The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  The bell rang, and, taking care to thrust the letter out of sight, the concierge disappeared. Then ensued, in the hall, a short colloquy, followed by a thumping on the staircase. The concierge returned.

  "Old Adelbert, from the Opera," he said. "He has lost his position, and would have spent the night airing his grievance. But I sent him off!"

  Herman turned his pale eyes toward the giant. "So!" he said. And after a pause, "He has some influence among the veterans."

  "And is Royalist to his marrow," sneered the concierge. He took the letter out again and, bringing a lamp, went over it carefully. It was signed merely "Olga." "Blankets and loaves!" he fumed.

  Now, as between the two, Black Humbert furnished evil and strength, but it was the pallid clerk who furnished the cunning. And now he made a suggestion.

  "It is possible," he said, "that he—upstairs—could help."

  "Adelbert? Are you mad?"

  "The other. He knows codes. It was by means of one we caught him. I have heard that all these things have one basis, and a simple one."

  The concierge considered. Then he rose. "It is worth trying," he observed.

  He thrust the letter into his pocket, and the two conspirators went out into the gloomy hall. There, on a ledge, lay the white tapers, and one he lighted, shielding it from the draft in the hollow of his great hand. Then he led the way to the top of the house.

  Here were three rooms. One, the best, was Herman Spier's, a poor thing at that. Next to it was old Adelbert's. As they passed the door they could hear him within, muttering to himself. At the extreme end of the narrow corridor, in a passage almost blocked by old furniture, was another room, a sort of attic, with a slanting roof.

  Making sure that old Adelbert did not hear them, they went back to this door, which the concierge unlocked. Inside the room was dark. The taper showed little. As their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, the outlines of the attic stood revealed, a junk-room, piled high with old trunks, and in one corner a bed.

  Black Humbert, taper in hand, approached the bed. Herman remained near the door. Now, with the candle near, the bed revealed a man lying on it, and tied with knotted ropes; a young man, with sunken cheeks and weary, desperate eyes. Beside him, on a chair, were the fragments of a meal, a bit of broken bread, some cold soup, on which grease had formed a firm coating.

  Lying there, sleeping and waking and sleeping again, young Haeckel, one time of His Majesty's secret service and student in the University, had lost track of the days. He knew not how long he had been a prisoner, except that it had been eternities. Twice a day, morning and evening, came his jailer and loosened his bonds, brought food, of a sort, and allowed him, not out of mercy, but because it was the Committee's pleasure that for a time he should live, to move about the room and bring the blood again to his numbed limbs.

  He was to live because he knew many things which the Committee would know. But, as the concierge daily reminded him, there was a limit to mercy and to patience.

  In the mean time they held him, a hostage against certain contingencies. Held him and kept him barely alive. Already he tottered about the room when his bonds were removed; but his eyes did not falter, or his courage. Those whom he had served so well, he felt, would not forget him. And meanwhile, knowing what he knew, he would die before he became the tool of these workers in the dark.

  So he lay and thought, and slept when thinking became unbearable, and thus went his days and the long nights.

  The concierge untied him, and stood back. "Now," he said.

  But the boy—he was no more—lay still. He made one effort to rise, and fell back.

  "Up with you!" said the concierge, and jerked him to his feet. He caught the rail of the bed, or he would have fallen. "Now—stand like a man."

  He stood then, facing his captors without defiance. He had worn all that out in the first days of his imprisonment. He was in shirt and trousers only, his feet bare, his face unshaven—the thin first beard of early manhood.

  "Well?" he said at last. "I thought—you've been here once to-night."

  "Right, my cuckoo. But to-night I do you double honor."

  But seeing that Haeckel was swaying, he turned to Herman Spier. "Go down," he said, "and bring up some brandy. He can do nothing for us in this state."

  He drank the brandy eagerly when it came, and the concierge poured him a second quantity. What with weakness and slow starvation, it did what no threat of personal danger would have done. It broke down his resistance. Not immediately. He fought hard, when the matter was first broached to him. But in the end he took the letter and, holding it close to the candle, he examined it closely. His hands shook, his eyes burned. The two Terrorists watched him narrowly.

  Brandy or no brandy, however, he had not lost his wits. He glanced up suddenly. "Tell me something about this," he said. "And what will you do for me if I decode it?"

  The concierge would promise anything, and did. Haeckel listened, and knew the offer of liberty was a lie. But there was something about the story of the letter itself that bore the hall-marks of truth.

  "You see," finished Black Humbert cunningly, "she—this—lady of the Court—is plotting with some one, or so we suspect. If it is only a liaison—!" He spread his hands. "If, as is possible, she betrays us to Karnia, that we should find out. It is not," he added, "among our plans that Karnia should know too much of us."

  "Who is it?"

  "I cannot betray a lady," said Black Humbert, and leered.

  The brandy was still working, but the spy's mind was clear. He asked for a pencil, and set to work. After all, if there was a spy of Karl's in the Palace, it were well to know it. He tried complicated methods first, to find that the body of the letter, after all, was simple enough. By reading every tenth word, he got a consistent message, save that certain supplies, over which the concierge had railed, were special code words for certain regiments. These he could not decipher.

  "Whoever was to receive this," he said at last, "would have been in possession of complete data of the army, equipment and all, and the location of various regiments. Probably you and your band of murderers have that already."

  The concierge nodded, no whit ruffled. "And for whom was it intended?"

  "I cannot say. The address is fictitious, of course."

  Black Humbert scowled. "So!" he said. "You tell us only a part!"

  "There is nothing else to tell. Save, as I have written here, the writer ends: 'I must see you at once. Let me know where.'"

  The brandy was getting in its work well by that time. He was feeling strong, his own man again, and reckless. But he was cunning, too. He yawned. "And in return for all this, what?" he demanded. "I have done you a service, friend cut-throat."

  The concierge stuffed letter and translation into his pocket. "What would you have, short of liberty?"

  "Air, for one thing." He stood up and stretched again. God, how strong he felt! "If you would open that accursed window for an hour—the place reeks."

  Humbert was in high good humor in spite of his protests. In his pocket he held the key to favor, aye, to a plan which he meant to lay before the Committee of Ten, a plan breath-taking in its audacity and yet potential of success. He went to the window and put his great shoulder against it.

  Instantly Haeckel overturned the candle and, picking up the chair, hurled it at Herman Spier. He heard the clerk go down as he leaped for the door. Herman had not locked it. He was in the passage before the concierge had stumbled past the bed.

  On the stairs his lightness counted. His bare feet made no sound. He could hear behind him the great mass of Humbert, hurling itself down. Haeckel ran as he had never run before. The last flight now, with the concierge well behind, and liberty two seconds away.

  He flung himself against the doors to the street. But they were fastened by a chain, and the key was not in the lock.

  He crumpled up in a heap as the concierge fell on him with fists like flails.

  Some time later, old Adelbert
heard a sound in the corridor, and peered out. Humbert, assisted by the lodger, Spier, was carrying to the attic what appeared to be an old mattress, rolled up and covered with rags. In the morning, outside the door, there was a darkish stain, however, which might have been blood.

  CHAPTER XIII. IN THE PARK

  At nine o'clock the next morning the Chancellor visited the Crown Prince. He came without ceremony. Lately he had been coming often. He liked to come in quietly, and sit for an hour in the schoolroom, saying nothing. Prince Ferdinand William Otto found these occasions rather trying.

  "I should think," he protested once to his governess, "that he would have something else to do. He's the Chancellor, he?"

  But on this occasion the Chancellor had an errand, the product of careful thought. Early as it was, already he had read his morning mail in his study, had dictated his replies, had eaten a frugal breakfast of fruit and sausage, and in the small inner room which had heard so many secrets, had listened to the reports of his agents, and of the King's physicians. Neither had been reassuring.

  The King had passed a bad night, and Haeckel was still missing. The Chancellor's heart was heavy.

  The Chancellor watched the Crown Prince, as he sat at the high desk, laboriously writing. It was the hour of English composition, and Prince Ferdinand William Otto was writing a theme.

  "About dogs," he explained. "I've seen a great many, you know. I could do it better with a pencil. My pen sticks in the paper."

  He wrote on, and Mettlich sat and watched. From the boy his gaze wandered over the room. He knew it well. Not so many years ago he had visited in this very room another bright-haired lad, whose pen had also stuck in the paper. The Chancellor looked up at the crossed swords, and something like a mist came into his keen old eyes.

  He caught Miss Braithwaite's glance, and he knew what was in her mind. For nine years now had come, once a year, the painful anniversary, of the death of the late Crown Prince and his young wife. For nine years had the city mourned, with flags at half-mast and the bronze statue of the old queen draped in black. And for nine years had the day of grief passed unnoticed by the lad on whom hung the destinies of the kingdom.

  Now they confronted a new situation. The next day but one was the anniversary again. The boy was older, and observant. It would not be possible to conceal from him the significance of the procession marching through the streets with muffled drums. Even the previous year he had demanded the reason for crape on his grandmother's statue, and had been put off, at the cost of Miss Braithwaite's strong feeling for the truth. Also he had not been allowed to see the morning paper, which was, on these anniversaries, bordered with black. This had annoyed him. The Crown Prince always read the morning paper—especially the weather forecast.

  They could not continue to lie to the boy. Truthfulness had been one of the rules of his rigorous upbringing. And he was now of an age to remember. So the Chancellor sat and waited, and, fingered, his heavy watch-chain.

  Suddenly the Crown Prince looked up. "Have you ever been on a scenic railway?", he inquired politely.

  The Chancellor regretted that he had not.

  "It's very remarkable," said Prince Ferdinand William Otto. "But unless you like excitement, perhaps you would not care for it."

  The Chancellor observed that he had had his share of excitement, in his, time, and was now for the ways of quiet.

  Prince Ferdinand William Otto had a great many things to say, but thought better of it. Miss Braithwaite disliked Americans, for instance, and it was quite possible that the Chancellor did also. It seemed strange about Americans. Either one liked them a great deal, or not at all. He put his attention to the theme, and finished it. Then, flushed with authorship, he looked up. "May I read you the last line of it?" he demanded of the Chancellor.

  "I shall be honored, Highness." not often did the Chancellor say "Highness." Generally he said "Otto" or "my child."

  Prince Ferdinand William Otto read aloud, with dancing eyes, his last line: "'I should like to own a dog.' I thought," he said wistfully, "that I might ask my grandfather for one."

  "I see no reason why you should not have a dog," the Chancellor observed.

  "Not one to be kept at the stables," Otto explained. "One to stay with me all the time. One to sleep on the foot of the bed."

  But here the Chancellor threw up his hands. Instantly he visualized all the objections to dogs, from fleas to rabies. And he put the difficulties into words. No mean speaker was the Chancellor when so minded. He was a master of style, of arrangement, of logic and reasoning. He spoke at length, even, at the end, rising and pacing a few steps up and down the room. But when he had concluded, when the dog, so to speak, had fled yelping to the country of dead hopes, Prince Ferdinand William Otto merely gulped, and said:

  "Well, I wish I could have a dog!"

  The Chancellor changed his tactics by changing the subject. "I was wondering this morning, as I crossed the park, if you would enjoy an excursion soon. Could it be managed, Miss Braithwaite?"

  "I dare say," said Miss Braithwaite dryly. "Although I must say, if there is no improvement in punctuation and capital letters—"

  "What sort of excursion?" asked His Royal Highness, guardedly. He did not care for picture galleries.

  "Out-of-doors, to see something interesting."

  But Prince Ferdinand William Otto was cautious with the caution of one who, by hoping little, may be agreeably disappointed. "A corner-stone, I suppose," he said.

  "Not a corner-stone," said the Chancellor, with eyes that began to twinkle under ferocious brows. "No, Otto. A real excursion, up the river."

  "To the fort? I do want to see the new fort."

  As a matter of truth, the Chancellor had not thought of the fort. But like many another before him, he accepted the suggestion and made it his own. "To the fort, of course," said he.

  "And take luncheon along, and eat it there, and have Hedwig and Nikky? And see the guns?"

  But this was going too fast. Nikky, of course, would go, and if the Princess cared to, she too. But luncheon! It was necessary to remind the Crown Prince that the officers at the fort would expect to have him join their mess. There was a short parley over this, and it was finally settled that the officers should serve luncheon, but that there should be no speeches. The Crown Prince had already learned that his presence was a sort of rod of Aaron, to unloose floods of speeches. Through what outpourings of oratory he had sat or stood, in his almost ten years!

  "Then that's settled," he said at last. "I'm very happy. This morning I shall apologize to M. Puaux."

  During the remainder of the morning the Crown Prince made various excursions to the window to see if the weather was holding good. Also he asked, during his half-hour's intermission, for the great box of lead soldiers that was locked away in the cabinet. "I shall pretend that the desk is a fort, Miss Braithwaite," he said. "Do you mind being the enemy, and pretending to be shot now and then?"

  But Miss Braithwaite was correcting papers. She was willing to be a passive enemy and be potted at, but she drew the line at falling over. Prince Ferdinand William Otto did not persist. He was far too polite. But he wished in all his soul that Nikky would come. Nikky, he felt, would die often and hard.

  But Nikky did not come.

  Came German and French, mathematics and music and no Nikky. Came at last the riding-hour—and still no Nikky.

  At twelve o'clock, Prince Ferdinand William Otto, clad in his riding-garments of tweed knickers, puttees, and a belted jacket, stood by the schoolroom window and looked out. The inner windows of his suite faced the courtyard, but the schoolroom opened over the Place—a bad arrangement surely, seeing what distractions to lessons may take place in a public square, what pigeons feeding in the sun, what bands with drums and drum-majors, what children flying kites.

  "I don't understand it," the Crown Prince said plaintively. "He is generally very punctual. Perhaps—"

  But he loyally refused to finish the sentence. The "perha
ps" was a grievous thought, nothing less than that Nikky and Hedwig were at that moment riding in the ring together, and had both forgotten him. He was rather used to being forgotten. With the exception of Miss Braithwaite, he was nobody's business, really. His aunt forgot him frequently. On Wednesdays it was his privilege—or not; as you think of it—to take luncheon with the Archduchess; and once in so often she would forget and go out. Or be in, and not expecting him, which was as bad.

  "Bless us, I forgot the child," she would say on these occasions.

  But until now, Nikky had never forgotten. He had been the soul of remembering, indeed, and rather more than punctual. Prince Ferdinand William Otto consulted his watch. It was of gold, and on the inside was engraved:

  "To Ferdinand William Otto from his grandfather, on the occasion of his taking his first communion."

  "It's getting rather late," he observed.

  Miss Braithwaite looked troubled. "No doubt something has detained him," she said, with unusual gentleness. "You might work at the frame for your Cousin Hedwig. Then, if Captain Larisch comes, you can still have a part of your lesson."

  Prince Ferdinand William Otto brightened. The burntwood photograph frame for Hedwig was his delight. And yesterday, as a punishment for the escapade of the day before, it had been put away with an alarming air of finality. He had traced the design himself, from a Christmas card, and it had originally consisted of a ring and small Cupids, alternating with hearts. He liked it very much. The Cupids were engagingly fat. However, Miss Braithwaite had not approved of their state of nature, and it had been necessary to drape them with sashes tied in neat bows.

  The pyrography outfit was produced, and for fifteen minutes Prince Ferdinand William Otto labored, his head on one side, his royal tongue slightly protruded. But, above the thin blue smoke of burning, his face remained wistful. He was afraid, terribly afraid, that he had been forgotten again.