rsquo;t mention his name, please! I don&rsquo;t want to hear
+      his name again just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my part,&rdquo; Somerfield said bitterly, &ldquo;I never want to hear it again as
+      long as I live!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a short silence. Suddenly she turned towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charlie,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you have asked me to marry you six times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seven,&rdquo; he corrected. &ldquo;I ask you again now&mdash;that makes eight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;I accept&mdash;on one condition.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On any,&rdquo; he exclaimed, his voice trembling with joy. &ldquo;Penelope, it sounds
+      too good to be true. You can&rsquo;t be in earnest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;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&mdash;not anything&mdash;for three
+      months&rsquo; time, at least. Promise that until then you will not let me hear
+      the sound of the word marriage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promise,&rdquo; he said firmly. &ldquo;Penelope, you mean it? You mean this
+      seriously?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave him her hands and a very sad little smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean it, Charlie,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I will keep my word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV. PENELOPE EXPLAINS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not much to say to you, Mr. Harvey,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A propos of our last conversation?&rdquo; he asked eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She bowed her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It concerns Prince Maiyo,&rdquo; she admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are sure that you will not sit down?&rdquo; he persisted. &ldquo;You know how
+      interesting this is to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To me,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember it perfectly,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were right,&rdquo; Penelope said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Ambassador drew a little breath. It was staggering, this, even if
+      expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have talked with the Prince several times since our conversation,&rdquo;
+       Penelope continued. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What were they?&rdquo; the Ambassador asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A roll of silken cord,&rdquo; Penelope said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he know that you found them?&rdquo; Mr. Blaine-Harvey asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was with me,&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;He even, at my request, opened the
+      casket. He must have forgotten that they were there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; the Ambassador said thoughtfully, &ldquo;he never knew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One cannot tell,&rdquo; Penelope answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he say anything when you discovered them?&rdquo; the Ambassador asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; Penelope declared. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Ambassador walked to the window and back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you have only confirmed what I felt must be so, but
+      even then the certainty of it is rather a shock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave him her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have told you the truth,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harvey nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have just been given to understand as much,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;At present he is
+      to be met with every day. I believe that he is even now in my drawing
+      rooms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where I ought to be,&rdquo; Penelope said, turning toward the door, &ldquo;only I
+      felt that I must see you first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not come with you,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey said. &ldquo;There is no need for our
+      little conference to become the subject of comment. By the bye,&rdquo; he added,
+      &ldquo;let me take this opportunity of wishing you every happiness. I haven&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope&rsquo;s smile was a little forced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you very much,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is all rather in the air, at present,
+      you know. We are not going to be married for some time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When it comes off,&rdquo; the Ambassador said, &ldquo;I am going to talk to the
+      Duchess and Miss Morse. I think that I ought to give you away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope made her way into Mrs. Blaine-Harvey&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it true?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is true that I am engaged to Sir Charles Somerfield,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must wish you every happiness,&rdquo; he said slowly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a born courtier, Prince,&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;Please remember that in
+      my democratic country one has never had a chance of getting used to such
+      speeches.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your country,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you say that over to yourself so doubtfully?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beyond a doubt,&rdquo; the Prince answered gravely. &ldquo;They go to the making of a
+      man. It is as you say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You like him personally, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Charles Somerfield and I are almost strangers,&rdquo; the Prince replied.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me in what respect your tastes are so far apart?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;You
+      say that as though there were something in the manner of his life of which
+      you disapproved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are sons of different countries, Miss Penelope,&rdquo; the Prince said. &ldquo;We
+      look out upon life differently, and the things which seem good to him may
+      well seem idle to me. Before I go,&rdquo; he added a little hesitatingly, &ldquo;we
+      may speak of this again. But not now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall remind you of that promise, Prince,&rdquo; she declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not fail to keep it,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;You have, at least,&rdquo; he added
+      after a moment&rsquo;s pause, &ldquo;one great claim upon happiness. You are the son
+      and the daughter of kindred races.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him as though not quite understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking,&rdquo; he continued simply, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not well for you, this,&rdquo; she remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not mistake me,&rdquo; he begged. &ldquo;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&mdash;things which come most
+      to the surface when I am in this, her own country&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and talk to the Duchess,&rdquo; Somerfield said. &ldquo;She has something
+      delightful to propose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI. CONCERNING PRINCE MAIYO
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess looked up from her writing table and nodded to her husband,
+      who had just entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Ambrose!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Do you want to talk to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can spare me five minutes,&rdquo; the Duke suggested. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think
+      that I need keep you longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess handed her notebook to her secretary, who hastened from the
+      room. The Duke seated himself in her vacant chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About our little party down in Hampshire next week,&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am waiting to hear from you before I send out any invitations,&rdquo; the
+      Duchess answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite so,&rdquo; the Duke assented. &ldquo;To tell you the truth, I don&rsquo;t want
+      anything in the nature of a house party. What I should really like would
+      be to get Maiyo there almost to ourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife looked at him in some surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem particularly anxious to make things pleasant for this young
+      man,&rdquo; she remarked. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Margaret,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;I don&rsquo;t mean as a personal
+      matter. It&rsquo;s a matter of politics&mdash;perhaps of something greater,
+      even, than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess liked to understand everything, and her husband&rsquo;s reticence
+      annoyed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we have the Japanese Ambassador always with us,&rdquo; she remarked. &ldquo;A
+      most delightful person I call the Baron Hesho, and I am sure he loves us
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is not exactly the point, my dear,&rdquo; the Duke explained. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess smiled good humoredly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my dear Ambrose,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what more we can do than
+      feed him properly and give him pleasant people to talk to. He doesn&rsquo;t go
+      in for sports, does he? All I can promise is that we will do our best to
+      be agreeable to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure of it, my dear,&rdquo; the Duke said. &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t committed yourself
+      to asking any one, by the bye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a soul,&rdquo; his wife answered, &ldquo;except Sir Charles. I had to ask him, of
+      course, for Penelope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; the Duke assented. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; the Duchess said dryly, &ldquo;you would like him to take a fancy to
+      Grace?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t mind in the least,&rdquo; her husband declared. &ldquo;I never met a
+      young man whom I respected and admired more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor I, for that matter,&rdquo; the Duchess agreed. &ldquo;And yet, somehow or other&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somehow or other?&rdquo; the Duke repeated courteously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I never altogether trust these paragons,&rdquo; his wife said. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing at all,&rdquo; the Duke said, rising to his feet. &ldquo;I only wanted to
+      make it plain that we don&rsquo;t require a house party next week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shan&rsquo;t ask a soul,&rdquo; the Duchess answered. &ldquo;Do you mind ringing the bell
+      as you pass? I&rsquo;ll have Miss Smith back again and send these letters off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good!&rdquo; the Duke declared. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going down to the House, but I don&rsquo;t
+      suppose there&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke drove down to the House, but called first in Downing Street. He
+      found the Prime Minister anxious to see him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve arranged about Maiyo coming down to you next week?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; the Duke answered. &ldquo;He is coming, for certain. One
+      good thing about that young man&mdash;he never breaks an engagement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prime Minister consulted a calendar which lay open before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mind,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;if I come, too, and Bransome?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, of course not,&rdquo; the Duke replied. &ldquo;We shall be delighted. We have
+      seventy bedrooms, and only half a dozen or so of us. But tell me&mdash;is
+      this young man as important as all that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall have to have a serious talk,&rdquo; the Prime Minister said, &ldquo;in a few
+      days&rsquo; time. I don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an odd thing,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;that they should both have been
+      Americans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heseltine thinks there&rsquo;s something behind this correspondence,&rdquo; the Prime
+      Minister said slowly. &ldquo;Washington was very secretive about the man Fynes&rsquo; 
+      identity. I found that out from Scotland Yard. Do you know, I&rsquo;m half
+      inclined to think, although I can&rsquo;t get a word out of Harvey, that this
+      man Fynes&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prime Minister hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; the Duke asked a little impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to go too far,&rdquo; his chief said. &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the most remarkable case I ever heard of in my life,&rdquo; the Duke
+      admitted, helping himself to a cigarette from a box which he had just
+      discovered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is another point,&rdquo; the Prime Minister continued. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t understand it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t suggest, I suppose,&rdquo; the Duke asked, &ldquo;that we are not trying
+      to clear the matter up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t suggest it,&rdquo; his chief answered, &ldquo;but I can&rsquo;t quite make out
+      what&rsquo;s at the back of their heads. However, I won&rsquo;t bother you about that
+      now. If I were to propound Heseltine&rsquo;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&rsquo;re not in a hurry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mind walking?&rdquo; the Prime Minister said. &ldquo;There is another matter
+      I&rsquo;d like to talk to you about, and there&rsquo;s nowhere better than the streets
+      for a little conversation. Besides, I need the air.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With pleasure,&rdquo; the Duke answered, who loathed walking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He directed his coachman to precede them, and they started off, arm in
+      arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Devenham,&rdquo; the Prime Minister said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are serious?&rdquo; the Duke exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Absolutely,&rdquo; the Prime Minister answered. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve
+      had him to dine with me alone, and I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He seems pleased enough with us,&rdquo; the Duke remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not so sure,&rdquo; the Prime Minister answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From my experience of him,&rdquo; the Duke said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we shall know
+      until he chooses to tell us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid you are right,&rdquo; the Prime Minister declared. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll mention it,&rdquo; the Duke promised, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought of that,&rdquo; the Prime Minister assented. &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke threw away his cigarette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we can only do our best. The young man seems friendly
+      enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prime Minister nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is precisely his friendliness which I fear,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII. A GAY NIGHT IN PARIS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, old man,&rdquo; he whispered in his ear,&mdash;they were sitting side by
+      side now in the Bal Tabarin,&mdash;&ldquo;if you are going on like this, Heaven
+      knows where you&rsquo;ll land at the end of it all! I&rsquo;ll look after you as well
+      as I can,&mdash;where you go, I&rsquo;ll go&mdash;but we can&rsquo;t be together every
+      second of the time. Don&rsquo;t you think you&rsquo;d be safer if you handed over your
+      pocketbook to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right you are!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared, falling a little over on one side.
+      &ldquo;Take it out of my pocket. Be careful of it now. There&rsquo;s five hundred
+      francs there, and the plans of a loom which I wouldn&rsquo;t sell for a good
+      many thousands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Gaynsforth possessed himself quickly of the pocketbook, and satisfied
+      himself that his friend&rsquo;s description of its contents was fairly correct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve nothing else upon you worth taking care of?&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;You
+      can trust me, you know. You haven&rsquo;t any papers, or anything of that sort?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if I have, my young friend,&rdquo; he said calmly, &ldquo;what the devil business
+      is it of yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are too good an actor for me, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Suppose we get
+      to business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go somewhere where we can
+      get some supper. We&rsquo;ll go to the Abbaye Theleme, and you shall have the
+      pleasure of entertaining me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s up to you to pay,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;so you shall choose the supper.
+      Personally, I&rsquo;m for a few oysters, a hot bird, and a cold bottle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;not
+      a little to his companion&rsquo;s astonishment,&mdash;at last turned to
+      business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;s see where we are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Gaynsforth began to recover himself. It did not follow, because he had
+      made one mistake, that he was to lose the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am neither a detective, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;nor a secret service
+      agent,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;Get right on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That friend,&rdquo; Mr. Gaynsforth continued calmly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thousand pounds,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson repeated. &ldquo;Gee whiz!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is also,&rdquo; the Englishman continued, &ldquo;prepared to pay another thousand
+      for a satisfactory explanation of the murder of Mr. Richard Vanderpole on
+      the following day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, your friend&rsquo;s got the stuff!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked admiringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend is not a poor man,&rdquo; Mr. Gaynsforth admitted. &ldquo;You see, there&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a very interesting job you&rsquo;re on, and no mistake,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson
+      declared. &ldquo;I wonder you waste time coming over here on the spree when
+      you&rsquo;ve got a piece of business like that to look after.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came over here,&rdquo; Mr. Gaynsforth replied, &ldquo;entirely on the matter I have
+      mentioned to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, over here to Paris?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not only to Paris,&rdquo; the other replied dryly, &ldquo;but to discover one Mr.
+      James B. Coulson, whose health I now have the pleasure of drinking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson drained the glass which the waiter had just filled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, this licks me!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t imagine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You knew Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; Mr. Gaynsforth remarked. &ldquo;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,&mdash;that also came
+      out at the inquest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kind of queer, wasn&rsquo;t it,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked meditatively, &ldquo;how I
+      seemed to get hung up with both of them? You may also remember that at the
+      inquest Mr. Vanderpole&rsquo;s business with me was testified to by the chief of
+      his department.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; Mr. Gaynsforth answered. &ldquo;However, that&rsquo;s neither here nor
+      there. Everything was properly arranged, so far as you were concerned, of
+      course. That doesn&rsquo;t alter my friend&rsquo;s convictions. This is a business
+      matter with me, and if the two thousand pounds don&rsquo;t sound attractive
+      enough, well, the amount must be revised, that&rsquo;s all. But I want you to
+      understand this, Mr. Coulson, I represent a man or a syndicate, or call it
+      what you will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call it a Government,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson muttered under his breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call it what you will,&rdquo; Mr. Gaynsforth continued, with an air of not
+      having heard the interruption, &ldquo;we have the money and we want the
+      information. You can give it to us if you like. We don&rsquo;t ask for too much.
+      We don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you ordered the supper?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson inquired anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have ordered everything you suggested,&rdquo; Mr. Gaynsforth answered,&mdash;&ldquo;some
+      oysters, a chicken en casserole, lettuce salad, some cheese, and a magnum
+      of Pommery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is understood that you are my host?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson insisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Absolutely,&rdquo; his companion declared. &ldquo;I consider it an honor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson said, pointing out his empty glass to the <i>sommelier</i>,
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;ll
+      get that firmly into your head and stick to it and believe it, there&rsquo;s no
+      reason why you and I shouldn&rsquo;t have a pleasant evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I congratulate you and your employers. To the
+      lower regions with business! Help yourself to the oysters and pass the
+      wine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII. MR. COULSON IS INDISCREET
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;clock he left the Gare du Nord for London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will allow me to divide the expense,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied, &ldquo;I
+      shall be exceedingly obliged to you, and will accept your offer. I am,
+      unfortunately, a bad sailor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is as you will, sir,&rdquo; the gentleman answered. &ldquo;The amount is only
+      trifling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to have a horrible time,&rdquo; he said frankly. &ldquo;I am afraid you&rsquo;ll
+      repent your offer before you&rsquo;ve done with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His new friend smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never been seasick in my life,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s nothing to laugh at,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked gloomily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me give you a little advice,&rdquo; his friend said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing does me any good,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson groaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This,&rdquo; the stranger remarked, producing a flask from his case and
+      dividing the liquor into equal parts, &ldquo;may send you to sleep. If so,
+      you&rsquo;ll be across before you wake up. Here&rsquo;s luck!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s of no consequence,&rdquo; he declared, ringing for the steward. &ldquo;I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson sat down upon the berth. He seemed indisposed for speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll leave you now, then,&rdquo; his friend said, buttoning his coat around
+      him. &ldquo;You lie flat down on your back, and I think you&rsquo;ll find yourself all
+      right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That brandy,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson muttered, &ldquo;was infernally&mdash;- strong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No seal,&rdquo; he said softly to himself. &ldquo;My friend Mr. Coulson plays the
+      game of travelling agent to perfection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; he whispered, looking down upon Mr. Coulson&rsquo;s uneasy figure,
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s head, he forced it down his throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I think, Mr. Coulson, that you had better wake up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, how has the remedy worked?&rdquo; the stranger inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s given me a brute of a headache,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;but I certainly
+      haven&rsquo;t been seasick up till now, and I must say I&rsquo;ve never crossed before
+      without being ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger laughed soothingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That brandy and soda would keep you right.&rdquo; He said. &ldquo;When we get to
+      Folkestone, you&rsquo;ll be wanting a supper basket. Make yourself at home. I
+      don&rsquo;t need the cabin. It&rsquo;s a glorious night outside. I shouldn&rsquo;t have come
+      in at all except to see how you were getting on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long before we are in?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About a quarter of an hour,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll come for you, if you
+      like. Have a few minute&rsquo;s nap if you feel sleepy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not I!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His friend laughed as he helped him out on to the deck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t grumble at it, if I were you,&rdquo; he said carelessly. &ldquo;It saved
+      you from a bad crossing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I owe the little beggar for half that cabin,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson thought
+      with a sensation of annoyance. &ldquo;I wonder where he&rsquo;s hidden himself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX. A MOMENTOUS QUESTION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have just written you a line, Bransome,&rdquo; he said, as they shook hands.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very kind, Duke,&rdquo; Bransome answered. &ldquo;I suppose Haviland
+      explained the matter to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going to help me entertain my other distinguished visitor,&rdquo; he
+      remarked. &ldquo;I fancy we shall be quite an interesting party.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bransome glanced around.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope most earnestly,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that we shall induce our young friend
+      to be a little more candid with us than he has been. One can&rsquo;t get a word
+      out of Hesho, but I&rsquo;m bound to say that I don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I read them,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His secretary approached Bransome and touched him on the shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is a person in the anteroom, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;whom I think that you
+      ought to see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke nodded and passed on. The Secretary drew his chief on one side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This man has just arrived from Paris, sir,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;and is the
+      bearer of a letter which he is instructed to deliver into your hands
+      only.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bransome nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he known to us at all?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;From whom does the letter come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The letter itself, sir, has nothing to do with France, I imagine,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Washington has certainly shown signs of mistrust lately,&rdquo; he remarked,
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;I think we can both
+      guess what it is about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The secretary nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I ring up Mr. Haviland, sir?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; Bransome answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &amp; Bruce Syndicate
+      should look, was inclined to wonder whether his secretary had made a
+      mistake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was told that you wished to see me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am Sir Edward
+      Bransome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. James B. Coulson nodded appreciatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good of you, Sir Edward,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward bent his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that you come from the United
+      States.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is so, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied. &ldquo;I am at the head of a syndicate,
+      the Coulson &amp; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Satisfactorily, I trust?&rdquo; Sir Edward remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;m not grumbling, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson assented. &ldquo;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&rsquo;m not grumbling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bransome bowed. Perhaps, after all, the man was not a fool!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a good many friends round about Washington,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson
+      continued, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t the
+      postage stamp that worries them,&rdquo; he added with a little laugh, &ldquo;but they
+      sort of feel that anything committed to me is fairly safe to reach its
+      right destination.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Without disputing that fact for one moment, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; Sir Edward
+      remarked, &ldquo;I might also suggest that the ordinary mail service between our
+      countries has reached a marvellous degree of perfection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Post Office,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson continued meditatively, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a fact, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson produced it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friend of mine you may have heard of,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is getting late, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; Sir Edward reminded him, glancing at
+      the clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, Sir Edward,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that in your line of business time counts
+      for little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward motioned his visitor to a chair and touched the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall require the A3X cipher, Sidney,&rdquo; he said to his secretary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;ll need that. The letter you&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward withdrew the enclosure from its envelope and raised his
+      eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t this a trifle indiscreet?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I should say not,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;My friend&mdash;Mr. Jones
+      we&rsquo;ll call him&mdash;knew me and, I presume, knew what he was about.
+      Besides, that is a plain letter from the head of a business firm to&mdash;shall
+      we say a client? There&rsquo;s nothing in it to conceal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the same time,&rdquo; Sir Edward remarked, &ldquo;it might have been as well to
+      have fastened the flap of the envelope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me look,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bit short of gum in our stationery office,&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward was looking at him steadily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My impressions were,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;when I opened this letter, that I was not
+      the first person who had done so. The envelope flew apart in my fingers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The document has never been out of my possession, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This letter, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is not an official communication.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted. &ldquo;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,&mdash;at least, that is how my friend Mr. Jones looks at
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The only answer your friend asks for is a verbal one,&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A verbal one,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson assented, &ldquo;delivered to me in the presence of
+      one other person, whose name you will find mentioned in that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward bowed his head. When he spoke again, his manner had somehow
+      changed. It had become at once more official,&mdash;a trifle more stilted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is a great subject, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is a subject which
+      has occupied the attention of His Majesty&rsquo;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&rsquo; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson smiled and nodded his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is what I call diplomacy, Sir Edward,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;I always tell
+      our people that they are too bullheaded. They don&rsquo;t use enough words. What
+      about that other friend of yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward glanced at his watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is possible,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that by this time Mr.&mdash;&mdash;- Mr.
+      Smith, shall we call him, to match your Mr. Jones?&mdash;is attending my
+      wife&rsquo;s reception, from which your message called me. If he has not yet
+      arrived, my secretary shall telephone for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson indicated his approval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seems to me,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;that I have struck a fortunate evening for my
+      visit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward touched the bell and his secretary appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;will you allow me the privilege of offering you
+      some refreshment?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;I am in want of nothing but a
+      smoke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward turned to the bell, but his visitor promptly stopped him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will allow me, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I will smoke one of my own.
+      Home-made article, five dollars a hundred, but I can&rsquo;t stand these strong
+      Havanas. Try one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward waved them away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will excuse me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo; conversation upon
+      another matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson showed some signs of surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is another subject,&rdquo; Sir Edward said, &ldquo;which I should like to
+      discuss with you while we are waiting for Mr. Smith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX. THE ANSWER
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson moved his cigar into a corner of his mouth, as though to
+      obtain a clear view of his questioner&rsquo;s face. His expression was one of
+      bland interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I guess you&rsquo;ve got me puzzled, Sir Edward,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You aren&rsquo;t
+      thinking of doing anything in woollen machinery, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think not, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;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&mdash;a
+      Mr. Hamilton Fynes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hamilton Fynes!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson repeated thoughtfully. &ldquo;Why, that&rsquo;s the man
+      who got murdered on the cars, going from Liverpool to London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is so,&rdquo; Sir Edward admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told that reporter fellow all I knew about him,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He was an
+      unsociable sort of chap, you know, Sir Edward, and he wasn&rsquo;t in any line
+      of business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H&rsquo;m! I thought he might have been,&rdquo; the Minister answered, glancing
+      keenly for a moment at his visitor. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson scratched his chin for a moment thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I can understand their feeling a bit sore about it. I&rsquo;m
+      not exactly given to brag when I&rsquo;m away from my own country&mdash;one
+      hears too much of that all the time&mdash;but between you and me, I
+      shouldn&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The matter,&rdquo; Sir Edward declared, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; Sir Edward
+      continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson knocked the ash from his cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see what you are driving at,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am sorry I can be of no
+      assistance to you, Sir Edward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither in the case of Mr. Hamilton Fynes or in the case of Mr. Richard
+      Vanderpole?&rdquo; Sir Edward asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite out of my line,&rdquo; he declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Notwithstanding the fact,&rdquo; Sir Edward reminded him quietly, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;A nice young fellow he was, too. Well set
+      up, and real American manners,&mdash;Hail, fellow, well met!&rsquo; with you
+      right away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the Minister suggested smoothly, &ldquo;it wouldn&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do think of things!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked admiringly. &ldquo;You&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; Sir Edward said, &ldquo;we should consider the nature of those
+      documents, and we should see to whose advantage it was that they were
+      suppressed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And supposing it was your country&rsquo;s?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was not thinking of my own country,&rdquo; Sir Edward admitted. &ldquo;I must
+      confess that my thoughts had turned elsewhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me tell you this, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson continued. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you suggest any method,&rdquo; he asked a little dryly, &ldquo;by means of which
+      we might remove this unfortunate impression?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson flicked the ash once more from the end of his cigar and looked
+      at it thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t my show,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;d do my best to prove, by the only possible means, that
+      I was taking the matter seriously.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The only possible means being?&rdquo; Sir Edward asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I&rsquo;d offer a reward,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward did not hesitate for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your idea is an excellent one, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That sounds bully,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think that it will have a good effect upon your friends in
+      Washington?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson asked. &ldquo;I know nothing about it. I&rsquo;ve given you my
+      personal opinion only. Seems to me, though, it&rsquo;s the best way of showing
+      that you&rsquo;re in earnest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before we quit this subject finally, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; Sir Edward said, &ldquo;I am
+      going to ask you a question which you have been asked before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Referring to Hamilton Fynes?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get your young man to lay his hand on that copy of the Comet,&rdquo; Mr.
+      Coulson begged earnestly. &ldquo;I told that pushing young journalist all I knew
+      and a bit more. I assure you, my information isn&rsquo;t worth anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it meant to be worth anything?&rdquo; Sir Edward asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson remained imperturbable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t mind, Sir Edward,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I guess we&rsquo;ll drop the subject
+      of Mr. Hamilton Fynes. We can&rsquo;t get any forwarder. Let it go at that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a knock at the door. Sir Edward&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Bransome,&rdquo; he said, shaking hands, &ldquo;isn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward leaned across the table towards Mr. Coulson. Mr. Coulson had
+      risen to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This gentleman,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is Mr. Smith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The newcomer opened his lips to protest, but Sir Edward held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One moment,&rdquo; he begged. &ldquo;Our friend here&mdash;Mr. J. B. Coulson from New
+      York&mdash;has brought a letter from America. He is sailing tomorrow,&mdash;leaving
+      London somewhere about eight o&rsquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is exactly the position, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson continued, &ldquo;and yet it is a matter with so many
+      ramifications that after much discussion it might become a veritable
+      chaos.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Smith inclined his head gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I appreciate the situation,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;My friend here&mdash;Sir Edward
+      Bransome&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None whatever, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I leave it to you to put it in your own words,&rdquo; Mr. Smith continued. &ldquo;The
+      affair is within your province, and the policy of His Majesty&rsquo;s Ministers
+      is absolutely fixed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward turned toward their visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&mdash;our answer&mdash;to you is
+      this,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all very interesting indeed, Sir Edward,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;I
+      don&rsquo;t want to keep you gentlemen up too late, so perhaps you will be
+      coming to the answer of my question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The answer!&rdquo; Sir Edward exclaimed. &ldquo;Surely I made myself clear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All that you have said,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted, &ldquo;has been remarkably
+      clear, but the question I asked you was this,&mdash;what is to be the
+      position of your country in the event of war between Japan and America?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I have told you,&rdquo; Sir Edward declared, &ldquo;that war between Japan and
+      America is not a subject within the scope of practical politics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We may consider ourselves&mdash;my friend Mr. Jones would certainly
+      consider himself,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson affirmed,&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;t that sort of
+      reply I want to take back to Mr. Jones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Smith and his colleague exchanged glances, and the latter drew his
+      chief on one side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will excuse me for a moment, I know, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, by all means,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;My time is my own, and it is
+      entirely at your service. If you say the word, I&rsquo;ll go outside and wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not necessary,&rdquo; Sir Edward answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room was a large one, and the two men walked slowly up and down, Mr.
+      Smith leaning all the time upon his colleague&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; that gentleman answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are aware, then,&rdquo; Mr. Smith continued, &ldquo;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&rsquo; time, Mr. Coulson, our treaty with Japan will
+      have expired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are seeking to renew it!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Smith raised his eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The renewal of that treaty,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson rose slowly to his feet and took up his hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen both,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s what I call plain speaking. I suppose
+      it&rsquo;s up to us to read between the lines. I can assure you that my friend
+      Mr. Jones will appreciate it. It isn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t come in my way. That is why I feel I can criticize,&mdash;I
+      am unprejudiced. You are Britishers, and you&rsquo;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&rsquo;t seek a war with us, it doesn&rsquo;t follow
+      that she&rsquo;s convinced us. As to the rights of our dispute, don&rsquo;t rely so
+      much upon hearing one side only. Don&rsquo;t be dogmatic about it, and say this
+      thing is and that thing isn&rsquo;t. You may bet your last dollar that America
+      isn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bransome touched the bell and summoned his secretary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney, will you see this gentleman out?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You are quite sure
+      there is nothing further we can do for you, Mr. Coulson?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing at all, I thank you, sir,&rdquo; that gentleman answered. &ldquo;I have only
+      got to thank you once more for the pleasure of this brief interview. Good
+      night!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night, and bon voyage!&rdquo; Sir Edward answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; he remarked thoughtfully, &ldquo;how our friends in Japan convinced
+      themselves so thoroughly that Mr. Jones was only playing ships!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It makes one wonder,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI. A CLUE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There wasn&rsquo;t a word about any reward,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks was told, &ldquo;until
+      this morning. We had a telephone message from the chief&rsquo;s bedroom and
+      phoned you up at once. It&rsquo;s a pretty stiff amount, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is,&rdquo; the Inspector admitted. &ldquo;Our chief seems to be taking quite a
+      personal interest in the matter all at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll lay two to one that some one was on to him at Sir Edward Bransome&rsquo;s
+      reception last night,&rdquo; the other remarked. &ldquo;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&rsquo;ve no desire to seem censorious, you
+      know, Jacks,&rdquo; the young man went on, leaning back in his chair and
+      lighting a cigarette, &ldquo;but it does seem a dashed queer thing that you
+      can&rsquo;t put your finger upon either of these fellows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks nodded gloomily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt it seems so to you,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you&rsquo;ve got your eye on some one?&rdquo; The young man asked curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not say so,&rdquo; the Inspector answered warily. &ldquo;By the bye, do you
+      think there would be any chance of five minutes&rsquo; interview with your
+      chief?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man shook his head slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a cheek you&rsquo;ve got, Jacks!&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not serious, are
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perfectly,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks answered. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t know it already, that I am
+      in charge of the investigations concerning these two murders, he will see
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man was disposed to consider the point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;the chief does seem plaguy interested, all of a
+      sudden. I&rsquo;ll pass your name in. If you take a seat, it&rsquo;s just possible
+      that he may spare you a minute or two in about an hour&rsquo;s time. He won&rsquo;t be
+      able to before then, I&rsquo;m sure. There&rsquo;s a deputation almost due, and two
+      other appointments before luncheon time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector accepted a newspaper and an easy chair. His young friend
+      disappeared and returned almost immediately, looking a little surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve managed it for you,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;The chief is going to spare you
+      five minutes at once. Come along and I&rsquo;ll show you in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Scotland Yard, I understand, Mr. Jacks?&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At your service, sir,&rdquo; the Inspector answered. &ldquo;I am in charge of the
+      investigations concerning these two recent murders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite so,&rdquo; the Home Secretary remarked. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are willing to admit that,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know whether the reward will help you very much,&rdquo; the Home
+      Secretary continued. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The offering of the reward, sir,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks said, &ldquo;can do no harm,
+      and it may possibly assist us very materially.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to have your opinion, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; the Home Secretary said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment&rsquo;s pause. The Minister trifled with some papers lying on
+      the desk before him. Then he turned to his visitor and continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had, sir,&rdquo; the Inspector answered. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Home Secretary raised his eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he began,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope, sir,&rdquo; the Inspector protested, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Minister considered for several moments, and then slowly inclined his
+      head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A flash of satisfaction illuminated for a moment the detective&rsquo;s
+      inexpressive features. He rose and took up his hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very much obliged to you, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The information which you
+      have given me is extremely valuable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to hear you say so,&rdquo; the Home Secretary declared. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you would not think it a liberty, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I should be very
+      glad indeed if you would give me a note which would insure me an interview
+      with Sir Edward Bransome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will give it you with pleasure,&rdquo; the Secretary answered, &ldquo;although I
+      imagine that he would be quite willing to see you on your own request.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrote a few lines and passed them over. Inspector Jacks saluted, and
+      turned towards the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll let me know if anything turns up?&rdquo; the Home Secretary said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall be informed at once, sir,&rdquo; the Inspector assured him, a as he
+      left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you wish to speak to me?&rdquo; Sir Edward asked, drawing back from the
+      step of his electric brougham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you are Inspector Jacks from Scotland Yard,&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At your service, sir,&rdquo; the detective answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can get in with me, if you like,&rdquo; Sir Edward continued, motioning
+      toward the interior of his brougham. &ldquo;I am due in Downing Street now, but
+      I dare say you could say what you wish to on the way there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, sir,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks answered. &ldquo;It will be very good of you
+      indeed if you can spare me those few minutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The brougham glided away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; Sir Edward said, &ldquo;what can I do for you? If you want to
+      arrest me, I shall claim privilege.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am in charge, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward inclined his head slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Edward Bransome,&rdquo; the Inspector continued, &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward lit a cigarette and leaned back amongst the cushions. With a
+      little gesture he indicated his desire that Inspector Jacks should
+      proceed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My object in seeking for a personal interview with you, sir,&rdquo; Inspector
+      Jacks continued, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward looked at his companion in steadfast amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Inspector,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks seemed a little at a loss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is your wish, then, sir,&rdquo; he said slowly, &ldquo;that the guilty person or
+      persons be arrested without warning, whoever they may be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By all means,&rdquo; Sir Edward affirmed. &ldquo;I cannot conceive, Inspector, what
+      you have in your mind which could have led you for a moment to suspect the
+      contrary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am exceedingly obliged to you for your answer to my question, sir,&rdquo; he
+      said, saluting. &ldquo;I hope that in a few days we shall have some news for
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward watched him disappear as he mounted the steps of the Prime
+      Minister&rsquo;s house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; he said to himself thoughtfully, &ldquo;what that fellow can have in
+      his mind!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks did not at once return to Scotland Yard. On his way there
+      he turned into St. James&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is your master at home?&rdquo; the Inspector asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His Highness does not see strangers,&rdquo; the man replied coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you take him my card?&rdquo; the Inspector asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man bowed, and showed him into an apartment on the ground floor. Then
+      with the card in his hand, he turned reluctantly away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His Highness shall be informed that you are here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I fear,
+      however, that you waste your time. I go to see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII. A BREATH FROM THE EAST
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s hammers, and then chaos!...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The end of the nightmare was not altogether according to Inspector Jacks&rsquo; 
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are better, I trust, sir?&rdquo; Prince Maiyo said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am better,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks muttered. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;I can&rsquo;t
+      imagine what happened to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were not feeling quite well, perhaps, this morning,&rdquo; the Prince said
+      soothingly. &ldquo;A little run down, no doubt. Your profession&mdash;I gather
+      from your card that you come from Scotland Yard&mdash;is an arduous one. I
+      came into the room and found you lying upon your back, gasping for
+      breath.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was absolutely and entirely well,&rdquo; he declared stoutly, &ldquo;both when I
+      left home this morning and when I entered that room to wait for you. I
+      don&rsquo;t know what it was that came over me,&rdquo; he continued doubtfully, &ldquo;but
+      the atmosphere seemed suddenly to become unbearable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Prince Maiyo nodded understandingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;People often complain,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;are very
+      susceptible to strange odors. I should imagine, perhaps, that you are one
+      of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I call myself a strong man,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I couldn&rsquo;t have believed that
+      anything of the sort would have happened to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t worry about it,&rdquo; the Prince said gently. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am feeling quite well again, thank you,&rdquo; the Inspector said slowly. &ldquo;If
+      you could spare me a few minutes, I should be glad to explain the matter
+      which brought me here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very much interested to meet you, Mr. Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; he remarked,
+      with a glance at the card which he was still holding in his fingers. &ldquo;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&mdash;your
+      chief, I believe&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My business, Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is a little more personal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Prince Maiyo raised his eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Well, whatever it is, let us hear it. I trust that I
+      have not unconsciously transgressed against your laws?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks hesitated. After all, his was not so easy a task.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is excellent,&rdquo; the Prince said. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added with a smile, &ldquo;I am subject to your laws, and I do my best
+      to obey them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has fallen to my lot,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince inclined his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; he said amiably, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; the Prince continued courteously. &ldquo;The
+      investigation, I am sure, is in most able hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very kind, sir,&rdquo; said the Inspector. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince bowed. This time he made no remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The evidence which I have collected from various sources,&rdquo; Inspector
+      Jacks continued, &ldquo;leads me to believe that the person who committed this
+      murder was a foreigner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you call an alien,&rdquo; the Prince suggested. &ldquo;There is much discussion,
+      I gather, concerning their presence in this country nowadays.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The evidence which I possess,&rdquo; the detective proceeded, &ldquo;points to the
+      murderer belonging to the same nationality as Your Highness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince raised his eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A Japanese?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry,&rdquo; the Prince said, with a touch of added gravity in his
+      manner, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In time, sir,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks said slowly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince sighed sympathetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not for me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to criticize your methods.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come now,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks said slowly, &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To my household!&rdquo; the Prince repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To this household, Your Highness,&rdquo; the detective repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shook his head slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very often indeed,&rdquo; the Inspector admitted frankly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I am afraid,&rdquo; the Prince said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector stared at the Prince incredulously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never left the house?&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Do you mean, sir, that they do not
+      go out for holidays, for exercise, to the theatre?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such things are not the custom with us,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They are my servants.
+      The duty of their life is service. London is a world unknown to them&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks was dumfounded. Such a state of affairs seemed to him
+      impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean that they do not take exercise,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;that they never
+      breathe the fresh air?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such fresh air as your city can afford them,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But their health?&rdquo; the Inspector protested. &ldquo;It is not, surely, well for
+      them to be herded together like this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not what is called a sportsman in this country, Mr. Inspector
+      Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector was silent for some time. Then he rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; the Prince said calmly, &ldquo;I was the only person of
+      my race who entered my house that morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector moved toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Highness,&rdquo; he said gravely, &ldquo;I am exceedingly obliged to you for
+      your courteous attention, and for your kindness after my unfortunate
+      indisposition.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled graciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII. ON THE TRAIL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks studied the brass plate for a moment, and then rang the
+      patients&rsquo; bell. The former, he noticed was very much in want of cleaning,
+      and for a doctor&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning!&rdquo; the latter said tentatively. Then, with a slight air of
+      disappointment, he recognized his visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, doctor!&rdquo; Inspector Jacks replied. &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you come in?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He led the way into a somewhat dingy waiting room. A copy of <i>The Field</i>,
+      a month old, a dog-eared magazine, and a bound volume of <i>Good Words</i>
+      were spread upon the table. The room itself, except for a few chairs, was
+      practically bare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not wish to take up too much of your time, Dr. Whiles,&rdquo; the
+      Inspector began,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor laughed shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t bother about that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m tired of making a bluff. My
+      time isn&rsquo;t any too well occupied.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector glanced at his watch,&mdash;it was a few minutes past
+      twelve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you are really not busy,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what use can I be to you?&rdquo; the doctor asked. &ldquo;You know all about the
+      man whom I fixed up on the night of the murder. There&rsquo;s nothing more to
+      tell you about that. I&rsquo;d as soon go up to town and lunch with you as not,
+      but if you think that I&rsquo;ve anything more to tell you, you&rsquo;ll only be
+      disappointed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m quite content to run the risk of that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; he
+      continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I begin to understand,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will consider a day spent up in town equivalent to the treatment
+      of twenty-five patients at your ordinary scale,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far from avoiding her, he came over to her side directly he had greeted
+      his hostess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This morning,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I heard some good news. You are to be a fellow
+      guest at Devenham.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; she admitted, &ldquo;that of my two aunts I impose most
+      frequently upon the one where my claims are the slightest. The Duchess is
+      so good-natured.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is charming,&rdquo; the Prince declared. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a sentimentalist, Prince,&rdquo; she declared, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I think not,&rdquo; he answered seriously. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An uncontrollable impulse moved her. She leaned a little towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Climate and flowers only?&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;What about the third
+      essential?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he said under his breath, &ldquo;I have to admit that one must
+      travel further afield for Heaven&rsquo;s greatest gift. Even then one can only
+      worship. The stars are denied to us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess came sailing over to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every one is here,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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&rsquo;s
+      another man who is anxious to meet you, too,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So long as he does not ask me to correct his proofs!&rdquo; the Prince
+      murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is positively the most unkind thing I have ever heard you say,&rdquo; the
+      Duchess declared. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They took their places at the round table which had been reserved for the
+      Duchess of Devenham,&mdash;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&mdash;always like this, she
+      realized, with a sudden keen apprehension of this part of the man&rsquo;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&mdash;gracious, courteous, and genial&mdash;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&mdash;such manner of wrong-doing!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am looking forward so much,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to my stay at Devenham. You
+      know, it will not be very much longer that I shall have the opportunity of
+      accepting such invitations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean that the time is really coming when we shall lose you?&rdquo; she
+      asked suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When my work is finished, I return home,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I fancy that it
+      will not be very long now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you do leave England,&rdquo; she asked after a moment&rsquo;s pause, &ldquo;do you go
+      straight to Japan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He bowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With the Continent I have finished,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The cruiser which His
+      Majesty has sent to fetch me waits even now at Southampton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You speak of your work,&rdquo; she remarked, &ldquo;as though you had been collecting
+      material for a book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been busy collecting information in many ways,&rdquo; he said,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the end of it all?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is for the good of Japan I came,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She leaned a little forward so as to look into his face. The impassivity
+      of his features was like a wall before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be very happy indeed,&rdquo; he admitted simply. &ldquo;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&rsquo;s own family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield, who was sitting on her other side, insisted at last upon
+      diverting her attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope,&rdquo; he declared, lowering his voice a little, &ldquo;it isn&rsquo;t fair. You
+      never have a word to say to me when the Prince is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must remember that he is going away very soon, Charlie,&rdquo; she reminded
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good job, too!&rdquo; Somerfield muttered, sotto voce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then,&rdquo; Penelope continued, with the air of not having heard her
+      companion&rsquo;s last remark, &ldquo;he possesses also a very great attraction. He is
+      absolutely unlike any other human being I ever met or heard of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield glanced across at his rival with lowering brows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve nothing to say against the fellow,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;except that it
+      seems queer nowadays to run up against a man of his birth who is not a
+      sportsman,&mdash;in the sense of being fond of sport, I mean,&rdquo; he
+      corrected himself quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes I wonder,&rdquo; Penelope said thoughtfully, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all very well,&rdquo; Somerfield said coolly, &ldquo;but there&rsquo;s nothing in
+      life nowadays to make us quite so strenuous as that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t there?&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield looked up at her in growing amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What on earth&rsquo;s got hold of you, Penelope?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Have you been
+      reading the sensational papers, or stuffing yourself up with jingoism, or
+      what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None of those things, I can assure you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We do well enough,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Japan is the youngest of the nations. She
+      has a long way to go to catch us up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We do well enough!&rdquo; she repeated under her breath. &ldquo;There was a great
+      city once which adopted that as her motto,&mdash;people dig up mementoes
+      of her sometimes from under the sands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield looked at her in an aggrieved fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I thought that this was to be an amusing luncheon
+      party.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should have talked more to Lady Grace,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t take me too
+      seriously today, Charlie. I have a headache, and I think that it has made
+      me dull.&rdquo;...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They trooped out into the foyer in irregular fashion to take their coffee.
+      The Prince and Penelope were side by side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I like about your restaurant life,&rdquo; the Prince said, &ldquo;is the strange
+      mixture of classes which it everywhere reveals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those two, for instance,&rdquo; Penelope said, and then stopped short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s clothes were too new and his companion&rsquo;s too old. The
+      doctor&rsquo;s clothes indeed were as shabby as his waiting room, and he sat
+      where the sunlight was merciless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How singular,&rdquo; the Prince remarked with a smile, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you have quite recovered, Mr. Inspector,&rdquo; the Prince said, holding
+      out his hand in friendly fashion. &ldquo;I have felt very guilty over your
+      indisposition. I am sure that I keep my rooms too close for English
+      people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Prince,&rdquo; the Inspector answered, &ldquo;I am perfectly well again.
+      In fact, I have not felt anything of my little attack since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Next time you are good enough to pay me a visit, I
+      will see that you do not suffer in the same way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who was that?&rdquo; the doctor asked curiously. &ldquo;Did you call him Prince?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks sighed. This was a disappointment to him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His name is Prince Maiyo,&rdquo; he said slowly. &ldquo;He is a Japanese.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor looked across the restaurant with puzzled face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s queer,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;how all these Japanese seem to one to look so much
+      alike, and yet&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He broke off in the middle of his sentence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are thinking of your friend of the other night?&rdquo; the Inspector
+      remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was,&rdquo; the doctor admitted. &ldquo;For a moment it seemed to me like the same
+      man with a different manner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks was silent. He puffed steadily at his cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t suppose,&rdquo; he asked quietly, &ldquo;that it could have been the same
+      man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor was still looking across the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could not tell,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I should like to see him again. I wasn&rsquo;t
+      prepared, and there was something so altered in his tone and the way he
+      carried himself. And yet&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pause was expressive. Inspector Jacks&rsquo; eyes brightened. He hated to
+      feel that his day had been altogether wasted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV. PRINCE MAIYO BIDS HIGH
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks was in luck at last. Eleven times he had called at St.
+      Thomas&rsquo;s Hospital and received the same reply. Today he was asked to wait.
+      The patient was better&mdash;would be able to see him. Soon a nurse in
+      neat uniform came quietly down the corridor and took charge of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten minutes, no more,&rdquo; she insisted good-humoredly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One question, if you please, nurse,&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Is the man going to
+      live?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a doubt about it,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A matter of depositions,&rdquo; the Inspector exclaimed. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather let it go,
+      though, if he&rsquo;s sure to recover.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a simple case,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;and his constitution is excellent.
+      There isn&rsquo;t the least need for your to think about depositions. Here he
+      is. Don&rsquo;t talk too long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector sat down by the bedside. The patient, a young man, welcomed
+      him a little shyly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have come to ask me about what I saw in Pall Mall and opposite the
+      Hyde Park Hotel?&rdquo; he said, speaking slowly and in a voice scarcely raised
+      above a whisper. &ldquo;I told them all before the operation, but they couldn&rsquo;t
+      send for you then. There wasn&rsquo;t time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me your own way,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t hurry. We can get the particulars
+      later on. Glad you&rsquo;re going to be mended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was touch and go,&rdquo; the young man declared with a note of awe in his
+      tone. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector inclined his head gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You saw him get in, didn&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; the patient admitted. &ldquo;I was on my way&mdash;Charing Cross to
+      the Kensington Palace Hotel, on a bicycle. There was a block&mdash;corner
+      of Pall Mall and Haymarket. I caught hold&mdash;taxi in front&mdash;to
+      steady me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The nurse bent over him with a glass in her hand. She raised him a little
+      with the other arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not too much of this, you know, young man,&rdquo; she said with a pleasant
+      smile. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s something to make you strong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right you are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drained the contents of the glass and smacked his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jolly good stuff,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Where was I, Mr. Inspector?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holding the back of a taxicab, corner of Regent Street and Haymarket,&rdquo;
+       Inspector Jacks reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The patient nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was an electric brougham,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; the patient
+      continued, &ldquo;a regular howling swell,&mdash;silk hat, white muffler, white
+      kid gloves,&mdash;all the rest of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And afterwards?&rdquo; the Inspector asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I kept behind the taxi,&rdquo; the youth continued. &ldquo;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&mdash;saw
+      something had happened&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should you know the man again?&rdquo; the Inspector asked. &ldquo;I mean the man whom
+      you saw enter and leave the taxi?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so&mdash;pretty sure!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The nurse came up, shaking her head. Inspector Jacks rose from his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right, nurse,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll come and sit with you for half an hour next visiting day, if I
+      may?&rdquo; he added, turning to the patient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Glad to see you,&rdquo; the youth answered. &ldquo;My people live down in the
+      country, and I haven&rsquo;t many pals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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&rsquo; Square and Pall
+      Mall he came face to face with Prince Maiyo, walking slowly westwards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s somewhat stiff salute, and
+      insisted upon shaking him cordially by the hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you are the one person whom I desired to
+      see. You are not busy, I hope? You can talk with me for five minutes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have the time to spare, sir, certainly,&rdquo; he admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled gayly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you are a wonderful man. Even now you are
+      asking yourself, &lsquo;What does he want to say to me&mdash;Prince Maiyo? Is he
+      going to ask me questions, or will he tell me things which I should like
+      to hear?&rsquo; You know, Mr. Inspector Jacks, between ourselves, you are just a
+      little interested in me, is it not so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The detective was dumb. He stood there patiently waiting. He had the air
+      of a man who declines to commit himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just a little interested in me, I think,&rdquo; the Prince murmured, smiling at
+      his companion. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; the detective answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard you speak of this affair,&rdquo; the Prince continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is better sometimes to wait,&rdquo; the detective said quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince bowed as one who understands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so,&rdquo; he assented, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Occasionally,&rdquo; he admitted reluctantly, &ldquo;when one is following up a clue,
+      one discovers things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are wonderful!&rdquo; the Prince declared. &ldquo;You are, indeed! I know what is
+      in your mind. You have said to yourself, &lsquo;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.&rsquo; You said to yourself, &lsquo;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?&rsquo; You are not sure
+      which way to turn. There is nothing there upon which you can lay your
+      hand. You say to yourself, &lsquo;I will make a bluff.&rsquo; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had reason for what I did, sir,&rdquo; the detective said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt,&rdquo; the Prince agreed. &ldquo;And now, tell me, when are you going to
+      electrify us all? When is the great arrest to take place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The detective coughed discreetly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not yet in a position, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to make any definite
+      announcement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cautious, Mr. Jacks, cautious!&rdquo; the Prince remarked smilingly. &ldquo;It is a
+      great quality,&mdash;a quality which I, too, have learned how to
+      appreciate. And now for our five minutes&rsquo; talk. If I say to you, &lsquo;Return
+      home with me,&rsquo; 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&rsquo; Park. We can speak there without fear of interruption. Come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He thrust his arm through the detective&rsquo;s and led him across the street.
+      Mr. Inspector Jacks was only human, and he yielded without protest. They
+      passed St. James&rsquo; Palace and on to the broad promenade, where there were
+      few passers-by and no listeners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, my dear Inspector,&rdquo; the Prince said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To me, sir?&rdquo; Inspector Jacks repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince twirled his cane and nodded his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a very important matter, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector was doubtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t say, sir,&rdquo; he admitted, &ldquo;that I have done much reading since I
+      left school, and that was many years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; the Prince said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector was scarcely prepared for this. He allowed himself to show
+      some surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very much obliged to you, Prince, for the offer,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am
+      afraid, however, that I should not be competent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; the Prince reminded him, &ldquo;is a risk which we are willing to take.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not think, either,&rdquo; the detective continued, &ldquo;that at my time of
+      life I should care to go so far from home to settle down in an altogether
+      strange country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be as you will, of course,&rdquo; the Prince declared. &ldquo;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&rsquo; 
+      work you would receive the sum of thirty thousand pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The detective gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a great sum,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You could hardly call it that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Still, it would enable you to
+      live in comfort for the rest of your life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And when should I be required to start, sir?&rdquo; the Inspector asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That, perhaps,&rdquo; the Prince replied, &ldquo;would seem the hardest part of all.
+      You would be required to start tomorrow afternoon from Southampton at four
+      o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector started. Then a new light dawned suddenly in his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tomorrow afternoon,&rdquo; he murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So far as regards your position at Scotland Yard,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this sum of money,&rdquo; the detective said, &ldquo;is for my services in
+      building up the police force of Tokio?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Broadly speaking, yes!&rdquo; the Prince answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And incidentally,&rdquo; the detective continued, glancing cautiously at his
+      companion, &ldquo;it is the price of my leaving unsuspected the murderer of two
+      innocent men!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am disappointed in you, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he said a little stiffly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;there can be no question about that. I thank you very
+      much for it, but I must decline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your mind is quite made up?&rdquo; the Prince asked regretfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite,&rdquo; the Inspector said firmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Japan,&rdquo; the Prince said thoughtfully, &ldquo;is a pleasant country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;London suits me moderately well,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Under certain conditions,&rdquo; the Prince continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In my profession, sir,&rdquo; the detective said, &ldquo;we must take our risks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince came to a standstill. They were at the parting of the ways.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very sorry,&rdquo; he said simply. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would make no difference, sir,&rdquo; the detective answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince was on the point of moving away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not seek in any case to persuade you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince turned towards Buckingham Palace, and the Inspector slowly
+      retraced his steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a bribe!&rdquo; he muttered to himself slowly,&mdash;&ldquo;a cleverly offered
+      bribe! Thirty thousand pounds to forget the little I have learned! Thirty
+      thousand pounds for silence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV. HOBSON&rsquo;S CHOICE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is Dr. Spencer Whiles?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor admitted the fact and invited his visitor to enter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is here, perhaps,&rdquo; the latter continued, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is so,&rdquo; Dr. Whiles admitted. &ldquo;There was nothing much the matter with
+      him. He had rather a narrow escape.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am that gentleman&rsquo;s servant,&rdquo; the visitor continued with a bland smile.
+      &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor drew a little breath. This might mean another week or so of
+      respite!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where does your master live?&rdquo; he asked the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the West end of London, sir,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;The Square of St. James
+      it is called.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Whiles glanced at his watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will take me some time to go there with you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My master desired me to say,&rdquo; the other answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; Dr. Whiles declared, &ldquo;so long as it&rsquo;s understood.
+      You&rsquo;ll excuse me for a moment while I write a note, and I&rsquo;ll come along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My master,&rdquo; the latter explained, &ldquo;will receive you very shortly. He is
+      but partly dressed at present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My master will come to you in a few minutes,&rdquo; the butler announced. &ldquo;What
+      refreshments may I have the honor of serving?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Whiles waved aside the invitation,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very pleased to see you again, doctor,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You looked after
+      me so well last time that I was afraid I should have no excuse for sending
+      for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to find that you are not suffering,&rdquo; the doctor answered. &ldquo;I
+      understood from your servant that you were feeling a good deal of pain in
+      the side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It troubles me at times,&rdquo; the Prince admitted, drawing a chair up towards
+      his visitor,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very good,&rdquo; the doctor answered. &ldquo;Perhaps I had better examine
+      you first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince rang the bell and waved aside the suggestion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he ordered
+      of the butler who appeared at the door. &ldquo;We will talk of my ailments,&rdquo; the
+      Prince continued, &ldquo;in a moment or two. Tell me what you thought of that
+      marvellous restaurant where I saw you the other morning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor drew a little breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was you, then!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But naturally,&rdquo; the Prince murmured. &ldquo;I took it for granted that you
+      would recognize me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; the Prince continued easily, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a very wonderful place,&rdquo; the doctor admitted. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince nodded genially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the bye,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;it is strange that my very good friend&mdash;Mr.
+      Inspector Jacks&mdash;should also be a friend of yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is scarcely that,&rdquo; the doctor objected. &ldquo;I have known him for a very
+      short time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince sighed. There was but one course open to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Dr. Whiles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor looked at his prospective patient skeptically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have not the appearance,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;of being in ill health.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean come and live here?&rdquo; the doctor asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is exactly what I do mean,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor did not hesitate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Money,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is the greatest object in life to me. I have none, and
+      I want some very badly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I find your candor delightful,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Now tell me, Dr. Whiles,
+      how many patients have you in your neighborhood absolutely dependent upon
+      your services?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor hesitated, opened his mouth and closed it again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not one!&rdquo; he declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more the Prince&rsquo;s lips parted. His smile this time was definite,
+      transfiguring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I find you, Dr. Whiles,&rdquo; he announced, &ldquo;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&mdash;it may be two months, and I offer you also, as an honorarium,
+      the fee of one thousand guineas.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thousand guineas!&rdquo; he repeated hoarsely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I trust that you will find the sum attractive,&rdquo; the Prince said smoothly,
+      &ldquo;because, as I have warned you before, there are one or two curious
+      conditions coupled with the post.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care what the conditions are,&rdquo; the doctor said slowly. &ldquo;I
+      accept!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are the man I thought you were, doctor,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The first
+      condition, then, is this. You see the sitting room we are now in&mdash;a
+      pleasant little apartment, I think,&mdash;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&rdquo;&mdash;the Prince threw open an inner door&mdash;&ldquo;is a small sleeping
+      apartment. It has, as you see, the same outlook. It is comfortable if not
+      luxurious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not used to luxury,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These two rooms will be yours,&rdquo; the Prince announced, &ldquo;and the first
+      condition of our arrangement is that until two months are up, or our
+      engagement is finished, you do not leave them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor stared at him blankly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you in earnest, sir?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In absolute earnest,&rdquo; the Prince assured him. &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am to live in these two rooms?&rdquo; he demanded. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When required,&rdquo; the Prince remarked dryly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; the doctor asked, &ldquo;my friend Mr. Jacks was speaking the truth
+      when he told me your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Prince Maiyo,&rdquo; the Prince said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mechanically the doctor helped himself to another whiskey and soda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are to be my only patient,&rdquo; he said thoughtfully. &ldquo;May I take the
+      liberty of feeling your pulse, Prince?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince extended his hand. The doctor felt it and resumed his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is, of course, nothing whatever the matter with you,&rdquo; he declared.
+      &ldquo;You are, I should say, in absolutely perfect health. You have no need of
+      a physician.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary,&rdquo; the Prince protested, smiling, &ldquo;I need you, Dr. Whiles,
+      so much that I am paying you a thousand guineas&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To remain in these two rooms,&rdquo; the doctor remarked quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not your business to think that or to know that,&rdquo; the Prince said.
+      &ldquo;Do you accept my offer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I should refuse?&rdquo; the doctor asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not let us suppose that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is not a pleasant suggestion. I
+      do not think that you mean to refuse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frankly, I do not,&rdquo; the doctor answered. &ldquo;And yet treat it as a whim of
+      mine and answer my question. Supposing I should?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The matter would arrange itself in precisely the same way,&rdquo; the Prince
+      answered. &ldquo;You would not leave these rooms for two months.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor leaned back in his chair and laughed shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is rather hard luck on Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He paid me ten
+      guineas the other day to lunch with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; the Prince remarked, &ldquo;is scarcely in a position to
+      bid you an adequate sum for your services.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It appears to me,&rdquo; the doctor continued, &ldquo;that I am kidnapped.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An admirable word,&rdquo; the Prince declared. &ldquo;At what time do you usually
+      lunch?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not used to motoring,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince nodded, and rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will send my servant,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And about that examination?&rdquo; the doctor remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall do myself the pleasure of seeing you every day,&rdquo; the Prince
+      answered. &ldquo;There will be time enough for that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With an amiable word of farewell the Prince departed. The doctor threw
+      himself into an easy chair. His single exclamation was laconic but
+      forcible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI. SOME FAREWELLS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So we are to lose you soon, Prince,&rdquo; the Baron was saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very soon indeed,&rdquo; Prince Maiyo answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Baron blinked his eyes meditatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have seen very little of you, Maiyo,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;since your last visit
+      to the Continent. I take it that your views are unchanged?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unchanged indeed,&rdquo; he answered,&mdash;&ldquo;unchangeable, I think almost that
+      I might now say. They have been wonderful months, these last months,
+      Baron,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;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,&mdash;simply
+      to study the people themselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Baron nodded gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ask no questions,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is the Emperor&rsquo;s desire, I know, that
+      you go straight to him. I take it that your mind is made up,&mdash;you
+      have arrived at definite conclusions?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Absolutely.&rdquo; Prince Maiyo answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Baron agreed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only a few nights ago,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Prince Maiyo laughed softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Invariably,&rdquo; the Ambassador answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is an undercurrent of feeling somewhere,&rdquo; the Prince continued,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be no fight, that,&rdquo; the Ambassador answered slowly,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I listen,&rdquo; the Prince answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would speak of something else,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;Soon you go to the
+      Duke&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wonderful person!&rdquo; Prince Maiyo said, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I am not wonderful,&rdquo; the Ambassador declared. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We discovered them,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;It was well that we did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You discovered them,&rdquo; the Ambassador interrupted. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; the Prince declared, sighing. &ldquo;I know it very well indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Maiyo,&rdquo; the Ambassador asked, &ldquo;how well do you know it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; the Prince answered, &ldquo;it were better for you not to ask that
+      question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here under this roof,&rdquo; the Baron continued, &ldquo;is sanctuary, but in the
+      streets and squares beyond, it seems to me&mdash;and I have thought this
+      over many times,&mdash;it seems to me that even the person of the great
+      Prince, cousin of the Emperor, holy son of Japan, would not be safe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, also,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Baron rose to his feet and bowed. Into his voice there had crept a
+      note almost of reverence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince also rose. Servants came silently forward, bearing his hat and
+      gloves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; the Prince smiled, as he made his adieux&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; the Ambassador echoed. &ldquo;Who can tell?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it is pleasant to see you once more. I was afraid
+      that I should have to leave without bidding you farewell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going away, Prince?&rdquo; the Inspector asked quickly. &ldquo;When?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The exact day is not fixed,&rdquo; the Prince replied, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet, Prince,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; the Prince echoed. &ldquo;Dear me, that is very unfortunate!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks watched the people who were passing, for a moment, with a
+      fixed, unseeing gaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince nodded sympathetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The best of fortune to you, Mr. Jacks!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If we do not clear them up before you leave the country, Prince,&rdquo; the
+      Inspector answered, &ldquo;I fear that we shall never clear them up at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Charles,&rdquo; the Prince said, &ldquo;I hope that I shall have the pleasure of
+      meeting you at Devenham?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not sure,&rdquo; Somerfield answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry,&rdquo; the Prince declared. &ldquo;I have no doubt, however, but that
+      Miss Morse will induce you to change your mind. I should regret your
+      absence the more,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;because this, I fear, is the last visit
+      which I shall be paying in this country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield was genuinely interested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are really going home?&rdquo; he asked eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Almost at once,&rdquo; the Prince answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only for a time, I suppose?&rdquo; Somerfield continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield looked at him with the puzzled air of a man who is face to face
+      with a problem which he cannot solve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll forgive my putting it so plainly, Prince,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;but do
+      you mean to say that after having lived over here you could possibly
+      settle down again in Japan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince returned for a moment his companion&rsquo;s perplexed gaze. Then his
+      lips parted, his eyes shone. He laughed softly, gracefully, with genuine
+      mirth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Charles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I find you alone?&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother is opening a bazaar somewhere,&rdquo; Lady Grace said. &ldquo;She will be
+      home very soon. Do let me give you some tea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is my excuse for coming,&rdquo; the Prince admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She called back the footman who had shown him in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;China tea, very weak, in a china teapot with lemon and no sugar. Isn&rsquo;t
+      that it?&rdquo; she asked, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lady Grace,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;you spoil me. Perhaps it is because I am going
+      away. Every one is kind to the people who go away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Going away!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;When? Do you mean back to Japan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back to my own country,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Perhaps in two weeks, perhaps
+      three&mdash;who can tell?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are coming to Devenham first?&rdquo; she asked eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am coming to Devenham first,&rdquo; he assented. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew a little sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you are going back,&rdquo; she said softly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lady Grace,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;s dwelling place as easily as one changes one&rsquo;s clothes.
+      The further east you go, the more reluctant one is, I think, to leave the
+      shadow of one&rsquo;s own trees. The man who leaves my country leaves it to go
+      into exile. The man who returns, returns home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was a little perplexed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should have imagined,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lady Grace,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;believe me that is not so. The traditions of our
+      race&mdash;the call of the blood, as you put it over here&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet you have seemed so contented over here,&rdquo; she remarked. &ldquo;You have
+      entered so easily into all our ways.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He set down his teacup and smiled at her for a moment gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came with a purpose,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I came in order to observe and to study
+      certain features of your life, but, believe me, I have felt the strain&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there nothing which you will regret?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall regret the friends I have made,&mdash;the very dear friends,&rdquo; he
+      repeated, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There will be many, Prince,&rdquo; she said softly, &ldquo;who will be sorry to see
+      you go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; Square, his majordomo came hurrying up and whispered something
+      in his own language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I go to see him,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I will go at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII. A PRISONER
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince came in quietly and closed the door behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good afternoon, my friend!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I understood that you wished to see
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor had made up his mind to adopt a firm attitude. Nevertheless the
+      genial courtesy of the Prince&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope that I have not disturbed you, Prince,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I thought that I
+      should like to have a word or two with you concerning something which I
+      have come across in these journals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He tapped them with his forefinger, and the Prince nodded thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your wonderful Press!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;How much it is responsible for!
+      Well, Dr. Whiles, what have the newspapers to say to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor handed across a carefully folded journal and pointed to a
+      certain paragraph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you kindly read this?&rdquo; he begged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince accepted the sheet and read the paragraph aloud:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince laid down the paper, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;That seems clear enough. Some one is willing to give
+      fifty pounds to know where you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor tapped the advertisement with his forefinger impressively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fifty pounds!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t a person in the world to whom
+      the knowledge of my movements is worth fifty pounds&mdash;except&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except?&rdquo; the Prince murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except Mr. Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; Dr. Whiles said slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince seemed scarcely to grasp the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;fifty pounds is not a great deal of money. Some unknown
+      person&mdash;possibly, as you suggest, Mr. Jacks&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Put in that way,&rdquo; Dr. Whiles admitted, &ldquo;they certainly do not. But there
+      is another thing which has come into my mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled and helped himself to one of the very excellent
+      cigarettes which had been provided for the delectation of his visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray treat me with every confidence, Dr. Whiles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Tell me
+      exactly what is in your thoughts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, I will,&rdquo; the doctor answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With so much time upon your hands, Dr. Whiles,&rdquo; the Prince remarked, &ldquo;you
+      can scarcely fail to have arrived at some reasonable explanation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know whether it is reasonable or not,&rdquo; the doctor answered, &ldquo;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&rsquo;clock and midnight; and the other&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, the other?&rdquo; the Prince remarked encouragingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The other,&rdquo; the doctor continued, &ldquo;is the fact that within half a mile of
+      my house runs the main London and North Western line.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The London and North Western Railway line,&rdquo; the Prince repeated, &ldquo;and
+      what has that to do with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This much,&rdquo; the doctor answered, &ldquo;that on that very night, about half an
+      hour before your&mdash;shall we call it bicycle accident?&mdash;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is very interesting,&rdquo; the Prince remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a fresh thing to me,&rdquo; the doctor said,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inspector Jacks is a very shrewd fellow,&rdquo; the Prince said. &ldquo;I should not
+      be in the least surprised if you were entirely right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor moved restlessly in his chair. His eyes remained on his
+      companion&rsquo;s face, as though fascinated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you understand,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince nodded amiably. He seemed in no way discomposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel convinced,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that you are right. I agree with you. I
+      believe that Inspector Jacks has had that idea for some little time now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor gripped the sides of his chair and stared at this man who
+      discussed a matter so terrible with calm and perfect ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I have felt that more than once,&rdquo; the Prince continued. &ldquo;My presence
+      upon the spot at that precise moment with injuries which had to be
+      explained somehow or other, was, without doubt, unfortunate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two men sat for several moments without further speech. The doctor&rsquo;s
+      features seemed to reflect something of the horror which he undoubtedly
+      felt. The Prince appeared only a trifle bored.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that is why,&rdquo; the former exclaimed hoarsely, &ldquo;I have been appointed
+      your physician in chief!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had given you the credit, my dear doctor,&rdquo; the Prince said smoothly,
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Whiles rose slowly to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know the secret of that murder!&rdquo; he declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why ask me?&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor was looking a little shaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you were mixed up in that affair,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and if I remain here when
+      my evidence is needed, I become an accomplice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only if you remain here voluntarily,&rdquo; the Prince reminded him cheerfully.
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor moved to the window and back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Supposing,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;that I will leave this house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we come to close quarters,&rdquo; the Prince answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not understand,&rdquo; the doctor protested. &ldquo;I knew that there was
+      trouble, but I did not know that it was this!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fact of your knowing or not knowing makes no difference,&rdquo; the Prince
+      answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry,&rdquo; the Prince continued, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added, rising. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I will not give my parole!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;almost strangled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me go!&rdquo; he called out, struggling in vain to find a body upon which
+      he could gain a grip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The grasp only tightened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back to your rooms!&rdquo; came a whisper through the darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost at the same time the Prince sat back in the shadows of the Duchess
+      of Devenham&rsquo;s box at the Opera and talked quietly to Lady Grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But tell me, Prince,&rdquo; she begged, &ldquo;I know that you are glad to go home,
+      but won&rsquo;t you really miss this a little,&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was a little perplexed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that in your heart you approve of us at
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not say that, Lady Grace,&rdquo; he begged. &ldquo;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&rsquo;s history.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And our people?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Do you really think that our people are so
+      far apart? Between you and me, for instance,&rdquo; she added, meaning to ask
+      the question naturally enough, but suddenly losing confidence and looking
+      away from him,&mdash;&ldquo;between you and me there seems no radical difference
+      of race. You might almost be an Englishman&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You pay me a very delightful compliment,&rdquo; he murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please repay me, then, by being candid,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated for a moment. The question was not without its
+      embarrassments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace sighed. Perhaps she had been a trifle too daring! She was
+      willing enough, at any rate, to let the subject drift away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Soon the curtain will go up,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and we can talk no longer. I
+      should like to tell you, though, how glad I am&mdash;how glad we all are&mdash;that
+      you can come to us next week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can assure you that I am looking forward to it,&rdquo; he answered a little
+      gravely. &ldquo;It is my farewell to all of you, you know, and it seems to me
+      that those who will be your father&rsquo;s guests are just those with whom I
+      have been on the most intimate terms since I came to England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope is coming,&rdquo; she said quickly,&mdash;&ldquo;you know that?&mdash;Penelope
+      and Sir Charles Somerfield.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;I heard so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII. PATRIOTISM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Duke&rsquo;s chef had served an Emperor with honor&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are becoming,&rdquo; the Prime Minister said, &ldquo;much too modern. We are
+      becoming over-civilized out of any similitude to a nation of men of blood
+      and brawn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are quoting some impossible person,&rdquo; Sir Edward Bransome declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One is always quoting unconsciously,&rdquo; the Prime Minister admitted with a
+      sigh. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if the truth were not satisfactory?&rdquo; the Duke asked, lighting a
+      cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We should have endeavored to change his point of view,&rdquo; the Prime
+      Minister continued, &ldquo;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&mdash;three of the greatest and most brilliant statesmen of our
+      day&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; he protested, &ldquo;I think you exaggerate Maiyo&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prime Minister sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Duke,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Haviland is right,&rdquo; Bransome agreed. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; the Duke remarked, &ldquo;whether we shall really get the truth out
+      of him before he goes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prime Minister shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did,&rdquo; the Duke answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I,&rdquo; Bransome echoed. &ldquo;It seemed to me that he spoke a little more
+      freely than usual.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He went as near to censure as I have ever heard him when speaking of any
+      of the institutions of our country,&rdquo; the Prime Minister declared. &ldquo;I will
+      ask him about it directly we get the chance. You shall see how he will
+      evade the point.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will have to be quick if you mean to get hold of him,&rdquo; the Duke
+      remarked. &ldquo;See, the game is over and there he goes with Penelope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prime Minister rose to his feet and intercepted them on their way to
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morse,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;may we ransom the Prince? We want to talk to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you insinuate,&rdquo; she laughed, &ldquo;that he is a captive of mine?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are all captives of Miss Morse&rsquo;s,&rdquo; Bransome said with a bow, &ldquo;and all
+      enemies of Somerfield&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; the Prime Minister said, &ldquo;we have been talking about your speech
+      at the Herrick Club last night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled a little gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did I say too much?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;It all came as a surprise to me&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have read what you said,&rdquo; Bransome remarked. &ldquo;What we should like to
+      hear, if I may venture to say so, is what you left unsaid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I said was of little importance,&rdquo; the Prince remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope and the Duchess had joined the little group.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May we stay?&rdquo; the former asked. &ldquo;I read every word of your speech,&rdquo; she
+      added, turning to the Prince. &ldquo;Do tell us why you spoke so severely, what
+      it was that you objected to so strongly in General Ennison&rsquo;s remarks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince turned earnestly towards her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you must not think, Prince, that we over here are wholly lacking in
+      that same instinct,&rdquo; the Duke said. &ldquo;Remember our South African war, and
+      the men who came to arms and rallied round the flag when their services
+      were needed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do remember that,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s welfare is threatened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a short silence. The Prime Minister and Bransome exchanged rapid
+      glances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These, then,&rdquo; Penelope said slowly, &ldquo;were the things you left unsaid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince raised his hand a little&mdash;a deprecatory gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps even now,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Of a purpose, the three men who were there said nothing. The Prince
+      offered Penelope his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not be disappointed,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You promised that you would show
+      me the palm garden. I have talked too much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIX. A RACE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a little reminiscent of the last east wind&mdash;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&rsquo;s best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rustle of a woman&rsquo;s garment disturbed him, and he turned his head.
+      Penelope stood there in her trim riding habit,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is too early in the morning, Prince,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;for you to sit there
+      dreaming so long and so earnestly. Come in to breakfast. Every one is
+      down, for a wonder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Breakfast, by all means,&rdquo; he answered, coming blithely up the broad
+      steps. &ldquo;You are going to ride this morning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose we all are, more or less,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      Grace&rsquo;s favorite mare, and her entry for the cup&mdash;turned awkward with
+      him yesterday, and he won&rsquo;t have anything more to do with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From your tone,&rdquo; he remarked, pushing open the French windows, &ldquo;I gather
+      that this is a tragedy. I, unfortunately, do not understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should ask Grace herself,&rdquo; Penelope said. &ldquo;There she is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace looked round from her place at the head of the breakfast table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and sympathize with me, Prince,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a great misfortune,&rdquo; the Prince said in a tone of polite regret,
+      &ldquo;but surely it is not irreparable? There must be others&mdash;why not your
+      own groom?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A smile went round the table. The Duke hastened to explain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The race is for gentlemen riders only,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t the best of reputations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t have a word said against Lady Barbarity,&rdquo; Lady Grace declared.
+      &ldquo;Captain Chalmers is a good horseman, of course but for a lightweight he
+      has the worst hands I ever knew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But surely amongst your immediate friends there must be many others,&rdquo; the
+      Prince said. &ldquo;Sir Charles, for instance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charlie is riding his own horse,&rdquo; Lady Grace answered. &ldquo;He hasn&rsquo;t the
+      ghost of a chance, but, of course, he won&rsquo;t give it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not I!&rdquo; Somerfield answered, gorgeous in pink coat and riding breeches.
+      &ldquo;My old horse may not be fast, but he can go the course, and I&rsquo;m none too
+      certain of the others. Some of those hurdles&rsquo;ll take a bit of doing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a shame,&rdquo; the Prince remarked, &ldquo;that you should be disappointed,
+      Lady Grace. Would they let me ride for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; Lady Grace exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you really mean it, Prince?&rdquo; Penelope cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, why not?&rdquo; he asked, himself, in turn, somewhat surprised. &ldquo;If I am
+      eligible, and Lady Grace chooses, it seems to me very simple.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; the Duke intervened, &ldquo;I did not know&mdash;we did not know that you
+      were a sportsman, Prince.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A sportsman?&rdquo; the Prince repeated a little doubtfully. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you ever ridden in a steeplechase?&rdquo; Somerfield asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never in my life,&rdquo; the Prince declared. &ldquo;Frankly, I do not know what it
+      is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are jumps, for one thing,&rdquo; Somerfield continued,&mdash;&ldquo;pretty
+      stiff affairs, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Lady Grace&rsquo;s mare is a hunter,&rdquo; the Prince remarked, &ldquo;she can probably
+      jump them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The question is whether&mdash;&rdquo; Somerfield began, and stopped short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield hesitated to complete his sentence, and the Duke once more
+      intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What Somerfield was thinking, my dear Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;was that a
+      steeplechase course, as they ride in this country, needs some knowing. You
+      have never been on my daughter&rsquo;s mare before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So far as I am concerned,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that is of no account. There was a
+      day at Mukden&mdash;I do not like to talk of it, but it comes back to me&mdash;when
+      I rode twelve different horses in twenty-four hours, but perhaps,&rdquo; he
+      added, turning to Lady Grace, &ldquo;you would not care to trust your horse with
+      one who is a stranger to your&mdash;what is it you call them?&mdash;steeplechases.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary, Prince,&rdquo; Lady Grace exclaimed, &ldquo;you shall ride her, and
+      I am going to back you for all I am worth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bransome, who was also in riding clothes, although he was not taking part
+      in the steeplechases himself, glanced at the clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are running it rather fine,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll scarcely have time to
+      hack round the course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some one must explain it to me,&rdquo; the Prince said. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About three hundred yards,&rdquo; the Duke answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you any riding clothes?&rdquo; Penelope whispered to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Without a doubt,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I will go and change in a few minutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We start in half an hour,&rdquo; Somerfield remarked. &ldquo;Even that allows us none
+      too much time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; the Duke suggested diffidently, &ldquo;you would like to ride over,
+      Prince? It is a good eleven miles, and you would have a chance of getting
+      into your stride.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I should like to motor with you others, if I may.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just as you like, of course,&rdquo; the Duke agreed. &ldquo;Grace&rsquo;s mare is over
+      there now. We shall be able to have a look at her before the race, at any
+      rate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The opinions, after the Prince had left the table, were a little divided
+      as to what was likely to happen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For a man who has never even hunted and knows nothing whatever about the
+      country,&rdquo; Somerfield declared, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am perfectly content to take my risks,&rdquo; Lady Grace answered
+      confidently. &ldquo;If the Prince had never ridden before in his life, I would
+      trust him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield turned away, frowning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think about it, Penelope?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;that I agree with Grace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s shocking bad luck,&rdquo; the Duke declared, &ldquo;but there&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will do excellently,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s glasses rested on
+      it only for a moment. He pointed to a clump of trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which side there?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To the left,&rdquo; the Duke answered. &ldquo;Remember to keep inside the red flags.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where do we finish?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke showed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is all right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I need not look any more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the paddock some of the horses were being led around. The Prince noted
+      them approvingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very nice horses,&rdquo; he said,&mdash;&ldquo;light, but very nice. That one I like
+      best,&rdquo; he added, pointing to a dark bay mare, who was already giving her
+      boy some trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s lucky,&rdquo; the Duke answered, &ldquo;for she&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince glanced over Lady Grace&rsquo;s mare and turned aside to join
+      Penelope and Somerfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like the look of my horse, Sir Charles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I think that I shall
+      beat you today.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We both start at five to one,&rdquo; Somerfield answered. &ldquo;Shall we have a
+      bet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With pleasure,&rdquo; the Prince agreed. &ldquo;Will you name the amount? I do not
+      know what is usual.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything you like,&rdquo; Somerfield answered, &ldquo;from ten pounds to a hundred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One hundred,&mdash;we will say one hundred, then,&rdquo; the Prince declared.
+      &ldquo;My mount against yours. So!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must go now and be introduced to the Clerk of the Course,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;Ah, here is Lady Grace!&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;Come with me, Lady Grace. Your father
+      is seeing about my entry. I think that in five minutes the bell will
+      ring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you say to her, Prince?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;She is behaving beautifully
+      except for that first start.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your mare understands Japanese, Lady Grace,&rdquo; the Prince answered,
+      smiling. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gad, I believe she will!&rdquo; the Duke exclaimed. &ldquo;Look at the fellow ride.
+      His body is like whalebone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never saw a fellow sit so close in my life,&rdquo; the Duke declared. &ldquo;Do you
+      know, Grace, I believe, I really believe he&rsquo;ll ride her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace laughed scornfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a year&rsquo;s allowance on already,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;so you had better pray
+      that he does. I think it is very absurd of you all,&rdquo; she added, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re off!&rdquo; the Duke exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;the Prince
+      never moved in his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He rides like an Italian,&rdquo; Bransome declared, shutting up his glasses.
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s never a thing in this race to touch him. I am going to see if I
+      can get any money on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s over, by Jove!&rdquo; the Duke exclaimed. &ldquo;No, he&rsquo;s righted himself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve won your money, Grace,&rdquo; the Duke declared, shutting up his glass.
+      &ldquo;A finely ridden race, too. Did you see he&rsquo;d lost his stirrup? He must
+      have taken the last jump without it. I&rsquo;ll go and fetch him up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke hurried down. The Prince was already in the weighing room smoking
+      a cigarette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all right,&rdquo; he said smiling. &ldquo;They have passed me. I have won. I
+      hope that Lady Grace will be pleased.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is delighted!&rdquo; the Duke exclaimed, shaking him by the hand. &ldquo;We all
+      are. What happened to your stirrup?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must ask your groom,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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&rsquo;s mare.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;you rode superbly. It was a wonderful race. I
+      have never felt so grateful to any one in my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled in a puzzled way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not my mare alone,&rdquo; she answered,&mdash;&ldquo;it was your riding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince laughed as one who does not understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You make me ashamed, Lady Grace,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Why, there is only one
+      way to ride. You did not think that because I was not English I should
+      fall off a horse?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; the Duke remarked smiling, &ldquo;that several Englishmen have
+      fallen off!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a matter of the horse,&rdquo; the Prince said. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he
+      added, turning suddenly to where Penelope was standing a little apart. &ldquo;I
+      am so sorry that Sir Charles&rsquo; horse was not quite so good as Lady Grace&rsquo;s.
+      You will not blame me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I do not blame you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXX. INSPECTOR JACKS IMPORTUNATE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s
+      sport. The young men, Somerfield especially, were inclined to regard the
+      Prince&rsquo;s achievement from a somewhat critical standpoint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He rode the race well enough,&rdquo; Somerfield admitted, &ldquo;but the mare is a
+      topper, and no mistake. He had nothing to do but to sit tight and let her
+      do the work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, he hadn&rsquo;t to finish either,&rdquo; one of the newcomers, a Captain
+      Everard Wilmot, remarked. &ldquo;That&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will, perhaps, not deny him,&rdquo; the Duke remarked mildly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I call it one of the most sporting things I ever heard of in my life,&rdquo;
+       Lady Grace declared warmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One must admit that he has pluck,&rdquo; he remarked critically. &ldquo;At the same
+      time I cannot see that a single effort of this sort entitles a man to be
+      considered a sportsman. He doesn&rsquo;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&rsquo;d never get along in this country, would he,
+      Wilmot?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m shot if he would!&rdquo; that young man replied. &ldquo;There must be
+      something wrong about a man who hasn&rsquo;t any taste whatever for sport.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope suddenly intervened&mdash;intervened, too, in somewhat startling
+      fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charlie,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will tell you what I think!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;I think that you are all
+      guilty of the most ridiculous presumption in criticising such a man as the
+      Prince. You would dare&mdash;you, Captain Wilmot, and you, Charlie, and
+      you, Mr. Hannaway,&rdquo; she added, turning to the third young man, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t presume to
+      imagine yourselves his superior because he does not conform to your pygmy
+      standard of life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s silence which followed, Lady Grace too rose to her
+      feet and came to her friend&rsquo;s side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I agree with every word Penelope has said,&rdquo; she declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; she said soothingly, &ldquo;we mustn&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield, who for a moment had been too angry to speak, had now
+      recovered himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; he said stiffly, &ldquo;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&rsquo;ll play you a game of
+      billiards before we go upstairs. There&rsquo;s just time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Wilmot hesitated. He was a peace-loving man, and, after all,
+      Penelope and his friend were engaged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps Miss Morse&mdash;&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope turned upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like you all to understand,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;that every word I
+      said came from my heart, and that I would say it again, and more, with the
+      same provocation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a finality about Penelope&rsquo;s words which left no room for further
+      discussion. The little group was broken up. She and Lady Grace went to
+      their rooms together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope, you&rsquo;re a dear!&rdquo; the latter said, as they mounted the stairs. &ldquo;I
+      am afraid you&rsquo;ve made Charlie very angry, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope I have,&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you don&rsquo;t dislike the Prince so much nowadays?&rdquo; Lady Grace remarked
+      with transparent indifference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To tell you the truth, Penelope,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I almost wish that he were
+      not quite so devotedly attached to his country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope was silent. They had reached Lady Grace&rsquo;s room now, and were
+      standing together on the hearthrug in front of the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid he is like that,&rdquo; Penelope said gently. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more Lady Grace sighed. She was looking into the heart of the fire.
+      Penelope took her hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is hard sometimes, dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;to realize that a thing is
+      impossible, that it is absolutely out of our reach. Yet it is better to
+      bring one&rsquo;s mind to it than to suffer all the days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace looked up. At that moment she was more than pretty. Her eyes
+      were soft and bright, the color had flooded her cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t see <i>why</i> it should be impossible, Penelope,&rdquo; she
+      protested. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; she added with trembling lips, &ldquo;that
+      he does not care for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cannot tell,&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;He has never shown any signs of
+      caring for any woman. Remember, though, that he would want you to live in
+      Japan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;d live in Thibet if he asked me to,&rdquo; Lady Grace declared, raising her
+      handkerchief to her eyes, &ldquo;but he never will. He doesn&rsquo;t care. He doesn&rsquo;t
+      understand. I am very foolish, Penelope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope kissed her gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you are not the only foolish woman in the world.&rdquo;...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw you with all the evening papers as usual, Bransome,&rdquo; the Prime
+      Minister remarked during the service of dinner. &ldquo;Was there any news?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing much,&rdquo; the Foreign Secretary replied. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; the Prime Minister said. &ldquo;Was there anything about you in the
+      same paper by any chance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing particularly abusive,&rdquo; Sir Edward answered blandly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excellent!&rdquo; the Duke declared. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about me?&rdquo; Bransome grumbled. &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t I been worried to death, too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince, who had just finished describing to Lady Grace a typical
+      landscape of his country, turned toward Bransome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that I heard you say something about a discovery in connection
+      with those wonderful murder cases,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Has any one actually been
+      arrested?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My paper was an early edition,&rdquo; Bransome answered, &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s taxi and is quite prepared to swear to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has he not been rather a long time in coming forward with his evidence?&rdquo;
+       the Prince remarked. &ldquo;I do not remember to have seen any mention of such a
+      person in the papers before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He watched so well,&rdquo; Bransome answered, &ldquo;and was so startled that he was
+      knocked down and run over. The detective in charge of the case found him
+      in a hospital.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These things always come out sooner or later,&rdquo; the Prime Minister
+      remarked. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As a nation,&rdquo; Bransome remarked, helping himself to the entree, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield was watching his fiancee curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you really very pale tonight, Penelope,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;or is it those
+      red flowers which have drawn all the color from your cheeks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe that I am pale,&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; she asked him across
+      the round table, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t you think that I remind you a little tonight of
+      the women of your country?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince returned her gaze as though, indeed, something were passing
+      between them of greater significance than that half-bantering question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I think that you do. You remind me of my country
+      itself&mdash;of the things that wait for me across the ocean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Highness,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;some one is on the telephone, speaking from
+      London. They ask if you could spare half a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Highness,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the man Jacks with a policeman is here in the hall
+      at the present moment. He asks permission to search this house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For what purpose?&rdquo; the Prince asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To discover some person whom he believes to be in hiding here,&rdquo; the
+      secretary answered. &ldquo;He explains that in any ordinary case he would have
+      applied for what they call a search warrant. Owing to your Highness&rsquo; 
+      position, however, he has attended here, hoping for your gracious consent
+      without having made any formal application.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must think!&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;Tell me, Soto. You are sure that the
+      English doctor has had no opportunity of communicating with any one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has had no opportunity,&rdquo; was the firm reply. &ldquo;If your Highness says
+      the word, he shall pass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let him alone,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;Refuse this man Jacks permission to
+      search my house during my absence. Tell him that I shall be there at three
+      o&rsquo;clock tomorrow afternoon and that at that hour he is welcome to return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It shall be done, Highness,&rdquo; was the answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince set down the receiver upon the instrument and stood for a
+      moment deep in thought. It was a strange country, this,&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXI. GOODBYE!
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Prince on his return from the library intercepted Penelope on her way
+      across the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As soon as he comes out from the dining room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw the hardening of her lips, the flash in her eyes at the mention of
+      Somerfield&rsquo;s name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;Sir Charles and I are going to have a little
+      understanding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you sure,&rdquo; he asked softly, &ldquo;that it will not be a misunderstanding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked into his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does it matter to you?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;What do you care?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come into the conservatory for a few minutes,&rdquo; he begged. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated. He stood by her side patiently waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that I am a somewhat privileged person just now. My
+      days here are numbered, you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned toward the conservatories.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you go so soon?&rdquo; she whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on,&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to ask you, Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;whether you remember
+      the day when you paid a visit to my house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was showing you a casket,&rdquo; he went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She gripped his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t!&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t, I can&rsquo;t bear any more of that. You don&rsquo;t know
+      how horrible it seems to me! You don&rsquo;t know&mdash;what fears I have had!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked away from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have sometimes wondered,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;what your thoughts were at that
+      moment, what you have thought of me since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shivered a little, but did not answer him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very soon,&rdquo; he reminded her, &ldquo;I shall have passed out of your life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He heard the sudden, half-stifled exclamation. He felt rather than saw the
+      eyes which pleaded with him, and he hastened on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You understand what is meant by the inevitable,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;Whatever
+      has happened in the matters with which I have been concerned has been
+      inevitable. I have had no choice&mdash;sometimes no choice in such events
+      is possible. Do not think,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet you go,&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet I go,&rdquo; he assented. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you know,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;that you need not ask that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will marry Sir Charles Somerfield,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A man&rsquo;s footstep approached them. Somerfield himself drew near and
+      hesitated. The Prince rose at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Charles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duke will be disappointed,&rdquo; Somerfield said. &ldquo;Are you off at once?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably tomorrow,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;May I leave Miss Penelope in
+      your charge?&rdquo; he added with a little bow. &ldquo;The Duke, I believe, is
+      awaiting me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He passed out of the conservatory. Penelope sat quite still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; Somerfield said, &ldquo;if he is really going&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charlie,&rdquo; she interrupted, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The man whom a month ago,&rdquo; he remarked curiously, &ldquo;you hated!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was an idiot,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I did not understand him and I was prejudiced
+      against his country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, as he actually is going away,&rdquo; Sir Charles remarked with a sigh of
+      content, &ldquo;I suppose it&rsquo;s no use being jealous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t any reason to be,&rdquo; Penelope answered just a little wistfully.
+      &ldquo;Prince Maiyo has no room in his life for such frivolous creatures as
+      women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do come and talk to us, Prince,&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;I am so tired of this
+      stupid game, and I am sure Captain Wilmot is bored to tears.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but I must find the Duke. I have just received a
+      telephone message and I fear that I may have to leave tomorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tomorrow!&rdquo; she cried in dismay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If not tomorrow, the next day,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I have had a summons&mdash;a
+      summons which I cannot disobey. Shall I find your father in the library,
+      Lady Grace?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid I must,&rdquo; he answered regretfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a hopelessly disappointing person,&rdquo; she declared a little
+      pitifully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is because you are all much too kind to me that you think so,&rdquo; he
+      answered. &ldquo;You make me welcome amongst you even as one of yourselves. You
+      forget&mdash;you would almost teach me to forget that I am only a wayfarer
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is your own choice,&rdquo; she said, coming a little nearer to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, no,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He passed out, closing the door behind him. Captain Wilmot chalked his cue
+      carefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the queerest fellow I ever knew in my life,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He seems
+      all the time as though his head were in the clouds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace sighed. She too was chalking her cue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;what it would be like to live in the clouds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXII. PRINCE MAIYO SPEAKS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not intrude, I trust?&rdquo; the Prince said. &ldquo;I understood that you
+      wished me to come here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; the Duke answered, &ldquo;we were sitting here awaiting your
+      arrival. Will you take this easy chair? The cigarettes are at your elbow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince declined the easy chair and leaned for a moment against the
+      table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps later,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Just now I feel that you have something to say
+      to me. Is it not so? I talk better when I am standing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the Prime Minister who made the first plunge. He spoke without
+      circumlocution, and his tone was graver than usual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can assure you, my dear Prince, that we shall very much appreciate your
+      doing so,&rdquo; Mr. Haviland declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; the Prince continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prime Minister and Bransome exchanged rapid glances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That has been our belief from the first,&rdquo; Bransome remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came to Europe,&rdquo; the Prince continued gravely, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The report,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no reason,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;I will tell you. I owe that to
+      you at least. I have advised the Emperor not to renew the treaty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to renew,&rdquo; the Prime Minister echoed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; the Prince continued earnestly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; Mr. Haviland said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is hard,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on,&rdquo; Mr. Haviland said, drumming idly with his fingers upon the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have had to ask myself,&rdquo; the Prince continued,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bransome leaned forward in his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can disprove it,&rdquo; he declared firmly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince drew a little breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Edward,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are English soldiers,&rdquo; Mr. Haviland declared. &ldquo;I do not recognize
+      your use of the word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are paid soldiers,&rdquo; the Prince said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;I will alter one word only.
+      The love of his Motherland is no longer <i>the</i> 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&mdash;one score, mind&mdash;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,&mdash;so it is everywhere,&mdash;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,&mdash;they who spend five
+      days in your grim factories toiling before machines,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pause which followed was in itself significant. The Duke alone
+      remained impassive. Bransome&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that is really your opinion of us, Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fourteen thousand four hundred and seventy-five,&rdquo; the Prince answered
+      promptly, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; the Prince continued with increased earnestness, &ldquo;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,&mdash;no, I want to change that!&rdquo; the
+      Prince cried with an impressive gesture,&mdash;&ldquo;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,&mdash;they cannot fight as civilians.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prince forgets,&rdquo; Bransome remarked dryly, &ldquo;that an invasion of this
+      country&mdash;a practical invasion&mdash;is very nearly an impossible
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince laughed softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Without admitting the truth of a single word you have said, my dear
+      Prince,&rdquo; the Prime Minister remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; the Prince replied, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are, nevertheless,&rdquo; Bransome declared, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your good offices were duly acknowledged by my Government,&rdquo; the Prince
+      admitted. &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An alliance duly concluded between this country&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince held out both his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bransome was on the point of exclaiming, but the Prime Minister
+      intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You appear to be a perfect Secret Service to yourself, Prince,&rdquo; he said
+      smoothly. &ldquo;Perhaps you can also tell us our reply?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can tell you this much,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know what our reply was?&rdquo; Mr. Haviland asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To tell you the truth, I do not,&rdquo; the Prince answered, smiling. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been very candid with us, Prince,&rdquo; Mr. Haviland remarked. &ldquo;We
+      gather that you are opposed to a renewal of our alliance chiefly for two
+      reasons,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shook his head slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tonight,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;China!&rdquo; the Prime Minister exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The China of our own making,&rdquo; the Prince declared, a note of tense
+      enthusiasm creeping into his tone,&mdash;&ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A footman entered the room and made his way to the Duke&rsquo;s chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Grace,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;a gentleman is ringing up from Downing Street who
+      says he is speaking from the Home Office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whom does he want?&rdquo; the Duke asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Both Your Grace and Mr. Haviland,&rdquo; the man replied. &ldquo;He wished me to say
+      that the matter was of the utmost importance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke rose at once and glanced at the clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is an extraordinary hour,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;for Heseltine to be wanting
+      us. Shall we go and see what it means, Haviland? You will excuse us,
+      Prince?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince bowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that we have talked enough of serious affairs tonight,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;I shall challenge Sir Edward to a game of billiards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIII. UNAFRAID
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morse!&rdquo; he exclaimed breathlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he cried softly, &ldquo;you must not come in here! Please!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen!&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;I had to come! You don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my arrest,&rdquo; the Prince repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you understand?&rdquo; she continued breathlessly. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see how
+      horrible it is? They mean to arrest you for the murder of Hamilton Fynes
+      and Dicky Vanderpole!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If this must be so,&rdquo; the Prince answered, &ldquo;why do they not come? I am
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you must not stay here!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;You must escape! It is too
+      terrible to think that you should&mdash;oh, I can&rsquo;t say it!&mdash;that you
+      should have to face these charges. If you are guilty, well, Heaven help
+      you!&mdash;If you are guilty, I want you to escape all the same!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her with the puzzled air of one who tries to reason with a
+      child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;this is kind of you, but, after all,
+      remember that I am a man, and I must not run away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you cannot meet these charges!&rdquo; she interrupted. &ldquo;You cannot meet
+      them! You know it! Oh, don&rsquo;t think I can&rsquo;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,&mdash;you must, indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I cannot do that! I cannot run away like a
+      thief in the dark. If this thing is to come, it must come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you don&rsquo;t understand!&rdquo; she continued, wringing her hands. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t wait a single moment. I believe that tomorrow morning will be
+      too late!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sank on her knees before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you understand why I am here?&rdquo; she cried passionately. &ldquo;It was I
+      who told of the silken cord and knife!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was wholly unmoved. He even smiled, as though the thing were of no
+      moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was right that you should do so,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;You must not reproach
+      yourself with that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do! I do!&rdquo; she cried again. &ldquo;I always shall! Don&rsquo;t you understand
+      that if you stay here they will treat you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He interrupted, laying his hand gently upon her shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear young lady,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&mdash;another house
+      of rest which I can reach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not mind,&rdquo; he whispered, &ldquo;if I tell you that you must not stay
+      here any longer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He led her toward the door. Upon the threshold he took her cold fingers
+      into his hand and kissed them reverently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not be too despondent,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I have a star somewhere which burns
+      for me. Tonight I have been looking for it. It is there still,&rdquo; he added,
+      pointing to the wide open window. &ldquo;It is there, undimmed, clearer and
+      brighter than ever. I have no fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His Highness&rsquo; bath is ready,&rdquo; he announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s valet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Highness,&rdquo; the latter said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Duke,&rdquo; the Prince said cheerfully. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; the Duke said quietly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince bowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Duke,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind those other countries,&rdquo; the Duke interrupted gravely. &ldquo;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&mdash;supposing even you, Prince Maiyo&mdash;were to come within
+      the arm of the law. Even the great claims of hospitality would leave me
+      powerless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This,&rdquo; the Prince admitted, &ldquo;I fully apprehend. It is surely reasonable
+      that the stranger in your country should be subject to your laws.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, then,&rdquo; the Duke continued. &ldquo;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&rsquo; 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.&rdquo; The Prince shook his head slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duke,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke laid his hands upon the young man&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maiyo,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we have grown fond of you,&mdash;my wife, my daughter,
+      all of us. We don&rsquo;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;make use of my car. You will reach Southampton in
+      half an hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shook his head. His lips had parted in what was certainly a
+      smile. At the corners they quivered, a little tremulous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear friend,&rdquo; he said, and his voice had softened almost to affection,
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIV. BANZAI!
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was curious how the Prince&rsquo;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&rsquo;s car, the Prince&rsquo;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&rsquo;clock they were all on
+      their way to London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;was it worth while?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the other car, too, silence reigned. Somerfield was the only one who
+      struggled against the general air of depression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all,&rdquo; he remarked to Bransome, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see what we&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope spoke for the first time since they had left Devenham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you begin to talk like that, Charlie,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I shall ask the
+      Duchess to stop the car and put you down here in the road.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield laughed, not altogether pleasantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seven miles from any railway station,&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope shrugged her shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should not care in the least what happened to you, today or at any
+      other time,&rdquo; she declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see the time!&rdquo; the Prince exclaimed. &ldquo;It is barely eleven o&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke looked for a moment doubtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It wants an hour to midday,&rdquo; the Prince said, softly. &ldquo;There is time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They reached St. James&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a fancy of mine,&rdquo; he said, smiling, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took a picture from the wall and turned with it to the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duke,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added, stepping to his
+      writing table, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to the Duchess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duchess,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lady Grace,&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more he went to his writing table. From it he lifted, almost
+      reverently, a small bronze figure,&mdash;the figure of a woman, strongly
+      built, almost squat, without grace, whose eyes and head and arms reached
+      upwards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I confess!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;that
+      man!&rdquo; Soto cried, pointing to the youth who stood at the Inspector&rsquo;s left
+      hand. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; unspoken question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is the image of the man who came to me that night,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;He
+      is wearing the same clothes, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you say?&rdquo; the Inspector whispered hoarsely to the youth on his
+      other side. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t hurry. Look at him carefully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is the same height and figure as the man I saw enter the taxi,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;I believe that it is he.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks stepped forward, but the Prince held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Soto,&rdquo; 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,&mdash;&ldquo;why
+      have you done this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Illustrious Prince,&rdquo; he answered, speaking also in his own tongue, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He suddenly collapsed. The doctor bent over him, but the Prince shook his
+      head slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is useless,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The man has confessed his crime. He has told me
+      the whole truth. He has taken poison.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you leave me?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I wish to be alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes were like the eyes of a blind man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One by one they left the room, Inspector Jacks amongst them. The only
+      person who spoke, even in the hall, was the Inspector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was the Prince who brought the doctor here,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;He must
+      have known! At least he must have known!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Haviland touched him on the arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inspector Jacks!&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks saluted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The murderer is dead,&rdquo; he continued, speaking still under his breath.
+      &ldquo;Silence is a wonderful gift, Mr. Jacks. Sometimes its reward is greater
+      even than the reward of action.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do the great die,&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;Already the Gods of our fathers are
+      calling you Soto the Faithful. Banzai!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+  <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1447 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #1447 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1447)
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+Project Gutenberg’s The Illustrious Prince, by E. Phillips Oppenheim
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Illustrious Prince
+
+Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim
+
+Posting Date: August 22, 2008 [EBook #1447]
+Release Date: September, 1998
+Last Updated: October 11, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Theresa Armao
+
+
+
+
+
+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!”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s The Illustrious Prince, by E. Phillips Oppenheim
+
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+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Illustrious Prince, by E. Phillips Oppenheim
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Illustrious Prince
+
+Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim
+
+Release Date: August 22, 2008 [EBook #1447]
+Last Updated: October 11, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Theresa Armao, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By E. Phillips Oppenheim
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MR. HAMILTON
+        FYNES, URGENT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        END OF THE JOURNEY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN
+        INCIDENT AND AN ACCIDENT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MISS PENELOPE MORSE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005">
+        CHAPTER V. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN AFFAIR OF STATE <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MR. COULSON
+        INTERVIEWED <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        FATAL DESPATCH <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN
+        INTERRUPTED THEATRE PARTY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER
+        IX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;INSPECTOR JACKS SCORES <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MR. COULSON OUTMATCHED
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        COMMISSION <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PENELOPE
+        INTERVENES <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;EAST
+        AND WEST <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AN
+        ENGAGEMENT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PENELOPE
+        EXPLAINS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;CONCERNING
+        PRINCE MAIYO <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        GAY NIGHT IN PARIS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;MR. COULSON IS INDISCREET <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A MOMENTOUS QUESTION
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        ANSWER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        CLUE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        BREATH FROM THE EAST <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ON THE TRAIL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER
+        XXIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PRINCE MAIYO BIDS HIGH <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HOBSON&rsquo;S CHOICE <br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SOME FAREWELLS
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        PRISONER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PATRIOTISM
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A RACE
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;INSPECTOR
+        JACKS IMPORTUNATE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;GOODBYE!
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PRINCE
+        MAIYO SPEAKS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII. &nbsp;&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;UNAFRAID
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;BANZAI!
+        <br /><br />
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. MR. HAMILTON FYNES, URGENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Goodfellow,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I should be glad if you would glance at
+      the contents of that note.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain, who had just finished a long discussion with the pilot and
+      was not in the best of humor, looked a little surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, now?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please,&rdquo; was the quiet answer. &ldquo;The matter is urgent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; the captain asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; the other answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The contingency being?&rdquo; the captain asked, tearing open the envelope and
+      moving a little nearer the electric light which shone out from the smoking
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That the Lusitania did not land her passengers this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain read the note, examined the signature carefully, and whistled
+      softly to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know what is inside this?&rdquo; he asked, looking into his companion&rsquo;s
+      face with some curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; was the brief reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your name is Mr. Hamilton Fynes, the Mr. Hamilton Fynes mentioned in this
+      letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is so,&rdquo; the passenger admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you had better get down on the lower deck, port side. By
+      the bye, have you any friends with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite alone,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So much the better,&rdquo; the captain declared. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t tell any one that you
+      are going ashore if you can help it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I certainly will not, sir,&rdquo; the other answered. &ldquo;Thank you very much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, you know that you can&rsquo;t take your luggage with you?&rdquo; the
+      captain remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is of no consequence at all, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Hamilton Fynes answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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,&mdash;nothing, at any rate, to inspire an unusual amount of
+      respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wished to see me, sir?&rdquo; the official asked, merely glancing up from
+      the desk at which he was sitting with a pile of papers before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I require a special train to London as quickly as possible,&rdquo; he
+      announced. &ldquo;I should be glad if you could let me have one within half an
+      hour, at any rate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The station-master rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite impossible, sir,&rdquo; he declared a little brusquely. &ldquo;Absolutely out
+      of the question!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I ask why it is out of the question?&rdquo; Mr. Hamilton Fynes inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the first place,&rdquo; the station-master answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you will kindly read this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am perfectly willing to
+      pay the hundred and eighty pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will give this matter my personal attention at once, Mr. Fynes,&rdquo; he
+      said, lifting the flap of the counter and coming out. &ldquo;Do you care to come
+      inside and wait in my private office?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; Mr. Hamilton Fynes answered; &ldquo;I will walk up and down the
+      platform.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is a refreshment room just on the left,&rdquo; the station-master
+      remarked, ringing violently at a telephone. &ldquo;I dare say we shall get you
+      off in less than half an hour. We will do our best, at any rate. It&rsquo;s an
+      awkward time just now to command an absolutely clear line, but if we can
+      once get you past Crewe you&rsquo;ll be all right. Shall we fetch you from the
+      refreshment room when we are ready?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please,&rdquo; the intending passenger answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s brake behind and an engine in front, was waiting
+      there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve done our best, sir,&rdquo; the station-master remarked with a note of
+      self-congratulation in his tone. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s exactly twenty-two minutes since
+      you came into the office, and there she is. Finest engine we&rsquo;ve got on the
+      line, and the best driver. You&rsquo;ve a clear road ahead too. Wish you a
+      pleasant journey, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very good, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Hamilton Fynes declared. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The station-master glanced at the clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is now eight o&rsquo;clock, sir,&rdquo; he announced. &ldquo;If my orders down the line
+      are properly attended to, you should be there by twenty minutes to
+      twelve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Hamilton Fynes nodded gravely and took his seat in the car. He had
+      previously walked its entire length and back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The train consists only of this carriage?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;There is no other
+      passenger, for instance, travelling in the guard&rsquo;s brake?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly not, sir,&rdquo; the station-master declared. &ldquo;Such a thing would be
+      entirely against the regulations. There are five of you, all told, on
+      board,&mdash;driver, stoker, guard, saloon attendant, and yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Hamilton Fynes nodded, and appeared satisfied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more luggage, sir?&rdquo; the guard asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was obliged to leave what I had, excepting this suitcase, upon the
+      steamer,&rdquo; Mr. Hamilton Fynes explained. &ldquo;I could not very well expect them
+      to get my trunk up from the hold. It will follow me to the hotel
+      tomorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will find that the attendant has light refreshments on board, sir, if
+      you should be wanting anything,&rdquo; the station-master announced. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll
+      start you off now, then. Good-night, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Fynes nodded genially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night, Station-master!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Many thanks to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. THE END OF THE JOURNEY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What about this special?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Passenger brought off from the Lusitania in a private tug. Orders are to
+      let her through all the way to London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know all about that,&rdquo; the station-master grumbled. &ldquo;I have three locals
+      on my hands already,&mdash;been held up for half an hour. Old Glynn, the
+      director&rsquo;s, in one of them too. Might be General Manager to hear him
+      swear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she signalled yet?&rdquo; Liverpool asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just gone through at sixty miles an hour,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;She made our
+      old wooden sheds shake, I can tell you. Who&rsquo;s driving her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim Poynton,&rdquo; Liverpool answered. &ldquo;The guvnor took him off the mail
+      specially.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the fellow&rsquo;s name on board, anyhow?&rdquo; Crewe asked. &ldquo;Is it a
+      millionaire from the other side, trying to make records, or a member of
+      our bloated aristocracy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The name&rsquo;s Fynes, or something like it,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seems as though he was some one out of the common, anyway,&rdquo; he remarked.
+      &ldquo;The guvnor didn&rsquo;t let on who the note was from, I suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not he,&rdquo; Liverpool answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I suppose we shall read all about it in the papers tomorrow,&rdquo; Crewe
+      remarked. &ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t much that these reporters don&rsquo;t get hold of. He
+      must be some one out of the common&mdash;some one with a pull, I mean,&mdash;or
+      the captain of the Lusitania would never have let him off before the other
+      passengers. When are the rest of them coming through?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three specials leave here at nine o&rsquo;clock tomorrow morning,&rdquo; was the
+      reply. &ldquo;Good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rugby telephoned to Liverpool, and received very much the same answer as
+      Crewe. Euston followed suit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s this you&rsquo;re sending up tonight?&rdquo; the station-master asked.
+      &ldquo;Special&rsquo;s at Willington now, come through without a stop. Is some one
+      trying to make a record round the world?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His name is Mr. Hamilton Fynes, sir,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;That is all we know
+      about him. They have been ringing us up all down the line, ever since the
+      special left.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; Euston repeated. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know the name. Where did he come
+      from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Off the Lusitania, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we had a message three hours ago that the Lusitania was not landing
+      her passengers until tomorrow morning,&rdquo; Euston protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They let our man off in a tug, sir,&rdquo; was the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It went down the river to fetch him. The guvnor didn&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. AN INCIDENT AND AN ACCIDENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Smoothly the huge engine came gliding into the station&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Rice,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;If you please, sir, will you come this way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The station-master acceded at once to the man&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What on earth is the matter with you?&rdquo; the station-master asked
+      brusquely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s something wrong with my passenger, sir,&rdquo; the man declared in a
+      shaking voice. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t make him answer me. He won&rsquo;t look up, and I don&rsquo;t&mdash;I
+      don&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;s asleep. An hour ago I took him some whiskey. He told me
+      not to disturb him again&mdash;he had some papers to go through.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;something unnatural, too, in the drawn grayness of his
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Euston, sir,&rdquo; the station-master began,&mdash;&ldquo;the terminus&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pull down the blinds,&rdquo; he ordered, in a voice which he should never have
+      recognized as his own. &ldquo;Quick! Now turn out those porters, and tell the
+      inspector to stop anyone from coming into the car.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s warning. He had not the slightest doubt
+      but that the man who was seated at the table was dead!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he dead?&rdquo; the station-master asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stone-dead!&rdquo; was the brief answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; the station-master muttered. &ldquo;Good God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor had thrown his handkerchief over the dead man&rsquo;s face. He was
+      standing now looking at him thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he die in his sleep, I wonder?&rdquo; the station-master asked. &ldquo;It must
+      have been horribly sudden! Was it heart disease?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor did not reply for a moment. He seemed to be thinking out some
+      problem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The body had better be removed to the station mortuary,&rdquo; he said at last.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Scotland Yard?&rdquo; the station-master exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor nodded. He looked around as though to be sure that none of that
+      anxious crowd outside could overhear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question of heart disease here,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;The man has
+      been murdered!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The station-master was horrified,&mdash;horrified and blankly incredulous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murdered!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s impossible! There was no one else on
+      the train except the attendant&mdash;not a single other person. All my
+      advices said one passenger only.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor touched the man&rsquo;s coat with his finger, and the station-master
+      saw what he had not seen before,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no question about the man having been murdered,&rdquo; the doctor
+      said, and even his voice shook a little. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diabolical indeed!&rdquo; the station-master echoed hoarsely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better give orders for us to be shunted down on to a siding just
+      as we are,&rdquo; the doctor continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inspector Jacks from Scotland Yard, sir,&rdquo; he announced. &ldquo;I have another
+      man outside. If you don&rsquo;t mind, we&rsquo;ll have him in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By all means,&rdquo; the station-master answered. &ldquo;I am afraid that you will
+      find this rather a serious affair. We have left everything untouched so
+      far as we could.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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,&mdash;questions and
+      answers,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The doctor&rsquo;s!&rdquo; he muttered to himself, and, staggering out, rang the
+      bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to have met with an accident,&rdquo; the doctor remarked. &ldquo;How did it
+      happen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been run over by a motor car,&rdquo; his patient said, speaking slowly
+      and with something singularly agreeable in his voice notwithstanding its
+      slight accent of pain. &ldquo;Can you patch me up till I get to London?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor looked him over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What were you doing in the road?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was riding a bicycle,&rdquo; the other answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll do all right now,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a nasty cut on your leg, but
+      you&rsquo;ve no broken bones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel absolutely well again, thank you very much,&rdquo; the young man said.
+      &ldquo;I will smoke a cigarette, if I may. The brandy, I thank you, no!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just as you like,&rdquo; the doctor answered. &ldquo;I won&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; the patient answered. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor hesitated. Fees were a rare thing with him, and the evidences
+      of his patient&rsquo;s means were somewhat doubtful. The young man put his hand
+      into his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor summoned up his courage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will say a guinea, then,&rdquo; he remarked with studied indifference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must allow me to make it a little more than that,&rdquo; the patient
+      answered. &ldquo;Your treatment was worth it. I feel perfectly recovered
+      already. Good night, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor&rsquo;s eyes sparkled as he glanced at the gold which his visitor had
+      laid upon the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very good, I&rsquo;m sure,&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;I hope you will have a
+      comfortable journey. With a nerve like yours, you&rsquo;ll be all right in a day
+      or so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No bicycle there,&rdquo; he remarked to himself, as he closed the door. &ldquo;I
+      wonder what they did with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. MISS PENELOPE MORSE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you tell me,&rdquo; she asked, &ldquo;if Mr. Hamilton Fynes is staying here? He
+      should have arrived by the Lusitania last night or early this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Hamilton Fynes!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Did you say that you were expecting
+      him by the Lusitania, madam?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; the young lady answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you pardon my asking, madam, if you have seen the newspapers this
+      morning?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The newspapers!&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Why, no, I don&rsquo;t think that I have seen
+      them this morning. What have they to do with Mr. Hamilton Fynes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clerk pointed to the open door of a small private office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will step this way for one moment, madam,&rdquo; he begged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should I?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Cannot you answer my question here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If madam will be so good,&rdquo; he persisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrugged her shoulders and followed him. Something in the man&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her manner changed at once. She began to understand what it all meant. Her
+      lips parted, her eyes were wide open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An accident?&rdquo; she faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He gently rolled a chair up to her. She sank obediently into it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murdered!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Is this true?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It appears to be perfectly true, madam, I regret to say,&rdquo; the clerk
+      answered. &ldquo;Even the earlier editions were able to supply the man&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murdered!&rdquo; she repeated to herself with trembling lips. &ldquo;It seems such a
+      horrible death! Have they any idea who did it?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Has any one
+      been arrested?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At present, no, madam,&rdquo; the clerk answered. &ldquo;The affair, as you will see
+      if you read further, is an exceedingly mysterious one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where can I be alone and read this?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, if you please, madam,&rdquo; the clerk answered. &ldquo;I must go back to my
+      desk. There are many arrivals just now. Will you allow me to send you
+      something&mdash;a little brandy, perhaps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing, thank you,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I wish only to be alone while I read
+      this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That papers had been stolen from him&mdash;papers or money&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl opened her lips and closed them again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I regret to say that I have nothing whatever to tell them,&rdquo; she declared.
+      &ldquo;Will you kindly let them know that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clerk shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid you will find them quite persistent, madam,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot tell them things which I do not know myself,&rdquo; she answered,
+      frowning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; the clerk admitted; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it will help me to get rid of them,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I will speak to the
+      representative of Scotland Yard. I will have nothing whatever to say to
+      the reporters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I understand that Mr. Hamilton Fynes was a friend of
+      yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An acquaintance,&rdquo; she corrected him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your name?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Miss Morse,&rdquo; she replied,&mdash;&ldquo;Miss Penelope Morse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were to have lunched here with Mr. Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; the detective
+      continued. &ldquo;When, may I ask, did the invitation reach you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yesterday,&rdquo; she told him, &ldquo;by marconigram from Queenstown.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can tell us a few things about the deceased, without doubt,&rdquo; Mr.
+      Jacks said,&mdash;&ldquo;his profession, for instance, or his social standing?
+      Perhaps you know the reason for his coming to Europe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Fynes and I were not intimately acquainted,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;We met in
+      Paris some years ago, and when he was last in London, during the autumn, I
+      lunched with him twice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had no letter from him, then, previous to the marconigram?&rdquo; the
+      inspector asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have scarcely ever received a letter from him in my life,&rdquo; she
+      answered. &ldquo;He was as bad a correspondent as I am myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know nothing, then, of the object of his present visit to England?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing whatever,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When he was over here before,&rdquo; the inspector asked, &ldquo;do you know what his
+      business was then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in the least,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can tell us his address in the States?&rdquo; Inspector Jacks suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He never alluded to it in any way,&rdquo; the girl answered. &ldquo;I have not the
+      slightest idea how he passed his time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The inspector was a little nonplussed. He did not for a moment believe
+      that the girl was telling the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; he said tentatively, &ldquo;you do not care to have your name come
+      before the public in connection with a case so notorious as this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; the girl answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The detective was thoughtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you really cannot help us at all, madam?&rdquo; he said at length.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid not,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; he suggested, &ldquo;after you have thought the matter over,
+      something may occur to you. Can I trouble you for your address?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am staying at Devenham House for the moment,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrote it down in his notebook.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall perhaps do myself the honor of waiting upon you a little later
+      on,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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&rsquo;s affairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned away from him to the clerk, and pointed to another door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I go out without seeing those others?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;I really have
+      nothing to say to them, and this has been quite a shock to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By all means, madam,&rdquo; the clerk answered. &ldquo;If you will allow me, I will
+      escort you to the entrance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two of the more enterprising of the journalists caught them up upon the
+      pavement. Miss Penelope Morse, however, had little to say to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not ask me any more questions about Mr. Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; she
+      declared. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This Mr. Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was certainly a man who knew how to keep his own counsel,&rdquo; he
+      admitted. &ldquo;Most Americans are ready enough to talk about themselves and
+      their affairs, even to comparative strangers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The hotel clerk nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Makes it difficult for you,&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It makes the case very interesting,&rdquo; the inspector declared, &ldquo;especially
+      when we find him engaged to lunch with a young lady of such remarkable
+      discretion as Miss Penelope Morse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know her?&rdquo; the clerk asked a little eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The inspector was engaged, apparently, in studying the pattern of the
+      carpet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;No, I have no absolute knowledge of Miss
+      Penelope Morse. By the bye, that was rather an interesting address that
+      she gave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Devenham House,&rdquo; the hotel clerk remarked. &ldquo;Do you know who lives there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duke of Devenham,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The hotel clerk looked dubious. He did not grasp the significance of the
+      question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. AN AFFAIR OF STATE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s Stores, her pursuers were out of sight. She
+      paid the driver quickly, a little over double his fare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If any one asks you questions,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t be coming back, then, miss?&rdquo; the man asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped in front of one of the big clubs and, scribbling a line on her
+      card, gave it to the door keeper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you find out if this gentleman is in?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;If he is, will you
+      kindly ask him to step out and speak to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Why, what on earth&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Dicky,&rdquo; she interrupted, laughing at his expression, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t
+      look so shocked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad to see you, anyway,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no bad news, I hope?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing that concerns us particularly,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am just in the middle of a rubber of bridge,&rdquo; he objected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It can&rsquo;t be helped,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;To tell you the truth, the matter I
+      want to talk to you about is of more importance than any game of cards.
+      Don&rsquo;t be foolish, Dicky. You have your hat in your hand. Step in here by
+      my side at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dicky,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;do you read the newspapers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I can&rsquo;t say that I do regularly,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I read the New York
+      Herald, but these London journals are a bit difficult, aren&rsquo;t they? One
+      has to dig the news out,&mdash;sort of treasure-hunt all the time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have read this murder case, at any rate,&rdquo; she asked, &ldquo;about the man
+      who was killed in a special train between Liverpool and London?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; he answered, with a sudden awakening of interest. &ldquo;What about
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A good deal,&rdquo; she answered slowly. &ldquo;In the first place, the man who was
+      murdered&mdash;Mr. Hamilton Fynes&mdash;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&rsquo;t very much, perhaps, but
+      it&rsquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man whistled softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Penelope!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Who was this fellow, anyhow, and what were
+      you doing lunching with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That doesn&rsquo;t matter,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t tell me all your secrets,
+      Mr. Dicky Vanderpole, and it isn&rsquo;t necessary for me to tell you all mine,
+      even if we are both foreigners in a strange country. The poor fellow isn&rsquo;t
+      going to lunch with any one else in this world. I suppose you are thinking
+      what an indiscreet person I am, as usual?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man considered the matter for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t understand that he was the sort of person you
+      would have been likely to have taken lunch with. But that isn&rsquo;t my affair.
+      Have you seen the second edition?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t I told you that I never read the papers? I only saw what they
+      showed me in at the Carlton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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 &lsquo;Mr. Hamilton Fynes&mdash;the gentleman bearing this communication.&rsquo; I
+      expect, after all, that you know more about him than any one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I know,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The dickens you did!&rdquo; he muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Penelope Morse laughed softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Dicky,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t pretend to be jealous. You&rsquo;re an
+      outrageous flirt, I know, but you and I are never likely to get
+      sentimental about one another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; he grumbled. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve always been pretty good pals, haven&rsquo;t we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;or I shouldn&rsquo;t be here. Do you want to hear
+      anything more about Mr. Hamilton Fynes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do,&rdquo; he declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, be quiet, then, and don&rsquo;t interrupt,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I knew London well
+      and he didn&rsquo;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&mdash;well, a hint.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was it?&rdquo; the young man asked eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t put it into so many words,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t expect you to tell me anything
+      which you feel that you oughtn&rsquo;t to. There is one thing, however, which I
+      must ask you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to know what the mischief my being in the diplomatic
+      service has to do with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I explained that,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;I should be telling you everything I
+      haven&rsquo;t quite made up my mind to do that yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me this?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Would that hint which he dropped when he was
+      here last help you to solve the mystery of his murder?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It might,&rdquo; she admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I think,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;apart from any other reason, you ought to tell
+      somebody. The police at present don&rsquo;t seem to have the ghost of a clue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are not likely to find one,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;unless I help them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Penelope,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;you are not in earnest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am,&rdquo; she assured him. &ldquo;It is exactly as I say. I believe I am one of
+      the few people who could put the police upon the right track.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there any reason why you shouldn&rsquo;t?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just what I can&rsquo;t make up my mind about,&rdquo; she told him. &ldquo;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&mdash;the time he went
+      to St. Petersburg and twice to Berlin&mdash;he came on government
+      business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man looked, for a moment, incredulous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you sure of that, Pen?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t sound like our people,
+      you know, does it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite sure,&rdquo; she declared confidently. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t care to put through their embassies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, that&rsquo;s so, of course, over on this side,&rdquo; he agreed. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not,&rdquo; she answered composedly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man was deeply interested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he admitted, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s a good deal in what you say, Penelope. You
+      talk about it all as though you were a diplomat yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I am,&rdquo; she answered calmly. &ldquo;A stray young woman like myself must
+      have something to occupy her thoughts, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not bad,&rdquo; he asserted, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrugged her shoulders scornfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just the sort of thing the New York Herald would say,&rdquo; she
+      remarked. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marry me, then,&rdquo; he suggested amiably. &ldquo;I shall have plenty of money some
+      day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll see about it when you&rsquo;re grown up,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;Just at present,
+      I think we&rsquo;d better return to the subject of Hamilton Fynes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Richard Vanderpole sighed, but seemed not disinclined to follow her
+      suggestion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harvey is a silent man, as you know,&rdquo; he said thoughtfully, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added after a moment&rsquo;s pause, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It accounts, also,&rdquo; Penelope remarked, &ldquo;for his murder!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her companion started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t any idea&mdash;&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing so definite as an idea,&rdquo; she interrupted. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; he admitted &ldquo;you&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to tell you now,&rdquo; she continued, leaning a little towards him,
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t understand!&rdquo; he protested. &ldquo;Why should he give you the letter
+      when he was in London himself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked him that question myself, naturally,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gee whiz!&rdquo; the young man exclaimed. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re telling me things, and no
+      mistake! Why this fellow Fynes made a secret service messenger of you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was all very simple,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Richard Vanderpole was sitting bolt upright, gazing steadily ahead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; he said slowly, &ldquo;what has become of the letter which he was
+      going to give you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One thing is certain,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;It is in the hands of those whose
+      interests would have been affected by its delivery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much of this am I to tell the chief?&rdquo; the young man asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every word,&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;You see, I am trying to give you a start
+      in your career. What bothers me is an entirely different question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She laid her hand upon his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much of it I shall tell to a certain gentleman who calls himself
+      Inspector Jacks!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. MR. COULSON INTERVIEWED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Lusitania boat specials ran into Euston Station soon after three
+      o&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Mr. Coulson, I believe?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That gentlemen regarded his interlocutor with some surprise but without
+      unfriendliness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That happens to be my name, sir,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;You have the advantage of
+      me, though. You are not from my old friends Spencer &amp; Miles, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spencer &amp; Miles,&rdquo; the young man repeated thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Woollen firm in London Wall,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson added. &ldquo;I know they wanted to
+      see me directly I arrived, and they did say something about sending to the
+      station.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man shook his head, and assumed at the same time his most
+      engaging manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no, sir!&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;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&mdash;a mutual friend, I believe I may say,&rdquo; he explained&mdash;&ldquo;wired
+      me your description. I understand that you were acquainted with Mr.
+      Hamilton Fynes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson set down his suitcase for a moment, to light a cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if I did know the poor fellow just to nod to,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+      see that&rsquo;s any reason why I should talk about him to you newspaper
+      fellows. You&rsquo;d better get hold of his relations, if you can find them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the young man said, &ldquo;we haven&rsquo;t any idea where
+      they are to be found, and in the meantime you can&rsquo;t imagine what reports
+      are in circulation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Guess I can figure them out pretty well,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked with a
+      smile. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got an evening press of our own in New York.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The reporter nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;They&rsquo;d be able to stretch themselves out a bit on a case
+      like this. You see,&rdquo; he continued confidentially, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; the
+      reporter concluded with a smile, &ldquo;and the money which was found upon him,
+      I imagine that he was certainly not the latter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson went on his way toward the exit from the station, puffing
+      contentedly at his big cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said to his companion, who showed not the slightest disposition
+      to leave his side, &ldquo;it don&rsquo;t seem to me that there&rsquo;s much worth repeating
+      about poor Fynes,&mdash;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&rsquo;ll tell you what I
+      can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a brick, sir,&rdquo; the young man declared. &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t you any luggage,
+      though?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I checked what I had through from Liverpool to the hotel,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson
+      answered. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t stand being fussed around by all these porters, and
+      having to go and take pot luck amongst a pile of other people&rsquo;s baggage.
+      We&rsquo;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&rsquo;t all have
+      cleared out if we look alive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; he remarked, removing his cigar to the corner of his mouth in order
+      to facilitate conversation, &ldquo;this old city of yours don&rsquo;t change any.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not up in this part, perhaps,&rdquo; the reporter agreed. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve some fine new
+      buildings down toward the Strand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I guess you don&rsquo;t want to be making conversation. You
+      want to know about Hamilton Fynes. I was just acquainted with him, and
+      that&rsquo;s a fact, but I reckon you&rsquo;ll have to find some one who knows a good
+      deal more than I do before you&rsquo;ll get the stuff you want for your paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The slightest particulars are of interest to us just now,&rdquo; the reporter
+      reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he do that for?&rdquo; the reporter asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, because he was a crank, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered confidentially.
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he had letters, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the reporter reminded him, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They were easy enough to get,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;He wasn&rsquo;t a
+      worrying sort of chap, Fynes wasn&rsquo;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&rsquo;s easier to get a pull over there than it is
+      here, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is all very interesting,&rdquo; the reporter said, &ldquo;and I am sure I&rsquo;m very
+      much obliged to you, Mr. Coulson. Now can you tell me of anything in the
+      man&rsquo;s life or way of living likely to provoke enmity on the part of any
+      one? This murder was such a cold-blooded affair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There I&rsquo;m stuck,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted. &ldquo;There&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t know&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      for your police to find out&mdash;but I reckon that whoever killed him did
+      it for his cash.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My first drink on English soil,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson said, as he handed his
+      suitcase to the hall-porter, &ldquo;is always&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s on me,&rdquo; the young man declared quickly. &ldquo;I owe you a good deal more
+      than drinks, Mr. Coulson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, come along, anyway,&rdquo; the latter remarked. &ldquo;I guess my room is all
+      right, porter?&rdquo;&mdash;turning to the man who stood by his side, bag in
+      hand. &ldquo;I am Mr. James B. Coulson of New York, and I wrote on ahead. I&rsquo;ll
+      come round to the office and register presently.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s odd manner
+      during the voyage, and the strange way he had of keeping to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, after all,&rdquo; he wound up, &ldquo;Fynes was a crank, when all&rsquo;s said and
+      done. We are all cranks, more or less,&mdash;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&rsquo;s
+      paid for it,&rdquo; he added with a sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the Inspector said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson sat down upon a trunk with his hairbrushes in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;you detectives do get to know things, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing so remarkable in that, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks remarked
+      pleasantly. &ldquo;A newspaper man had been before me, I see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;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&rsquo;s got it pat, word by word. Now, Mr. Jacks, if you&rsquo;ll
+      just invest a halfpenny in that newspaper, you don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just so, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the Inspector answered. &ldquo;At the same time nothing
+      that you told him throws any light at all upon the circumstances which led
+      to the poor fellow&rsquo;s death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared, &ldquo;is not my fault. What I don&rsquo;t know I can&rsquo;t
+      tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were acquainted with Mr. Fynes some years ago?&rdquo; the Inspector asked.
+      &ldquo;Can you tell me what business he was in then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Same as now, for anything I know,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;He was a clerk
+      in one of the Government offices at Washington.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Government offices,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks repeated. &ldquo;Have you any idea what
+      department?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson was not sure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may have been the Excise Office,&rdquo; he remarked thoughtfully. &ldquo;I did
+      hear, but I never took any particular notice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you ever form any idea as to the nature of his work?&rdquo; Inspector Jacks
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless you, no!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied, brushing his hair vigorously. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector was disappointed. He began to feel that he was wasting his
+      time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you know anything of the object of his journey to Europe?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nary a thing,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;He only came on deck once or twice,
+      and he had scarcely a civil word even for me. Why, I tell you, sir,&rdquo; Mr.
+      Coulson continued, &ldquo;if he saw me coming along on the promenade, he&rsquo;d turn
+      round and go the other way, for fear I&rsquo;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&rsquo;t be far out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He certainly seems to have been a queer lot,&rdquo; the Inspector declared. &ldquo;By
+      the bye,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;you said something, I believe, about his having
+      had more money with him than was found upon his person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t
+      seem to be anything of the sort upon him when he was found.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector made a note of this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You believe yourself, then, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, closing his
+      pocketbook, &ldquo;that the murder was committed for the purpose of robbery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seems to me it&rsquo;s common sense,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied. &ldquo;A man who goes and
+      takes a special train to London from the docks of a city like Liverpool&mdash;a
+      city filled with the scum of the world, mind you&mdash;kind of gives
+      himself away as a man worth robbing, doesn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s sensible talk, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he acknowledged. &ldquo;You never heard, I
+      suppose, of his having had a quarrel with any one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never in my life,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;He wasn&rsquo;t the sort to make
+      enemies, any more than he was the sort to make friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are making a long stay here, Mr. Coulson?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A week or so, maybe,&rdquo; that gentleman answered. &ldquo;I am in the machinery
+      patent line&mdash;machinery for the manufacture of woollen goods mostly&mdash;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&rsquo;s nothing further to be got out of me as regards Mr. Hamilton
+      Fynes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Mr. James B. Coulson from New York, landed this afternoon from the
+      Lusitania,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson said. &ldquo;I am at the Savoy Hotel, speaking from my
+      room&mdash;number 443.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a brief silence&mdash;then a reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better be in the bar smoking-room at seven o&rsquo;clock. If nothing
+      happens, don&rsquo;t leave the hotel this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson replaced the receiver and rang off. A page-boy knocked at the
+      door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Young lady downstairs wishes to see you, sir,&rdquo; he announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson took up the card from the tray.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Penelope Morse,&rdquo; he said softly to himself. &ldquo;Seems to me I&rsquo;m rather
+      popular this evening. Say I&rsquo;ll be down right away, my boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good, sir,&rdquo; the page answered. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a gentleman with her, sir.
+      His card&rsquo;s underneath the lady&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson examined the tray once more. A gentleman&rsquo;s visiting card
+      informed him that his other caller was Sir Charles Somerfield, Bart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bart,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked thoughtfully. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not quite catching on to
+      that, but I suppose he goes in with the young lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re both together, sir,&rdquo; the boy announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson completed his toilet and hurried downstairs
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. A FATAL DESPATCH
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;a well-bred, pleasant-mannered, exceedingly athletic
+      young Englishman, who was probably not such a fool as he looked,&mdash;that
+      is, from Mr. Coulson&rsquo;s standpoint, who was not used to the single eyeglass
+      and somewhat drawling enunciation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; the young man asked, accepting the other&rsquo;s
+      outstretched hand. &ldquo;We are awfully sorry to disturb you, so soon after
+      your arrival, too, but the fact is that this young lady, Miss Penelope
+      Morse,&rdquo;&mdash;Mr. Coulson bowed,&mdash;&ldquo;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&rsquo;t look you up at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope herself intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid you&rsquo;re going to think me a terrible nuisance, Mr. Coulson!&rdquo;
+       she exclaimed. Mr. Coulson, although he did not call himself a lady&rsquo;s man,
+      was nevertheless human enough to appreciate the fact that the young lady&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ll take my risks of that, Miss Morse,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;ll
+      only let me know what I can do for you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s about poor Mr. Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;I took up the
+      evening paper only half an hour ago, and read your interview with the
+      reporter. I simply couldn&rsquo;t help stopping to ask whether you could give me
+      any further particulars about that horrible affair. I didn&rsquo;t dare to come
+      here all alone, so I asked Sir Charles to come along with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson, being invited to do so, seated himself on the lounge by the
+      young lady&rsquo;s side. He leaned a little forward with a hand on either knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t exactly know what I can tell you,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;I take it, then,
+      that you were well acquainted with Mr. Fynes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to know him quite well,&rdquo; Penelope answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a very sensible young lady, Miss Morse, if you will allow me to
+      say so,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;You were expecting to see something of Mr.
+      Fynes over here, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had an appointment to lunch with him today,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;He sent me
+      a marconigram before he arrived at Queenstown.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that so?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson exclaimed. &ldquo;Well, well!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I actually went to the restaurant,&rdquo; Penelope continued, &ldquo;without knowing
+      anything of this. I can&rsquo;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&rsquo;t you think so, Mr. Coulson?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; that gentleman answered, &ldquo;to tell you the honest truth, Miss
+      Morse, I&rsquo;m afraid I am going to disappoint you a little. I wasn&rsquo;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. <i>He</i> 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does seem too bad, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; Penelope declared, raising her
+      wonderful eyes to his and smiling sympathetically. &ldquo;You have really
+      brought it upon yourself, though, to some extent, haven&rsquo;t you, by
+      answering so many questions for this Comet man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those newspaper fellows,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded her head thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hamilton Fynes came from the village in Massachusetts where I was brought
+      up. I&rsquo;ve known him all my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson seemed a little startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t understand,&rdquo; he said thoughtfully, &ldquo;that Fynes had any very
+      intimate friends over this side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mean to imply that we have been intimate lately,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, that&rsquo;s quite natural,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared, leaning back a little
+      and crossing his legs. &ldquo;Somehow we seem to read about these things in the
+      papers and they don&rsquo;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&rsquo;s something about a murder,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson concluded, &ldquo;which kind
+      of takes hold of you if you&rsquo;ve ever even shaken hands with either of the
+      parties concerned in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you see much of the poor fellow during the voyage?&rdquo; Sir Charles
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, nor any one else,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He seems to have been a secretive sort of person,&rdquo; Sir Charles remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was that,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted. &ldquo;Never seemed to care to talk about
+      himself or his own business. Not that he had much to talk about,&rdquo; he added
+      reflectively. &ldquo;Dull sort of life, his. So many hours of work, so many
+      hours of play; so many dollars a month, and after it&rsquo;s all over, so many
+      dollars pension. Wouldn&rsquo;t suit all of us, Sir Charles, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fancy not,&rdquo; Somerfield admitted. &ldquo;Perhaps he kicked over the traces a
+      bit when he was over this side. You Americans generally seem to find your
+      way about&mdash;in Paris, especially.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson shook his head doubtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There wasn&rsquo;t much kicking over the traces with poor old Fynes,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;He hadn&rsquo;t got it in him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield scratched his chin thoughtfully and looked at Penelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scarcely seems possible, does it,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;that a man leading such
+      a quiet sort of life should make enemies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe he had any,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson asserted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t seem nervous on the way over, did he?&rdquo; Penelope asked,&mdash;&ldquo;as
+      though he were afraid of something happening?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more than usual,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I guess your police over here aren&rsquo;t
+      quite so smart as ours, or they&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll find that our poor friend has paid the penalty of going about the
+      world like a crank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A what?&rdquo; Somerfield asked doubtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A crank,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson repeated vigorously. &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But his money was found upon him,&rdquo; Somerfield objected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some of it,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered,&mdash;&ldquo;some of it. That&rsquo;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&rsquo;d got a sight more money
+      there than was found upon him. I told the smooth-spoken gentleman from
+      Scotland Yard so&mdash;Mr. Inspector Jacks he called himself&mdash;when he
+      came to see me an hour or so ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope sighed gently. She found it hard to make up her mind concerning
+      this quondam acquaintance of her deceased friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you see much of Mr. Fynes on the other side, Mr. Coulson?&rdquo; she asked
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not I,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;He wasn&rsquo;t particularly anxious to make
+      acquaintances over here, but he was even worse at home. The way he went
+      on, you&rsquo;d think he&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson continued, turning to Somerfield, &ldquo;that man
+      hadn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t play bridge, didn&rsquo;t care about chess, hadn&rsquo;t even a chair on the
+      deck, and never came in to meals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope nodded her head thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are destroying all my illusions, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Do you know
+      that I was building up quite a romance about poor Mr. Fynes&rsquo; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, sure not!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared heartily. &ldquo;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&rsquo;ve finished with
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope sighed once more and looked at the tips of her patent shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has been so kind of you,&rdquo; she murmured, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was no talker,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;It was little enough he had to
+      say to me, and less to any one else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems strange,&rdquo; she remarked innocently, &ldquo;that he should have been so
+      shy. He didn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope&rsquo;s eyes were suddenly upraised. For the first time Mr. Coulson&rsquo;s
+      ready answers failed him. Not a muscle of his face moved under the girl&rsquo;s
+      scrutiny, but he hesitated for a short time before he answered her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that I know of,&rdquo; he said at length. &ldquo;No, I shouldn&rsquo;t have called him
+      much of a traveller.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope rose to her feet and held out her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has been very nice indeed of you to see us, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; she said,
+      &ldquo;especially after all these other people have been bothering you. Of
+      course, I am sorry that you haven&rsquo;t anything more to tell us than we knew
+      already. Still, I felt that I couldn&rsquo;t rest until we had been.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a sad affair, anyhow,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared, walking with them to
+      the door. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seems to me I may have a longish wait,&rdquo; he said to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, he was disappointed. At precisely seven o&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Mr. Coulson, I&rsquo;m sure,&rdquo; he declared,&mdash;&ldquo;Mr. James B. Coulson
+      from New York?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re dead right,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted, laying down his newspaper and
+      favoring his visitor with a quick upward glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is great!&rdquo; the young man continued. &ldquo;Just off the boat, eh? Well, I
+      am glad to see you,&mdash;very glad indeed to make your acquaintance, I
+      should say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall it be?&rdquo; the newcomer asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve just taken dinner,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson said. &ldquo;Coffee and cognac&rsquo;ll do me
+      all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a Martini cocktail for me,&rdquo; the young man ordered. &ldquo;I am dining down
+      in the restaurant with some friends later on. Come over to this corner,
+      Mr. Coulson. Why, you&rsquo;re looking first-rate. Great boat, the Lusitania,
+      isn&rsquo;t she? What sort of a trip did you have?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the chief is anxious. We don&rsquo;t understand this
+      affair. Do you know anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a d&mdash;&mdash;d thing!&rdquo; Coulson answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you shadowed on the boat?&rdquo; the young man asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to my knowledge,&rdquo; Coulson answered. &ldquo;Fynes was in his stateroom six
+      hours before we started. I can&rsquo;t make head nor tail of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had the papers, of course?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sewn in the lining of his coat,&rdquo; Coulson muttered. &ldquo;You read about that
+      in tonight&rsquo;s papers. The lining was torn and the space empty. He had them
+      all right when he left the steamer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man looked around; the room was still empty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m fresh in this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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&rsquo;s too big. The chief&rsquo;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&rsquo;t a mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None whatever,&rdquo; Coulson declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know?&rdquo; his companion asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ve lied to those reporters and chaps,&rdquo; Coulson admitted,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man set his teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s something to know this, at any rate,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;You did right,
+      Coulson, to put up that bluff. Now about the duplicates?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are in my suitcase,&rdquo; Coulson answered, &ldquo;and according to the way
+      things are going, I shan&rsquo;t be over sorry to get rid of them. Will you take
+      them with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, sure!&rdquo; Vanderpole answered. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m here for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better wait right here, then,&rdquo; Coulson said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll fetch them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; the latter asked, &ldquo;have you been shadowed at all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that I know of,&rdquo; Coulson answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men with quick instincts,&rdquo; Vanderpole continued, &ldquo;can always tell when
+      they are being watched. Have you felt anything of the sort?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Coulson hesitated for one moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I had a caller whose manner I did not quite understand.
+      She seemed to have something at the back of her head about me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She! Was it a woman?&rdquo; the young man asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coulson nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A young lady,&rdquo; he said,&mdash;&ldquo;Miss Penelope Morse, she called herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Richard Vanderpole stood quite still for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; he said softly. &ldquo;She might have been interested.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does the chief want me at all?&rdquo; Coulson asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; Vanderpole answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked together toward the main exit. The young man&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he declared, as they passed across the hall, &ldquo;you and
+      I must have a night together. This isn&rsquo;t New York, by any manner of means,
+      or Paris, but there&rsquo;s some fun to be had here, in a quiet way. I&rsquo;ll phone
+      you tomorrow or the day after.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like it above all things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must find a taxicab,&rdquo; the young man remarked. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a busy hour before
+      me. I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess you&rsquo;ll have to look sharp, then.&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked. &ldquo;Do you
+      see the time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Vanderpole glanced at the clock and whistled softly to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell you what!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll write a note to one of the friends
+      I&rsquo;ve got to meet, and leave it here. Boy,&rdquo; he added, turning to a page
+      boy, &ldquo;get me a taxi as quick as you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drive down the Brompton Road,&rdquo; he said to the man. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll direct you
+      later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s great
+      astonishment, as he was driving slowly across Melbourne Square,
+      Kensington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter?&rdquo; the man asked. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t say I was exceeding my
+      speed limit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The policeman scarcely noticed him. His head was already through the cab
+      window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did you take your fare up?&rdquo; he asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Savoy Hotel,&rdquo; the man answered. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s wrong with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The policeman opened the door of the cab and stepped in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never you mind about that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Drive to the South Kensington
+      police station as quick as you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. AN INTERRUPTED THEATRE PARTY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To dine at half-past seven,&rdquo; the Duchess remarked, as she looked around
+      the <i>entresol</i> of the great restaurant through her lorgnettes, &ldquo;is
+      certainly a little trying for one&rsquo;s temper and for one&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t like Dicky Vanderpole in the least,&rdquo; Penelope said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He isn&rsquo;t half so much fun as he used to be,&rdquo; Lady Grace declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fun!&rdquo; Penelope exclaimed. &ldquo;Sometimes I think that I never knew a more
+      trying person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never known the Prince unpunctual,&rdquo; the Duchess murmured. &ldquo;I
+      consider him absolutely the best-mannered young man I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace smiled, and glanced at Penelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;ll get Penelope to agree with you, mother,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not, my dear?&rdquo; the Duchess asked. &ldquo;I heard that you were quite rude
+      to him the other evening. We others all find him so charming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope&rsquo;s lip curled slightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has so many admirers,&rdquo; she remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess raised her eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But a Prince of Japan, my dear Penelope!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope shrugged her shoulders slightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t much
+      friendship lost between Washington and Tokio just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess turned away to greet a man who had paused before their couch
+      on his way into the restaurant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear General,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;it seems to me that one meets every one
+      here! Why was not restaurant dining the vogue when I was a girl!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      General Sherrif smiled. He was tall and thin, with grizzled hair and worn
+      features. Notwithstanding his civilian&rsquo;s clothes, there was no possibility
+      of mistaking him anywhere, or under any circumstances, for anything but a
+      soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a delightful custom,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;It keeps one always on the <i>qui
+      vive</i>; one never knows whom one may see. Incidentally, I find it
+      interferes very much with my digestion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Digestion!&rdquo; the Duchess murmured. &ldquo;But then, you soldiers lead such
+      irregular lives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not always from choice,&rdquo; the General reminded her. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are waiting now for Prince Maiyo,&rdquo; the Duchess remarked. &ldquo;You know
+      him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Know him!&rdquo; the General answered. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess turned to Penelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you hear that?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Fates are against me,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;If I may not like, I shall at
+      least be driven to admire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To talk of bravery when one speaks of that war,&rdquo; the General remarked,
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo;
+       the General declared, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Prince,&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;this is charming of you! Some one told
+      me that you were not well,&mdash;our wretched climate, of course&mdash;and
+      I was so afraid, every moment, that we should receive your excuses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Duchess,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;my indisposition was nothing. And as for your
+      climate, I am beginning to delight in it,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And even that,&rdquo; the Duchess remarked, smiling, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince bowed, and began to talk to his hostess&rsquo; daughter,&mdash;a
+      tall, fair girl, as yet only in her second season.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here comes Sir Charles, at any rate!&rdquo; the Duchess exclaimed. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A footman at that moment brought a note to the Duchess, which she tore
+      open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is from Dicky!&rdquo; she exclaimed, glancing it through quickly,&mdash;&ldquo;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&rsquo;t heard your excuses yet. Do you know that you were a quarter of
+      an hour late?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He bent towards her with troubled face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Duchess,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; the Duchess begged, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince walked on, for a few steps, in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Vanderpole is a great friend of yours, Duchess?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know him very well,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I asked him for Penelope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince looked puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I thought,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that Miss Morse and Sir Charles&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess interrupted him with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Charles is very much in earnest,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is very intelligent,&rdquo; the Prince said. &ldquo;She is a young lady, indeed,
+      for whom I have a great admiration. I am only sorry,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;that
+      I do not seem able to interest her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not believe that,&rdquo; the Duchess said. &ldquo;Penelope is a little
+      brusque sometimes, but it is only her manner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They made their way through the foyer to the round table which had been
+      reserved for them in the centre of the restaurant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose I ought to apologize for giving you dinner at such an hour,&rdquo;
+       the Duchess remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Duchess,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But then, you take no luncheon, Prince,&rdquo; Lady Grace reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never lunch out,&rdquo; the Prince answered, &ldquo;but I have always what is
+      sufficient for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; the Duchess asked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no plans, Duchess,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace bent towards Sir Charles, who was sitting by her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can never understand the Prince,&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a bit on the serious side,&rdquo; Sir Charles admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t only that,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was a religious Johnny, of course,&rdquo; Sir Charles remarked. &ldquo;They do
+      walk about with their heads in the air.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it is religion with the Prince,&rdquo; she said,&mdash;&ldquo;religion of a
+      sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you what I do think,&rdquo; Sir Charles murmured. &ldquo;I think his pretence
+      at having a good time over here is all a bluff. He doesn&rsquo;t really cotton
+      to us, you know. Don&rsquo;t see how he could. He&rsquo;s never touched a polo stick
+      in his life, knows nothing about cricket, is indifferent to games, and
+      doesn&rsquo;t even understand the meaning of the word &lsquo;Sportsman.&rsquo; There&rsquo;s no
+      place in this country for a man like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope, who overheard, laughed softly and leaned across the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fancy,&rdquo; she murmured, &ldquo;that the person you are speaking of would not
+      look at it in quite the same light.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has any one seen the evening paper?&rdquo; the Duchess asked. &ldquo;It is there any
+      more news about that extraordinary murder?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing fresh in the early editions,&rdquo; Sir Charles answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; the Duchess declared, &ldquo;that it is perfectly scandalous. Our
+      police system must be in a disgraceful state. Tell me, Prince,&mdash;could
+      anything like that happen in your country?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Without doubt,&rdquo; the Prince answered, &ldquo;life moves very much in the East as
+      with you here. Only with us,&rdquo; he added a little thoughtfully, &ldquo;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&rsquo;s
+      friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell us what you mean?&rdquo; Penelope asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her as one might have looked at a child,&mdash;kindly, even
+      tolerantly. He was scarcely so tall as she was, and Penelope&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In this country,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no tragedy in the world so great!&rdquo; Penelope declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shrugged his shoulders very slightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Miss Morse,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it is so that you think about life and
+      death here. Yet you call yourselves a Christian country&mdash;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&mdash;a
+      thing that must be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your point of view,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;is well enough, Prince, for those who
+      fall in battle, fighting for their country or for a great cause. Don&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One cannot tell,&rdquo; the Prince answered thoughtfully. &ldquo;The battlefields of
+      life are there for every one to cross. This mysterious gentleman who seems
+      to have met with his death so unexpectedly&mdash;he, too, may have been
+      the victim of a cause, knowing his dangers, facing them as a man should
+      face them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite sure, Prince,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that you are a romanticist. But,
+      apart from the sentimental side of it, do things like this happen in your
+      country?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Charles raised his glass and bowed across the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To our great allies!&rdquo; he said, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A few days ago,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;that it is the young ladies of your country who hold
+      open the gates of Paradise for their menkind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some day, I suppose,&rdquo; the Duchess remarked, as the service of dinner drew
+      toward a close, &ldquo;you will have restaurants like this in Tokio?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said without enthusiasm, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that it is absolutely wicked of Dicky,&rdquo; the Duchess declared, as
+      they rose from the table. &ldquo;I shall never rely upon him again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all, perhaps, it isn&rsquo;t his fault,&rdquo; Penelope said, breathing a
+      little sigh of relief as she rose to her feet. &ldquo;Mr. Harvey is not always
+      considerate, and I know that several of the staff are away on leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s right, my dear,&rdquo; the Duchess said, smiling, &ldquo;stick up for your
+      countrymen. I suppose he&rsquo;ll find us sometime during the evening. We can
+      all go to the theatre together; the omnibus is outside.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The little party passed through the foyer and into the hall of the hotel,
+      where they waited while the Duchess&rsquo; 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&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you are queer tonight. Tell me what it is? You don&rsquo;t
+      really dislike the Prince, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, of course not,&rdquo; she answered, looking back into the restaurant and
+      listening, as though interested in the music. &ldquo;He is odd, though, isn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is rather an anomaly,&rdquo; Sir Charles said, humming lightly to himself.
+      &ldquo;I suppose, compared with us matter-of-fact people, he must seem to your
+      sex quite a romantic figure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He makes no particular appeal to me at all,&rdquo; Penelope declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield was suddenly thoughtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes, Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She lifted her skirts. The carriage had been called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like your last suggestion,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;You may believe that that is
+      true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Charles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if I were you, I would keep that evening paper in
+      your pocket. Don&rsquo;t let the ladies see it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield looked at him in surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To me personally it is of no consequence,&rdquo; the Prince answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has anything happened to Dicky?&rdquo; Somerfield asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince&rsquo;s face was impassive; he seemed not to have heard. Penelope had
+      turned to wait for them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duchess thinks that we had better all go into the box,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield stopped for a minute, under pretence of seeking some change,
+      and tore open his paper. The Prince led Penelope down the carpeted way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard what you and Sir Charles were saying,&rdquo; she declared quietly.
+      &ldquo;Please tell me what it is that has happened to Dicky?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince&rsquo;s face was grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;I did not know that our voices would travel so
+      far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not yours,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It was Sir Charles&rsquo;. Tell me quickly what
+      it is that has happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Vanderpole,&rdquo; the Prince answered, &ldquo;has met with an accident,&mdash;a
+      somewhat serious one, I fear. Perhaps,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope was suddenly very white. He whispered in her ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be brave,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is your part.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;she must do it! She passed into the box, the
+      door of which the attendant was holding open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duchess,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But my dear child!&rdquo; the Duchess exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morse is quite right,&rdquo; the Prince said quietly. &ldquo;I think it would be
+      better for her to leave at once. If you will allow me, I will explain to
+      you later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She left the box without another word, and took Somerfield&rsquo;s arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We two are to go,&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;The Prince will explain to the
+      Duchess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very sad thing has happened,&rdquo; he said quietly. &ldquo;Mr. Vanderpole met with
+      an accident in a taxicab this evening. From the latest reports, it seems
+      that he is dead!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. INSPECTOR JACKS SCORES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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&mdash;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I cannot understand,&rdquo; Penelope said coldly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks said, &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That sounds very stupid of you,&rdquo; Penelope remarked, &ldquo;but I still ask&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ask for a minute or two,&rdquo; the Inspector interrupted. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that?&rdquo; Penelope asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The victim in both cases was an American,&rdquo; the Inspector said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope sat very still. She felt the steely eyes of the man who had
+      chosen his seat so carefully, fixed upon her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not connect the two affairs in any way?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is what we are asking ourselves,&rdquo; Mr. Jacks continued. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope shivered, and half closed her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that the shock of this coincidence, as you
+      call it, has been quite sufficient, without having you come here to remind
+      me of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; Mr. Jacks said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should be very sorry indeed,&rdquo; Penelope answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not,&rdquo; the Inspector declared, &ldquo;but, on the other hand, there are
+      certain questions which you can answer me,&mdash;answer them, I mean, not
+      grudgingly and as though in duty bound,&mdash;answer them intelligently,
+      and with some apprehension of the things which lie behind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what is the thing that lies behind them?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A theory, madam,&rdquo; the Inspector answered,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have evidence to that effect,&rdquo; she said, suddenly surprised to find
+      that her voice had sunk to a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very little,&rdquo; Mr. Jacks admitted; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Supposing we leave these generalities,&rdquo; Penelope remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the faint sweetness of mimosa and the
+      sicklier fragrance of hyacinths&mdash;seemed almost overwhelming, for the
+      fire was warm and the windows closed. By the side of Penelope&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These questions,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;may seem to you irrelevant, yet please answer
+      them if you can. Mr. Hamilton Fynes, for instance,&mdash;was he, to your
+      knowledge, acquainted with Mr. Richard Vanderpole?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never heard them speak of one another,&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;I
+      should think it very unlikely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have no knowledge of any common pursuit or interest in life which the
+      two men may have shared?&rdquo; the Inspector asked. &ldquo;A hobby, for instance,&mdash;a
+      collection of postage stamps, china, any common aim of any sort?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew little of Mr. Fynes&rsquo; tastes. Dicky&mdash;I mean Mr. Vanderpole&mdash;had
+      none at all except an enthusiasm for his profession and a love of polo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His profession,&rdquo; the Inspector repeated. &ldquo;Mr. Vanderpole was attached to
+      the American Embassy, was he not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe so,&rdquo; Penelope answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; the Inspector continued, &ldquo;might almost have been
+      said to have followed the same occupation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely not!&rdquo; Penelope objected. &ldquo;I always understood that Mr. Fynes was
+      employed in a Government office at Washington,&mdash;something to do with
+      the Customs, I thought, or forest duties.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jacks nodded thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not aware, as yet,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;of the precise nature of Mr. Fynes&rsquo; 
+      occupation. I only knew that it was, in some shape or form, Government
+      work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know as much about it,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;as I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have sent,&rdquo; the Inspector continued smoothly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope opened her lips, but closed them again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not, however,&rdquo; the Inspector continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not believe, then,&rdquo; asked Penelope, &ldquo;that robbery was really the
+      motive?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not ordinary robbery,&rdquo; Mr. Jacks answered. &ldquo;A man who was capable of
+      these two crimes is capable of easier and greater things. I mean,&rdquo; he
+      explained, &ldquo;that he could have attempted enterprises of a far more
+      remunerative character, with a prospect of complete success.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you forgive me,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if I ask you to go on with your
+      questions, providing you have any more to ask me? Notwithstanding the
+      excellence of your disguise,&rdquo; she remarked with a faint curl of the lips,
+      &ldquo;I might find it somewhat difficult to explain your presence if my aunt or
+      any visitors should come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry, Miss Morse,&rdquo; the Inspector said quietly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you think, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; Penelope said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As, for instance?&rdquo; the Inspector asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a detective,&rdquo; Penelope said coldly. &ldquo;You do not need me to point
+      out certain things to you. Mr. Hamilton Fynes was robbed and murdered&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks moved his head thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is admirably put,&rdquo; he assented, &ldquo;and to continue?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not my place to make suggestions to you,&rdquo; Penelope said. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks smiled, picked up his hat and bowed, while Penelope, with
+      a sigh of relief, moved over to the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added,
+      looking her in the face, &ldquo;you only can tell, but you have certainly helped
+      me a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One moment, Morton,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Wait outside. Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; she added, as
+      the door closed, &ldquo;what do you mean? What can I have told you? How can I
+      have helped you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you had chosen,&rdquo; he said slowly, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to the door. Penelope remained motionless for several moments,
+      listening to his retreating footsteps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. MR. COULSON OUTMATCHED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;clock he went down to the city, and
+      returned sometimes to luncheon, sometimes at varying hours, never later,
+      however, than four or five o&rsquo;clock. From that time until seven, he was
+      generally to be found in the American bar, meeting old friends or making
+      new ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a gentleman here, Mr. Coulson, been asking after you,&rdquo; he
+      announced. &ldquo;I told him that you generally came in about this time. You&rsquo;ll
+      find him sitting over there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;an undistinguished,
+      perfectly natural figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Mr. Jacks, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; he asked, holding out his hand. &ldquo;I thought I
+      recognized you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry to trouble you again, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but if you could
+      spare me just a minute or two, I should be very much obliged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson laughed pleasantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can have all you want of me from now till midnight,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;My
+      business doesn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t mind telling you that I
+      find time hangs a bit on my hands. Try one of these,&rdquo; he added, producing
+      a cigar case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector thanked him and helped himself. Mr. Coulson summoned the
+      waiter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Highball for me,&rdquo; he directed. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s yours, Mr. Jacks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you very much,&rdquo; the Inspector said. &ldquo;I will take a little Scotch
+      whiskey and soda.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two men sat down. The corner was a retired one, and there was no one
+      within earshot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, are you still on this Hamilton Fynes business?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Partly,&rdquo; the Inspector replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, I&rsquo;m not making reflections,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson said, sticking his
+      cigar in a corner of his mouth and leaning back in a comfortable attitude,
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s no one going to commit murder in
+      the streets of New York without finding himself in the Tombs before he&rsquo;s a
+      week older. No offence, Mr. Jacks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not taking any, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the Inspector answered. &ldquo;I must admit
+      that there&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson knocked the ash from his cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, as to that,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t know more than
+      you&rsquo;ve let on to the newspapers. You keep your discoveries out of the
+      Press over here, and a good job, too, but you wouldn&rsquo;t persuade me that
+      you haven&rsquo;t some very distinct theory as to how that crime was worked, and
+      the sort of person who did it. Eh, Mr. Jacks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are perhaps not quite so ignorant as we seem,&rdquo; the Inspector answered,
+      &ldquo;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,&mdash;as puzzling, in its way,&rdquo; Mr. Jacks
+      continued, &ldquo;as the murder on the very next evening of this young American
+      gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson nodded sympathetically. The drinks were brought, and he raised
+      his glass to his guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s luck!&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;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,&rdquo; he remarked, setting down his glass. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t
+      noticed the papers much this morning. Has any arrest been made yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; the Inspector admitted. &ldquo;To tell you the truth, we find it
+      almost as puzzling an affair as the one in which Mr. Hamilton Fynes was
+      concerned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson nodded. He seemed content, at this stage in their
+      conversation, to assume the role of listener.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You read the particulars of the murder of Mr. Vanderpole, I suppose?&rdquo; the
+      Inspector asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every word,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;Most interesting thing I&rsquo;ve seen in
+      an English newspaper since I landed. Didn&rsquo;t sound like London somehow.
+      Gray old law-abiding place, my partner always calls it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to be quite frank with you, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the Inspector
+      continued. &ldquo;I am going to tell you exactly why I have come to see you
+      again tonight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, that&rsquo;s good,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;I like to know everything a
+      man&rsquo;s got in his mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come to you,&rdquo; the Inspector said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;that you were,&rdquo; he continued, knocking the ash
+      off his cigar and speaking a little more slowly, &ldquo;the last person, except
+      the driver of the taxicab, to have seen him alive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson turned slowly around and faced his companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, how the devil do you know that?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector smiled tolerantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seated on this very couch, sir!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared, striking the arm
+      of it with the flat of his hand,&mdash;&ldquo;seated within a few feet of where
+      you yourself are at this present moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson became meditative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon my word, when you come to think of it,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fancy your nerves,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, that&rsquo;s easy,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied. &ldquo;You may have heard of my firm,
+      The Coulson &amp; Bruce Company of Jersey City. I&rsquo;m at the head of a
+      syndicate that&rsquo;s controlling some very valuable patents which we want to
+      exploit on this side and in Paris. Now my people don&rsquo;t exactly know how we
+      stand under this new patent bill of Mr. Lloyd George&rsquo;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&rsquo;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,&mdash;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&rsquo;ve got it in my room if you&rsquo;d care to see it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jacks listened to his companion&rsquo;s words with unchanged face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it isn&rsquo;t troubling you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it would be of some interest to
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You sit right here,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be back in less than five
+      minutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson was as good as his word. In less than the time mentioned he
+      was seated again by his companion&rsquo;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,&rsquo; 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 &amp;
+      Bruce syndicate. At the end there were a few lines in the Ambassador&rsquo;s own
+      handwriting, summing up the situation. Mr. Coulson produced another packet
+      of letters and documents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you&rsquo;ve an hour or so to spare, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to go
+      right into this with you, if it would interest you any. It&rsquo;s my business
+      over here, so naturally I am glad enough of an opportunity to talk it
+      over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Jacks passed back the paper promptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am extremely obliged to you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added.
+      &ldquo;Do I understand that this young man came to you as a complete stranger?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Absolutely,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;I never saw him before in my life. As
+      decent a young chap as ever I met with, all the same,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;and
+      comes of a good American stock, too. They tell me there&rsquo;s going to be an
+      inquest and that I shall be summoned, but I know nothing more than what
+      I&rsquo;ve told you. If I did, you&rsquo;d be welcome to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the Inspector said suddenly, &ldquo;do you know a young lady
+      named Miss Penelope Morse?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Penelope Morse,&rdquo; the Inspector continued. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose I may say that I am acquainted with her,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted.
+      &ldquo;She came here the other evening with a young man&mdash;Sir Charles
+      Somerfield.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; the Inspector murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;d read that interview of mine with the Comet man,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson said,
+      &ldquo;and she fancied that perhaps I could tell her something about Hamilton
+      Fynes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First time you&rsquo;d met her, I suppose?&rdquo; the Inspector remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;As a matter of fact, I know very few of my
+      compatriots over here. I am an American citizen myself, and I haven&rsquo;t too
+      much sympathy with any one, man or woman, who doesn&rsquo;t find America good
+      enough for them to live in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite so,&rdquo; he agreed. &ldquo;So you hadn&rsquo;t anything to tell this young lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a thing that she hadn&rsquo;t read in the Comet,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied.
+      &ldquo;What brought her into your mind, anyway?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing particular,&rdquo; the Inspector answered carelessly. &ldquo;Well, Mr.
+      Coulson, I won&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay and have another drink,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson begged. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve nothing to do.
+      There are one or two boys coming in later who&rsquo;ll like to meet you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must be off,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I want to get into my office before six
+      o&rsquo;clock. I dare say I shall be running across you again before you go
+      back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook hands and turned away. Then Mr. Coulson made what was, perhaps,
+      his second slight mistake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;what made you mention that young lady&rsquo;s
+      name, anyway? I&rsquo;m curious to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector looked thoughtfully at the end of the fresh cigar which he
+      had just lit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sort of bond between us, eh?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied. &ldquo;She seemed a very
+      charming young lady. Cut above Fynes, I should think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The detective smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All your American young ladies who come over here are charming,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;Goodbye, Mr. Coulson, and many thanks!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector passed out, and the man whom he had come to visit, after a
+      moment&rsquo;s hesitation, resumed his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These aren&rsquo;t American methods,&rdquo; he muttered to himself. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+      understand them. That man Jacks is either a simpleton or he is too cunning
+      for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. A COMMISSION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a knock at the door, and a footman entered, ushering in a
+      visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The young lady whom you were expecting, sir,&rdquo; he announced discreetly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harvey rose at once to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Penelope,&rdquo; he said, shaking hands with her, &ldquo;this is charming of
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems quite like old times to feel myself at home here once more,&rdquo; she
+      declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harvey did not pursue the subject. He was perfectly well aware that
+      Penelope, who had been his first wife&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should not have sent for you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope shivered a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Dicky!&rdquo; she murmured, looking away into the fire. &ldquo;And to think that
+      it was I who sent him to his death!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harvey shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;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,&rdquo;
+       he continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope shivered again. Her face showed signs of distress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not think,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that I am a nervous person, but I cannot bear
+      to think of it even now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey answered. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Murdered&mdash;and robbed!&rdquo; she whispered, looking up at him with a white
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The frown on the Ambassador&rsquo;s forehead darkened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not only that,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;but the secrets of which he was robbed have
+      gone to the one country interested in the knowledge of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are sure of that?&rdquo; she asked hoarsely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure of it,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remarked just now,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you had better go on,&rdquo; she said quietly. &ldquo;There is something in
+      your mind. I can see that. You have told me so much that you had better
+      tell me the rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The contents of those despatches,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plain, indeed,&rdquo; Penelope assented, and she spoke in a low tone because
+      there was fear in her heart. &ldquo;Why have you told me about them? They throw
+      a new light upon everything,&mdash;an awful light!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have known you,&rdquo; the Ambassador said quietly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a long time ago,&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so very long,&rdquo; he reminded her. &ldquo;But for the first of these
+      tragedies, Fynes&rsquo; despatches would have reached me through you. I am going
+      to ask your help even once more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has been remarked,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey continued, &ldquo;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&mdash;I
+      mean, of course, Prince Maiyo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyebrows were slowly elevated. Was that really the impression people
+      had! Her lips just moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have met Prince Maiyo myself,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know him so well as you seem to imagine,&rdquo; Penelope said slowly.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor do I,&rdquo; the Ambassador declared smoothly. &ldquo;Yet in every country,
+      almost in every man, the exact standard of dishonor varies. A man will lie
+      for a woman&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on, please,&rdquo; Penelope murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prince is over here on some sort of an errand which it isn&rsquo;t our
+      business to understand,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have no proof?&rdquo; she asked breathlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No proof at all,&rdquo; the Ambassador admitted. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even if this were so,&rdquo; Penelope said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Ambassador looked at her with some surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is by chance,&rdquo; Penelope protested. &ldquo;I have tried to avoid him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I cannot congratulate you upon your success,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey said
+      grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Things have changed a little between us, perhaps,&rdquo; Penelope said. &ldquo;What
+      is it that you really want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to know this,&rdquo; the Ambassador said slowly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything else?&rdquo; she asked with a faint note of sarcasm in her tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey replied, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even if we were friends,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;the very closest of friends, he
+      would never tell me. He is far too clever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not be too sure,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is going back very shortly,&rdquo; Penelope remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harvey nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is why I sent for you to come immediately. You will see him tonight
+      at Devenham House.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With all the rest of the world,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;but a man is not likely
+      to talk confidentially under such conditions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harvey rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is only a chance, of course,&rdquo; he admitted, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope held out her hand. The servant for whom the Ambassador had rung
+      was already in the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will try,&rdquo; she promised. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Ambassador bowed, and escorted her to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have confidence in you, Penelope,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You will try your best?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes!&rdquo; she answered with a queer little laugh, &ldquo;I shall do that. But I
+      don&rsquo;t think that even you quite understand Prince Maiyo!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII. PENELOPE INTERVENES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope stood upon the edge of the ballroom, her hand resting still upon
+      her partner&rsquo;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&rsquo;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
+      <i>distrait</i>. She was watching the brilliant scene with a certain air
+      of abstraction, as though her interest in it was, after all, an impersonal
+      thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jolly well every one looks tonight,&rdquo; her partner, who was Sir Charles,
+      remarked. &ldquo;All the women seem to be wearing smart frocks, and some of
+      those foreign uniforms are gorgeous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even the Prince,&rdquo; Penelope said thoughtfully, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; she added, shivering slightly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Charles frowned a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prince again!&rdquo; he said, half protesting. &ldquo;He seems to be a great deal
+      in your thoughts lately, Penelope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;It is something to meet a person whom one is
+      able to dislike. Nowadays the whole world is so amiable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder how much you really do dislike him,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him with a mysterious smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes,&rdquo; she murmured softly, &ldquo;I wonder that myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leaving the Prince out of the question,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems callous of us to have come,&rdquo; Penelope declared. &ldquo;And yet, if we
+      hadn&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t say I find much to grumble at myself,&rdquo; Sir Charles said cheerfully.
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m frightfully sorry about poor old Dicky, of course, and every other
+      decent fellow who doesn&rsquo;t get his show. But, after all, it&rsquo;s no good being
+      morbid. Sackcloth and ashes benefit no one. Shall we have another turn?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; Penelope replied. &ldquo;Wait till the crowd thins a little. Tell me
+      what you have been doing today?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pretty strenuous time,&rdquo; Sir Charles remarked. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that all?&rdquo; Penelope asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The faint sarcasm which lurked beneath her question passed unnoticed. Sir
+      Charles smiled good-humoredly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not quite,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, perhaps!&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;Come and dance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prince!&rdquo; she exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Charles whispered something a little under his breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; she remarked with apparent irrelevance, &ldquo;whether he dances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I go and find out for you?&rdquo; Sir Charles asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had suddenly grown absent. She had the air of scarcely hearing what he
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us stop,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am out of breath.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He led her toward the winter garden. They sat by a fountain, listening to
+      the cool play of the water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope,&rdquo; Somerfield said a little awkwardly, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;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&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The last few weeks,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;have been enough to change me toward
+      any one. All the same, I wasn&rsquo;t conscious of anything particular so far as
+      you are concerned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I always thought,&rdquo; he continued after a moment&rsquo;s hesitation, &ldquo;that there
+      was so much prejudice in your country against&mdash;against all Asiatic
+      races.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him steadfastly for a minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So there is,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;What of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing, except that it is a prejudice which you do not seem to share,&rdquo;
+       he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a way I do share it,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;but there are exceptions,
+      sometimes very wonderful exceptions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince Maiyo, for instance,&rdquo; he said bitterly. &ldquo;Yet a fortnight ago I
+      could have sworn that you hated him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that I do hate him,&rdquo; Penelope affirmed. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he has dared&mdash;&rdquo; Somerfield began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has dared nothing that he ought not to,&rdquo; Penelope interrupted. &ldquo;His
+      manners are altogether too perfect. It is the chill faultlessness of the
+      man which is so depressing. Can&rsquo;t you understand,&rdquo; she added, speaking in
+      a tone of greater intensity, &ldquo;that that is why I hate him? Hush!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&rsquo;s programme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will spare me some dances?&rdquo; he pleaded. &ldquo;I come late, but it is not
+      my fault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She yielded the programme to him without a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those with an X,&rsquo;&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;are free. One has to protect oneself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled as he wrote his own name, unrebuked, in four places.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our first dance, then, is number 10,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is the next but one. I
+      shall find you here, perhaps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here or amongst the chaperons,&rdquo; she answered, as they passed on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You admire Miss Morse?&rdquo; the Duchess asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Greatly,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;She is natural, she has grace, and she
+      has what I do not find so much in this country&mdash;would you say charm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is an excellent word,&rdquo; the Duchess answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince bowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will marry, I suppose?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; the Duchess answered. &ldquo;Sir Charles, poor fellow, is a
+      hopeless victim. I should not be surprised if she married him, some day or
+      other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince looked behind for a moment; then he stopped to admire a
+      magnificent orchid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be great good fortune for Sir Charles Somerfield,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield scarcely waited until the little party were out of sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope,&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve given that man four dances!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;that I should have given him eight if he had
+      asked for them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you allow me to take you back to your aunt?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;My aunt is quite happy without me, and I should
+      prefer to remain here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat down, fuming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope, what do you mean by it?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what do you mean by asking me what I mean by it?&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;You
+      haven&rsquo;t any especial right that I know of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to Heaven I had!&rdquo; he answered with a noticeable break in his
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a short silence. She turned away; she felt that she was suddenly
+      surrounded by a cloud of passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope,&rdquo; he pleaded,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not say another word,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I mean it,&mdash;you must
+      not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have waited for some time,&rdquo; he reminded her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the more reason why you should wait until the right time,&rdquo; she
+      insisted. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t let me lose the
+      one I value most. In a few weeks&rsquo; time you shall say whatever you like,
+      and, at any rate, I will listen to you. Will you be content with that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She laid her fingers upon his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am dancing this with Captain Wilmot,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Will you come and
+      bring me back here afterwards, unless you are engaged?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear young lady,&rdquo; he said, bowing low, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made room for him by her side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;am weary of dancing. One does nothing else, night
+      after night. We will talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Talk or be silent,&rdquo; he answered softly. &ldquo;Myself I believe that you are in
+      need of silence. To be silent together is a proof of great friendship, is
+      it not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems to me that I have been through so much the last fortnight.&rdquo; she
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have suffered where you should not have suffered,&rdquo; he assented
+      gravely. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added calmly, &ldquo;so little to tell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Life to me just now,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not think,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that the rougher and more strenuous paths of
+      life were meant to be trodden by your sex. Please do not misunderstand
+      me,&rdquo; he went on earnestly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;the paths which a man must tread who seeks to
+      serve his country or his household,&mdash;the every-day life in which
+      sometimes intrigue or force is necessary. Do you agree with me, Miss
+      Morse?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so,&rdquo; she faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is why,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;it was painful to me to see you stand there
+      before those men, answering their questions,&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s
+      Ambassador! Perhaps he knew, too, those other thoughts which were in her
+      mind,&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He began to speak again, and his voice seemed pitched in lighter key.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you must think it strange of me to be so
+      egotistical&mdash;to speak all the time so much of my likes and dislikes.
+      To you I have been a little more outspoken than to others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have found me an interesting subject for investigation perhaps?&rdquo; she
+      asked, looking up suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You possess gifts,&rdquo; he admitted calmly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gifts of which you do not approve when possessed by my sex,&rdquo; she
+      suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a law to yourself, Miss Morse,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going soon?&rdquo; she asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very soon,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;My work is nearly finished, if indeed I may
+      dignify it by the name of work. Then I must go back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrank a little away from him, as though the word were distasteful to
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean that you will go back for always?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are many chances in life,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I am the servant of the
+      Emperor and my country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no hope, then,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;of your settling down here
+      altogether?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For once the marble immobility of his features seemed disturbed. He looked
+      at her in honest amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;But I am a son of Japan!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are many of your race who do live here,&rdquo; she reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled with the air of one who is forced to humor a person of limited
+      vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With them it is, alas! a matter of necessity,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is very hard
+      indeed to make you understand over here how we feel about such things,&mdash;there
+      seems to be a different spirit amongst you Western races, a different
+      spirit or a lack of spirit&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you are here now for her good?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Assuredly,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me in what way?&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;You have been studying English
+      customs, their methods of education, their political life, perhaps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&mdash;my own country&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; she answered softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; he added, leaving his seat as though with reluctance, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does the Duchess know that you are taking me?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I arranged it with her,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;My time draws soon to an end and I
+      am to be spoilt a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They crossed the ballroom together and mounted the great stairs. Something&mdash;she
+      never knew quite what it was&mdash;prompted her to detain him as they
+      paused on the threshold of the supper room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not often read the papers, Prince,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Perhaps you have
+      not seen that, after all, the police have discovered a clue to the
+      Hamilton Fynes murder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince looked down upon her for a moment without reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; he murmured softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She understood that she was to go on&mdash;that he was anxious for her to
+      go on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her Grace desires me to show your Highness to your seats,&rdquo; he announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Prince Maiyo turned to his companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you allow me to precede you through the crush?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We are to
+      go this way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII. EAST AND WEST
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder what they&rsquo;d think of your new admirer in New York, Penelope,&rdquo;
+       she remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I imagine,&rdquo; Penelope answered, &ldquo;that they would envy me very much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morse, who was a New Englander of the old-fashioned type, opened her
+      lips, but something in her niece&rsquo;s face restrained her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, at any rate,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I hope we don&rsquo;t go to war with them. The
+      Admiral wrote me, a few weeks ago, that he saw no hope for anything else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be a terrible complication,&rdquo; the Duchess sighed, &ldquo;especially
+      considering our own alliance with Japan. I don&rsquo;t think we need consider it
+      seriously, however. Over in America you people have too much common
+      sense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Government have, very likely,&rdquo; Miss Morse admitted, &ldquo;but it isn&rsquo;t
+      always the Government who decide things or who even rule the country. We
+      have an omnipotent Press, you know. All that&rsquo;s wanted is a weak President,
+      and Heaven knows where we should be!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; the Duchess remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Penelope, &ldquo;that if you could look into Prince Maiyo&rsquo;s
+      heart you would not find him half an Englishman. I think that he is more
+      than seven-eighths a Japanese.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard it whispered,&rdquo; the Duchess remarked, leaning forward, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are dancing again with the Prince?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;Here he comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled pleasantly at the young man, who towered like a giant
+      above him, and noticed at once his lack of cordiality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am selfish!&rdquo; he exclaimed, pausing with Penelope&rsquo;s hand upon his coat
+      sleeve. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will go into the winter garden and talk it over,&rdquo; she answered,
+      smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They found their old seats unoccupied. Once more they sat and listened to
+      the fall of the water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; said Penelope, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please,&rdquo; the Prince murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You spoke, a little time ago,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her in silence for several moments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he said,&mdash;&ldquo;may I call you that? Forgive me if I
+      am too forward, but I hear so many of our friends&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may call me that,&rdquo; she interrupted softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me remind you, then, of what we were saying a little time ago,&rdquo; he
+      went on. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not even to me?&rdquo; she pleaded. &ldquo;I am so insignificant. Surely I do not
+      count?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you yourself are a daughter of that country of
+      which we have been speaking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think, then,&rdquo; she asked, &ldquo;that I put my country before everything
+      else in the world?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;that you would. Your country is too young to be
+      wholly degenerate. It is true that you are a nation of fused races&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And therefore?&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And therefore,&rdquo; he continued with a delightful smile, &ldquo;I shall not
+      discuss my hopes or fears with you. Or if we do discuss them,&rdquo; he went on,
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; she begged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sighed, and leaned a little towards him. Her eyes were soft and dusky,
+      her red lips a little parted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;am not the Daughter of All America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor am I,&rdquo; he answered with a sigh, &ldquo;the Son of all Japan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have actually been talking nonsense,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and I thought that
+      you, Prince, were far too serious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were talking fairy tales,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;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,&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;it is not nonsense. But if they were?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The world might have been happier for both of us,&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield, sullen and discontented, came and looked at them, moved away,
+      and then hesitatingly returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Willmott is waiting for you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The last was my dance, and this
+      is his.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose at once and turned to the Prince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that we should go back,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Will you take me to my aunt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it must be so,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Tell me, Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course we will,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaned a little towards her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tomorrow?&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded. There were three engagements for the next day of which she
+      took no heed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tomorrow,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Come and let us arrange it with the Duchess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A coward always,&rdquo; he murmured to himself, a little wearily, for he knew
+      where his weakness lay,&mdash;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&rsquo;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!&mdash;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,&mdash;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&mdash;yes! To see her face shining
+      upon him from every beautiful place, to feel the delight of her presence
+      with every delicious sensation,&mdash;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&mdash;that
+      way lay slavery! He brushed the very thought from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he reached the door of his house in St. James&rsquo; Square, it opened slowly
+      before him. He had brought his own servants from his own country, and in
+      their master&rsquo;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&mdash;a
+      curious note of modernism where everything seemed to belong to a bygone
+      world&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Soto came gliding noiselessly into the room, fully dressed, with
+      tireless eyes but wan face,&mdash;Soto, the prototype of his master, the
+      most perfect secretary and servant evolved through all the years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Master,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;there has been trouble here. An Englishman came with
+      this card.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince took it, and read the name of Inspector Jacks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The man asked questions,&rdquo; Soto continued. &ldquo;We spoke English so badly that
+      he was puzzled. He went away, but he will come again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled, and laid his hand almost caressingly upon the other&rsquo;s
+      shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is of no consequence, Soto,&rdquo; he said,&mdash;&ldquo;no consequence whatever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV. AN ENGAGEMENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your rooms, Prince, are wonderful,&rdquo; Penelope said to him. &ldquo;I knew that
+      you were a man of taste, but I did not know that you were also a
+      millionaire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In my country,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I admire more than anything,&rdquo; the Duchess declared, &ldquo;is your
+      beautiful violet tone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;that you like my coloring. Some people have
+      thought it sombre. To me dark colors indoors are restful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything about the whole place is restful,&rdquo; Penelope said,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fresh air is good,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;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,&rdquo; he added with a faint
+      smile, &ldquo;if the magic works.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the magic never does work,&rdquo; she protested with a little sigh, &ldquo;and I
+      am not in the least interested in the past. Tell me something about the
+      future?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely that is easier,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Over the past we have lost our
+      control,&mdash;what has been must remain to the end of time. The future is
+      ours to do what we will with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That sounds so reasonable,&rdquo; the Duchess declared, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled tolerantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It depends a good deal, does it not,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added,
+      turning to Penelope. &ldquo;Let me show you the figures upon them, and I will
+      tell you the allegory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Always,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t it possible to
+      speak now and then of the present?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of the actual present?&rdquo; he asked softly. &ldquo;Of this very moment?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of this very moment, if you will,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;Your fairy tale the
+      other night was wonderful, but it was a long way off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s, a Lady Stretton-Wynne, was helping him receive his guests&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Show me the mystery of this lock,&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled, and taking the box from her hands, touched a little spring.
+      Almost at once the lid flew open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that it is empty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She peered in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;there is something there! See!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are these?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Are they symbols&mdash;the cord and the
+      knife of destiny?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there anything the matter?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Ought I not to have taken them
+      up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know that anything was in the box,&rdquo; he said calmly. &ldquo;I am sorry
+      if its contents have alarmed you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you are ready, I think that we ought to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess was more than ready. She rose promptly. The Prince walked with
+      them to the door and handed them over to his majordomo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has been so nice of you,&rdquo; he said to the Duchess, &ldquo;to honor my
+      bachelor abode. I shall often think of your visit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Prince,&rdquo; the Duchess declared, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very gracious,&rdquo; the Prince answered, bowing low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope&rsquo;s hands were within her muff. She was talking some nonsense&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really, I was not so much bored as I had feared,&rdquo; the Duchess remarked
+      composedly. &ldquo;That Stretton-Wynne woman generally gets on my nerves, but
+      her nephew seemed to have a restraining effect upon her. She didn&rsquo;t tell
+      me more than once about her husband&rsquo;s bad luck in not getting Canada, and
+      she never even mentioned her girls. But I do think, Penelope,&rdquo; she
+      continued, &ldquo;that I shall have to talk to you a little seriously. There&rsquo;s
+      the best-looking and richest young bachelor in London dying to marry you,
+      and you won&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you say another word to me, aunt,&rdquo; Penelope exclaimed, &ldquo;I shall
+      shriek!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess, being a woman of tact, laughed the subject away and pretended
+      not to notice Penelope&rsquo;s real distress. But when they had reached Devenham
+      House, she went to the telephone and called up Somerfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charlie,&rdquo; she said,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right o&rsquo;!&rdquo; he interrupted. &ldquo;Who is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be careful what you are saying,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;because it isn&rsquo;t any one
+      who wants you to take them out to supper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I only wish you did,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the Duchess, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The worst of having a distinctive voice,&rdquo; she sighed. &ldquo;Listen. I want to
+      speak to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am listening hard,&rdquo; Somerfield answered. &ldquo;Hold the instrument a little
+      further away from you,&mdash;that&rsquo;s better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have been to the Prince&rsquo;s for tea this afternoon&mdash;Penelope and
+      I,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; he assented. &ldquo;I was asked, but I didn&rsquo;t see the fun of it. It
+      puts my back up to see Penelope monopolized by that fellow,&rdquo; he added
+      gloomily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, listen to what I have to say,&rdquo; the Duchess went on. &ldquo;Something
+      happened there&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know what&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m beastly sorry,&rdquo; Somerfield answered. &ldquo;I meant to say that I was jolly
+      glad to hear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess coughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t quite hear what you said before,&rdquo; she said severely. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Awfully good of you,&rdquo; Somerfield declared heartily. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll come with
+      pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s surprise, she made not the slightest objection when he
+      followed her into the library after dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;something has gone wrong. Won&rsquo;t you tell me what it
+      is? You look worried.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She returned his anxious gaze, dry-eyed but speechless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has that fellow, Prince Maiyo, done or said anything&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;No! don&rsquo;t mention his name, please! I don&rsquo;t want to hear
+      his name again just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my part,&rdquo; Somerfield said bitterly, &ldquo;I never want to hear it again as
+      long as I live!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a short silence. Suddenly she turned towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charlie,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you have asked me to marry you six times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seven,&rdquo; he corrected. &ldquo;I ask you again now&mdash;that makes eight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;I accept&mdash;on one condition.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On any,&rdquo; he exclaimed, his voice trembling with joy. &ldquo;Penelope, it sounds
+      too good to be true. You can&rsquo;t be in earnest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;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&mdash;not anything&mdash;for three
+      months&rsquo; time, at least. Promise that until then you will not let me hear
+      the sound of the word marriage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promise,&rdquo; he said firmly. &ldquo;Penelope, you mean it? You mean this
+      seriously?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave him her hands and a very sad little smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean it, Charlie,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I will keep my word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV. PENELOPE EXPLAINS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not much to say to you, Mr. Harvey,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A propos of our last conversation?&rdquo; he asked eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She bowed her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It concerns Prince Maiyo,&rdquo; she admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are sure that you will not sit down?&rdquo; he persisted. &ldquo;You know how
+      interesting this is to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To me,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember it perfectly,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were right,&rdquo; Penelope said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Ambassador drew a little breath. It was staggering, this, even if
+      expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have talked with the Prince several times since our conversation,&rdquo;
+       Penelope continued. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What were they?&rdquo; the Ambassador asked quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A roll of silken cord,&rdquo; Penelope said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he know that you found them?&rdquo; Mr. Blaine-Harvey asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was with me,&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;He even, at my request, opened the
+      casket. He must have forgotten that they were there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; the Ambassador said thoughtfully, &ldquo;he never knew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One cannot tell,&rdquo; Penelope answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he say anything when you discovered them?&rdquo; the Ambassador asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; Penelope declared. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Ambassador walked to the window and back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you have only confirmed what I felt must be so, but
+      even then the certainty of it is rather a shock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave him her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have told you the truth,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Harvey nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have just been given to understand as much,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;At present he is
+      to be met with every day. I believe that he is even now in my drawing
+      rooms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where I ought to be,&rdquo; Penelope said, turning toward the door, &ldquo;only I
+      felt that I must see you first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not come with you,&rdquo; Mr. Harvey said. &ldquo;There is no need for our
+      little conference to become the subject of comment. By the bye,&rdquo; he added,
+      &ldquo;let me take this opportunity of wishing you every happiness. I haven&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope&rsquo;s smile was a little forced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you very much,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is all rather in the air, at present,
+      you know. We are not going to be married for some time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When it comes off,&rdquo; the Ambassador said, &ldquo;I am going to talk to the
+      Duchess and Miss Morse. I think that I ought to give you away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope made her way into Mrs. Blaine-Harvey&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it true?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is true that I am engaged to Sir Charles Somerfield,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must wish you every happiness,&rdquo; he said slowly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a born courtier, Prince,&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;Please remember that in
+      my democratic country one has never had a chance of getting used to such
+      speeches.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your country,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you say that over to yourself so doubtfully?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beyond a doubt,&rdquo; the Prince answered gravely. &ldquo;They go to the making of a
+      man. It is as you say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You like him personally, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Charles Somerfield and I are almost strangers,&rdquo; the Prince replied.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me in what respect your tastes are so far apart?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;You
+      say that as though there were something in the manner of his life of which
+      you disapproved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are sons of different countries, Miss Penelope,&rdquo; the Prince said. &ldquo;We
+      look out upon life differently, and the things which seem good to him may
+      well seem idle to me. Before I go,&rdquo; he added a little hesitatingly, &ldquo;we
+      may speak of this again. But not now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall remind you of that promise, Prince,&rdquo; she declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not fail to keep it,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;You have, at least,&rdquo; he added
+      after a moment&rsquo;s pause, &ldquo;one great claim upon happiness. You are the son
+      and the daughter of kindred races.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him as though not quite understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking,&rdquo; he continued simply, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not well for you, this,&rdquo; she remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not mistake me,&rdquo; he begged. &ldquo;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&mdash;things which come most
+      to the surface when I am in this, her own country&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and talk to the Duchess,&rdquo; Somerfield said. &ldquo;She has something
+      delightful to propose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI. CONCERNING PRINCE MAIYO
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess looked up from her writing table and nodded to her husband,
+      who had just entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Ambrose!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Do you want to talk to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can spare me five minutes,&rdquo; the Duke suggested. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think
+      that I need keep you longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess handed her notebook to her secretary, who hastened from the
+      room. The Duke seated himself in her vacant chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About our little party down in Hampshire next week,&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am waiting to hear from you before I send out any invitations,&rdquo; the
+      Duchess answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite so,&rdquo; the Duke assented. &ldquo;To tell you the truth, I don&rsquo;t want
+      anything in the nature of a house party. What I should really like would
+      be to get Maiyo there almost to ourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His wife looked at him in some surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem particularly anxious to make things pleasant for this young
+      man,&rdquo; she remarked. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Margaret,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;I don&rsquo;t mean as a personal
+      matter. It&rsquo;s a matter of politics&mdash;perhaps of something greater,
+      even, than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess liked to understand everything, and her husband&rsquo;s reticence
+      annoyed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we have the Japanese Ambassador always with us,&rdquo; she remarked. &ldquo;A
+      most delightful person I call the Baron Hesho, and I am sure he loves us
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is not exactly the point, my dear,&rdquo; the Duke explained. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess smiled good humoredly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my dear Ambrose,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what more we can do than
+      feed him properly and give him pleasant people to talk to. He doesn&rsquo;t go
+      in for sports, does he? All I can promise is that we will do our best to
+      be agreeable to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure of it, my dear,&rdquo; the Duke said. &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t committed yourself
+      to asking any one, by the bye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a soul,&rdquo; his wife answered, &ldquo;except Sir Charles. I had to ask him, of
+      course, for Penelope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally,&rdquo; the Duke assented. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; the Duchess said dryly, &ldquo;you would like him to take a fancy to
+      Grace?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t mind in the least,&rdquo; her husband declared. &ldquo;I never met a
+      young man whom I respected and admired more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor I, for that matter,&rdquo; the Duchess agreed. &ldquo;And yet, somehow or other&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somehow or other?&rdquo; the Duke repeated courteously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I never altogether trust these paragons,&rdquo; his wife said. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing at all,&rdquo; the Duke said, rising to his feet. &ldquo;I only wanted to
+      make it plain that we don&rsquo;t require a house party next week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shan&rsquo;t ask a soul,&rdquo; the Duchess answered. &ldquo;Do you mind ringing the bell
+      as you pass? I&rsquo;ll have Miss Smith back again and send these letters off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good!&rdquo; the Duke declared. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going down to the House, but I don&rsquo;t
+      suppose there&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke drove down to the House, but called first in Downing Street. He
+      found the Prime Minister anxious to see him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve arranged about Maiyo coming down to you next week?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; the Duke answered. &ldquo;He is coming, for certain. One
+      good thing about that young man&mdash;he never breaks an engagement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prime Minister consulted a calendar which lay open before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mind,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;if I come, too, and Bransome?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, of course not,&rdquo; the Duke replied. &ldquo;We shall be delighted. We have
+      seventy bedrooms, and only half a dozen or so of us. But tell me&mdash;is
+      this young man as important as all that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall have to have a serious talk,&rdquo; the Prime Minister said, &ldquo;in a few
+      days&rsquo; time. I don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an odd thing,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;that they should both have been
+      Americans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heseltine thinks there&rsquo;s something behind this correspondence,&rdquo; the Prime
+      Minister said slowly. &ldquo;Washington was very secretive about the man Fynes&rsquo; 
+      identity. I found that out from Scotland Yard. Do you know, I&rsquo;m half
+      inclined to think, although I can&rsquo;t get a word out of Harvey, that this
+      man Fynes&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prime Minister hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; the Duke asked a little impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to go too far,&rdquo; his chief said. &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the most remarkable case I ever heard of in my life,&rdquo; the Duke
+      admitted, helping himself to a cigarette from a box which he had just
+      discovered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is another point,&rdquo; the Prime Minister continued. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t understand it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t suggest, I suppose,&rdquo; the Duke asked, &ldquo;that we are not trying
+      to clear the matter up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t suggest it,&rdquo; his chief answered, &ldquo;but I can&rsquo;t quite make out
+      what&rsquo;s at the back of their heads. However, I won&rsquo;t bother you about that
+      now. If I were to propound Heseltine&rsquo;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&rsquo;re not in a hurry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mind walking?&rdquo; the Prime Minister said. &ldquo;There is another matter
+      I&rsquo;d like to talk to you about, and there&rsquo;s nowhere better than the streets
+      for a little conversation. Besides, I need the air.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With pleasure,&rdquo; the Duke answered, who loathed walking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He directed his coachman to precede them, and they started off, arm in
+      arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Devenham,&rdquo; the Prime Minister said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are serious?&rdquo; the Duke exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Absolutely,&rdquo; the Prime Minister answered. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;ve
+      had him to dine with me alone, and I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He seems pleased enough with us,&rdquo; the Duke remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not so sure,&rdquo; the Prime Minister answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From my experience of him,&rdquo; the Duke said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we shall know
+      until he chooses to tell us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid you are right,&rdquo; the Prime Minister declared. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll mention it,&rdquo; the Duke promised, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought of that,&rdquo; the Prime Minister assented. &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke threw away his cigarette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we can only do our best. The young man seems friendly
+      enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prime Minister nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is precisely his friendliness which I fear,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII. A GAY NIGHT IN PARIS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, old man,&rdquo; he whispered in his ear,&mdash;they were sitting side by
+      side now in the Bal Tabarin,&mdash;&ldquo;if you are going on like this, Heaven
+      knows where you&rsquo;ll land at the end of it all! I&rsquo;ll look after you as well
+      as I can,&mdash;where you go, I&rsquo;ll go&mdash;but we can&rsquo;t be together every
+      second of the time. Don&rsquo;t you think you&rsquo;d be safer if you handed over your
+      pocketbook to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right you are!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared, falling a little over on one side.
+      &ldquo;Take it out of my pocket. Be careful of it now. There&rsquo;s five hundred
+      francs there, and the plans of a loom which I wouldn&rsquo;t sell for a good
+      many thousands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Gaynsforth possessed himself quickly of the pocketbook, and satisfied
+      himself that his friend&rsquo;s description of its contents was fairly correct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve nothing else upon you worth taking care of?&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;You
+      can trust me, you know. You haven&rsquo;t any papers, or anything of that sort?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if I have, my young friend,&rdquo; he said calmly, &ldquo;what the devil business
+      is it of yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are too good an actor for me, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Suppose we get
+      to business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go somewhere where we can
+      get some supper. We&rsquo;ll go to the Abbaye Theleme, and you shall have the
+      pleasure of entertaining me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s up to you to pay,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;so you shall choose the supper.
+      Personally, I&rsquo;m for a few oysters, a hot bird, and a cold bottle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;not
+      a little to his companion&rsquo;s astonishment,&mdash;at last turned to
+      business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;s see where we are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Gaynsforth began to recover himself. It did not follow, because he had
+      made one mistake, that he was to lose the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am neither a detective, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;nor a secret service
+      agent,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;Get right on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That friend,&rdquo; Mr. Gaynsforth continued calmly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thousand pounds,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson repeated. &ldquo;Gee whiz!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is also,&rdquo; the Englishman continued, &ldquo;prepared to pay another thousand
+      for a satisfactory explanation of the murder of Mr. Richard Vanderpole on
+      the following day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, your friend&rsquo;s got the stuff!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked admiringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend is not a poor man,&rdquo; Mr. Gaynsforth admitted. &ldquo;You see, there&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a very interesting job you&rsquo;re on, and no mistake,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson
+      declared. &ldquo;I wonder you waste time coming over here on the spree when
+      you&rsquo;ve got a piece of business like that to look after.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came over here,&rdquo; Mr. Gaynsforth replied, &ldquo;entirely on the matter I have
+      mentioned to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, over here to Paris?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not only to Paris,&rdquo; the other replied dryly, &ldquo;but to discover one Mr.
+      James B. Coulson, whose health I now have the pleasure of drinking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson drained the glass which the waiter had just filled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, this licks me!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t imagine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You knew Hamilton Fynes,&rdquo; Mr. Gaynsforth remarked. &ldquo;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,&mdash;that also came
+      out at the inquest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kind of queer, wasn&rsquo;t it,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked meditatively, &ldquo;how I
+      seemed to get hung up with both of them? You may also remember that at the
+      inquest Mr. Vanderpole&rsquo;s business with me was testified to by the chief of
+      his department.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; Mr. Gaynsforth answered. &ldquo;However, that&rsquo;s neither here nor
+      there. Everything was properly arranged, so far as you were concerned, of
+      course. That doesn&rsquo;t alter my friend&rsquo;s convictions. This is a business
+      matter with me, and if the two thousand pounds don&rsquo;t sound attractive
+      enough, well, the amount must be revised, that&rsquo;s all. But I want you to
+      understand this, Mr. Coulson, I represent a man or a syndicate, or call it
+      what you will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call it a Government,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson muttered under his breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call it what you will,&rdquo; Mr. Gaynsforth continued, with an air of not
+      having heard the interruption, &ldquo;we have the money and we want the
+      information. You can give it to us if you like. We don&rsquo;t ask for too much.
+      We don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you ordered the supper?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson inquired anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have ordered everything you suggested,&rdquo; Mr. Gaynsforth answered,&mdash;&ldquo;some
+      oysters, a chicken en casserole, lettuce salad, some cheese, and a magnum
+      of Pommery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is understood that you are my host?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson insisted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Absolutely,&rdquo; his companion declared. &ldquo;I consider it an honor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson said, pointing out his empty glass to the <i>sommelier</i>,
+      &ldquo;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&rsquo;ll
+      get that firmly into your head and stick to it and believe it, there&rsquo;s no
+      reason why you and I shouldn&rsquo;t have a pleasant evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I congratulate you and your employers. To the
+      lower regions with business! Help yourself to the oysters and pass the
+      wine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII. MR. COULSON IS INDISCREET
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;clock he left the Gare du Nord for London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will allow me to divide the expense,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied, &ldquo;I
+      shall be exceedingly obliged to you, and will accept your offer. I am,
+      unfortunately, a bad sailor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is as you will, sir,&rdquo; the gentleman answered. &ldquo;The amount is only
+      trifling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to have a horrible time,&rdquo; he said frankly. &ldquo;I am afraid you&rsquo;ll
+      repent your offer before you&rsquo;ve done with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His new friend smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never been seasick in my life,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s nothing to laugh at,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked gloomily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me give you a little advice,&rdquo; his friend said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing does me any good,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson groaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This,&rdquo; the stranger remarked, producing a flask from his case and
+      dividing the liquor into equal parts, &ldquo;may send you to sleep. If so,
+      you&rsquo;ll be across before you wake up. Here&rsquo;s luck!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s of no consequence,&rdquo; he declared, ringing for the steward. &ldquo;I&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson sat down upon the berth. He seemed indisposed for speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll leave you now, then,&rdquo; his friend said, buttoning his coat around
+      him. &ldquo;You lie flat down on your back, and I think you&rsquo;ll find yourself all
+      right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That brandy,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson muttered, &ldquo;was infernally&mdash;- strong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No seal,&rdquo; he said softly to himself. &ldquo;My friend Mr. Coulson plays the
+      game of travelling agent to perfection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; he whispered, looking down upon Mr. Coulson&rsquo;s uneasy figure,
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s head, he forced it down his throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I think, Mr. Coulson, that you had better wake up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, how has the remedy worked?&rdquo; the stranger inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s given me a brute of a headache,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;but I certainly
+      haven&rsquo;t been seasick up till now, and I must say I&rsquo;ve never crossed before
+      without being ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger laughed soothingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That brandy and soda would keep you right.&rdquo; He said. &ldquo;When we get to
+      Folkestone, you&rsquo;ll be wanting a supper basket. Make yourself at home. I
+      don&rsquo;t need the cabin. It&rsquo;s a glorious night outside. I shouldn&rsquo;t have come
+      in at all except to see how you were getting on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long before we are in?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About a quarter of an hour,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll come for you, if you
+      like. Have a few minute&rsquo;s nap if you feel sleepy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not I!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His friend laughed as he helped him out on to the deck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t grumble at it, if I were you,&rdquo; he said carelessly. &ldquo;It saved
+      you from a bad crossing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I owe the little beggar for half that cabin,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson thought
+      with a sensation of annoyance. &ldquo;I wonder where he&rsquo;s hidden himself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX. A MOMENTOUS QUESTION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have just written you a line, Bransome,&rdquo; he said, as they shook hands.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very kind, Duke,&rdquo; Bransome answered. &ldquo;I suppose Haviland
+      explained the matter to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going to help me entertain my other distinguished visitor,&rdquo; he
+      remarked. &ldquo;I fancy we shall be quite an interesting party.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bransome glanced around.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope most earnestly,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that we shall induce our young friend
+      to be a little more candid with us than he has been. One can&rsquo;t get a word
+      out of Hesho, but I&rsquo;m bound to say that I don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I read them,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His secretary approached Bransome and touched him on the shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is a person in the anteroom, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;whom I think that you
+      ought to see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke nodded and passed on. The Secretary drew his chief on one side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This man has just arrived from Paris, sir,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;and is the
+      bearer of a letter which he is instructed to deliver into your hands
+      only.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bransome nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he known to us at all?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;From whom does the letter come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The letter itself, sir, has nothing to do with France, I imagine,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Washington has certainly shown signs of mistrust lately,&rdquo; he remarked,
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;I think we can both
+      guess what it is about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The secretary nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I ring up Mr. Haviland, sir?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; Bransome answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &amp; Bruce Syndicate
+      should look, was inclined to wonder whether his secretary had made a
+      mistake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was told that you wished to see me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am Sir Edward
+      Bransome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. James B. Coulson nodded appreciatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good of you, Sir Edward,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward bent his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that you come from the United
+      States.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is so, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied. &ldquo;I am at the head of a syndicate,
+      the Coulson &amp; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Satisfactorily, I trust?&rdquo; Sir Edward remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;m not grumbling, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson assented. &ldquo;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&rsquo;m not grumbling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bransome bowed. Perhaps, after all, the man was not a fool!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a good many friends round about Washington,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson
+      continued, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t the
+      postage stamp that worries them,&rdquo; he added with a little laugh, &ldquo;but they
+      sort of feel that anything committed to me is fairly safe to reach its
+      right destination.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Without disputing that fact for one moment, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; Sir Edward
+      remarked, &ldquo;I might also suggest that the ordinary mail service between our
+      countries has reached a marvellous degree of perfection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Post Office,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson continued meditatively, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a fact, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson produced it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friend of mine you may have heard of,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is getting late, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; Sir Edward reminded him, glancing at
+      the clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, Sir Edward,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that in your line of business time counts
+      for little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward motioned his visitor to a chair and touched the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall require the A3X cipher, Sidney,&rdquo; he said to his secretary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;ll need that. The letter you&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward withdrew the enclosure from its envelope and raised his
+      eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t this a trifle indiscreet?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I should say not,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;My friend&mdash;Mr. Jones
+      we&rsquo;ll call him&mdash;knew me and, I presume, knew what he was about.
+      Besides, that is a plain letter from the head of a business firm to&mdash;shall
+      we say a client? There&rsquo;s nothing in it to conceal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the same time,&rdquo; Sir Edward remarked, &ldquo;it might have been as well to
+      have fastened the flap of the envelope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me look,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bit short of gum in our stationery office,&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward was looking at him steadily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My impressions were,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;when I opened this letter, that I was not
+      the first person who had done so. The envelope flew apart in my fingers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The document has never been out of my possession, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This letter, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is not an official communication.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted. &ldquo;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,&mdash;at least, that is how my friend Mr. Jones looks at
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The only answer your friend asks for is a verbal one,&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A verbal one,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson assented, &ldquo;delivered to me in the presence of
+      one other person, whose name you will find mentioned in that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward bowed his head. When he spoke again, his manner had somehow
+      changed. It had become at once more official,&mdash;a trifle more stilted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is a great subject, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is a subject which
+      has occupied the attention of His Majesty&rsquo;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&rsquo; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson smiled and nodded his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is what I call diplomacy, Sir Edward,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;I always tell
+      our people that they are too bullheaded. They don&rsquo;t use enough words. What
+      about that other friend of yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward glanced at his watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is possible,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that by this time Mr.&mdash;&mdash;- Mr.
+      Smith, shall we call him, to match your Mr. Jones?&mdash;is attending my
+      wife&rsquo;s reception, from which your message called me. If he has not yet
+      arrived, my secretary shall telephone for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson indicated his approval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seems to me,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;that I have struck a fortunate evening for my
+      visit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward touched the bell and his secretary appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;will you allow me the privilege of offering you
+      some refreshment?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;I am in want of nothing but a
+      smoke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward turned to the bell, but his visitor promptly stopped him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will allow me, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I will smoke one of my own.
+      Home-made article, five dollars a hundred, but I can&rsquo;t stand these strong
+      Havanas. Try one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward waved them away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will excuse me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo; conversation upon
+      another matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson showed some signs of surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is another subject,&rdquo; Sir Edward said, &ldquo;which I should like to
+      discuss with you while we are waiting for Mr. Smith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX. THE ANSWER
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson moved his cigar into a corner of his mouth, as though to
+      obtain a clear view of his questioner&rsquo;s face. His expression was one of
+      bland interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I guess you&rsquo;ve got me puzzled, Sir Edward,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You aren&rsquo;t
+      thinking of doing anything in woollen machinery, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think not, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;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&mdash;a
+      Mr. Hamilton Fynes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hamilton Fynes!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson repeated thoughtfully. &ldquo;Why, that&rsquo;s the man
+      who got murdered on the cars, going from Liverpool to London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is so,&rdquo; Sir Edward admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told that reporter fellow all I knew about him,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He was an
+      unsociable sort of chap, you know, Sir Edward, and he wasn&rsquo;t in any line
+      of business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H&rsquo;m! I thought he might have been,&rdquo; the Minister answered, glancing
+      keenly for a moment at his visitor. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson scratched his chin for a moment thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I can understand their feeling a bit sore about it. I&rsquo;m
+      not exactly given to brag when I&rsquo;m away from my own country&mdash;one
+      hears too much of that all the time&mdash;but between you and me, I
+      shouldn&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The matter,&rdquo; Sir Edward declared, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; Sir Edward
+      continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson knocked the ash from his cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see what you are driving at,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am sorry I can be of no
+      assistance to you, Sir Edward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither in the case of Mr. Hamilton Fynes or in the case of Mr. Richard
+      Vanderpole?&rdquo; Sir Edward asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite out of my line,&rdquo; he declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Notwithstanding the fact,&rdquo; Sir Edward reminded him quietly, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson answered. &ldquo;A nice young fellow he was, too. Well set
+      up, and real American manners,&mdash;Hail, fellow, well met!&rsquo; with you
+      right away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; the Minister suggested smoothly, &ldquo;it wouldn&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do think of things!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson remarked admiringly. &ldquo;You&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; Sir Edward said, &ldquo;we should consider the nature of those
+      documents, and we should see to whose advantage it was that they were
+      suppressed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And supposing it was your country&rsquo;s?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was not thinking of my own country,&rdquo; Sir Edward admitted. &ldquo;I must
+      confess that my thoughts had turned elsewhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me tell you this, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson continued. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you suggest any method,&rdquo; he asked a little dryly, &ldquo;by means of which
+      we might remove this unfortunate impression?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson flicked the ash once more from the end of his cigar and looked
+      at it thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t my show,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;d do my best to prove, by the only possible means, that
+      I was taking the matter seriously.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The only possible means being?&rdquo; Sir Edward asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess I&rsquo;d offer a reward,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward did not hesitate for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your idea is an excellent one, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That sounds bully,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think that it will have a good effect upon your friends in
+      Washington?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson asked. &ldquo;I know nothing about it. I&rsquo;ve given you my
+      personal opinion only. Seems to me, though, it&rsquo;s the best way of showing
+      that you&rsquo;re in earnest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before we quit this subject finally, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; Sir Edward said, &ldquo;I am
+      going to ask you a question which you have been asked before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Referring to Hamilton Fynes?&rdquo; Mr. Coulson asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get your young man to lay his hand on that copy of the Comet,&rdquo; Mr.
+      Coulson begged earnestly. &ldquo;I told that pushing young journalist all I knew
+      and a bit more. I assure you, my information isn&rsquo;t worth anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it meant to be worth anything?&rdquo; Sir Edward asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson remained imperturbable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t mind, Sir Edward,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I guess we&rsquo;ll drop the subject
+      of Mr. Hamilton Fynes. We can&rsquo;t get any forwarder. Let it go at that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a knock at the door. Sir Edward&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Bransome,&rdquo; he said, shaking hands, &ldquo;isn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward leaned across the table towards Mr. Coulson. Mr. Coulson had
+      risen to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This gentleman,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is Mr. Smith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The newcomer opened his lips to protest, but Sir Edward held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One moment,&rdquo; he begged. &ldquo;Our friend here&mdash;Mr. J. B. Coulson from New
+      York&mdash;has brought a letter from America. He is sailing tomorrow,&mdash;leaving
+      London somewhere about eight o&rsquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is exactly the position, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson replied. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson continued, &ldquo;and yet it is a matter with so many
+      ramifications that after much discussion it might become a veritable
+      chaos.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Smith inclined his head gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I appreciate the situation,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;My friend here&mdash;Sir Edward
+      Bransome&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None whatever, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I leave it to you to put it in your own words,&rdquo; Mr. Smith continued. &ldquo;The
+      affair is within your province, and the policy of His Majesty&rsquo;s Ministers
+      is absolutely fixed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward turned toward their visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&mdash;our answer&mdash;to you is
+      this,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all very interesting indeed, Sir Edward,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;I
+      don&rsquo;t want to keep you gentlemen up too late, so perhaps you will be
+      coming to the answer of my question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The answer!&rdquo; Sir Edward exclaimed. &ldquo;Surely I made myself clear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All that you have said,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson admitted, &ldquo;has been remarkably
+      clear, but the question I asked you was this,&mdash;what is to be the
+      position of your country in the event of war between Japan and America?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I have told you,&rdquo; Sir Edward declared, &ldquo;that war between Japan and
+      America is not a subject within the scope of practical politics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We may consider ourselves&mdash;my friend Mr. Jones would certainly
+      consider himself,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson affirmed,&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;t that sort of
+      reply I want to take back to Mr. Jones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Smith and his colleague exchanged glances, and the latter drew his
+      chief on one side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will excuse me for a moment, I know, Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, by all means,&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared. &ldquo;My time is my own, and it is
+      entirely at your service. If you say the word, I&rsquo;ll go outside and wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not necessary,&rdquo; Sir Edward answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room was a large one, and the two men walked slowly up and down, Mr.
+      Smith leaning all the time upon his colleague&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Coulson,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo; that gentleman answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are aware, then,&rdquo; Mr. Smith continued, &ldquo;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&rsquo; time, Mr. Coulson, our treaty with Japan will
+      have expired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are seeking to renew it!&rdquo; Mr. Coulson declared quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Smith raised his eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The renewal of that treaty,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Coulson rose slowly to his feet and took up his hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen both,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s what I call plain speaking. I suppose
+      it&rsquo;s up to us to read between the lines. I can assure you that my friend
+      Mr. Jones will appreciate it. It isn&rsquo;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&rsquo;t come in my way. That is why I feel I can criticize,&mdash;I
+      am unprejudiced. You are Britishers, and you&rsquo;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&rsquo;t seek a war with us, it doesn&rsquo;t follow
+      that she&rsquo;s convinced us. As to the rights of our dispute, don&rsquo;t rely so
+      much upon hearing one side only. Don&rsquo;t be dogmatic about it, and say this
+      thing is and that thing isn&rsquo;t. You may bet your last dollar that America
+      isn&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bransome touched the bell and summoned his secretary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sidney, will you see this gentleman out?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You are quite sure
+      there is nothing further we can do for you, Mr. Coulson?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing at all, I thank you, sir,&rdquo; that gentleman answered. &ldquo;I have only
+      got to thank you once more for the pleasure of this brief interview. Good
+      night!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night, and bon voyage!&rdquo; Sir Edward answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; he remarked thoughtfully, &ldquo;how our friends in Japan convinced
+      themselves so thoroughly that Mr. Jones was only playing ships!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It makes one wonder,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI. A CLUE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There wasn&rsquo;t a word about any reward,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks was told, &ldquo;until
+      this morning. We had a telephone message from the chief&rsquo;s bedroom and
+      phoned you up at once. It&rsquo;s a pretty stiff amount, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is,&rdquo; the Inspector admitted. &ldquo;Our chief seems to be taking quite a
+      personal interest in the matter all at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll lay two to one that some one was on to him at Sir Edward Bransome&rsquo;s
+      reception last night,&rdquo; the other remarked. &ldquo;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&rsquo;ve no desire to seem censorious, you
+      know, Jacks,&rdquo; the young man went on, leaning back in his chair and
+      lighting a cigarette, &ldquo;but it does seem a dashed queer thing that you
+      can&rsquo;t put your finger upon either of these fellows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks nodded gloomily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt it seems so to you,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you&rsquo;ve got your eye on some one?&rdquo; The young man asked curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not say so,&rdquo; the Inspector answered warily. &ldquo;By the bye, do you
+      think there would be any chance of five minutes&rsquo; interview with your
+      chief?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man shook his head slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a cheek you&rsquo;ve got, Jacks!&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not serious, are
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perfectly,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks answered. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t know it already, that I am
+      in charge of the investigations concerning these two murders, he will see
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man was disposed to consider the point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;the chief does seem plaguy interested, all of a
+      sudden. I&rsquo;ll pass your name in. If you take a seat, it&rsquo;s just possible
+      that he may spare you a minute or two in about an hour&rsquo;s time. He won&rsquo;t be
+      able to before then, I&rsquo;m sure. There&rsquo;s a deputation almost due, and two
+      other appointments before luncheon time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector accepted a newspaper and an easy chair. His young friend
+      disappeared and returned almost immediately, looking a little surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve managed it for you,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;The chief is going to spare you
+      five minutes at once. Come along and I&rsquo;ll show you in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Scotland Yard, I understand, Mr. Jacks?&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At your service, sir,&rdquo; the Inspector answered. &ldquo;I am in charge of the
+      investigations concerning these two recent murders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite so,&rdquo; the Home Secretary remarked. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are willing to admit that,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know whether the reward will help you very much,&rdquo; the Home
+      Secretary continued. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The offering of the reward, sir,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks said, &ldquo;can do no harm,
+      and it may possibly assist us very materially.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to have your opinion, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; the Home Secretary said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment&rsquo;s pause. The Minister trifled with some papers lying on
+      the desk before him. Then he turned to his visitor and continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had, sir,&rdquo; the Inspector answered. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Home Secretary raised his eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he began,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope, sir,&rdquo; the Inspector protested, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Minister considered for several moments, and then slowly inclined his
+      head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A flash of satisfaction illuminated for a moment the detective&rsquo;s
+      inexpressive features. He rose and took up his hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very much obliged to you, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The information which you
+      have given me is extremely valuable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to hear you say so,&rdquo; the Home Secretary declared. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you would not think it a liberty, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I should be very
+      glad indeed if you would give me a note which would insure me an interview
+      with Sir Edward Bransome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will give it you with pleasure,&rdquo; the Secretary answered, &ldquo;although I
+      imagine that he would be quite willing to see you on your own request.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrote a few lines and passed them over. Inspector Jacks saluted, and
+      turned towards the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll let me know if anything turns up?&rdquo; the Home Secretary said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall be informed at once, sir,&rdquo; the Inspector assured him, a as he
+      left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you wish to speak to me?&rdquo; Sir Edward asked, drawing back from the
+      step of his electric brougham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you are Inspector Jacks from Scotland Yard,&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At your service, sir,&rdquo; the detective answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can get in with me, if you like,&rdquo; Sir Edward continued, motioning
+      toward the interior of his brougham. &ldquo;I am due in Downing Street now, but
+      I dare say you could say what you wish to on the way there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, sir,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks answered. &ldquo;It will be very good of you
+      indeed if you can spare me those few minutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The brougham glided away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; Sir Edward said, &ldquo;what can I do for you? If you want to
+      arrest me, I shall claim privilege.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am in charge, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward inclined his head slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Edward Bransome,&rdquo; the Inspector continued, &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward lit a cigarette and leaned back amongst the cushions. With a
+      little gesture he indicated his desire that Inspector Jacks should
+      proceed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My object in seeking for a personal interview with you, sir,&rdquo; Inspector
+      Jacks continued, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward looked at his companion in steadfast amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Inspector,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks seemed a little at a loss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is your wish, then, sir,&rdquo; he said slowly, &ldquo;that the guilty person or
+      persons be arrested without warning, whoever they may be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By all means,&rdquo; Sir Edward affirmed. &ldquo;I cannot conceive, Inspector, what
+      you have in your mind which could have led you for a moment to suspect the
+      contrary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am exceedingly obliged to you for your answer to my question, sir,&rdquo; he
+      said, saluting. &ldquo;I hope that in a few days we shall have some news for
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Edward watched him disappear as he mounted the steps of the Prime
+      Minister&rsquo;s house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; he said to himself thoughtfully, &ldquo;what that fellow can have in
+      his mind!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks did not at once return to Scotland Yard. On his way there
+      he turned into St. James&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is your master at home?&rdquo; the Inspector asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His Highness does not see strangers,&rdquo; the man replied coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you take him my card?&rdquo; the Inspector asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man bowed, and showed him into an apartment on the ground floor. Then
+      with the card in his hand, he turned reluctantly away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His Highness shall be informed that you are here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I fear,
+      however, that you waste your time. I go to see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII. A BREATH FROM THE EAST
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s hammers, and then chaos!...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The end of the nightmare was not altogether according to Inspector Jacks&rsquo; 
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are better, I trust, sir?&rdquo; Prince Maiyo said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am better,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks muttered. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;I can&rsquo;t
+      imagine what happened to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were not feeling quite well, perhaps, this morning,&rdquo; the Prince said
+      soothingly. &ldquo;A little run down, no doubt. Your profession&mdash;I gather
+      from your card that you come from Scotland Yard&mdash;is an arduous one. I
+      came into the room and found you lying upon your back, gasping for
+      breath.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was absolutely and entirely well,&rdquo; he declared stoutly, &ldquo;both when I
+      left home this morning and when I entered that room to wait for you. I
+      don&rsquo;t know what it was that came over me,&rdquo; he continued doubtfully, &ldquo;but
+      the atmosphere seemed suddenly to become unbearable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Prince Maiyo nodded understandingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;People often complain,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;are very
+      susceptible to strange odors. I should imagine, perhaps, that you are one
+      of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I call myself a strong man,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I couldn&rsquo;t have believed that
+      anything of the sort would have happened to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t worry about it,&rdquo; the Prince said gently. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am feeling quite well again, thank you,&rdquo; the Inspector said slowly. &ldquo;If
+      you could spare me a few minutes, I should be glad to explain the matter
+      which brought me here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very much interested to meet you, Mr. Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; he remarked,
+      with a glance at the card which he was still holding in his fingers. &ldquo;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&mdash;your
+      chief, I believe&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My business, Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is a little more personal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Prince Maiyo raised his eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Well, whatever it is, let us hear it. I trust that I
+      have not unconsciously transgressed against your laws?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks hesitated. After all, his was not so easy a task.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is excellent,&rdquo; the Prince said. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added with a smile, &ldquo;I am subject to your laws, and I do my best
+      to obey them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has fallen to my lot,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince inclined his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; he said amiably, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; the Prince continued courteously. &ldquo;The
+      investigation, I am sure, is in most able hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very kind, sir,&rdquo; said the Inspector. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince bowed. This time he made no remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The evidence which I have collected from various sources,&rdquo; Inspector
+      Jacks continued, &ldquo;leads me to believe that the person who committed this
+      murder was a foreigner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you call an alien,&rdquo; the Prince suggested. &ldquo;There is much discussion,
+      I gather, concerning their presence in this country nowadays.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The evidence which I possess,&rdquo; the detective proceeded, &ldquo;points to the
+      murderer belonging to the same nationality as Your Highness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince raised his eyebrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A Japanese?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry,&rdquo; the Prince said, with a touch of added gravity in his
+      manner, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In time, sir,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks said slowly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince sighed sympathetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not for me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to criticize your methods.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come now,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks said slowly, &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To my household!&rdquo; the Prince repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To this household, Your Highness,&rdquo; the detective repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shook his head slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very often indeed,&rdquo; the Inspector admitted frankly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I am afraid,&rdquo; the Prince said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector stared at the Prince incredulously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never left the house?&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Do you mean, sir, that they do not
+      go out for holidays, for exercise, to the theatre?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such things are not the custom with us,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They are my servants.
+      The duty of their life is service. London is a world unknown to them&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks was dumfounded. Such a state of affairs seemed to him
+      impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean that they do not take exercise,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;that they never
+      breathe the fresh air?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such fresh air as your city can afford them,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But their health?&rdquo; the Inspector protested. &ldquo;It is not, surely, well for
+      them to be herded together like this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not what is called a sportsman in this country, Mr. Inspector
+      Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector was silent for some time. Then he rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; the Prince said calmly, &ldquo;I was the only person of
+      my race who entered my house that morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector moved toward the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Highness,&rdquo; he said gravely, &ldquo;I am exceedingly obliged to you for
+      your courteous attention, and for your kindness after my unfortunate
+      indisposition.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled graciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII. ON THE TRAIL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks studied the brass plate for a moment, and then rang the
+      patients&rsquo; bell. The former, he noticed was very much in want of cleaning,
+      and for a doctor&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning!&rdquo; the latter said tentatively. Then, with a slight air of
+      disappointment, he recognized his visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, doctor!&rdquo; Inspector Jacks replied. &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you come in?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He led the way into a somewhat dingy waiting room. A copy of <i>The Field</i>,
+      a month old, a dog-eared magazine, and a bound volume of <i>Good Words</i>
+      were spread upon the table. The room itself, except for a few chairs, was
+      practically bare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not wish to take up too much of your time, Dr. Whiles,&rdquo; the
+      Inspector began,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor laughed shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t bother about that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m tired of making a bluff. My
+      time isn&rsquo;t any too well occupied.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector glanced at his watch,&mdash;it was a few minutes past
+      twelve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you are really not busy,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what use can I be to you?&rdquo; the doctor asked. &ldquo;You know all about the
+      man whom I fixed up on the night of the murder. There&rsquo;s nothing more to
+      tell you about that. I&rsquo;d as soon go up to town and lunch with you as not,
+      but if you think that I&rsquo;ve anything more to tell you, you&rsquo;ll only be
+      disappointed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m quite content to run the risk of that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; he
+      continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I begin to understand,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you will consider a day spent up in town equivalent to the treatment
+      of twenty-five patients at your ordinary scale,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far from avoiding her, he came over to her side directly he had greeted
+      his hostess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This morning,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I heard some good news. You are to be a fellow
+      guest at Devenham.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; she admitted, &ldquo;that of my two aunts I impose most
+      frequently upon the one where my claims are the slightest. The Duchess is
+      so good-natured.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is charming,&rdquo; the Prince declared. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a sentimentalist, Prince,&rdquo; she declared, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I think not,&rdquo; he answered seriously. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An uncontrollable impulse moved her. She leaned a little towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Climate and flowers only?&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;What about the third
+      essential?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he said under his breath, &ldquo;I have to admit that one must
+      travel further afield for Heaven&rsquo;s greatest gift. Even then one can only
+      worship. The stars are denied to us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess came sailing over to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every one is here,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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&rsquo;s
+      another man who is anxious to meet you, too,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So long as he does not ask me to correct his proofs!&rdquo; the Prince
+      murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is positively the most unkind thing I have ever heard you say,&rdquo; the
+      Duchess declared. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They took their places at the round table which had been reserved for the
+      Duchess of Devenham,&mdash;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&mdash;always like this, she
+      realized, with a sudden keen apprehension of this part of the man&rsquo;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&mdash;gracious, courteous, and genial&mdash;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&mdash;such manner of wrong-doing!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am looking forward so much,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to my stay at Devenham. You
+      know, it will not be very much longer that I shall have the opportunity of
+      accepting such invitations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean that the time is really coming when we shall lose you?&rdquo; she
+      asked suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When my work is finished, I return home,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I fancy that it
+      will not be very long now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you do leave England,&rdquo; she asked after a moment&rsquo;s pause, &ldquo;do you go
+      straight to Japan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He bowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With the Continent I have finished,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The cruiser which His
+      Majesty has sent to fetch me waits even now at Southampton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You speak of your work,&rdquo; she remarked, &ldquo;as though you had been collecting
+      material for a book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been busy collecting information in many ways,&rdquo; he said,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the end of it all?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is for the good of Japan I came,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She leaned a little forward so as to look into his face. The impassivity
+      of his features was like a wall before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be very happy indeed,&rdquo; he admitted simply. &ldquo;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&rsquo;s own family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield, who was sitting on her other side, insisted at last upon
+      diverting her attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope,&rdquo; he declared, lowering his voice a little, &ldquo;it isn&rsquo;t fair. You
+      never have a word to say to me when the Prince is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must remember that he is going away very soon, Charlie,&rdquo; she reminded
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good job, too!&rdquo; Somerfield muttered, sotto voce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then,&rdquo; Penelope continued, with the air of not having heard her
+      companion&rsquo;s last remark, &ldquo;he possesses also a very great attraction. He is
+      absolutely unlike any other human being I ever met or heard of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield glanced across at his rival with lowering brows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve nothing to say against the fellow,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;except that it
+      seems queer nowadays to run up against a man of his birth who is not a
+      sportsman,&mdash;in the sense of being fond of sport, I mean,&rdquo; he
+      corrected himself quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes I wonder,&rdquo; Penelope said thoughtfully, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all very well,&rdquo; Somerfield said coolly, &ldquo;but there&rsquo;s nothing in
+      life nowadays to make us quite so strenuous as that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t there?&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield looked up at her in growing amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What on earth&rsquo;s got hold of you, Penelope?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Have you been
+      reading the sensational papers, or stuffing yourself up with jingoism, or
+      what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None of those things, I can assure you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We do well enough,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Japan is the youngest of the nations. She
+      has a long way to go to catch us up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We do well enough!&rdquo; she repeated under her breath. &ldquo;There was a great
+      city once which adopted that as her motto,&mdash;people dig up mementoes
+      of her sometimes from under the sands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield looked at her in an aggrieved fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I thought that this was to be an amusing luncheon
+      party.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should have talked more to Lady Grace,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t take me too
+      seriously today, Charlie. I have a headache, and I think that it has made
+      me dull.&rdquo;...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They trooped out into the foyer in irregular fashion to take their coffee.
+      The Prince and Penelope were side by side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I like about your restaurant life,&rdquo; the Prince said, &ldquo;is the strange
+      mixture of classes which it everywhere reveals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those two, for instance,&rdquo; Penelope said, and then stopped short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s clothes were too new and his companion&rsquo;s too old. The
+      doctor&rsquo;s clothes indeed were as shabby as his waiting room, and he sat
+      where the sunlight was merciless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How singular,&rdquo; the Prince remarked with a smile, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you have quite recovered, Mr. Inspector,&rdquo; the Prince said, holding
+      out his hand in friendly fashion. &ldquo;I have felt very guilty over your
+      indisposition. I am sure that I keep my rooms too close for English
+      people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Prince,&rdquo; the Inspector answered, &ldquo;I am perfectly well again.
+      In fact, I have not felt anything of my little attack since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Next time you are good enough to pay me a visit, I
+      will see that you do not suffer in the same way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who was that?&rdquo; the doctor asked curiously. &ldquo;Did you call him Prince?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks sighed. This was a disappointment to him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His name is Prince Maiyo,&rdquo; he said slowly. &ldquo;He is a Japanese.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor looked across the restaurant with puzzled face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s queer,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;how all these Japanese seem to one to look so much
+      alike, and yet&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He broke off in the middle of his sentence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are thinking of your friend of the other night?&rdquo; the Inspector
+      remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was,&rdquo; the doctor admitted. &ldquo;For a moment it seemed to me like the same
+      man with a different manner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks was silent. He puffed steadily at his cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t suppose,&rdquo; he asked quietly, &ldquo;that it could have been the same
+      man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor was still looking across the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could not tell,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I should like to see him again. I wasn&rsquo;t
+      prepared, and there was something so altered in his tone and the way he
+      carried himself. And yet&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pause was expressive. Inspector Jacks&rsquo; eyes brightened. He hated to
+      feel that his day had been altogether wasted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV. PRINCE MAIYO BIDS HIGH
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks was in luck at last. Eleven times he had called at St.
+      Thomas&rsquo;s Hospital and received the same reply. Today he was asked to wait.
+      The patient was better&mdash;would be able to see him. Soon a nurse in
+      neat uniform came quietly down the corridor and took charge of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten minutes, no more,&rdquo; she insisted good-humoredly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One question, if you please, nurse,&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Is the man going to
+      live?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a doubt about it,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A matter of depositions,&rdquo; the Inspector exclaimed. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather let it go,
+      though, if he&rsquo;s sure to recover.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a simple case,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;and his constitution is excellent.
+      There isn&rsquo;t the least need for your to think about depositions. Here he
+      is. Don&rsquo;t talk too long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector sat down by the bedside. The patient, a young man, welcomed
+      him a little shyly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have come to ask me about what I saw in Pall Mall and opposite the
+      Hyde Park Hotel?&rdquo; he said, speaking slowly and in a voice scarcely raised
+      above a whisper. &ldquo;I told them all before the operation, but they couldn&rsquo;t
+      send for you then. There wasn&rsquo;t time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me your own way,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t hurry. We can get the particulars
+      later on. Glad you&rsquo;re going to be mended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was touch and go,&rdquo; the young man declared with a note of awe in his
+      tone. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector inclined his head gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You saw him get in, didn&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; the patient admitted. &ldquo;I was on my way&mdash;Charing Cross to
+      the Kensington Palace Hotel, on a bicycle. There was a block&mdash;corner
+      of Pall Mall and Haymarket. I caught hold&mdash;taxi in front&mdash;to
+      steady me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The nurse bent over him with a glass in her hand. She raised him a little
+      with the other arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not too much of this, you know, young man,&rdquo; she said with a pleasant
+      smile. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s something to make you strong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right you are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drained the contents of the glass and smacked his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jolly good stuff,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Where was I, Mr. Inspector?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holding the back of a taxicab, corner of Regent Street and Haymarket,&rdquo;
+       Inspector Jacks reminded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The patient nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was an electric brougham,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; the patient
+      continued, &ldquo;a regular howling swell,&mdash;silk hat, white muffler, white
+      kid gloves,&mdash;all the rest of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And afterwards?&rdquo; the Inspector asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I kept behind the taxi,&rdquo; the youth continued. &ldquo;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&mdash;saw
+      something had happened&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should you know the man again?&rdquo; the Inspector asked. &ldquo;I mean the man whom
+      you saw enter and leave the taxi?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so&mdash;pretty sure!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The nurse came up, shaking her head. Inspector Jacks rose from his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right, nurse,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;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&rsquo;ll come and sit with you for half an hour next visiting day, if I
+      may?&rdquo; he added, turning to the patient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Glad to see you,&rdquo; the youth answered. &ldquo;My people live down in the
+      country, and I haven&rsquo;t many pals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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&rsquo; Square and Pall
+      Mall he came face to face with Prince Maiyo, walking slowly westwards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s somewhat stiff salute, and
+      insisted upon shaking him cordially by the hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you are the one person whom I desired to
+      see. You are not busy, I hope? You can talk with me for five minutes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have the time to spare, sir, certainly,&rdquo; he admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled gayly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you are a wonderful man. Even now you are
+      asking yourself, &lsquo;What does he want to say to me&mdash;Prince Maiyo? Is he
+      going to ask me questions, or will he tell me things which I should like
+      to hear?&rsquo; You know, Mr. Inspector Jacks, between ourselves, you are just a
+      little interested in me, is it not so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The detective was dumb. He stood there patiently waiting. He had the air
+      of a man who declines to commit himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just a little interested in me, I think,&rdquo; the Prince murmured, smiling at
+      his companion. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; the detective answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard you speak of this affair,&rdquo; the Prince continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is better sometimes to wait,&rdquo; the detective said quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince bowed as one who understands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so,&rdquo; he assented, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Occasionally,&rdquo; he admitted reluctantly, &ldquo;when one is following up a clue,
+      one discovers things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are wonderful!&rdquo; the Prince declared. &ldquo;You are, indeed! I know what is
+      in your mind. You have said to yourself, &lsquo;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.&rsquo; You said to yourself, &lsquo;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?&rsquo; You are not sure
+      which way to turn. There is nothing there upon which you can lay your
+      hand. You say to yourself, &lsquo;I will make a bluff.&rsquo; 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had reason for what I did, sir,&rdquo; the detective said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt,&rdquo; the Prince agreed. &ldquo;And now, tell me, when are you going to
+      electrify us all? When is the great arrest to take place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The detective coughed discreetly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not yet in a position, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to make any definite
+      announcement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cautious, Mr. Jacks, cautious!&rdquo; the Prince remarked smilingly. &ldquo;It is a
+      great quality,&mdash;a quality which I, too, have learned how to
+      appreciate. And now for our five minutes&rsquo; talk. If I say to you, &lsquo;Return
+      home with me,&rsquo; 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&rsquo; Park. We can speak there without fear of interruption. Come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He thrust his arm through the detective&rsquo;s and led him across the street.
+      Mr. Inspector Jacks was only human, and he yielded without protest. They
+      passed St. James&rsquo; Palace and on to the broad promenade, where there were
+      few passers-by and no listeners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, my dear Inspector,&rdquo; the Prince said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To me, sir?&rdquo; Inspector Jacks repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince twirled his cane and nodded his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a very important matter, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector was doubtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t say, sir,&rdquo; he admitted, &ldquo;that I have done much reading since I
+      left school, and that was many years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; the Prince said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector was scarcely prepared for this. He allowed himself to show
+      some surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very much obliged to you, Prince, for the offer,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am
+      afraid, however, that I should not be competent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; the Prince reminded him, &ldquo;is a risk which we are willing to take.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not think, either,&rdquo; the detective continued, &ldquo;that at my time of
+      life I should care to go so far from home to settle down in an altogether
+      strange country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be as you will, of course,&rdquo; the Prince declared. &ldquo;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&rsquo; 
+      work you would receive the sum of thirty thousand pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The detective gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a great sum,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You could hardly call it that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Still, it would enable you to
+      live in comfort for the rest of your life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And when should I be required to start, sir?&rdquo; the Inspector asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That, perhaps,&rdquo; the Prince replied, &ldquo;would seem the hardest part of all.
+      You would be required to start tomorrow afternoon from Southampton at four
+      o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector started. Then a new light dawned suddenly in his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tomorrow afternoon,&rdquo; he murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So far as regards your position at Scotland Yard,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this sum of money,&rdquo; the detective said, &ldquo;is for my services in
+      building up the police force of Tokio?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Broadly speaking, yes!&rdquo; the Prince answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And incidentally,&rdquo; the detective continued, glancing cautiously at his
+      companion, &ldquo;it is the price of my leaving unsuspected the murderer of two
+      innocent men!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am disappointed in you, Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he said a little stiffly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Inspector shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;there can be no question about that. I thank you very
+      much for it, but I must decline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your mind is quite made up?&rdquo; the Prince asked regretfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite,&rdquo; the Inspector said firmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Japan,&rdquo; the Prince said thoughtfully, &ldquo;is a pleasant country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;London suits me moderately well,&rdquo; Inspector Jacks declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Under certain conditions,&rdquo; the Prince continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In my profession, sir,&rdquo; the detective said, &ldquo;we must take our risks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince came to a standstill. They were at the parting of the ways.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very sorry,&rdquo; he said simply. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would make no difference, sir,&rdquo; the detective answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince was on the point of moving away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not seek in any case to persuade you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince turned towards Buckingham Palace, and the Inspector slowly
+      retraced his steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a bribe!&rdquo; he muttered to himself slowly,&mdash;&ldquo;a cleverly offered
+      bribe! Thirty thousand pounds to forget the little I have learned! Thirty
+      thousand pounds for silence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV. HOBSON&rsquo;S CHOICE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is Dr. Spencer Whiles?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor admitted the fact and invited his visitor to enter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is here, perhaps,&rdquo; the latter continued, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is so,&rdquo; Dr. Whiles admitted. &ldquo;There was nothing much the matter with
+      him. He had rather a narrow escape.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am that gentleman&rsquo;s servant,&rdquo; the visitor continued with a bland smile.
+      &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor drew a little breath. This might mean another week or so of
+      respite!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where does your master live?&rdquo; he asked the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the West end of London, sir,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;The Square of St. James
+      it is called.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Whiles glanced at his watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will take me some time to go there with you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My master desired me to say,&rdquo; the other answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; Dr. Whiles declared, &ldquo;so long as it&rsquo;s understood.
+      You&rsquo;ll excuse me for a moment while I write a note, and I&rsquo;ll come along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My master,&rdquo; the latter explained, &ldquo;will receive you very shortly. He is
+      but partly dressed at present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My master will come to you in a few minutes,&rdquo; the butler announced. &ldquo;What
+      refreshments may I have the honor of serving?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Whiles waved aside the invitation,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very pleased to see you again, doctor,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You looked after
+      me so well last time that I was afraid I should have no excuse for sending
+      for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to find that you are not suffering,&rdquo; the doctor answered. &ldquo;I
+      understood from your servant that you were feeling a good deal of pain in
+      the side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It troubles me at times,&rdquo; the Prince admitted, drawing a chair up towards
+      his visitor,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very good,&rdquo; the doctor answered. &ldquo;Perhaps I had better examine
+      you first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince rang the bell and waved aside the suggestion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he ordered
+      of the butler who appeared at the door. &ldquo;We will talk of my ailments,&rdquo; the
+      Prince continued, &ldquo;in a moment or two. Tell me what you thought of that
+      marvellous restaurant where I saw you the other morning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor drew a little breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was you, then!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But naturally,&rdquo; the Prince murmured. &ldquo;I took it for granted that you
+      would recognize me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; the Prince continued easily, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a very wonderful place,&rdquo; the doctor admitted. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince nodded genially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the bye,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;it is strange that my very good friend&mdash;Mr.
+      Inspector Jacks&mdash;should also be a friend of yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is scarcely that,&rdquo; the doctor objected. &ldquo;I have known him for a very
+      short time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince sighed. There was but one course open to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Dr. Whiles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor looked at his prospective patient skeptically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have not the appearance,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;of being in ill health.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean come and live here?&rdquo; the doctor asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is exactly what I do mean,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor did not hesitate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Money,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is the greatest object in life to me. I have none, and
+      I want some very badly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I find your candor delightful,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Now tell me, Dr. Whiles,
+      how many patients have you in your neighborhood absolutely dependent upon
+      your services?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor hesitated, opened his mouth and closed it again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not one!&rdquo; he declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more the Prince&rsquo;s lips parted. His smile this time was definite,
+      transfiguring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I find you, Dr. Whiles,&rdquo; he announced, &ldquo;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&mdash;it may be two months, and I offer you also, as an honorarium,
+      the fee of one thousand guineas.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thousand guineas!&rdquo; he repeated hoarsely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I trust that you will find the sum attractive,&rdquo; the Prince said smoothly,
+      &ldquo;because, as I have warned you before, there are one or two curious
+      conditions coupled with the post.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care what the conditions are,&rdquo; the doctor said slowly. &ldquo;I
+      accept!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are the man I thought you were, doctor,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The first
+      condition, then, is this. You see the sitting room we are now in&mdash;a
+      pleasant little apartment, I think,&mdash;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&rdquo;&mdash;the Prince threw open an inner door&mdash;&ldquo;is a small sleeping
+      apartment. It has, as you see, the same outlook. It is comfortable if not
+      luxurious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not used to luxury,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These two rooms will be yours,&rdquo; the Prince announced, &ldquo;and the first
+      condition of our arrangement is that until two months are up, or our
+      engagement is finished, you do not leave them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor stared at him blankly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you in earnest, sir?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In absolute earnest,&rdquo; the Prince assured him. &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am to live in these two rooms?&rdquo; he demanded. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When required,&rdquo; the Prince remarked dryly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; the doctor asked, &ldquo;my friend Mr. Jacks was speaking the truth
+      when he told me your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Prince Maiyo,&rdquo; the Prince said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mechanically the doctor helped himself to another whiskey and soda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are to be my only patient,&rdquo; he said thoughtfully. &ldquo;May I take the
+      liberty of feeling your pulse, Prince?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince extended his hand. The doctor felt it and resumed his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is, of course, nothing whatever the matter with you,&rdquo; he declared.
+      &ldquo;You are, I should say, in absolutely perfect health. You have no need of
+      a physician.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary,&rdquo; the Prince protested, smiling, &ldquo;I need you, Dr. Whiles,
+      so much that I am paying you a thousand guineas&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To remain in these two rooms,&rdquo; the doctor remarked quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not your business to think that or to know that,&rdquo; the Prince said.
+      &ldquo;Do you accept my offer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I should refuse?&rdquo; the doctor asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not let us suppose that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is not a pleasant suggestion. I
+      do not think that you mean to refuse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frankly, I do not,&rdquo; the doctor answered. &ldquo;And yet treat it as a whim of
+      mine and answer my question. Supposing I should?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The matter would arrange itself in precisely the same way,&rdquo; the Prince
+      answered. &ldquo;You would not leave these rooms for two months.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor leaned back in his chair and laughed shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is rather hard luck on Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He paid me ten
+      guineas the other day to lunch with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; the Prince remarked, &ldquo;is scarcely in a position to
+      bid you an adequate sum for your services.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It appears to me,&rdquo; the doctor continued, &ldquo;that I am kidnapped.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An admirable word,&rdquo; the Prince declared. &ldquo;At what time do you usually
+      lunch?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not used to motoring,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince nodded, and rose to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will send my servant,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And about that examination?&rdquo; the doctor remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall do myself the pleasure of seeing you every day,&rdquo; the Prince
+      answered. &ldquo;There will be time enough for that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With an amiable word of farewell the Prince departed. The doctor threw
+      himself into an easy chair. His single exclamation was laconic but
+      forcible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI. SOME FAREWELLS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So we are to lose you soon, Prince,&rdquo; the Baron was saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very soon indeed,&rdquo; Prince Maiyo answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Baron blinked his eyes meditatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have seen very little of you, Maiyo,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;since your last visit
+      to the Continent. I take it that your views are unchanged?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unchanged indeed,&rdquo; he answered,&mdash;&ldquo;unchangeable, I think almost that
+      I might now say. They have been wonderful months, these last months,
+      Baron,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;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,&mdash;simply
+      to study the people themselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Baron nodded gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ask no questions,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is the Emperor&rsquo;s desire, I know, that
+      you go straight to him. I take it that your mind is made up,&mdash;you
+      have arrived at definite conclusions?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Absolutely.&rdquo; Prince Maiyo answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Baron agreed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only a few nights ago,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Prince Maiyo laughed softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Invariably,&rdquo; the Ambassador answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is an undercurrent of feeling somewhere,&rdquo; the Prince continued,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be no fight, that,&rdquo; the Ambassador answered slowly,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I listen,&rdquo; the Prince answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would speak of something else,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;Soon you go to the
+      Duke&rsquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wonderful person!&rdquo; Prince Maiyo said, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I am not wonderful,&rdquo; the Ambassador declared. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We discovered them,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;It was well that we did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You discovered them,&rdquo; the Ambassador interrupted. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; the Prince declared, sighing. &ldquo;I know it very well indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Maiyo,&rdquo; the Ambassador asked, &ldquo;how well do you know it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; the Prince answered, &ldquo;it were better for you not to ask that
+      question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here under this roof,&rdquo; the Baron continued, &ldquo;is sanctuary, but in the
+      streets and squares beyond, it seems to me&mdash;and I have thought this
+      over many times,&mdash;it seems to me that even the person of the great
+      Prince, cousin of the Emperor, holy son of Japan, would not be safe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, also,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Baron rose to his feet and bowed. Into his voice there had crept a
+      note almost of reverence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince also rose. Servants came silently forward, bearing his hat and
+      gloves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; the Prince smiled, as he made his adieux&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; the Ambassador echoed. &ldquo;Who can tell?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Jacks,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it is pleasant to see you once more. I was afraid
+      that I should have to leave without bidding you farewell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going away, Prince?&rdquo; the Inspector asked quickly. &ldquo;When?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The exact day is not fixed,&rdquo; the Prince replied, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet, Prince,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; the Prince echoed. &ldquo;Dear me, that is very unfortunate!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks watched the people who were passing, for a moment, with a
+      fixed, unseeing gaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince nodded sympathetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The best of fortune to you, Mr. Jacks!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If we do not clear them up before you leave the country, Prince,&rdquo; the
+      Inspector answered, &ldquo;I fear that we shall never clear them up at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Charles,&rdquo; the Prince said, &ldquo;I hope that I shall have the pleasure of
+      meeting you at Devenham?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not sure,&rdquo; Somerfield answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry,&rdquo; the Prince declared. &ldquo;I have no doubt, however, but that
+      Miss Morse will induce you to change your mind. I should regret your
+      absence the more,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;because this, I fear, is the last visit
+      which I shall be paying in this country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield was genuinely interested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are really going home?&rdquo; he asked eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Almost at once,&rdquo; the Prince answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only for a time, I suppose?&rdquo; Somerfield continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield looked at him with the puzzled air of a man who is face to face
+      with a problem which he cannot solve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll forgive my putting it so plainly, Prince,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;but do
+      you mean to say that after having lived over here you could possibly
+      settle down again in Japan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince returned for a moment his companion&rsquo;s perplexed gaze. Then his
+      lips parted, his eyes shone. He laughed softly, gracefully, with genuine
+      mirth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Charles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I find you alone?&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother is opening a bazaar somewhere,&rdquo; Lady Grace said. &ldquo;She will be
+      home very soon. Do let me give you some tea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is my excuse for coming,&rdquo; the Prince admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She called back the footman who had shown him in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;China tea, very weak, in a china teapot with lemon and no sugar. Isn&rsquo;t
+      that it?&rdquo; she asked, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lady Grace,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;you spoil me. Perhaps it is because I am going
+      away. Every one is kind to the people who go away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Going away!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;When? Do you mean back to Japan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back to my own country,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Perhaps in two weeks, perhaps
+      three&mdash;who can tell?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are coming to Devenham first?&rdquo; she asked eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am coming to Devenham first,&rdquo; he assented. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew a little sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you are going back,&rdquo; she said softly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lady Grace,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;s dwelling place as easily as one changes one&rsquo;s clothes.
+      The further east you go, the more reluctant one is, I think, to leave the
+      shadow of one&rsquo;s own trees. The man who leaves my country leaves it to go
+      into exile. The man who returns, returns home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was a little perplexed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should have imagined,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lady Grace,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;believe me that is not so. The traditions of our
+      race&mdash;the call of the blood, as you put it over here&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet you have seemed so contented over here,&rdquo; she remarked. &ldquo;You have
+      entered so easily into all our ways.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He set down his teacup and smiled at her for a moment gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came with a purpose,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I came in order to observe and to study
+      certain features of your life, but, believe me, I have felt the strain&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there nothing which you will regret?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall regret the friends I have made,&mdash;the very dear friends,&rdquo; he
+      repeated, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There will be many, Prince,&rdquo; she said softly, &ldquo;who will be sorry to see
+      you go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; Square, his majordomo came hurrying up and whispered something
+      in his own language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I go to see him,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I will go at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII. A PRISONER
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince came in quietly and closed the door behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good afternoon, my friend!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I understood that you wished to see
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor had made up his mind to adopt a firm attitude. Nevertheless the
+      genial courtesy of the Prince&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope that I have not disturbed you, Prince,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I thought that I
+      should like to have a word or two with you concerning something which I
+      have come across in these journals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He tapped them with his forefinger, and the Prince nodded thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your wonderful Press!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;How much it is responsible for!
+      Well, Dr. Whiles, what have the newspapers to say to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor handed across a carefully folded journal and pointed to a
+      certain paragraph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you kindly read this?&rdquo; he begged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince accepted the sheet and read the paragraph aloud:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince laid down the paper, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;That seems clear enough. Some one is willing to give
+      fifty pounds to know where you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor tapped the advertisement with his forefinger impressively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fifty pounds!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t a person in the world to whom
+      the knowledge of my movements is worth fifty pounds&mdash;except&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except?&rdquo; the Prince murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except Mr. Inspector Jacks,&rdquo; Dr. Whiles said slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince seemed scarcely to grasp the situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;fifty pounds is not a great deal of money. Some unknown
+      person&mdash;possibly, as you suggest, Mr. Jacks&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Put in that way,&rdquo; Dr. Whiles admitted, &ldquo;they certainly do not. But there
+      is another thing which has come into my mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled and helped himself to one of the very excellent
+      cigarettes which had been provided for the delectation of his visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray treat me with every confidence, Dr. Whiles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Tell me
+      exactly what is in your thoughts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, I will,&rdquo; the doctor answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With so much time upon your hands, Dr. Whiles,&rdquo; the Prince remarked, &ldquo;you
+      can scarcely fail to have arrived at some reasonable explanation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know whether it is reasonable or not,&rdquo; the doctor answered, &ldquo;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&rsquo;clock and midnight; and the other&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, the other?&rdquo; the Prince remarked encouragingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The other,&rdquo; the doctor continued, &ldquo;is the fact that within half a mile of
+      my house runs the main London and North Western line.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The London and North Western Railway line,&rdquo; the Prince repeated, &ldquo;and
+      what has that to do with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This much,&rdquo; the doctor answered, &ldquo;that on that very night, about half an
+      hour before your&mdash;shall we call it bicycle accident?&mdash;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is very interesting,&rdquo; the Prince remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a fresh thing to me,&rdquo; the doctor said,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inspector Jacks is a very shrewd fellow,&rdquo; the Prince said. &ldquo;I should not
+      be in the least surprised if you were entirely right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor moved restlessly in his chair. His eyes remained on his
+      companion&rsquo;s face, as though fascinated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you understand,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince nodded amiably. He seemed in no way discomposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel convinced,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that you are right. I agree with you. I
+      believe that Inspector Jacks has had that idea for some little time now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor gripped the sides of his chair and stared at this man who
+      discussed a matter so terrible with calm and perfect ease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I have felt that more than once,&rdquo; the Prince continued. &ldquo;My presence
+      upon the spot at that precise moment with injuries which had to be
+      explained somehow or other, was, without doubt, unfortunate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two men sat for several moments without further speech. The doctor&rsquo;s
+      features seemed to reflect something of the horror which he undoubtedly
+      felt. The Prince appeared only a trifle bored.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that is why,&rdquo; the former exclaimed hoarsely, &ldquo;I have been appointed
+      your physician in chief!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had given you the credit, my dear doctor,&rdquo; the Prince said smoothly,
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dr. Whiles rose slowly to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know the secret of that murder!&rdquo; he declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why ask me?&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor was looking a little shaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you were mixed up in that affair,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and if I remain here when
+      my evidence is needed, I become an accomplice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only if you remain here voluntarily,&rdquo; the Prince reminded him cheerfully.
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor moved to the window and back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Supposing,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;that I will leave this house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we come to close quarters,&rdquo; the Prince answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not understand,&rdquo; the doctor protested. &ldquo;I knew that there was
+      trouble, but I did not know that it was this!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fact of your knowing or not knowing makes no difference,&rdquo; the Prince
+      answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry,&rdquo; the Prince continued, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added, rising. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I will not give my parole!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;almost strangled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me go!&rdquo; he called out, struggling in vain to find a body upon which
+      he could gain a grip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The grasp only tightened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back to your rooms!&rdquo; came a whisper through the darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost at the same time the Prince sat back in the shadows of the Duchess
+      of Devenham&rsquo;s box at the Opera and talked quietly to Lady Grace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But tell me, Prince,&rdquo; she begged, &ldquo;I know that you are glad to go home,
+      but won&rsquo;t you really miss this a little,&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was a little perplexed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that in your heart you approve of us at
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not say that, Lady Grace,&rdquo; he begged. &ldquo;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&rsquo;s history.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And our people?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Do you really think that our people are so
+      far apart? Between you and me, for instance,&rdquo; she added, meaning to ask
+      the question naturally enough, but suddenly losing confidence and looking
+      away from him,&mdash;&ldquo;between you and me there seems no radical difference
+      of race. You might almost be an Englishman&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You pay me a very delightful compliment,&rdquo; he murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please repay me, then, by being candid,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated for a moment. The question was not without its
+      embarrassments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Men,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace sighed. Perhaps she had been a trifle too daring! She was
+      willing enough, at any rate, to let the subject drift away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Soon the curtain will go up,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and we can talk no longer. I
+      should like to tell you, though, how glad I am&mdash;how glad we all are&mdash;that
+      you can come to us next week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can assure you that I am looking forward to it,&rdquo; he answered a little
+      gravely. &ldquo;It is my farewell to all of you, you know, and it seems to me
+      that those who will be your father&rsquo;s guests are just those with whom I
+      have been on the most intimate terms since I came to England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope is coming,&rdquo; she said quickly,&mdash;&ldquo;you know that?&mdash;Penelope
+      and Sir Charles Somerfield.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;I heard so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII. PATRIOTISM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Duke&rsquo;s chef had served an Emperor with honor&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are becoming,&rdquo; the Prime Minister said, &ldquo;much too modern. We are
+      becoming over-civilized out of any similitude to a nation of men of blood
+      and brawn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are quoting some impossible person,&rdquo; Sir Edward Bransome declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One is always quoting unconsciously,&rdquo; the Prime Minister admitted with a
+      sigh. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if the truth were not satisfactory?&rdquo; the Duke asked, lighting a
+      cigar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We should have endeavored to change his point of view,&rdquo; the Prime
+      Minister continued, &ldquo;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&mdash;three of the greatest and most brilliant statesmen of our
+      day&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; he protested, &ldquo;I think you exaggerate Maiyo&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prime Minister sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Duke,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Haviland is right,&rdquo; Bransome agreed. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; the Duke remarked, &ldquo;whether we shall really get the truth out
+      of him before he goes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prime Minister shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did,&rdquo; the Duke answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I,&rdquo; Bransome echoed. &ldquo;It seemed to me that he spoke a little more
+      freely than usual.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He went as near to censure as I have ever heard him when speaking of any
+      of the institutions of our country,&rdquo; the Prime Minister declared. &ldquo;I will
+      ask him about it directly we get the chance. You shall see how he will
+      evade the point.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will have to be quick if you mean to get hold of him,&rdquo; the Duke
+      remarked. &ldquo;See, the game is over and there he goes with Penelope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prime Minister rose to his feet and intercepted them on their way to
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morse,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;may we ransom the Prince? We want to talk to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you insinuate,&rdquo; she laughed, &ldquo;that he is a captive of mine?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are all captives of Miss Morse&rsquo;s,&rdquo; Bransome said with a bow, &ldquo;and all
+      enemies of Somerfield&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; the Prime Minister said, &ldquo;we have been talking about your speech
+      at the Herrick Club last night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled a little gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did I say too much?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;It all came as a surprise to me&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have read what you said,&rdquo; Bransome remarked. &ldquo;What we should like to
+      hear, if I may venture to say so, is what you left unsaid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I said was of little importance,&rdquo; the Prince remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope and the Duchess had joined the little group.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May we stay?&rdquo; the former asked. &ldquo;I read every word of your speech,&rdquo; she
+      added, turning to the Prince. &ldquo;Do tell us why you spoke so severely, what
+      it was that you objected to so strongly in General Ennison&rsquo;s remarks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince turned earnestly towards her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you must not think, Prince, that we over here are wholly lacking in
+      that same instinct,&rdquo; the Duke said. &ldquo;Remember our South African war, and
+      the men who came to arms and rallied round the flag when their services
+      were needed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do remember that,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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&mdash;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&rsquo;s welfare is threatened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a short silence. The Prime Minister and Bransome exchanged rapid
+      glances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These, then,&rdquo; Penelope said slowly, &ldquo;were the things you left unsaid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince raised his hand a little&mdash;a deprecatory gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps even now,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Of a purpose, the three men who were there said nothing. The Prince
+      offered Penelope his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not be disappointed,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You promised that you would show
+      me the palm garden. I have talked too much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIX. A RACE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a little reminiscent of the last east wind&mdash;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&rsquo;s best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rustle of a woman&rsquo;s garment disturbed him, and he turned his head.
+      Penelope stood there in her trim riding habit,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is too early in the morning, Prince,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;for you to sit there
+      dreaming so long and so earnestly. Come in to breakfast. Every one is
+      down, for a wonder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Breakfast, by all means,&rdquo; he answered, coming blithely up the broad
+      steps. &ldquo;You are going to ride this morning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose we all are, more or less,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      Grace&rsquo;s favorite mare, and her entry for the cup&mdash;turned awkward with
+      him yesterday, and he won&rsquo;t have anything more to do with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From your tone,&rdquo; he remarked, pushing open the French windows, &ldquo;I gather
+      that this is a tragedy. I, unfortunately, do not understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should ask Grace herself,&rdquo; Penelope said. &ldquo;There she is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace looked round from her place at the head of the breakfast table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and sympathize with me, Prince,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a great misfortune,&rdquo; the Prince said in a tone of polite regret,
+      &ldquo;but surely it is not irreparable? There must be others&mdash;why not your
+      own groom?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A smile went round the table. The Duke hastened to explain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The race is for gentlemen riders only,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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&rsquo;t the best of reputations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t have a word said against Lady Barbarity,&rdquo; Lady Grace declared.
+      &ldquo;Captain Chalmers is a good horseman, of course but for a lightweight he
+      has the worst hands I ever knew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But surely amongst your immediate friends there must be many others,&rdquo; the
+      Prince said. &ldquo;Sir Charles, for instance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charlie is riding his own horse,&rdquo; Lady Grace answered. &ldquo;He hasn&rsquo;t the
+      ghost of a chance, but, of course, he won&rsquo;t give it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not I!&rdquo; Somerfield answered, gorgeous in pink coat and riding breeches.
+      &ldquo;My old horse may not be fast, but he can go the course, and I&rsquo;m none too
+      certain of the others. Some of those hurdles&rsquo;ll take a bit of doing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a shame,&rdquo; the Prince remarked, &ldquo;that you should be disappointed,
+      Lady Grace. Would they let me ride for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; Lady Grace exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you really mean it, Prince?&rdquo; Penelope cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, why not?&rdquo; he asked, himself, in turn, somewhat surprised. &ldquo;If I am
+      eligible, and Lady Grace chooses, it seems to me very simple.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; the Duke intervened, &ldquo;I did not know&mdash;we did not know that you
+      were a sportsman, Prince.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A sportsman?&rdquo; the Prince repeated a little doubtfully. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you ever ridden in a steeplechase?&rdquo; Somerfield asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never in my life,&rdquo; the Prince declared. &ldquo;Frankly, I do not know what it
+      is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are jumps, for one thing,&rdquo; Somerfield continued,&mdash;&ldquo;pretty
+      stiff affairs, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Lady Grace&rsquo;s mare is a hunter,&rdquo; the Prince remarked, &ldquo;she can probably
+      jump them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The question is whether&mdash;&rdquo; Somerfield began, and stopped short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield hesitated to complete his sentence, and the Duke once more
+      intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What Somerfield was thinking, my dear Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;was that a
+      steeplechase course, as they ride in this country, needs some knowing. You
+      have never been on my daughter&rsquo;s mare before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So far as I am concerned,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that is of no account. There was a
+      day at Mukden&mdash;I do not like to talk of it, but it comes back to me&mdash;when
+      I rode twelve different horses in twenty-four hours, but perhaps,&rdquo; he
+      added, turning to Lady Grace, &ldquo;you would not care to trust your horse with
+      one who is a stranger to your&mdash;what is it you call them?&mdash;steeplechases.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary, Prince,&rdquo; Lady Grace exclaimed, &ldquo;you shall ride her, and
+      I am going to back you for all I am worth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bransome, who was also in riding clothes, although he was not taking part
+      in the steeplechases himself, glanced at the clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are running it rather fine,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll scarcely have time to
+      hack round the course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some one must explain it to me,&rdquo; the Prince said. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About three hundred yards,&rdquo; the Duke answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you any riding clothes?&rdquo; Penelope whispered to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Without a doubt,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I will go and change in a few minutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We start in half an hour,&rdquo; Somerfield remarked. &ldquo;Even that allows us none
+      too much time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; the Duke suggested diffidently, &ldquo;you would like to ride over,
+      Prince? It is a good eleven miles, and you would have a chance of getting
+      into your stride.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I should like to motor with you others, if I may.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just as you like, of course,&rdquo; the Duke agreed. &ldquo;Grace&rsquo;s mare is over
+      there now. We shall be able to have a look at her before the race, at any
+      rate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The opinions, after the Prince had left the table, were a little divided
+      as to what was likely to happen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For a man who has never even hunted and knows nothing whatever about the
+      country,&rdquo; Somerfield declared, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am perfectly content to take my risks,&rdquo; Lady Grace answered
+      confidently. &ldquo;If the Prince had never ridden before in his life, I would
+      trust him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield turned away, frowning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think about it, Penelope?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;that I agree with Grace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s shocking bad luck,&rdquo; the Duke declared, &ldquo;but there&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will do excellently,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s glasses rested on
+      it only for a moment. He pointed to a clump of trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which side there?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To the left,&rdquo; the Duke answered. &ldquo;Remember to keep inside the red flags.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where do we finish?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke showed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is all right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I need not look any more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the paddock some of the horses were being led around. The Prince noted
+      them approvingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very nice horses,&rdquo; he said,&mdash;&ldquo;light, but very nice. That one I like
+      best,&rdquo; he added, pointing to a dark bay mare, who was already giving her
+      boy some trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s lucky,&rdquo; the Duke answered, &ldquo;for she&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince glanced over Lady Grace&rsquo;s mare and turned aside to join
+      Penelope and Somerfield.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like the look of my horse, Sir Charles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I think that I shall
+      beat you today.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We both start at five to one,&rdquo; Somerfield answered. &ldquo;Shall we have a
+      bet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With pleasure,&rdquo; the Prince agreed. &ldquo;Will you name the amount? I do not
+      know what is usual.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything you like,&rdquo; Somerfield answered, &ldquo;from ten pounds to a hundred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One hundred,&mdash;we will say one hundred, then,&rdquo; the Prince declared.
+      &ldquo;My mount against yours. So!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must go now and be introduced to the Clerk of the Course,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;Ah, here is Lady Grace!&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;Come with me, Lady Grace. Your father
+      is seeing about my entry. I think that in five minutes the bell will
+      ring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you say to her, Prince?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;She is behaving beautifully
+      except for that first start.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your mare understands Japanese, Lady Grace,&rdquo; the Prince answered,
+      smiling. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gad, I believe she will!&rdquo; the Duke exclaimed. &ldquo;Look at the fellow ride.
+      His body is like whalebone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never saw a fellow sit so close in my life,&rdquo; the Duke declared. &ldquo;Do you
+      know, Grace, I believe, I really believe he&rsquo;ll ride her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace laughed scornfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a year&rsquo;s allowance on already,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;so you had better pray
+      that he does. I think it is very absurd of you all,&rdquo; she added, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re off!&rdquo; the Duke exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;the Prince
+      never moved in his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He rides like an Italian,&rdquo; Bransome declared, shutting up his glasses.
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s never a thing in this race to touch him. I am going to see if I
+      can get any money on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s over, by Jove!&rdquo; the Duke exclaimed. &ldquo;No, he&rsquo;s righted himself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve won your money, Grace,&rdquo; the Duke declared, shutting up his glass.
+      &ldquo;A finely ridden race, too. Did you see he&rsquo;d lost his stirrup? He must
+      have taken the last jump without it. I&rsquo;ll go and fetch him up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke hurried down. The Prince was already in the weighing room smoking
+      a cigarette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all right,&rdquo; he said smiling. &ldquo;They have passed me. I have won. I
+      hope that Lady Grace will be pleased.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is delighted!&rdquo; the Duke exclaimed, shaking him by the hand. &ldquo;We all
+      are. What happened to your stirrup?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must ask your groom,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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&rsquo;s mare.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;you rode superbly. It was a wonderful race. I
+      have never felt so grateful to any one in my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince smiled in a puzzled way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not my mare alone,&rdquo; she answered,&mdash;&ldquo;it was your riding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince laughed as one who does not understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You make me ashamed, Lady Grace,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Why, there is only one
+      way to ride. You did not think that because I was not English I should
+      fall off a horse?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; the Duke remarked smiling, &ldquo;that several Englishmen have
+      fallen off!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a matter of the horse,&rdquo; the Prince said. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he
+      added, turning suddenly to where Penelope was standing a little apart. &ldquo;I
+      am so sorry that Sir Charles&rsquo; horse was not quite so good as Lady Grace&rsquo;s.
+      You will not blame me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I do not blame you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXX. INSPECTOR JACKS IMPORTUNATE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s
+      sport. The young men, Somerfield especially, were inclined to regard the
+      Prince&rsquo;s achievement from a somewhat critical standpoint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He rode the race well enough,&rdquo; Somerfield admitted, &ldquo;but the mare is a
+      topper, and no mistake. He had nothing to do but to sit tight and let her
+      do the work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, he hadn&rsquo;t to finish either,&rdquo; one of the newcomers, a Captain
+      Everard Wilmot, remarked. &ldquo;That&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will, perhaps, not deny him,&rdquo; the Duke remarked mildly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I call it one of the most sporting things I ever heard of in my life,&rdquo;
+       Lady Grace declared warmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One must admit that he has pluck,&rdquo; he remarked critically. &ldquo;At the same
+      time I cannot see that a single effort of this sort entitles a man to be
+      considered a sportsman. He doesn&rsquo;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&rsquo;d never get along in this country, would he,
+      Wilmot?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m shot if he would!&rdquo; that young man replied. &ldquo;There must be
+      something wrong about a man who hasn&rsquo;t any taste whatever for sport.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope suddenly intervened&mdash;intervened, too, in somewhat startling
+      fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charlie,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will tell you what I think!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;I think that you are all
+      guilty of the most ridiculous presumption in criticising such a man as the
+      Prince. You would dare&mdash;you, Captain Wilmot, and you, Charlie, and
+      you, Mr. Hannaway,&rdquo; she added, turning to the third young man, &ldquo;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&rsquo;t presume to
+      imagine yourselves his superior because he does not conform to your pygmy
+      standard of life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s silence which followed, Lady Grace too rose to her
+      feet and came to her friend&rsquo;s side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I agree with every word Penelope has said,&rdquo; she declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; she said soothingly, &ldquo;we mustn&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield, who for a moment had been too angry to speak, had now
+      recovered himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; he said stiffly, &ldquo;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&rsquo;ll play you a game of
+      billiards before we go upstairs. There&rsquo;s just time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Wilmot hesitated. He was a peace-loving man, and, after all,
+      Penelope and his friend were engaged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps Miss Morse&mdash;&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope turned upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like you all to understand,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;that every word I
+      said came from my heart, and that I would say it again, and more, with the
+      same provocation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a finality about Penelope&rsquo;s words which left no room for further
+      discussion. The little group was broken up. She and Lady Grace went to
+      their rooms together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Penelope, you&rsquo;re a dear!&rdquo; the latter said, as they mounted the stairs. &ldquo;I
+      am afraid you&rsquo;ve made Charlie very angry, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope I have,&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you don&rsquo;t dislike the Prince so much nowadays?&rdquo; Lady Grace remarked
+      with transparent indifference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To tell you the truth, Penelope,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I almost wish that he were
+      not quite so devotedly attached to his country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope was silent. They had reached Lady Grace&rsquo;s room now, and were
+      standing together on the hearthrug in front of the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid he is like that,&rdquo; Penelope said gently. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more Lady Grace sighed. She was looking into the heart of the fire.
+      Penelope took her hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is hard sometimes, dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;to realize that a thing is
+      impossible, that it is absolutely out of our reach. Yet it is better to
+      bring one&rsquo;s mind to it than to suffer all the days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace looked up. At that moment she was more than pretty. Her eyes
+      were soft and bright, the color had flooded her cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t see <i>why</i> it should be impossible, Penelope,&rdquo; she
+      protested. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; she added with trembling lips, &ldquo;that
+      he does not care for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cannot tell,&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;He has never shown any signs of
+      caring for any woman. Remember, though, that he would want you to live in
+      Japan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;d live in Thibet if he asked me to,&rdquo; Lady Grace declared, raising her
+      handkerchief to her eyes, &ldquo;but he never will. He doesn&rsquo;t care. He doesn&rsquo;t
+      understand. I am very foolish, Penelope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope kissed her gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you are not the only foolish woman in the world.&rdquo;...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw you with all the evening papers as usual, Bransome,&rdquo; the Prime
+      Minister remarked during the service of dinner. &ldquo;Was there any news?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing much,&rdquo; the Foreign Secretary replied. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; the Prime Minister said. &ldquo;Was there anything about you in the
+      same paper by any chance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing particularly abusive,&rdquo; Sir Edward answered blandly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excellent!&rdquo; the Duke declared. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about me?&rdquo; Bransome grumbled. &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t I been worried to death, too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince, who had just finished describing to Lady Grace a typical
+      landscape of his country, turned toward Bransome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that I heard you say something about a discovery in connection
+      with those wonderful murder cases,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Has any one actually been
+      arrested?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My paper was an early edition,&rdquo; Bransome answered, &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;s taxi and is quite prepared to swear to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has he not been rather a long time in coming forward with his evidence?&rdquo;
+       the Prince remarked. &ldquo;I do not remember to have seen any mention of such a
+      person in the papers before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He watched so well,&rdquo; Bransome answered, &ldquo;and was so startled that he was
+      knocked down and run over. The detective in charge of the case found him
+      in a hospital.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These things always come out sooner or later,&rdquo; the Prime Minister
+      remarked. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As a nation,&rdquo; Bransome remarked, helping himself to the entree, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield was watching his fiancee curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you really very pale tonight, Penelope,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;or is it those
+      red flowers which have drawn all the color from your cheeks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe that I am pale,&rdquo; Penelope answered. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; she asked him across
+      the round table, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t you think that I remind you a little tonight of
+      the women of your country?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince returned her gaze as though, indeed, something were passing
+      between them of greater significance than that half-bantering question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I think that you do. You remind me of my country
+      itself&mdash;of the things that wait for me across the ocean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Highness,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;some one is on the telephone, speaking from
+      London. They ask if you could spare half a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Highness,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the man Jacks with a policeman is here in the hall
+      at the present moment. He asks permission to search this house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For what purpose?&rdquo; the Prince asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To discover some person whom he believes to be in hiding here,&rdquo; the
+      secretary answered. &ldquo;He explains that in any ordinary case he would have
+      applied for what they call a search warrant. Owing to your Highness&rsquo; 
+      position, however, he has attended here, hoping for your gracious consent
+      without having made any formal application.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must think!&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;Tell me, Soto. You are sure that the
+      English doctor has had no opportunity of communicating with any one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has had no opportunity,&rdquo; was the firm reply. &ldquo;If your Highness says
+      the word, he shall pass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let him alone,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;Refuse this man Jacks permission to
+      search my house during my absence. Tell him that I shall be there at three
+      o&rsquo;clock tomorrow afternoon and that at that hour he is welcome to return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It shall be done, Highness,&rdquo; was the answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince set down the receiver upon the instrument and stood for a
+      moment deep in thought. It was a strange country, this,&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXI. GOODBYE!
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Prince on his return from the library intercepted Penelope on her way
+      across the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As soon as he comes out from the dining room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw the hardening of her lips, the flash in her eyes at the mention of
+      Somerfield&rsquo;s name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;Sir Charles and I are going to have a little
+      understanding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you sure,&rdquo; he asked softly, &ldquo;that it will not be a misunderstanding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked into his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does it matter to you?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;What do you care?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come into the conservatory for a few minutes,&rdquo; he begged. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated. He stood by her side patiently waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that I am a somewhat privileged person just now. My
+      days here are numbered, you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned toward the conservatories.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you go so soon?&rdquo; she whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on,&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to ask you, Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;whether you remember
+      the day when you paid a visit to my house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was showing you a casket,&rdquo; he went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She gripped his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t!&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t, I can&rsquo;t bear any more of that. You don&rsquo;t know
+      how horrible it seems to me! You don&rsquo;t know&mdash;what fears I have had!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked away from her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have sometimes wondered,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;what your thoughts were at that
+      moment, what you have thought of me since.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shivered a little, but did not answer him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very soon,&rdquo; he reminded her, &ldquo;I shall have passed out of your life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He heard the sudden, half-stifled exclamation. He felt rather than saw the
+      eyes which pleaded with him, and he hastened on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You understand what is meant by the inevitable,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;Whatever
+      has happened in the matters with which I have been concerned has been
+      inevitable. I have had no choice&mdash;sometimes no choice in such events
+      is possible. Do not think,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet you go,&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet I go,&rdquo; he assented. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you know,&rdquo; she answered, &ldquo;that you need not ask that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will marry Sir Charles Somerfield,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A man&rsquo;s footstep approached them. Somerfield himself drew near and
+      hesitated. The Prince rose at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Charles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duke will be disappointed,&rdquo; Somerfield said. &ldquo;Are you off at once?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably tomorrow,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;May I leave Miss Penelope in
+      your charge?&rdquo; he added with a little bow. &ldquo;The Duke, I believe, is
+      awaiting me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He passed out of the conservatory. Penelope sat quite still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; Somerfield said, &ldquo;if he is really going&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charlie,&rdquo; she interrupted, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The man whom a month ago,&rdquo; he remarked curiously, &ldquo;you hated!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was an idiot,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I did not understand him and I was prejudiced
+      against his country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, as he actually is going away,&rdquo; Sir Charles remarked with a sigh of
+      content, &ldquo;I suppose it&rsquo;s no use being jealous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t any reason to be,&rdquo; Penelope answered just a little wistfully.
+      &ldquo;Prince Maiyo has no room in his life for such frivolous creatures as
+      women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do come and talk to us, Prince,&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;I am so tired of this
+      stupid game, and I am sure Captain Wilmot is bored to tears.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but I must find the Duke. I have just received a
+      telephone message and I fear that I may have to leave tomorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tomorrow!&rdquo; she cried in dismay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If not tomorrow, the next day,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I have had a summons&mdash;a
+      summons which I cannot disobey. Shall I find your father in the library,
+      Lady Grace?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid I must,&rdquo; he answered regretfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a hopelessly disappointing person,&rdquo; she declared a little
+      pitifully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is because you are all much too kind to me that you think so,&rdquo; he
+      answered. &ldquo;You make me welcome amongst you even as one of yourselves. You
+      forget&mdash;you would almost teach me to forget that I am only a wayfarer
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is your own choice,&rdquo; she said, coming a little nearer to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, no,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He passed out, closing the door behind him. Captain Wilmot chalked his cue
+      carefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the queerest fellow I ever knew in my life,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He seems
+      all the time as though his head were in the clouds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Grace sighed. She too was chalking her cue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;what it would be like to live in the clouds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXII. PRINCE MAIYO SPEAKS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not intrude, I trust?&rdquo; the Prince said. &ldquo;I understood that you
+      wished me to come here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; the Duke answered, &ldquo;we were sitting here awaiting your
+      arrival. Will you take this easy chair? The cigarettes are at your elbow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince declined the easy chair and leaned for a moment against the
+      table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps later,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Just now I feel that you have something to say
+      to me. Is it not so? I talk better when I am standing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the Prime Minister who made the first plunge. He spoke without
+      circumlocution, and his tone was graver than usual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can assure you, my dear Prince, that we shall very much appreciate your
+      doing so,&rdquo; Mr. Haviland declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; the Prince continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prime Minister and Bransome exchanged rapid glances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That has been our belief from the first,&rdquo; Bransome remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came to Europe,&rdquo; the Prince continued gravely, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The report,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no reason,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;I will tell you. I owe that to
+      you at least. I have advised the Emperor not to renew the treaty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to renew,&rdquo; the Prime Minister echoed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid,&rdquo; the Prince continued earnestly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; Mr. Haviland said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is hard,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on,&rdquo; Mr. Haviland said, drumming idly with his fingers upon the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have had to ask myself,&rdquo; the Prince continued,&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bransome leaned forward in his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can disprove it,&rdquo; he declared firmly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince drew a little breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Edward,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are English soldiers,&rdquo; Mr. Haviland declared. &ldquo;I do not recognize
+      your use of the word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are paid soldiers,&rdquo; the Prince said, &ldquo;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,&mdash;I will alter one word only.
+      The love of his Motherland is no longer <i>the</i> 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&mdash;one score, mind&mdash;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,&mdash;so it is everywhere,&mdash;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,&mdash;they who spend five
+      days in your grim factories toiling before machines,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pause which followed was in itself significant. The Duke alone
+      remained impassive. Bransome&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that is really your opinion of us, Prince,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fourteen thousand four hundred and seventy-five,&rdquo; the Prince answered
+      promptly, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; the Prince continued with increased earnestness, &ldquo;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,&mdash;no, I want to change that!&rdquo; the
+      Prince cried with an impressive gesture,&mdash;&ldquo;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,&mdash;they cannot fight as civilians.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prince forgets,&rdquo; Bransome remarked dryly, &ldquo;that an invasion of this
+      country&mdash;a practical invasion&mdash;is very nearly an impossible
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince laughed softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Without admitting the truth of a single word you have said, my dear
+      Prince,&rdquo; the Prime Minister remarked, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; the Prince replied, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are, nevertheless,&rdquo; Bransome declared, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your good offices were duly acknowledged by my Government,&rdquo; the Prince
+      admitted. &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An alliance duly concluded between this country&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince held out both his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bransome was on the point of exclaiming, but the Prime Minister
+      intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You appear to be a perfect Secret Service to yourself, Prince,&rdquo; he said
+      smoothly. &ldquo;Perhaps you can also tell us our reply?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can tell you this much,&rdquo; the Prince answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know what our reply was?&rdquo; Mr. Haviland asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To tell you the truth, I do not,&rdquo; the Prince answered, smiling. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been very candid with us, Prince,&rdquo; Mr. Haviland remarked. &ldquo;We
+      gather that you are opposed to a renewal of our alliance chiefly for two
+      reasons,&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shook his head slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tonight,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;China!&rdquo; the Prime Minister exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The China of our own making,&rdquo; the Prince declared, a note of tense
+      enthusiasm creeping into his tone,&mdash;&ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A footman entered the room and made his way to the Duke&rsquo;s chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Grace,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;a gentleman is ringing up from Downing Street who
+      says he is speaking from the Home Office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whom does he want?&rdquo; the Duke asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Both Your Grace and Mr. Haviland,&rdquo; the man replied. &ldquo;He wished me to say
+      that the matter was of the utmost importance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke rose at once and glanced at the clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is an extraordinary hour,&rdquo; he remarked, &ldquo;for Heseltine to be wanting
+      us. Shall we go and see what it means, Haviland? You will excuse us,
+      Prince?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince bowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that we have talked enough of serious affairs tonight,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;I shall challenge Sir Edward to a game of billiards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIII. UNAFRAID
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morse!&rdquo; he exclaimed breathlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he cried softly, &ldquo;you must not come in here! Please!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen!&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;I had to come! You don&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my arrest,&rdquo; the Prince repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you understand?&rdquo; she continued breathlessly. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see how
+      horrible it is? They mean to arrest you for the murder of Hamilton Fynes
+      and Dicky Vanderpole!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If this must be so,&rdquo; the Prince answered, &ldquo;why do they not come? I am
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you must not stay here!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;You must escape! It is too
+      terrible to think that you should&mdash;oh, I can&rsquo;t say it!&mdash;that you
+      should have to face these charges. If you are guilty, well, Heaven help
+      you!&mdash;If you are guilty, I want you to escape all the same!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her with the puzzled air of one who tries to reason with a
+      child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;this is kind of you, but, after all,
+      remember that I am a man, and I must not run away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you cannot meet these charges!&rdquo; she interrupted. &ldquo;You cannot meet
+      them! You know it! Oh, don&rsquo;t think I can&rsquo;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,&mdash;you must, indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I cannot do that! I cannot run away like a
+      thief in the dark. If this thing is to come, it must come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you don&rsquo;t understand!&rdquo; she continued, wringing her hands. &ldquo;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&rsquo;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&rsquo;t wait a single moment. I believe that tomorrow morning will be
+      too late!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sank on her knees before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you understand why I am here?&rdquo; she cried passionately. &ldquo;It was I
+      who told of the silken cord and knife!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was wholly unmoved. He even smiled, as though the thing were of no
+      moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was right that you should do so,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;You must not reproach
+      yourself with that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do! I do!&rdquo; she cried again. &ldquo;I always shall! Don&rsquo;t you understand
+      that if you stay here they will treat you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He interrupted, laying his hand gently upon her shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear young lady,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&mdash;another house
+      of rest which I can reach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not mind,&rdquo; he whispered, &ldquo;if I tell you that you must not stay
+      here any longer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He led her toward the door. Upon the threshold he took her cold fingers
+      into his hand and kissed them reverently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not be too despondent,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I have a star somewhere which burns
+      for me. Tonight I have been looking for it. It is there still,&rdquo; he added,
+      pointing to the wide open window. &ldquo;It is there, undimmed, clearer and
+      brighter than ever. I have no fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His Highness&rsquo; bath is ready,&rdquo; he announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;s valet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Highness,&rdquo; the latter said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Duke,&rdquo; the Prince said cheerfully. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince,&rdquo; the Duke said quietly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince bowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Duke,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind those other countries,&rdquo; the Duke interrupted gravely. &ldquo;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&mdash;supposing even you, Prince Maiyo&mdash;were to come within
+      the arm of the law. Even the great claims of hospitality would leave me
+      powerless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This,&rdquo; the Prince admitted, &ldquo;I fully apprehend. It is surely reasonable
+      that the stranger in your country should be subject to your laws.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, then,&rdquo; the Duke continued. &ldquo;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&rsquo; 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.&rdquo; The Prince shook his head slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duke,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke laid his hands upon the young man&rsquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maiyo,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we have grown fond of you,&mdash;my wife, my daughter,
+      all of us. We don&rsquo;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;make use of my car. You will reach Southampton in
+      half an hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince shook his head. His lips had parted in what was certainly a
+      smile. At the corners they quivered, a little tremulous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear friend,&rdquo; he said, and his voice had softened almost to affection,
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIV. BANZAI!
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was curious how the Prince&rsquo;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&rsquo;s car, the Prince&rsquo;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&rsquo;clock they were all on
+      their way to London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo;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&mdash;was it worth while?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the other car, too, silence reigned. Somerfield was the only one who
+      struggled against the general air of depression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all,&rdquo; he remarked to Bransome, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see what we&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope spoke for the first time since they had left Devenham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you begin to talk like that, Charlie,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I shall ask the
+      Duchess to stop the car and put you down here in the road.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somerfield laughed, not altogether pleasantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seven miles from any railway station,&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penelope shrugged her shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should not care in the least what happened to you, today or at any
+      other time,&rdquo; she declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see the time!&rdquo; the Prince exclaimed. &ldquo;It is barely eleven o&rsquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke looked for a moment doubtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It wants an hour to midday,&rdquo; the Prince said, softly. &ldquo;There is time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They reached St. James&rsquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a fancy of mine,&rdquo; he said, smiling, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took a picture from the wall and turned with it to the Duke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duke,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added, stepping to his
+      writing table, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he concluded, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to the Duchess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duchess,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lady Grace,&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more he went to his writing table. From it he lifted, almost
+      reverently, a small bronze figure,&mdash;the figure of a woman, strongly
+      built, almost squat, without grace, whose eyes and head and arms reached
+      upwards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Penelope,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; 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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I confess!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;that
+      man!&rdquo; Soto cried, pointing to the youth who stood at the Inspector&rsquo;s left
+      hand. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&rsquo; unspoken question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is the image of the man who came to me that night,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;He
+      is wearing the same clothes, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you say?&rdquo; the Inspector whispered hoarsely to the youth on his
+      other side. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t hurry. Look at him carefully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is the same height and figure as the man I saw enter the taxi,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;I believe that it is he.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks stepped forward, but the Prince held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Soto,&rdquo; 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,&mdash;&ldquo;why
+      have you done this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Illustrious Prince,&rdquo; he answered, speaking also in his own tongue, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He suddenly collapsed. The doctor bent over him, but the Prince shook his
+      head slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is useless,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The man has confessed his crime. He has told me
+      the whole truth. He has taken poison.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you leave me?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I wish to be alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes were like the eyes of a blind man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One by one they left the room, Inspector Jacks amongst them. The only
+      person who spoke, even in the hall, was the Inspector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was the Prince who brought the doctor here,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;He must
+      have known! At least he must have known!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Haviland touched him on the arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inspector Jacks!&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Inspector Jacks saluted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The murderer is dead,&rdquo; he continued, speaking still under his breath.
+      &ldquo;Silence is a wonderful gift, Mr. Jacks. Sometimes its reward is greater
+      even than the reward of action.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do the great die,&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;Already the Gods of our fathers are
+      calling you Soto the Faithful. Banzai!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
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+Project Gutenberg's The Illustrious Prince, by E. Phillips Oppenheim
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Illustrious Prince
+
+Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim
+
+Posting Date: August 22, 2008 [EBook #1447]
+Release Date: September, 1998
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Theresa Armao
+
+
+
+
+
+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!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Illustrious Prince, by E. Phillips Oppenheim
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext The Illustrious Prince, by Oppenheim
+#3 in our series by E. Phillips Oppenheim
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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!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext The Illustrious Prince, by Oppenheim
+
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