The Illustrious Prince

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  CHAPTER XXIII. ON THE TRAIL

  Inspector Jacks studied the brass plate for a moment, and then rangthe patients' bell. The former, he noticed was very much in want ofcleaning, and for a doctor's residence there was a certain lack ofsmartness about the house and its appointments which betokened a limitedpractice. The railing in front was broken, and no pretence had been madeat keeping the garden in order. Inspector Jacks had time to notice thesethings, for it was not until after his second summons that the door wasopened by Dr. Whiles himself.

  "Good morning!" the latter said tentatively. Then, with a slight air ofdisappointment, he recognized his visitor.

  "Good morning, doctor!" Inspector Jacks replied. "You haven't forgottenme, I hope? I came down to see you a short time ago, respecting theman who was knocked down by a motor car and treated by you on a certainevening."

  The doctor nodded.

  "Will you come in?" he asked.

  He led the way into a somewhat dingy waiting room. A copy of _TheField_, a month old, a dog-eared magazine, and a bound volume of _GoodWords_ were spread upon the table. The room itself, except for a fewchairs, was practically bare.

  "I do not wish to take up too much of your time, Dr. Whiles," theInspector 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 youthat 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 willunderstand, as a professional man, that when your services are requiredby 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 aboutthe man whom I fixed up on the night of the murder. There's nothing moreto tell you about that. I'd as soon go up to town and lunch with you asnot, but if you think that I've anything more to tell you, you'll onlybe disappointed."

  The Inspector nodded.

  "I'm quite content to run the risk of that," he said. "Of course," hecontinued, "it does not follow in the least that this person was in anyway 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 wouldinterest 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 treatmentof 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 theafternoon."

  The doctor did not attempt to conceal the fact that he found thissuggestion entirely satisfactory. In less than half an hour, the two menwere on their way to town.

  Curiously enough, Penelope and Prince Maiyo met that morning for thefirst time in several days. They were both guests of the Duchess ofDevenham at a large luncheon party at the Savoy Restaurant. Penelopefelt a little shiver when she saw him coming down the stairs. Somehow orother, she had dreaded this meeting, yet when it came, she knew that itwas a relief. There was no change in his manner, no trace of anxietyin his smooth, unruffled face. He seemed, if possible, to have grownyounger, to walk more buoyantly. His eyes met hers frankly, his smilewas wholly unembarrassed. It was not possible for a man to bear himselfthus who stood beneath the great shadow!

  So far from avoiding her, he came over to her side directly he hadgreeted his hostess.

  "This morning," he said, "I heard some good news. You are to be a fellowguest at Devenham."

  "I am afraid," she admitted, "that of my two aunts I impose mostfrequently upon the one where my claims are the slightest. The Duchessis so good-natured."

  "She is charming," the Prince declared. "I am looking forward to myvisit immensely. I think I am a little weary of London. A visit to thecountry seems to me most delightful. They tell me, too, that your springgardens are wonderful. What London suffers from, I think, at this timeof the year, is a lack of flowers. We want something to remind us thatthe spring is coming, besides these occasional gleams of blue sky andvery 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 flowersone 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 thirdessential?"

  "Miss Penelope," he said under his breath, "I have to admit that onemust travel further afield for Heaven's greatest gift. Even then one canonly 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. Afterlunch, Prince, I want you to speak to General Sherrif. He has been dyingto meet you, to talk over your campaign together in Manchuria. There'sanother man who is anxious to meet you, too,--Professor Spenlove. Hehas been to Japan for a month, and thinks about writing a book on yourcustoms. I believe he looks to you to correct his impressions."

  "So long as he does not ask me to correct his proofs!" the Princemurmured.

  "That is positively the most unkind thing I have ever heard you say,"the Duchess declared. "Come along, you good people. Jules has promisedme a new omelet, on condition that we sit down at precisely half-pastone. If we are five minutes late, he declines to send it up."

  They took their places at the round table which had been reserved forthe Duchess of Devenham,--not very far, Penelope remembered, from thetable at which they had sat for dinner a little more than a fortnightago. The recollection of that evening brought her a sudden realizationof the tragedy which seemed to have taken her life into its grip. Againthe Prince sat by her side. She watched him with eyes in which there wasa gleam sometimes almost of horror. Easy and natural as usual, with hispleasant smile and simple speech, he was making himself agreeable toone of the older ladies of the party, to whom, by chance, no one hadaddressed more than a word or so. It was always the same--always likethis, she realized, with a sudden keen apprehension of this part of theman'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. Thepapers during the last few days had been making public an incident whichhe had done his best to keep secret. He had signalized his arrival inLondon, some months ago, by going overboard from a police boat into theThames to rescue a half-drunken lighterman, and when the Humane Societyhad voted him their medal, he had accepted it only on condition that thepresentation was private and kept out of the papers. It was not one butfifty kindly deeds which stood to his credit. Always with the manners ofa Prince--gracious, courteous, and genial--never a word had passed hislips of evil towards any human being. The barriers today between thesmoking room and the drawing room are shadowy things, and she knew verywell that he was held in a somewhat curious respect by men, as a personto whom it was impossible to tell a story in which there was any shadowof indelicacy. The ways of the so-called man of world seemed in hispresence as though they must be the ways of some creature of a differentand a lower stage of existence. A young man whom he had once correctedhad christened him, half jestingly, Sir Galahad, and certainly hislife in London, a life which had to bear all the while the test of thelimelight, had appeared to merit some such title. These thoughts chasedone another through her mind as she looked at him and marvelled. Surelythose other things must be part of a bad nightmare! It was not possiblethat such a man could be associated with wrong-doing--such manner ofwrong-doing!

  Even while these thoughts passed through her brain, he turned to talk toher,
and she felt at once that little glow of pleasure which the soundof his voice nearly always evoked.

  "I am looking forward so much," he said, "to my stay at Devenham. Youknow, it will not be very much longer that I shall have the opportunityof accepting such invitations."

  "You mean that the time is really coming when we shall lose you?" sheasked suddenly.

  "When my work is finished, I return home," he answered. "I fancy that itwill not be very long now."

  "When you do leave England," she asked after a moment's pause, "do yougo straight to Japan?"

  He bowed.

  "With the Continent I have finished," he said. "The cruiser which HisMajesty has sent to fetch me waits even now at Southampton."

  "You speak of your work," she remarked, "as though you had beencollecting material for a book."

  He smiled.

  "I have been busy collecting information in many ways," hesaid,--"trying to live your life and feel as you feel, trying tounderstand 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 theEast."

  "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 faceof a sphinx.

  "It is for the good of Japan I came," he said, "for her good that I havestayed here so long. At the same time it has been very pleasant. I havemet with great kindness."

  She leaned a little forward so as to look into his face. The impassivityof his features was like a wall before her.

  "After all," she said, "I suppose it is a period of probation. You arelike a schoolboy already who is looking forward to his holidays. Youwill be very happy when you return."

  "I shall be very happy indeed," he admitted simply. "Why not? I am atrue son of Japan, and, for every true son of his country, absence fromher 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 upondiverting 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," shereminded him.

  "Good job, too!" Somerfield muttered, sotto voce.

  "And then," Penelope continued, with the air of not having heard hercompanion's last remark, "he possesses also a very great attraction. Heis 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 itseems queer nowadays to run up against a man of his birth who is not asportsman,--in the sense of being fond of sport, I mean," he correctedhimself quickly.

  "Sometimes I wonder," Penelope said thoughtfully, "whether such speechesas the one which you have just made do not indicate something totallywrong in our modern life. You, for instance, have no profession,Charlie, and you devote your life to a systematic course of what isnothing more or less than pleasure-seeking. You hunt or you shoot, youplay polo or golf, you come to town or you live in the country, entirelyaccording to the seasons. If any one asked you why you had not chosen aprofession, you would as good as tell them that it was because you werea rich man and had no need to work for your living. That is practicallywhat it comes to. You Englishmen work only if you need money. If you donot need money, you play. The Prince is wealthy, but his profession wasordained for him from the moment when he left the cradle. The end andaim of his life is to serve his country, and I believe that he wouldconsider it sacrilege if he allowed any slighter things to divert at anytime his mind from its main purpose. He would feel like a priest who hasbroken his ordination vows."

  "That's all very well," Somerfield said coolly, "but there's nothing inlife nowadays to make us quite so strenuous as that."

  "Isn't there?" Penelope answered. "You are an Englishman, and you shouldknow. Are you convinced, then, that your country today is at theheight 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 beenreading 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 thePrince makes one think, because, you see, every standard of life we haveis a standard of comparison. When one sees the sort of man he is, onewonders. When one sees how far apart he is from you Englishmen in hisideals 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. Shehas a long way to go to catch us up."

  "We do well enough!" she repeated under her breath. "There was a greatcity once which adopted that as her motto,--people dig up mementoes ofher 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 luncheonparty."

  "You should have talked more to Lady Grace," she answered. "I am surethat she is quite ready to believe that you are perfection, and theEnglish army the one invincible institution in the world. You mustn'ttake me too seriously today, Charlie. I have a headache, and I thinkthat it has made me dull."...

  They trooped out into the foyer in irregular fashion to take theircoffee. The Prince and Penelope were side by side.

  "What I like about your restaurant life," the Prince said, "is thestrange 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 theirsurroundings. The detective's clothes were too new and his companion'stoo 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 havepointed those two men out! One of them I know, and, if you will excuseme for a moment, I should like to speak to him."

  Penelope was not capable of any immediate answer. The Prince, with akindly and yet gracious smile, walked over to Inspector Jacks, who roseat 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 overyour indisposition. I am sure that I keep my rooms too close for Englishpeople."

  "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 hisseat and busied himself with relighting his cigar. He purposely did noteven 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 somuch alike, and yet--"

  He broke off in the middle of his sentence.

  "You are thinking of your friend of the other night?" the Inspectorremarked.

  "I was," the doctor admitted. "For a moment it seemed to me like thesame 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 sameman?"

  The doctor
was still looking across the room.

  "I could not tell," he said. "I should like to see him again. I wasn'tprepared, and there was something so altered in his tone and the way hecarried himself. And yet--"

  The pause was expressive. Inspector Jacks' eyes brightened. He hated tofeel that his day had been altogether wasted.